Cocktail Confessions

The 4th of July is just around the corner and I just noted I haven’t put up a new cocktail recipe in some time.  After doing a little digging, I found an interesting recipe that ties in nicely with our U.S. history and our nations 234th birthday.  But before I delve into the ‘Artillery Punch’ cocktail, I thought I’d share a bit of trivia as well.  All you wordsmiths out there, or those that like to play Jeopardy or read the Oxford Dictionary in your spare time, you might enjoy this:

The word “cocktail” was believed to be first used in New York as a way to describe a combination of spirits, sugar, water, and bitters somewhere in the early 1800′s.  It is most likely the word referred to a particular beverage that included a variety of spirits in the mix, depending on what was available at the moment.  Over the years, the definition expanded to include almost any combination of spirits and other ingredients.  As a side note, however, most alcohol historians (how do you get that job by the way?) agree that the first “cocktail party” took place in Missouri.  I couldn’t find any additional information on this….perhaps the attendees were too drunk to remember themselves and write it down.

So the recipe I have for you today isn’t a singular drink mixed for one or two people.  It’s more suited for your family reunion or block party.  You may want to mix in a very large Gatorade decanter like the kind you see on the sidelines at a football game.  If those aren’t readily available, go buy yourself a large RubberMaid trashcan at the hardware store (but remember to rinse out ahead of time).

It is said that Artillery Punch originated in Savannah, GA with the Chtanham Artillery, and was actually served to one Admiral Winfield Scott Schley during his visit to the city just after the Spanish-American War.  Reports at the time state the punch had a much more dramatic effect on the Admiral than the Spanish guns ever did.  It’s a sweet drink with a sweet tea base and strong citrus overtones (thanks to the gin, lemons, and oranges no doubt) that helps mask the massive amount of liquor hidden within.  Talk about ‘shock and awe’, be careful with this one folks, it’ll sneak up on you in a big way.  Great for summer BBQ’s and gatherings.

Artillery Punch:

• 1.5 gallons (yes, gallons) of Catawba wine (a red wine produced from a regional grape on the north-eastern seaboard and midwest)
• 1.5 quarts of rye.
• 1/2 gallon of rum (choose a rum with caramel tones if you can).
• 1/2 pint of Benedictine.
• 1 quart gin
• 1 quart Brandy.
• 1.5 gallons of strong tea (fresh brewed is always better and worth the effort).
• 2.5 pounds brown sugar
• Juice of 1/2 dozen oranges (or use real boxed orange juice as a sub)
• Juice of 1/2 dozen lemons.

Place all these ingredients in your container and mix well enough (have a clean oar or paddle nearby?) so that the 2.5 pounds of brown sugar dissolves evenly and nicely.  Serve over large glasses of ice, and keep an eye on your guests lest you really do want them to re-enact the Spanish-American War in your backyard.

As promised here is part 2 of my grilled portobello mushroom recipes.  First off we have a another somewhat easy recipe with a bit of Asian flair.  Second recipe is a bit Italian inspired but could be adapted for mediterranean tastes easily if you substitute in some black olives and goat cheese.

Asian Flair Portabello Mushrooms

Clean and stem mushrooms.  You can clean the gills out with a spoon by scraping them out and discarding.

In a bowl, make a paste my combining the following: 2 Tbsp soy sauce, 1/2 bunch of fresh parsley (chopped fine), 2 cloves of minced garlic, 1/4 cup of fresh olive oil.  *As an option, you can add a little fresh ginger (oh, say 1/2 tsp or so) and maybe a little bit of Asian sriracha sauce for heat).

Rub oustide of caps with 1/3 the paste you made in the prior step.  With remaining paste, fill inside of caps and season with salt and pepper.

Grill on BBQ over medium heat for 5-10 minutes, or until mushrooms begin to shrivel on edges. Remove and serve.

*Optional: Sprinkle a tiny bit of sesame seeds on finished mushroom for extra flair.

 Serve with a good Japanese beer like Kirin or Sapporro.

Spinich and Sauage stuffed mushrooms (intermediate and adaptable)

Clean 4 large portobello mushrooms (get the biggest ones you can find)

Preheat grill to medium-high heat.  Using a grill safe frying pan (or I suppose you could do this on the kitchen stove as well) heat 1 Tbsp olive oil and crumble in 12oz of mild or hot Italian sausage until brown and then remove to bowl. (*Sub turkey sausage for health conscience diets)

In same pan, add 1 finely chopped white onion and saute for approx. 2 minutes.  Then add 1/2 tsp or more of freshly minced garlic to pan and continue to cook until onion begins to brown.

