I got the idea of jerky infused white whiskey from the Ranger Creek folks at this years San Antonio Cocktail Conference.  My original intent was to use it to make Bloody Mary’s.  However, I found that the tomato overwhelmed the jerky flavor.  More importantly, I started out making a huge mistake which resulted in me pouring half a bottle of Ranger Creek .36 White down the drain.  More on that below,* but for now, on with the cocktail.

Ranger Creek’s .36 White Whiskey is their ‘White Dog,’ or unaged bourbon.  It is slightly sweet and a bit grainy with a hint of fruit.  It also has the ‘bite’ of white whiskey.  As a base spirit for infusing, it brings it’s own flavor profile and is an interesting substitute for vodka or grain alcohol.  For the infusion, I used my own beef jerky which is flavored with soy sauce, brown sugar, hot sauce, Pick-a-Pepper Sauce, crushed red peppers, cayenne and liquid smoke*.  I let the jerky and whiskey steep for 2 weeks, tasting daily.  Here are the recipes:

For the Infusion

• 375 ml Ranger Creek’s .36 White Whiskey**
• 20 grams Beef Jerky – without added nitrites

1. Combine ingredients in a mason jar, seal and allow to sit at room temperature
2. Shake daily
3. After 2 or 3 days, begin tasting daily until flavors are fully developed: 7-14 days
4. When the infusion is ready, loosen the mason jar lid and set the jar upright in your freezer overnight.
5. Freeze a metal coffee filter for at least 2 hours
6. Place frozen coffee filter inside a paper coffee filter over a funnel and filter the whiskey into a measuring cup.  The metal filter will catch the larger bits and the paper will filter the rest.  This will remove the frozen fat.  If you use a warm filter, the fat will melt and pass through the filter.
7. If there is still fat floating on your whiskey, repeat steps 4-6.

Jerky Infused Coffee Pecan Old Fashioned

This is a complex cocktail.  The nose is pecan, caramel and coffee – like your Mom’s kitchen on Sunday morning when she had pecan rolls in the oven and coffee brewing on the counter.  So your nose prepares your tongue for something sweet.  Wrong!  The first taste is a combination of jerky, pecan and bitter chocolate with the whiskey in the background.  Then it’s coffee and finishes with the whiskey and spices of the jerky.  Nothing sweet about this cocktail.  I used my own Coffee Pecan Bitters but you can buy various brands at better liquor stores.  You want to use enough bitters to add flavor and just balance the bitterness with the agave.  The jerky infused white whiskey does not do well with sweet.

• 1 1/2 oz. Beef Jerky infused White Whiskey
• 2-3 dashes Coffee Pecan Bitters
• 1-2 dashes Agave syrup
• Lemon Peel for garnish

1. Combine all ingredients, except the garnish in a room temperature single old fashioned glass and stir to combine and to dissolve the agave.
2. Carefully drop in a single large ice cube
3. Express the lemon peel over the drink and drop it in.

Beef Jerky

In case you don’t know what dried beef looks like!

This recipe creates a fairly spicy jerky.  If you want to cut the heat, drop the crushed red pepper and chose a mild Louisiana style hot sauce.  You can dry this in a dehydrator or in your oven.  If using an oven, set a half sheet pan on the lowest rack to catch drips and then lay out the jerky strips directly on racks set above.  Four pounds will require 2-3 racks.

• 4 lbs. Beef Bottom Round cut into thin strips
• 3 Tbl. Soy Sauce (Not low sodium)
• 1 Tbl. Louisiana, or similar, hot sauce
• 1 Tbl Pick A Pepper Sauce
• 1/2 Tbl Brown Sugar
• 1 Tbl Crushed Red Pepper
• 1 Tbl. Cayenne
• 1 Tbl Liquid Smoke

1. In a mixing bowl large enough to hold the meat, combine all of the ingredients except the beef.  Stir well and begin adding the beef mixing as you go.  Be sure all of the beef is as well covered as possible.
2. Cover tightly and let sit on the counter for 30 min or up to overnight in the refrigerator.
3. Spread the strips on your dehydrator trays or oven racks.
4. Dry overnight at 125° F for the dehydrator or 150° F  for your oven.
5. Store jerky in a loosely covered container to allow air circulation.
6. I have no idea how long it will keep.  It is always gone in less than a week!

*I did not find organic beef jerky at the store.  The organic, ‘uncured’ varieties were venison, turkey and salmon.  So I used a decent brand of beef jerky.  Unfortunately, the whiskey was very efficient at extracting the sodium nitrites, or ‘pink salt’, used to preserve the jerky.  The result was a predominant metallic taste.  The infused whiskey was irretrievable.  So, either use your own homemade jerky or buy a brand that has no added nitrites.

**Doc Elliott’s Mixology receives no compensation for brands mentioned.

Cheers!

Mixology Monday

It’s Mixology Monday for March and this month’s theme is ‘Burden of Proof.’  Brought to us by this month’s host Dagreb of the Nihil Utopia blog, we are challenged to use spirits with no less than 101 proof.  I have found a number of uses for 151 proof spirits, other than putting them in a Misto mister and spraying them across a flame, which is great fun.  My favorite is 151 proof rum.  In fact, this Month’s theme brings back some memories since one of the first cocktail recipes I ever created was an “Elephant’s Memory.”  It is my version of a cocktail of the same name from the Andrew’s Bar and Grill.  Andrew’s, which is long gone, had a decent Cajun menu and a few good cocktails.  It was generally filled with Yuppies and Dinks, (Double Income No Kids).  I played around with the listed ingredients and came up with my version.

I originally used Bacardi 151, but I have found that Lemon Hart 151 works as well or better.  The burnt caramel flavors of the Lemon Hart go really well with the Benedictine.  Now, never to leave well enough alone, I decided to try substituting Dorçol’s Kinsman Rakia Apricot Brandy.  Thus was born the “Elephant’s Thoughts”  Here are the recipes.

Elephant’s Memory

• 1 oz. B&B
• 1/2 oz. 151 Proof Rum
• 1/4 oz. Tia Maria

1. Combine all ingredients in a brandy snifter and serve

Elephant’s Thoughts

I had never noticed before, but the primary flavor in B&B is the Benedictine.  I first tried this with equal parts Rakia and Benedictine along with the rest of rum and Tia Maria.  The result was good, but was not much different from the original Elephant’s Memory.  So, I increased the Rakia and substituted Grand Marnier for the Tia Maria.

• 1 oz. Dorçol’s Kinsman Rakia Apricot Brandy
• 1/2 oz. Benedictine
• 1/2 oz. Bacardi 151 Proof Rum
• 1/4 oz. Grand Marnier

1. Add all ingredients to a brandy snifter and serve.

In parting I have one additional offering: “The Honey Badger”  It’s not my original, and I don’t recall where it came from, but it is a Tiki drink.  The base spirit is 151 proof Rum so it will definitely smack you up side the head!  I named it the “The Honey Badger” because “One of these and you won’t care. Two and you won’t give a #?*!”!  The recipe is here

Cheers!

I love kumquats, partly because it’s a fun word, but mainly because of the sweet and sour flavor.  It’s the only citrus I know of that you eat whole – peel, seeds and all!  A few years ago, I bought and planted a kumquat tree and eagerly awaited it’s first season.  What I did not know was that there are 2 types of kumquats that are common in the US.  The small one that we see in the grocery stores, which are the ones that you just pop into your mouth, and a larger, rounder variety that is not really amenable to eating out of hand.  Guess which one I got!  Well, what to do with a plethora of beautiful, small citrus that is sweet and very tart?  Make cocktails, of course.

The juice of these kumquats tastes a bit like orange, but has a tart/sour taste as well.  It is similar to lemon or lime juice in its tartness.  So I thought of a sour.  First up was a bourbon kumquat sour.  When I say that this that did not go well at all, I mean; “at all!”  What really surprised me was that the juice went very well with Irish Whiskey. I used Tullamore Dew 10 year old Single Malt.  The Tullamore Dew has the earthy, grassy flavors of Irish whiskey with the flavors of fruit, (apricot, pineapple, raisin) and wood.  This blended perfectly with the sweet/sour/tartness of the kumquat.  The kumquat juice is a bit sweeter than lemon juice, so I backed off on the simple syrup.  Here is the recipe:

Kumquat Irish Whiskey Sour

• 2 oz. Tullamore Dew 10 year old Single Malt
• 1 1/2 oz. Fresh kumquat juice
• 1/2 oz. Simple syrup
• 1 large egg white (can use 3 Tbl. pasteurized egg whites but it will not be the same)

1. Add all ingredients, in order to a shaker and shake for 30 sec without ice to emulsify the egg white.
2. Add  ice cubes  to the shaker and shake to chill 15-20 sec.
3. Double strain into a chilled coup and serve

Cheers!

It’s Girl Scout Cookie season and the little girls, with Mom’s in tow, can be found in front of grocery stores and pharmacies across the Nation.  The ones I met were very pleased to sell me 2 boxes of each variety.  Of course I wasn’t purchasing all of those boxes just to fuel a cookie binge.  I was interested in a more scholarly pursuit:  What cocktail will go with my favorite Girl Scout cookie and which Girl Scout cookie will best pair with my favorite cocktail?

