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Cocktails Made

Mon Mar 2: Tequila Old Fashioned
From the Rick Bayless cocktail book "Frontera Margaritas, etc."
  • 1 oz Espolon Reposada Tequila
  • 1 oz Weller Special Reserve Bourbon
  • 4 drops Regan's orange bitters
  • 2 barspoons gum syrup
  • 1 by 2 inch piece dried ancho chili
Muddle the chili, add the other ingredients and stir with ice. Drop the chili into the drink. Delicious and well balanced. Flavor and heat from the chili grows as the drink sits. Try it again with a better tequila, like Don Julio anejo. Also: recipe says to dry muddle the chili piece. Probably better to add the rest of the ingredients and then muddle.
Sat Feb 29: Experiment #2: Rum Old Fashioned
  • 1 oz El Dorado 3 year white rum
  • 1 oz Plantation overproof rum
  • 2 barspoons gum syrup
  • 1 dash Black Walnut Bitters
  • Orange peel
Very tasty. Also very strong. Try it again, but with 1/2 oz less overproof, 1/2 oz more white rum.
Tue Feb 18: Experiment #1: Gin Godfather
Thinking about a Godfather, and wondering what else might taste good mixed with amaretto. Tried 2 parts Tanquery Gin and 1 part ameretto. Pretty tasty.
Tue Feb 11: Gum Syrup
Made a batch of Gum (Gomme) Syrup:
  • Add 1/4 cup nearly boiling water to 1 oz (4 tablespoons) of gum arabic powder. Stir till dissolved, may be some lumps.
  • Let sit for 2 hours.
  • Make rich syrup: 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup water. Bring to simmer.
  • Add gum arabic mixture. Stir constantly for 5 minutes while simmering.
  • Cool and strain into a jar.
Used this to make a bourbon old fashioned:
  • 2 oz Weller's Bourbon
  • 1/4 oz (1 tablespoon) Gum Syrup
  • Dash of Angostura
  • Stir with ice and strain into glass with large ice cube.
  • Express orange peel over glass and drop in.
Delicious.
Mon Feb 3: Negroni Variation #1 & #2
#1: Equal parts Plymouth Gin, M&R Bianco, and Campari. It's either a modified Negroni, or a Dapper Goose 50/50 with Campari added. Smooth and a nice balance between bitter and sweet. Also an attractive color.
#2: Same as above, but instead of M&R Bianco, use Cocchi Americano. Not as sweet as #1. Two separate bitter notes: one from the Campari, one from the Cocchi Americano.
Thu Jan 23: Old Fashioned
High West Double Rye, cinnamon simple syrup, angostura, Regan's orange. The orange bitters were a mistake. Added syrup a teaspoon at a time till the drink tasted right, which was at three teaspoons -- about a half ounce. Expressing orange peel over the drink finished it like adding just enough salt to a soup.
Ordered gum arabic powder, so I can make a Gum Syrup; recipe 1, article/recipe 2, recipe 3
Tue Jan 21: Final Say (Last Word variation)
Ming Tsai's take on the Last Word: sub Velvet Falernum for the marischino. Also used lime acid instead of lime juice. Good, but the acid is just a little too bright when used without any juice.
Mon Jan 20: Gimlet & Margarita
Malic acid powder arrived today. Made lime acid solution using the recipe in Liquid Intelligence. Tastes simiar to lime juice, but sort of like an x-ray of lime juice. Author said he never would use this as a substitute for juice, so I used it as a substitute for juice: 2 oz Tanqueray, 1 oz lime acid, 1/2 oz simple syrup. Good, but lacking the depth of a gimlet made with juice. Flavors from the gin were too forward, should have stuck with 3-2-1 ratio of spirit-acid-sweetener, instead of going with 4-2-1.
Also made a Margarita: lime sour mix from Rick Bayless recipe, blanco tequila, orange curacao, plus a quarter ounce of the lime acid solution. Delicious.
Sat Jan 18: Vieux Carrre
Nicely balanced - a little sweet, a little herbal, a little spice from the Rye and from the Angostura. Some recipes use Bourbon (e.g. Difford's), I used Rittenhouse Rye and Noilly Pratt sweet vermouth. Didn't have Cognac, used brandy. [Ordered Malic acid from Amazon today so I can make the lime acid recipe from Liquid Intelligence.]
Fri Jan 17: Martinez
Very tasty. Used Bombay Sapphire and Antiqua Formula.
Thu Jan 16: Improved Whiskey Cocktail (from Liquid Intelligence)
Just OK.
Wed Jan 15: The Corsican
Very nice. Initally tastes Manhattan-like, but on the swallow brown sugar, clove and almond notes come out. Made with overproof rum (Plantation), try with Meyer's next time. Used Noilly Pratt sweet vermouth and Regan's orange bitters.
Tue Jan 14, 2020: Italian Gentleman
Good combination of bitter and sour, but feels like it needs something to make it more balanced. Makes me wonder about experimenting with using citric acid in place of lemon juice in order to fine tune the acidity of drinks. Tastes better as it warms up. Tastes like grapefruit even though there's no grapefruit in it.
Some articles about using acids in drinks either alone or in combination with juices: