Who doesn’t love a great gin cocktail? Hmmm, lots of people look the other way when they are presented gin. This probably happens because the sharp piney, or juniper aromatic of London Dry Gins. This precise, piney aromatic has a major turn off factor for many people, much like the cilantro effect. Or, non believers have never been educated on the panoply of styles and nuances of new modern gin. Gin is a fascinating spirit that expresses itself as “predominantly” juniper aromatic, but the word predominant can be interpreted in so many ways. And us small distillers are doing exactly that. Juniper can be expressed in manifold ways through different recipe combinations and different distilling techniques. And truth be told, gin is the most exciting white spirit with which to make cocktails. Why you ask? Because.

Because the complex aromas of a properly distilled gin adds aromatic texture and excitement in cocktails. Take for instance a simple classic; The Tom Collins. Gin, lemon, sugar and ice in a tall glass. It smacks of springtime and summer horse racing. Change this cocktail by substituting vodka and you have a relatively innocuous and simple drink. When a proper Tom Collins is made with gin the gentle citrus aromatics of classic gins harmonizes with the fresh lemon juice and essential oils from the lemon rind itself. The herbal aromatics add complexity and excite the olfactory. Much like serving a simple pasta with red sauce…it’s okay, but if you add roasted garlic, lemon zest and freshly shredded basil, topped with tiny shavings of parmigiano…now we’re talking a savory and satisfying dish.

Yes I believe in Gin. Sorry for the rant, but if you are a believer too don’t shy away from making your friends try your gin cocktails. They’ll thank you in the long run.

Here is a great cocktail for the winter:

The Heritage Gin Cocktail

2 ounces Charleston Sercial Madeira
1 oz Small’s American Dry Gin
1/2 oz Framboise
1/4 oz Orange liqueur
2 drops Bittermens Tiki bitters

Sante!

Fiorello “Little Flower”

Smalls Gin 1 ¼ oz
Cocchi Apertivo 1 oz
Elderflower Syrup ¼ oz

Shaken and served up in a martini glass
Orange Peel Garnish

Thank you Jack http://www.jackbistronyc.com/

Poqueto Mojito

4 oz  Small’s American Dry Gin
½ Lime
Mint Leaves
Fine Sugar
Splash of Seltzer/Club Soda

Muddle the lime, sugar, and mint leaves.
Add Small’s Gin and ice and shake.
Pour into an Old-Fashion glass (with ice) and add soda.

Our friend Adam Stemmler of Industree Brands in San Diego was kind enough to mix and share these fantastic cocktails. Remember the Alamo should become a weekly tippler if you care about your cocktails.

Remember the Alamo
1.75 oz Fortaleza Reposado
.5 oz Cointreau
.375 oz Laphroaig 10 year
.5 oz honey syrup
.5 oz lime juice
2 orange wheels
4 dashes of angostura

Muddle 1 orange wheel with the bitters, build shake and strain over fresh ice and garnish with an orange wheel.

Agave Fresca Punch
1.5 oz Fortaleza Blanca
.5 oz Dolin Blanc Vermouth
.5 oz sage simple syrup
1 oz agua fresca
.75 oz lemon juice

Build Shake Strain (or made in a punch format)

El Centro
1.5 oz Fortaleza Anejo
.5 oz Rittenhouse Rye
.5 oz Dolin Rouge Vermouth
.5 oz Benedictine
1 dash of orange bitters

Stir, strain into a chilled cocktail glass or over rocks

Spirits, like Fortaleza, of this caliber, truly invigorate and excite and it’s a pleasure to share their story. http://www.facebook.com/tequila.fortaleza?sk=wall

Salud!

The 2010 vintage was sourced from a couple of outstanding vineyards including Amado Contreras, Balcom & Moe, Oasis and Evergreen.  The high levels of natural acidity carry the 1.26% residual sugar like a butterfly floating on a summer zephyr. Aromas and a palate of stone fruit, lemon and lime zest with a slate undertone makes this a riesling ideal for sipping or pairing to farm fresh, spicy dishes as well as delicate seafood.  We were just eating at Bar Agricole in San Francisco and Murphy’s with pickled sardines would fill the bill: now I guess I’ll be pickling sardines at home for the rest of the summer.