Once home with my boxes, I quickly realized that, with 8 different cookies and hundreds of possible cocktails, this was going to require more than one person’s liver!  So I assembled a tasting panel.  My panel was comprised of foodies and cocktail geeks.

First on the agenda was to taste and rank the cookies.  Not surprising, the Samoa was rated highest with 5 stars.  Tied for second were the Rah-Rah-Rasins and Thin Mints with 4 stars, followed by Savannah Smiles.  The Tagalongs, Do-si-dos and Trefoils rounded out the field.

Pairing the cookies with cocktails came next. The cocktails, listed nearby, were served in the order shown.  The panel first rated each cocktail, then tasted the cookies with that drink.  The best parings for that cocktail were then noted.  This meant that each cocktail could pair with multiple cookies and each cookie might go with several cocktails.  When all of the cocktails had been served, the panel then went back and selected the best cocktail for each cookie.

The highest rated cocktail was the Irish Coffee followed closely by the Irish and Tequila Manhattans.  The Bourbon Manhattan and the St. Hubertus’ Fix were also favored.  The remaining cocktails rated fairly equally except, on the other end of the spectrum, let’s just say this was not a big gin crowd!

Prior to the tasting, I spent some time figuring out what cocktails might work with these cookies.  It was immediately evident that fruit, citrus and sour weren’t working.  I included the Ten Four, Cynar Sour and Rakia Ximenez to see if the panel agreed.  While the panel liked these cocktails, they didn’t find much to pair them with.

I was a bit surprised by a few of the results.  The Tequila Manhattan was a panel favorite, but paired with very little.  Except, it was the runaway favorite to pair with the Thin Mint.  I expected the Irish Coffee to pair with the Thin Mint, but only one panel member selected that pairing and then not as a favorite.  There were some other surprises, but let’s get on with the pairings.

Open the tabs below to see the results:

Martini

I made both the Gin and Vodka Martinis in a mid century style with very little vermouth.  As I noted earlier, none of the panel members are gin drinkers.  They did, however, like the Vodka Martini and thought that it paired well with the buttery Trefoil and sugar dusted, lemon of the Savannah Smiles.

Mid Century Vodka Martini

• 1 1/2  oz. Premium Vodka such as Cinco
• Premium Vermouth such as Carpano Dry
• Garnish of your choice

1. Chill a martini glass with ice and water
2. Pour a dash of vermouth into a mixing glass and swirl to coat.  Discard the vermouth
3. Add the gin to the mixing glass, fill with ice and stir to chill
4. Strain into chilled martini glass and garnish

Mid Century Gin Martini

To make this, substitute Gin for the Vodka and proceed.  I used Ford’s.  Now, I like gin a lot and regardless of the tasting panel, I thought that the Gin Martini went very well with the Savannah Smiles!

The Manhattan

There were 3 different Manhattans: Irish, Bourbon and Tequila.  All were rated highly by the panel and paired well with several of the cookies.

Irish Manhattan

This version of the classic received 4.5 Stars from the panel.  They chose it has the hands down favorite to pair with both the chocolate peanut butter Tagalong and the Oatmeal raisin Rah-rah-raisin.

While rye and bourbon are the classics in the Manhattan, I don’t see any reason not to try an Irish Whiskey.  Specifically the Tullamore Dew 10 year old Single Malt.  As I’ve noted before, the Tullamore Dew has the earthy, grassy flavors of Irish whiskey with the flavors of fruit, (apricot, pineapple, raisin) and wood.  Just the depth of flavors that blend with vermouth.

• 1 1/2 oz. Tullamore Dew 10 year old Single Malt Irish Whiskey
• 3/4 oz. Sweet Italian Vermouth
• 1 dash Grand Marnier (1/8 tsp)
• 1 – 2 dashes Angostura Orange Bitters
• brandied cherries for garnish

1.  Chill a cocktail glass with ice and water.
2. Stir to combine all ingredients, sans cherries, in a mixing glass with ice.
3. Strain into chilled cocktail glass and garnish with the cherries

Bourbon Manhattan

The panel paired this classic Manhattan with the Rah-rah-raisin as well but did not think it went as well as the Irish Manhattan.  They did, however, pair the Bourbon Manhattan as best cocktail with the coconut caramel Samoa.

For the bourbon Manhattan, I used Russell’s Reserve 10 Year Old.  This is a bit of a lighter bourbon, but still has the sweet and spicy notes you expect from a quality aged bourbon.  Note that in addition to using a higher ratio of vermouth, the recipe includes more Grand Marnier.

