Eating the Hat

This is a post that, quite frankly, I never thought I would have to write. I appreciate everyone’s support in this moment.

I have discovered that, under certain very specific circumstances, it may be acceptable to make a martini with vodka. In fact, not only is it acceptable—it’s exceptionally delicious.

Allow me to explain. For most of my drinking life, I have had a firm aversion to vodka. It is, after all, generally regarded as flavorless. Even though I knew in theory that there existed many people who would refute that notion by pointing to artisanally crafted vodkas, in practice I just couldn’t see much use for it. Why use an ingredient that’s doing little more than adding ABV? We’re not sweaty sophomores with Solo cups. Why not reach for a bottle that will add some dimension of flavor as well?

The vodka martini seemed particularly absurd to me. I could see how an unimaginative bartender might construct a drink with juices and liqueurs before splashing in something clear and flavorless to buff down the sharp point of the drinker’s consciousness, but a glass of nothing but cold vodka and a dab of vermouth? Whither the botanicals? Whither the dry, crisp snap of juniper?

But I trust the folks at Death & Co. to know what they’re doing. So when I flipped through their newest tome and found that they see a place for vodka as well as gin in a martini, I figured I owed it to the people of Russia to challenge my prejudice.

Consider me a convert—at least partially. I’m not yet convinced in vodka martinis as a concept, but I am a fan of this one, which is decidedly luscious. Undeniably sweet, with a pleasantly unctuous, tongue-coating mouthfeel, it is a delicate aperitif that will start any evening off on a high note. Because the last few sips will have collected a good deal of brine from the olive, it primes your mouth for dinner. Personally, I find one of these is all I want before moving on to something else; it’s rich enough to become overwhelming after a while. I don’t plan on ordering a vodka martini at a restaurant any time soon, but for now I’m willing to admit that I was wrong about this preparation.

Death & Co. Vodka Martini

2.5 oz Absolut Elyx vodka

0.5 oz Dolin dry vermouth

Stir vodka and vermouth together with plenty of ice for at least 20 seconds. Strain into a very cold glass and garnish with one—and only one—green olive.

Not Your Grandma's Tipple

I am here for the recent reclaiming of Old Lady Ingredients in the cocktail world—sherry, port, madeira, and the like. As far as cocktail ingredients go, these tipples are amazing because of the amount of flavor and complexity they pack into such a low-ABV package.

Manzanilla sherry is a particular favorite of mine (which just figures, since it tends to be one of the more expensive varieties ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ). It’s got a pronounced minerality and crispness that makes it ideal for combining with ingredients on the more savory end of the spectrum. Jim Meehan’s Stamford Fix makes excellent use of manzanilla by combining it with fresh basil, herbal Bénédictine, and pisco.

When I’m cooking, I love how it’s possible to swap tender herbs for each other pretty much indiscriminately, resulting in a miraculously easy—yet eminently distinct—twist on any recipe. I’m actually quite a fan of cilantro pesto (or cilantro anything, really), so I decided to throw that into Jim’s recipe in place of the basil. And for good measure, I dropped in a dried chile de árbol just to add a little heft and backbone to what was a fairly subtle drink. Don’t tell Jim—I think I like mine better.

The Devil and the Gypsy

2 oz. La Diablada pisco

1 oz. La Gitana manzanilla sherry

0.5 oz. Bénédictine

Handful of fresh cilantro

1 dried chile de árbol

Muddle cilantro and chile with Bénédictine. Add remaining ingredients and stir with ice. Double-strain into a cocktail glass, then squeeze a grapefruit twist over the top.