Here is the video link to the QR code on the back label. We love exploring new technology and the QR code system has enormous potential. Grab a bottle and your IPhone or Android and give the QR a whirl.

Our small batch approach to making wines and spirits means that the wines are limited by nature. We produced a wonderful 1500 cases of Murphy’s Law Riesling this year. Enjoy it now, till it runs out.

Thank you

Today we sat down to take a look at Daisies, Fizzes and the Florodora. Right off the bat the group favorite was the Florodora. Wondrich tells of how this cocktail was invented in 1901 for one of the Florodora Sextettes by Jimmy O’Brien at a Columbus Avenue restaurant in New York. Not only is the cocktail delicious but the recipe is straightforward and the thing that I enjoy the most about the Florodora is that you can prepare the cocktail in the same glass that you’ll serve it in. So convenient.
Here’s the recipe and my notes on preparation.

Florodora (page 122)

Four dashes (2 tsp) Raspberry Syrup in the bottom of the cup

Juice from an entire lime

2 oz Gin (we used both Ransom Old Tom Gin and Small’s American Dry Gin to great, yet differing success)

Fill half the glass with crushed ice

Pour in the best ginger ale you can find. I had Barritts Bermuda Ginger Beer. And it worked great (the real deal for Barritts is in the glass bottle  and is still made with pure cane sugar, the Barritts in the can, not so good. Their recipe for ginger beer dates back to 1874)

Stir until very chilled and garnish with a slice of orange.

Fantastic. This is our entire staff’s new summertime cocktail.

Next we made the New School Rum Daisy with Old New Orleans 3 Year Rum and their Cajun Spiced Rum. Old New Orleans is the pinnacle of Louisiana micro distilleries making about 4,500 cases of their three rums a year. Up until last year this was not available outside of Louisiana and thus the Big Easy had coveted this rum for decades and decades. Slowly and surely it is creeping its way north so us Yankees can enjoy a bit of the good Southern life. And I am delighted to partake in the northward crawl.

I preferred the Cajun Spice Rum in this recipe.

New School Rum Daisy (you could substitute gin or whiskey)

2 oz Old New Orleans Cajun Spiced Rum

Juice of 1/4 lemon, 1/2 lime

1 tsp super fine sugar (we used fine organic can sugar since the rum is made with Louisiana sugar cane)

2 dashes grenadine (we tried grenadine and marischino liqueur – preferring the marischino liqueur)

1/2 oz of carbonated water

Garnish with mint and/or fresh fruit

More next week on the classic New Orleans Fizz, aka Ramos Gin Fizz and Sours.

America is and will always be a nation of invention, perseverance and leadership. Will we make mistakes? Of course. Will we have prohibition again? Absolutely not. And now that women drink with men (depuis circa 1920), America has exported the concept of cocktails to the world, craft distilleries are on the climb, and classic cocktails are du rigueur.

It was only a few years ago that a bar in middle town anywhere USA would have the same five beers, Bud, Bud Light, Corona, Heineken, Amstel and if you were lucky Sam Adams. Today it is nearly impossible and improbable that you will walk into the same sort of establishment, your local watering hole, neighborhood restaurant, liquor store (excluding the gas stations and 7-Elevens of the world) and not find it replete with micro brews from around the world.

As we experienced a tremendous downturn in our economy an interesting phenomenon occurred. The Federal and State governments were and are in a budget crisis, so what do they loosen up? The right to own permits to brew and distill. Today there are nearly 450 micro distilleries across this great nation. That’s a rocketing 300% growth in the last decade. And good for us the consumer. Our choices for distilled beverages is rapidly increasing and with the increased competition the quality of spirits across the board is getting better and better.  Now it’s our job as consumers to ask for more and interesting spirits. I’ll know the day that Main Street has beaten Wall Street when I can walk into an airport in Dallas, Texas or Raleigh, North Carolina and ask for a martinez cocktail, and they’ll not only have Old Tom gin, but they’ll know how to mix this elixir.

Drink well, and ask for the good stuff.