Add sausage back in along with 1/2 cup tomato sauce or finely chopped tomatoes (*and optional pinch of red pepper flakes) and let simmer for 2-3 minutes.

Add in about 8oz of coarsely chopped spinach leaves, stir until evenly distributed and allow for them to wilt down.

Remove from heat and stir in 1/2 cup mozzarella, and optional 2 Tbsp each of fresh chopped basil and fresh chopped parsley.

Brush gill free mushrooms with olive oil and place on grill face down for about 4 minutes or until they begin to soften.

Remove mushrooms and now carefully stuff with sausage mixture.  Top of with sprinkled mozzarella cheese and place back on grill, stuffed side up.

Grill, covered, for approx 5 minutes or until cheese begins to melt and brown.

Remove and serve immediately.

As I stated at the top of this post you can adapt the above recipe for varying tastes.  Using the same basic principles, how about stuffing with a grilled chicken sausage and pesto filling?  How about instead of using Italian sausage you were to brown minced lamb, and then add in some black olives and goat/feta cheese for something a bit more Mediterranean.  Use your imagination.  Pair with a good Italian red wine.

This past weekend we celebrated my wife’s 40th birthday with a BBQ at our house. Not only was it a celebration of her birthday, but also a few of our neighbors birthday’s as well that all fell around the same time frame these past two weeks.

I’m not exactly sure how and when it happened, but it seems that our house is the goto house for parties as of late, since our other neighbor picked up his family and moved out to Texas last year.  See, we used to have block parties that spanned the end of our culdesac street that primarily centered out of his driveway and that of his neighbor. But now that they are gone, the street scene now tends to migrate down to our house. Not that I’m complaining. We enjoy entertaining and hosting cookouts. We have a corner house with nobody behind us, and a nice sized backyard. The only issue for me is I kinda do get tired of cleaning it up the next day. In that respect, I wish my neighbors volunteered their homes a bit more often.

So the main theme was somewhat latin in flavor. We decorated the house and backyard with Mexican themed streamers, banners, and cutouts.  Tacos, Spanish rice, ranch style beans, and margaritas were on tap, but these weren’t your typical tacos. I ended up making two different gourmet style types. The first were three large top sirloin steaks in a citrus-chipotle marinade that were cooked out on the grill and then cut up for easy service.

The second was a slow cooked pulled-pork shoulder that I had marinated in an achiote paste recipe served with roasted peppers and grilled pineapple. All the usual condiments were present: sour cream, shredded cheese, red onions, cilantro, various salsas and hot sauces. Monica happened to make a salad as well, and we had plenty of margarita’s, Jack Daniels, wine, and beer on hand.

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Listen to the podcast on how I prepared the pulled pork, and check out my earlier post on achiote paste and powder to know what it is and how to make. I can tell you it was delicious and I got some solid thumbs up from our guests.  I also discuss the preparation of roasted pasilla/pablano and Anaheim chili peppers (on the grill or in the oven), along with grilled pineapple.  I guarantee the added color and texture of fresh roasted peppers along with the sweet caramelized taste of fresh grilled pineapple bring these pork tacos full circle as a treat to the taste buds.

Monica did very well in the gift department as you can tell by the pictures, that is if you like alcohol as a gift. The more I think about it though, it may appear that by the amount of Crown Royal she received, one would think she has a problem. But I’m sure that Crown will be used up by everyone in future parties and I’m sure I’ll have a slug here and there.

As the night marched on, one of our friends Anthony found himself taking a liking to the Jack Daniels…perhaps a bit too much…and we had an entertaining ‘exit’ show as his wife (who drove) was rounding him up to leave.  There were plenty of hugs to go around initiated by Anthony, as well as multiple ‘good-byes’ and the almost wipe-out of our entertainment center which includes a 42″ plasma television, blu-ray player, stereo system, XBox and Wii gaming systems.

Even later when the natives got restless an impromptu session of Rock Band 2 broke out, with yours truly attempting to sing, and sing badly I did.  Girls took turns playing the drums and guitar and even singing.  Needless to say, there were plenty of pictures taken and all had a good time. 

The part at its peak was about 30 people strong, enjoying each other’s company, the outdoor fireplaces, drinks, jokes, games,and of course, food.  It wrapped up by 1:15am, and I did some preliminary cleaning until I finally crashed at 1:45.  The next day consisted of cleaning the house and resting.

Show Notes:

• Intro Song: Cumbia De Los Muertos (track 3) of the self-titled debut album, Ozomatli.
  