• 2 oz. Russell’s Reserve 10 Year Old Bourbon
• 1 1/2 oz. Italian Vermouth (sweet)
• 1 tsp Grand Marnier
• 1 – 2 dashes Angostura Orange Bitters
• brandied cherries for garnish

1.  Chill a cocktail glass with ice and water.
2. Stir to combine all ingredients, sans cherries, in a mixing glass with ice.
3. Strain into chilled cocktail glass and garnish with the cherries

Tequila Manhattan

This cocktail was rated as the favorite match up with the Thin Mint.  As I noted above, I was surprised but have to agree that it pairs very well.

Definitely not a chocolate martini, this is a southwestern makeover of the Manhattan.

• 2 oz. Milagro Añejo Tequila
• 1 oz. Lillet Rouge
• bar spoon (1/8 oz.) of agave nectar
• dash chocolate bitters
• Orange zest

1. Chill a cocktail glass with ice and water
2. Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass and stir with ice
3. Strain into chilled glass
4. Garnish with a wide orange zest

Old Fashioned

I did not include a classic Old Fashioned.   Each of the 3 I did, have some significant variation.  The Old Fashioned Tent Revival has agave syrup and is spicy.  The Tequila Old Fashioned obviously switches the spirit and uses agave and molé bitters.  The Barbancourt Old Fashioned with aged rum was rated as the best pairing for the peanut butter sandwich Do-si-do.

Barbancourt Old Fashioned

The spice of the habanero shrub and the touch of sweetness of the agave complement the dark complex flavors of the aged rum.

• 2 ozs. 15 Year Old Barbancourt Rum
• 1-2 dashes Bitter Truth Habanero Shrub
• 1/8 oz. Agave Nectar

1. Chill an old fashioned glass with ice and water
2. Add all ingredients to a mixing glass and stir with ice
3. Strain into chilled old fashioned glass over fresh ice

Irish Coffee

This was the unanimous favorite of the evening.  The panel thought it went with everything except the Savannah Smiles.  It tied the Barbancourt Old Fashioned for best with the Do-si-do and the Bourbon Manhattan for paring with the Samoa.

Irish Coffee

I make these with strong coffee, Bushmill’s, very little sweetener and lightly whipped, unsweetened heavy cream.

• 1 1/2 oz. Bushmill’s Irish Whisky
• 1-2 dashes 2:1 simple syrup
• 4-6 oz. very hot dark coffee (I use Starbucks Sumatra Blend)
• 2-3 Tbl. Lightly whipped cream

1. Prepare the coffee
2. Lightly whip a small amount of heavy whipped cream – about 1/4 cup, until it just peaks
3. In an Irish Coffee mug or other mug of choice, add the Whisky, simple syrup and coffee.
4. Stir gently and top with the whipped cream

St. Hubertus Fix

This was a bit of a surprise for me.  I wasn’t sure what my panel might think of this cocktail.  I found this drink at Cool Hunting. Its primary flavor is bitter coffee, but the aged rum and the herbal Jägermeister really balance that bitterness and the spice of the Pimento bitters rounds it all out.

The panel paired this cocktail as best with the Toffee-tastic.  They also thought it went well with the Rah-rah-raisin.

St. Hubertus Fix

• 3/4 oz. Aged Rum – I used Zaya
• 3/4 oz. Jägermeister
• 3 oz strong cold coffee – I used 1:1 cold coffee syrup and water
• 2 dashes of Dale Degroff Pimento Bitters

1. Chill a cocktail glass with ice and water
2. Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass with ice and stir to chill
3. Strain into chilled cocktail glass

Rakia Ximénez

My tasting panel liked this cocktail and gave it 4 Stars.  They did not pair it well with any of the cookies.  In retrospect, it might have fared better if I had served it earlier.  I’m pretty sure everyone’s taste buds were getting saturated.  I think that the dry apricot brandy, the sherry and the touch of heat in this cocktail go well with the Toffee-tastic.  But that’s just me!

This cocktail combines the fruit flavors of Dorcol’s Kinsman Rakia Apricot Brandy with the sweet sherry flavors of Pedro Ximénez.  Then the dried chile notes of the Ancho Reyes weigh in.  Finally, on the finish, the slightest heat from the Habeñaro Shrub can be appreciated.

• 1 1/2 oz. Kinsman Rakia Apricot Brandy
• 3/4 oz. Pedro Ximénez Sherry
• 1/4 oz. Ancho Reyes
• 4 Drops Bittermans Habeñaro Shrub
• Orange peel for garnish

1. Chill a cocktail glass with ice and water
2. Combine all ingredients, except the garnish, in a mixing glass with ice and stir to chill
3. Strain into chilled cocktail glass
4. Express the orange peel over the drink and discard the peel

Well, there you have it.  You have a few more days to score some Girl Scout Cookies and try a few pairings for yourself.

Cheers!