Trade shows are the ubiquitous gathering of wine and spirit professionals in regional areas where one distributor takes three or four hours to highlight all their wares and invites their entire customer base to attend. In major markets these events get very large. The question is how do distributors differentiate themselves in this rather cookie cutter style event; how do they position themselves to their customers; and how do the wineries and distilleries that attend make an impact amongst dozens to hundreds of other colleagues vying for the small attention of the buyers? And let’s be honest, palate fatigue sets in rather quickly, there is always a high percentage of consumption which clouds the rational mind (but makes the event a helluva lot of fun) and beverage professionals tend to have short attention spans, especially when coming from the fast paced and hectic environment of restaurants.

I believe that one way to stand out in the crowd, as a producer, is to be honest, humble and sincere (be yourself) and to offer better product and better prices than your competitor. Of course if you have a product that is completely unique, like the only Old Tom Gin produced in America, that makes a huge difference, but if you are making California Cab or Chardonnay, why are you unique? Not saying that you can’t be, but what is it that makes you unique in this over burdened supply side world of domestic and international wines?

And as a distributor, what are you doing to separate yourself from the crowd. Cream Wine Company in Chicago is doing a very interesting thing this year at their annual Small Batch portfolio tasting. And remember, this is one of the top five markets in the US. Only owners, winemakers or distillers are allowed to present at this years tasting. That means no regional sales managers, no marketing interns, no national paper pushers will be pouring and entertaining the beverage professionals. I have not seen this done anywhere else in the US and I love the idea. It gives separation from their peers (distributors) and offers the highest level of quality information to the buyers who attend this tasting because the get to speak directly with the man or woman who is responsible for making the wine, the whiskey, the vodka, etc.

I hope to see more innovations in trade tastings over the coming years. It’s all to easy to fall into conformity and do what the other guy is doing. Let me know what else you’ve seen out there that is unique and wonderful.

I was fortunate to be introduced to a classic liver cleanser that is so effective that I had to share it.

Use organic fruit whenever possible.

4oz fresh squeezed citrus (orange or grapefruit)

1 whole lemon squeezed

1 whole lime squeezed

1 clove of garlic

1 inch of fresh ginger (remove the fibrous skin with a pairing knife)

1 TBLS of Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Take all this and throw it into your blender for 2-3 minutes. Drink away! And don’t forget to brush your teeth, otherwise you’ll smell like a citrus wrapped garlic clove.

Estate wines are all those that are farmed and produced by a single estate. The grey area in between is what fascinates me the most. Not every winery or winemaker has the money to purchase large tracts of land and in order to be a sustainable estate winery you need to be able to grow enough fruit to pay for production, land cost, capital infrastructure, sales and marketing. As you can imagine the tipping point is well beyond some 50 acres of vines with a winery. So what do smaller and upstart wineries do?

They purchase fruit by farmer contracts and either have had the cash or investors to create their own winery and make the wines, or rent space in a larger winery where they can crush and vinify their fruit. As I look back in European history and the advent of the merchant class that handled production, blending, aging, marketing and sales of all things wine due to the land owners disdain of soiling their hands, it seems that negociants weren’t too different then they are today. After a generation or two the negociants would have enough capital to invest in their own land and their own wineries, thus spawning a new competitive producer in the region that had originally borne them as negociants.

As an estate winery your lively hood is directly dependent on your harvest. Yes, you can operate with stricter controls and higher quality, if you know what you are doing. But you are seriously at risk of aberrant weather, cyclical buying trends and the vicissitudes of the economy in general. Negociants, by nature, have a more flexible business model that allows them to move geographically, stay away from natural fluctuations in weather that inadvertently produce inferior crops and can change business direction as trends and the economy fluctuate. A lot is to be said for both ways of making wine.

At the end of the day the negociant vs. the estate bottled wine is a relatively moot point. Both can be done amazingly well and both can represent the highest quality of terrior and style that any region can produce. It really is about vision and execution. The greatest estate on the planet without vision and leadership can churn out mediocre product year after year. It is the dedicated artisans on both sides of the field that raise the bar and set standards for others to shoot towards.

Swim deep and drink large.