  Ozomatli

• Pulled Achiote Pork preparation along with roasted peppers and grilled pineapple.
• The Crown Royal Easter bunny.
• Anthony almost takes out the entertainment center.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (37.3MB)

I’m usually pretty good at creating my own content here, but I came across an interesting article over at FoxNews.com and thought it deserved a little attention here.  I’m cutting out some of the fluff, but you get the meat of it.  If you want to read the full article as it was written by Elena Ferretti, go ahead and click here.

Article

It’s axiomatic: from summer barbecues to Octoberfest, beer makes the party. Lucy Saunders takes it a step further. Beer, she says, makes the meal when the meal’s cooked with it. And she’s talking more than beer-battered onion rings.

She’s talking Cheddar Ale Spread with ancho, chipotle and pale ale, and Chocolate Malt Ganache. Saunders, author of “Cooking With Beer,” “Best of American Beer and Food” and “Grilling with Beer” also runs Beercook.com, whose emphatic motto is: “Because beer is Food!” Beer, specifically craft beer, she says, is for far more than just quaffing.

Most people understand – intuitively if not practically – that cooking with wine infuses food with depth, distinction and subtlety. Some dishes use the harder stuff, too; think Penne alla Vodka, or Bananas Foster aflame with rum. Beer hasn’t (yet) become part of our pantry, says Saunders, because while cooking with beer has been part of culinary history for centuries, “it’s been under-appreciated as it’s generally been the province of home cooks, via hand-me-down recipes.”

A craft beer’s flavor is determined by how barley is treated during malting, the process of germinating barley to create a high-starch content seed. The starch will eventually be converted into a fermentable sugar. The ‘maltster’ heats the grain to stop seed growth, which retains the starch content, then roasts it to develop various flavor characteristics and color, similar to the process of roasting coffee beans. Briess Malting in Wisconsin, says Saunders, is the last independent specialty maltster in North America and makes an incredible range of specialty malts for brewing.

Saunders, a Midwest native who, in addition to teaching, runs water conservation workshop for brewers and cheese makers, says she has a “palate for grains” and has loved the taste of beer for as long as she can remember. It started with her mom’s Cheese and Beer soup (beer, caramelized onions, asiago, cheddar and parmesan), Carbonnade (a jaw-dropping ale, beef and onion stew and a major Belgian culinary contribution along with waffles and chocolates) and her dad’s beer-based steak marinades.

The first commercial cookbooks, including some with recipes for cooking with beer, appeared in England during the Tudor era, late 1400s to mid-1500s. That was due not to beer’s ubiquity but to Gutenberg inventing the printing press in 1440. Previously, cookbooks were hand-written and used primarily by monasteries and the upper classes, says Saunders, who majored in Old and Middle English. Instead of a term paper she translated Tudor recipes, cooked and catered a medieval feast for her professor and other students and “hired frat brother friends as serfs to serve dinner.”

Americans’ love affair with craft beers started in the 1980s for a few reasons, says Saunders. By the mid-70s many states lifted a Prohibition-era ban on home brewing allowing people to recapture a forgotten craft. Also, in the late 70s and 80s, study-abroad programs proliferated and students started tasting European beers that had been crafted from long-standing brewing traditions, introducing their palates to flavors other than Budweiser and Miller Lite.

Saunders says that craft brewing combines the artistry and creativity of cooking with the rigors of science. It’s about fermentable sugars, final alcohol content, color and mouth-feel, and evoking flavor and aromatics from grain’s entire taste spectrum. “It’s a continuous learning and creativity curve. That’s the allure. It’s a great challenge and when the results are delicious they are shared and enjoyed. It’s why it’s here to stay.”

The last two Friday’s in a row, (and could tonight be the third?), I have found myself at a local water hole in RSM known as Amazing Grapes.  It’s a nice little place if you’re into wine tastings, but my friends and I discovered they have a nice little hand crafted brew section with a few fancy imports and domestics.

Best Extra Stout

Personally, I’m not really a wine person, or at least a pretentious wine snob who swirls a glass and stares at the ‘legs’ as they drizzle slowly downward as they cling to the glass.  I like a nice Pinot Grigio, an occasional Italian red, or even a mellow merlot.  But I don’t know enough to tell you the difference between a $8.99 bottle and a $49 bottle.  I do like my champagne though, and can tell a cheap bottle from a more mainstream and classy one.

