Cocktail Hour

Early in the week, I posted about Bloody Marys to drink at restaurants and bars around town. Now, I’m contributing to Stoli’s round-up of homemade Bloody Marys, stirred up by foodies in cities across the country. As expected, I’ve got a recipe inspired by New York City-and by people like me, those who live and drink our Bloody Marys here.

New York is a city of layers. The Big Onion, not the Big Apple. You might find the surface charming-those West Village cobblestone streets!-but then discover the grit of the C train. Or perhaps the first layer turns you off with its crowds and grime but then you ride up the elevator somewhere in Chelsea and catch sight of the water towers at sunset. The innermost layers are hardest to find, and fun because of it-the emptiest corners of the park for frisbee and the only good bar in Times Square, the supper clubs and the Saturday night dance parties in the back rooms of apparent coffee shops.

Likewise, no matter how much a Bloody Mary appears to be a glass of tomato juice, the true deliciousness lies in the tiny pinches of this and that, under-the-surface ingredients that turn the glass into something extraordinary. In my Bloody Mary, as in New York, some of the charm is right there on the top layer, like the avocado garnish. But you can’t see most of it, and you just have to trust that the umami-rich fish sauce, the spicy pickle brine, and the pinch of rich smoked paprika are there. Until you taste the drink. Then you know it’s good.

This post was sponsored by Stoli. Thanks for supporting the sponsors that keep Big Girls, Small Kitchen delicious. Check out Stoli’s coast-to-coast search for local Bloody Mary deliciousness by following #SearchforMary. Savor Stoli Responsibly. STOLICHNAYA® Premium Vodka and Flavored Premium Vodkas. 37.5%-40% Alc/Vol. (75-80 proof). Distilled from Russian Grain. Stoli Group USA, LLC, New York, NY ©2014 Spirits International, B.V.

My sister moved to the country a few years ago. When she visits the city, I make brunch, and when I visit the country, I wander around the Christmas tree farms that surround her house, shop at Cabela’s, tour the Yuengling brewery, and trade recipes with Jill’s new in-laws.

Today’s boozy cranberries are one of the recipes I heard about in Pennsylvania. Jill’s new aunt-in-law makes them for Thanksgiving, and I thought they’d be the perfect finale for my Cocktail Hour series, sponsored by Stoli Vodka. The recipe actually comes from Jill’s aunt’s mother-in-law, so the recipe has come quite a way to be here today!

Unlike any cranberry sauce you’ve had before, these cranberries are characterized by a serious booziness. Originally, Jill’s in-laws poured brandy over the cranberries, but I’ve gone with vodka, which makes these yet stronger. Elinda once told me she liked to make these a few weeks before Thanksgiving, so that the alcohol an the berries had time to marinate, almost like a fruit cake. The alcohol, please note, does not cook off, so be prepared to taste it in each bite of sweet-and-tangy cranberries.

In a second departure from typical cranberry sauce methods, in this recipe you roast the cranberries, covered with sugar and foil, until they’re bubbly. Only then do you pour on the brandy or vodka. I haven’t tried the berries with actual turkey yet, but I can tell you that they’re delicious and boozy on their own. In addition to a Thanksgiving condiment, you can also stir a spoonful into a glass of champagne or a vodka soda to create a perfect, seasonal drink. (Add a squeeze of orange or lemon if you do that.)

I wrote this sponsored post in partnership with Stoli Vodka and their ORGNL.TV site (especially the awesome Taste vertical!). Check out all the fun vodka drinks in this Cocktail Hour series, and thanks as always for supporting the sponsors that make BGSK great! As you follow along here, I hope you’ll also check out Stoli’s facebook page and twitter feed, and visit the Taste channel over at ORGNL.TV, which celebrates one-of-a-kind places, people, experiences–and food.

Savor Stoli Responsibly. STOLICHNAYA® Premium Vodka. 40% Alc/Vol. Distilled from grain. William Grant & Sons, Inc. New York, NY. © 2013 Spirits International, B.V.

On Sundays, when cocktail hour rewinds several clicks from 5 o’clock to noon, you can find me in my kitchen mixing Bloody Marys.

As you know, I’m exploring the stories and sharing recipes for quarter-life cocktails here on BGSK, thanks to Stoli Vodka, sponsor of my Cocktail Hour series. (As you follow along here, I hope you’ll also check out Stoli’s facebook page and twitter feed, and visit the Taste channel over at ORGNL.TV, which celebrates one-of-a-kind places, people, experiences–and food.) Next up: the brunch specialty, hangover-curing Bloody Marys.

I drink Bloody Marys on exactly two occasions: out at restaurant brunches and home, when we have friends over for brunch. (How to host brunch.) And when we have people over for brunch, we usually seem to have a crowd. So I thought I’d tell you about the routine I’ve created to mix up not one or two drinks, but a dozen or more.

First of all, the Bloody Mary is a cocktail best made to suit your personal taste. Love hot sauce? Dab it in. Want more brine? Bring on the pickle juice and garnish with olives. Are you really a mermaid? Make a Clamato. If your pantry is bare, you can make a minimal Bloody Mary with fewer fixings that you’d imagine. In my book, the essentials are horseradish and celery, plus tomato juice and Stoli vodka, of course.

So the recipe isn’t hard or anything. But to make Bloody Marys for a crowd, you have to be willing to make a mess. Several transfers of liquid are involved, which means tomato juice dripping all over the kitchen. The important thing is that this can all happen ahead of time, so the counter is neat when your guests arrive.

Mad Men’s Betty Draper downed gimlets to hide her troubles. Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe sipped gimlets as he complained about their slipping quality. When I went to name this latest Cocktail Hour cocktail a gimlet, I found out about the drink’s controversial past. The scurvy prevention. The corn syrup addition. The rise and fall of the Rose’s Lime Juice gimlet. My gimlet has homemade cucumber juice in the ingredients. I decided it was a non-gimlet. I labeled my latest Stoli creation a cooler.

My cooler’s not so far from the modern-day gimlet, though, which contains a lot of lime juice and a little sugar or simple syrup, and vodka or gin. To that, I simply added more greenness in the form of farmers’ market kirby cucumbers, blended into juice.

But the original gimlet, invented by Sir. Thomas D. Gimlette, a surgeon in the British navy, who prescribed the cocktail to help officers get their vitamins, contained lime cordial. Lime cordial, a syrupy preparation, stayed fresh at sea, and the ration kept sailors chipper and scurvy-free. Later, when sweetened lime juice appeared bottled on shelves everywhere, bartenders adopted a new gimlet recipe: half booze, half Rose’s Lime Juice. (That’s where the corn syrup came in.) The Rose-laced gimlet was on cocktail menus everywhere in the 1930s, becoming as common as the Manhattan or the Martini and often inebriating Mr. Marlowe in The Long Goodbye-he craved the super sweet version but had to suffer fresh lime juice in one scene, when the bartender screwed up.

So there’s the controversy: does a gimlet have to contain homemade lime cordial à la Sir. Gimlette, can it be good with fresh lime juice and sugar, or is a heavy pour of Rose’s Lime Juice the only solution?

Wanting to respect history, I discarded the name gimlet and the modern fresh lime juice variation, dismissed as too simple by all these characters. But I also nixed the pre-sweetened lime juice and exchanged it for homemade cucumber juice, green and a little weird looking, and perhaps as health-inducing in the end as Sir. Gimlette’s original. I muddled in some mint and spiked it all with the original puckery lime. Like the sapphire color, the taste is a little mysterious. This is an afternoon cocktail that celebrates summer even as the season comes to an end.

I’m telling cocktail stories and sharing fun vodka recipes in partnership with Stoli Vodka and their ORGNL.TV site (especially the awesome Taste vertical!). Stay tuned for more drinks in the Cocktail Hour series, and as you follow along here, I hope you’ll also check out Stoli’s facebook page and twitter feed. Thanks as always for supporting the sponsors that make BGSK great!

Savor Stoli Responsibly. STOLICHNAYA® Premium Vodka. 40% Alc/Vol. Distilled from grain. William Grant & Sons, Inc. New York, NY. © 2013 Spirits International, B.V.

If I were to become as committed to the world of drinks as the universe of food, I’d choose to obsess over cocktails. I don’t have the encyclopedic memory needed to become an expert in wine. I’ll drink pretty much any beer from Bud to double bocks, which makes me far too un-picky to be a true aficionado.

Cocktails it is! I love how every mixed drink arrives at cocktail hour with a saga: a bartender who invented it, an era that characterized it, a group of people who loved it and sipped it and only it every night. I’m thrilled to announce that I’ll be exploring these stories and sharing recipes for cocktails over the next few months, thanks to Stoli Vodka, sponsor of my new Cocktail Hour series. As you follow along here, I hope you’ll also check out Stoli’s facebook page and twitter feed, and visit the Taste channel over at ORGNL.TV, which celebrates one-of-a-kind places, people, experiences-and food.

And now, here’s the story behind the rickey. The Watermelon Vodka Rickey.

Invented in Washington, D.C. in the 1880s, by a bartender who made drinks for Joe Rickey, a Civil War colonel and a lobbyist in the capital, the rickey had three ingredients and one important characteristic: it contained no added sugar. Mr. Rickey liked to mix up bourbon, lime juice, and seltzer but he poured in no sugar at all. Why? Never mind the effects of the booze, he didn’t want any sugar high to mess with his ability to manipulate politicians, according to Jason Ksomas and Dushan Zaric, authors of Speakeasy. Post-Joe, the rickey’s bourbon was replaced by gin, but it remained a popular drink in D.C., which is where I first had one, at the Rugby store in Georgetown, where we hosted a book party when In the Small Kitchen came out. There, the various citrus flavors of the rickeys were all cool, hydrating, tangy, and strong.