MxMo Rum: The Scarlet Ibis & Death

I've been gearing up for this Mixology Monday post since I first tasted (the better part of a bottle,) and then smuggled home from New York last week, The Scarlet Ibis blended rum of Trinidad. The first thoughtful sip is pictured at right. The latter sips were not so carefully tasted, as I recall.

The Scarlet Ibis is subtle but hot, releasing light floral and caramel notes throughout the finish. It makes a great cocktail rum because of its versatile flavor and generous proof. It's imported by Eric Seed, (all-around great guy and my bar's personal portal between Boise and the outside world of fine spirits,) especially for Death & Co., my favorite dimly lit watering hole with heavy wooden doors in New York's East Village.

That being said, I'm not the most rum-oriented cocktail guy (I know, I know... sacrilege!) It's not that I don't like rum and its application in drinks, but is probably best explained by my general aversion to tiki culture, (just hang me already,) and the fact that the company I work for used to own a tiki bar, (in, cough, IDAHO, USA!) and I'm a little scarred from the labor of digging up old rum drinks only to sell margaritas and vodka tonics to college students with bad manners. After writing a few drink menus that nobody understood, and training a few staffs that simply did not care, we took a bow to the Idaho context, and tapped out of the tiki game all together. Although all rum is not tiki, I have a little PTSD related to this experience. And when I realized I was loosing my MxMo cherry to a rum post, I swear I heard Victor Burgeon himself snicker at me from the great Trader's in the sky, amused by the irony, watching me flounder.

The Scarlet Ibis is a delicately sophisticated rum. It is, in my mind, beautiful respite from the tacky tiki nightmare that surrounds a culture, (and a style of dress for that matter,) that I simply do not understand. The rum is like everything I love about D&C; the classy and demure dark humor of the place, its beautifully gothic and morgue-like sensibility, the subtle air of something old. I made the punch below in a bowl that is so drastically ugly when set against the soft, alabaster punch pots I remember at Death that I refused to photograph it. It's melodramatic, I know, but that's how I feel about Death & Co...

Since anybody who's anybody has already had The Scarlet Ibis and the subsequent hangover, I decided to enlist the help of David Kaplan, co-owner of the nightlife establishment, and he directed me to Philip Ward who, from what I understand, is basically to Death & Co. what Mickey Mouse was to all those brooms in Fantasia.

The Gustad Noble Punch
In large pitcher disolve 12 demurara sugar cubes in 3 oz soda (Muddling is usually neccesary,) Stir in:
3 oz Lemon
1.5 oz Pimento Dram
6 oz Scarlet Ibis
4.5 oz fresh pressed Fuji apple juice
6 dash Peychaud's Bitters
Add ice and stir until chilled Pour into punch bowl over large piece of ice
Add 4.5 oz club soda
Garnish with slices of apple

Get Drunk!

Barring a few minor modifications, (my own dram and tart, granny smith apples,) I made this recipe for a group of friends in celebration of, well... The new Mixology Monday logo?... and am now feeling lucky that I wrote the majority of this post beforehand. Since the supply of Ibis is so effing limited, I would suggest dropping by D&C and ordering a bowl of this tart, spicy punch from Philip or whomever happens to be issuing libations at the time. On David's recommendation, I've also tried it in a Mai Tai. If you can rip yourself from the grip of Appleton's to try a Trinidadian variation, it's lovely. And, if you can get your hands on your own bottle of Ibis, do it before it's gone...

South American Vehicles of Drunkenness, Part 2

I spent the begining of this year living in Buenos Aires, writing a lot of mediocre poetry and drinking the afternoons into nights, contemplating the purpose of my life. Between infrequent swells of inspiration, I found myself browsing through my Lonely Planet, tempted by the images of Brazil... the beaches, the bodies, the architecture... In hindsight, my reasons for never going were really foolish; I spent so much time learning to speak Spanish, (and it was hard enough,) that I was terrified by the thought of having to speak another new language. I returned to the US having never consumed a single caipirinha in Brazil. No sex. No Rio. No Portuguese... what a drag.

Cachaca is the national spirit of Brazil and its playful and unique flavor embodies the spirit of the Brazilian people. While many bartenders refer to cachaca as "a type of rum", this is not the case. If cachaca is rum, then gin is vodka.

Rum is distilled from molasses, the risidual sticky matter left after reducing sugarcane juice. The origin of the sugar cane, the aging process, and the handling of the molasses itself give different types of rums their respectively unique flavors. Rum is made all over the world, and cachaca is only made in Brasil. The distinctively musky flavor of cachaca comes from the fermented sugar cane mash from which it is distilled. The woody notes of more artisanal brands come from the careful aging in barrels made from indigenous Brazilian oak, cherry, balsam, and almond trees. Among the sugar-based Latin American Spirits are also seco, charanda, and aquardiente.

A common lie about cachaca is that Brazilians think it's cheap and junky and meant for the lower classes. Although this rumor is probably rooted largely in the spirit's history, most liquor stores in the US stock huge, commercial, musky dishwater brands that really are junk. The truth is that Brazilians take their liquor very seriously, and drink the good stuff at home while exporting all the crap to us white folk. I use Batuque, pictured at right, not just because of the hot booty bottle, but also because it's a high quality brand that makes a caipirinha fit for the most discriminating, samba-dancing palate.

The subject of sugar is post-worthy in itself, especially when you consider how many cocktails are essentially a spirit, bitters, and some form of sugar. In the US, most commercial sugars are produced from beets and bleached to all hell. Don't be fooled by brown sugar in the US either, it's probably bleachy beety sugar with a little molasses syrup added for color and texture. At Red Feather, we use a natural brown sugar made from unrefined cane and containing risidual molasses of about 5%. I made the decision to use a brown sugar after doing a little research about popular sugars in Brazil. I think my decision is justified as it is probably the closest match in terms of flavor. Here's Mark, the best bartender in Boise, and a caipirinha made with the following recipe:


Caipirinha

Muddle:
1/2 a Lime (key lime if available) into
.5 oz Brown Sugar Simple Syrup until it looks like pond water.
Add:
2 oz. Batuque Cachaca
Roll or shake lightly with ice. Strain over new ice and garnish with lime quarters.

Absinthe for reals.

Writing about the Sazerac at Bardenay inspired me to share some interesting information about absinthe... the mother of all anisettes. I recently heard about a company called Veridian Spirits out of New York that is legally producing real wormwood absinthe called Lucid. Legally? Yes.

Althought absinthe is most popular for its late-19th century fame in France, its origin is Switzerland. The name comes from the scientific designation of the wormwood plant, artemisia absinthium, which contains thujone... the chemical that gives us that funny feeling and consequently made the stuff illegal all over the world by about 1915. There were also a series of murders around the height of the drink's popularity in Switzerland, and the government attributed the crimes to the psychotic effects of absinthe and started a mass scare/obsession with la fee verte... the green fairy. The Temperance Movement in the US eliminated the possibility of bringing the absinthe back to us until 2007, when the regulations concerning the margin for error in the detection of thujone allowed Veridian Spirits to push absinthe production through the FDA, and make a way for the rest of us to get silly on that funny green stuff...

I am tracking down a case of this stuff because I want to make Sazeracs the way Thomas Handy made them in 1870 New Orleans. One day, it would be amazing to scare up vintage bottles of every Sazerac component and have a small party and drink, like... old school Sazeracs. We could even try and find some Sazerac de Forge Cognac...