But that’s not why my friends Jon, Joe, Chip, Ryan, Paul, and I go there.  No, like I said we can get a really good microbrew in this non-bar setting without drunken a-holes around, or a myriad of plasma flat panels all competing to grab your ear with the various sports highlights and a stereo system that only plays Brown Eyed Girl ad-nauseum.

One beer that I have discovered there is a stout from an Australian brewer, Coopers.  It’s called ‘Best Extra Stout’ and clocks in at 6.3% alc/vol.  It’s has a very robust and hearty flavor, but especially very smooth and dare I say creamy.  I enjoy stouts a lot, from Guinness to the various oatmeal varietals as well, and I must say this Cooper’s is one of my news favorites.  Has a very distinct smokey yet chocolaty taste.

If you get a chance, check it out.

What can I say?  For the better part of a few years, I’ve been on a self-imposed last ‘hold-out’ in gaining the courage to take my first trepidated steps into a BevMo store.  With absolutely no substantive experience to back up any of my outrageous thoughts, I have more or less had devised my own conclusions when it came to this so-called beverage mecha: 1) It’s chick territory — a pretentious haven where snobby, over-augmented, trophy wives that occasionally play Bunco and compare botox injections sip trendy wine spritzers all the while secretly craving the teenage pool boy bought their swill, or 2) A re-imagining of the old late 70′s-esque ‘Liquor Barn’ in which couch spelunkers counted out their laundry coins one by one for a cheap thrill in a paper bag came to shop.

What a surprise it was when I walked in this past Saturday and discovered a plethora of blended libations, unique hand crafted beers, sodas, and other goodies amongst various aisles.

The store’s asthectics are nothing to write home about, perhaps just a tad fancier than a big budget warehouse chain, but if it’s sole purpose is to provide alcoholic drinks in bulk, then I seriously doubt your average customer needs to be impressed by neon signs, chic decor and what not.  If you’re like me, you want in and want back out to the party as soon as possible.

There is an aisle of just standard mixers, and many of them were pretty standard fare, and even boring.  Take Bloody Mary mix for example….they only had about 3 or 4 different brands and nothing was too exciting.  I’ve personally had better luck at Home Goods, CostPlus and Mervyns with stranger and tempting labels.  The wall of soda was pretty much standard as well, but the Root Beer and Cream Soda section was really surprising.  Who knew there were so many varietals of root beer of all things, and is there really a need for 30+ brands of root beer?

I was pleasantly surprised with the micro and hand crafted beer section.  While not the largest I’ve ever seen before, there was quite an eclectic mix of regional brews to choose from, and of course I couldn’t pass up some of the stouts (podcasts on these will be forthcoming).  I also noticed there were many familiar labels from my college days: Lost Coast Brewery, Humboldt Brewery, Mad River, etc.  Pricing was pretty good as well.  BevMo certainly beat out my regular grocery chain when it came to certain brands by upwards of a few bucks a six pack.  But you won’t find everything here.  I didn’t see any Cheleda, certain standard imports, and many other common place beers were strangely absent from the scene.

There was a cooler of deli cheeses and racks containg dice and card games, and many kiosks with printed pint glasses if anyone was interested.

I more or less stayed away from the wines, as I’m not a big grape fiend, but then I came to the grail of the spirits I generally enjoy: whisky and gin.  I was overwhelmed by many of the varieties of whisky I’ve never seen or heard of before and prior to this outing I thought I was pretty well versed.  I was a kid in a candy store and just had to leave with some new bottles of stuff I can’t wait to enjoy.  We purchased an actual mason jar of corn whisky, and pre-mixed mint julep courtesy of Maker’s Mark.  I saw new bottles of Jim Beam and Crown I’d never laid eyes on before.  The same can be said for the gin and vodka selections as well.

The one thing that blew me away was the inconsistent pricing, generally to the customers favor if you just looked at the labels long enough.  For example, there was a standard 750ml of Tanguery gin for $36.99, and then right next to it was a 1.75L, also for $36.99!!  Guess which one I picked up?  I saw this time and time again on certain brands.  The same went for a few of the whisky’s as well…for $1 more, I could get a whole extra liter!!  What gives?  Why would anyone buy the smaller bottle when you could get more than twice as much for the same price or perhaps a single dollar more?  Hey, if these were pricing mistakes from the part time clerks, I sure am not going to point it out.  Their loss….my gain.

Not that I’m bragging, but we spent roughly $150 that day and I feel as if we walked out of that BevMo with closer to $250 in spirits, soda, and beer that should last us a bit longer than usual.

I’m really looking forward now to getting the podcast portion of this site up and running so I can try some of these with my friends for you all, describe them, and have a good time overall.