Faire Vivre les Silences

There’s an expression I was introduced to back in my trumpet-playing days: faire vivre les silences, or “make the silences live.” This appears to be a term used with some frequency in French music criticism, particularly in the context of the jazz and jazz-adjacent branches of the popular music tree. I heard it in the context of the classic funk that I had been steeping myself in at the time. Funk is all about what’s absent—taking the barely-there ghosted notes of the previous generation’s bop and turning them into a pointillistic flurry of sixteenth and thirty-second rests. The precise articulation of the horns on a tune like Some Skunk Funk makes even the smallest absence of a note in the middle of an otherwise fluid line ring like an enormous, hollow bell.

We also talk about funk in cocktails—that dank, earthy flavor that usually arrives hand in hand with umami in food, and in alcohol can appear in everything from pét-nats to lambics. Everyone’s palates are different, but to me, funk often tastes like a flavor that’s had something else subtracted from it—sweetness turned dry, but still retaining some of the mouth-clinging unctuousness of sugar. I find cocktails that play with funkiness are often an exercise in faire vivre les silences.

From an ingredient standpoint, the Ti’ Punch looks like someone forgot the rest of the recipe. If you can cynically call an Old Fashioned nothing more than “flavored bourbon,” the signature cocktail of the island of Martinique is simply “rhum agricole with a suggestion of lime and syrup.”

The drink is essentially a wide open stage to allow the rhum agricole to shine. Without genuine rhum agricole from Martinique, it simply isn’t a Ti’ Punch. This crisp, grassy—and yes, funky—spirit is distilled directly from sugar cane juice, rather than molasses, like most Jamaican or Cuban rums you might be familiar with. (Rhum agricole—or “farmer’s rum”—owes its existence to Napoleon’s bizarre obsession with sugar beets, which led him to prohibit the importation of sugar from the Caribbean in 1813. Sugar farmers on Martinique began distilling rum from pure cane juice in order to make use of the sugar that could no longer be sold to France.)

A proper Ti’ Punch is all about what’s absent. Minimal sweetener, minimal citrus, no bitters, aromatized wines, or liqueurs. Even the preparation is sometimes omitted; apparently, when you order a Ti’ Punch at some bars in Martinique, you’re presented with a bottle of rhum agricole, some cane syrup, a lime, and a knife, and are expected to prepare your own.

But like the tiny hiccups of silence in a funky horn riff, everything that’s not present in the Ti’ Punch brings to life what you do have. It’s a dangerously quaffable drink that’s ever-so-slightly vegetal with a rich undercurrent of sugar cane and a pure, crystalline note of citrus on the nose. Forget all received wisdom that says you shouldn’t drink hard alcohol in very hot weather. A Ti’ Punch is absolutely sublime when it’s sweltering, tasting simultaneously exquisitely crafted and effortlessly dashed off. Make the silences live.

Ti’ Punch

2 oz. rhum agricole (aged or unaged)

1/4 oz. cane syrup or raw sugar syrup

Lime

Cut a coin from the side of a lime so that there are equal amounts of skin and flesh. Squeeze into a small glass, then add rhum, syrup, and one ice cube and stir to combine.

Ah, Youth

I’m always intrigued by cocktails that look on paper like I would hate them. Almost inevitably, these seem like they’d be far too sweet, usually due to the combination of multiple liqueurs, often with at least one being an aggressive flavor like green chartreuse or St. Germain. So I always appreciate when someone shares a drink like this and specifically calls out the fact that it sounds gross but isn’t. Such is the case with the Jeunesse, from a 1948 book by Maurice Bonnet (who is neither the identically named photographer nor the similarly named astrophysicist Roger-Maurice Bonnet), recently highlighted by David Wondrich in a round-up for The Daily Beast. When I first made this last week, my wife took a sip and declared that it was “the way you wish a mimosa tasted.” In any case, it is delightfully bitter, placing the Suze’s gentian root in the starring role. It’s not particularly high proof, either, and with its strong orange notes, it could easily sub in for a mimosa at brunch.

Jeunesse

2 oz Cointreau or Grand Marnier

1 oz Suze liqueur

1 oz lemon juice

Shake all ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled coupe. Express the oils from an orange peel and discard.