David Lebovitz's Blog, page 19

Pegu Club

Invented in Burma, at a British club called the Pegu Club, this tropically-tinged cocktail found its way into the Savoy Cocktail Book. It’s pleasantly tangy and fruit-forward. The ingredients come together in the glass, resulting in a savvy cocktail with gentle citrus notes. One sip and you’ll understand why it’s still a cocktail classic!

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Bijou Cocktail

This cocktail gets its name from the three main ingredients, and their relationship to bijoux, or jewels or gems. The clear gin is like a diamond, the red vermouth is like a ruby, and the green from the Chartreuse is the emerald. The original recipe called for those ingredients to be used in three equal parts but cocktail expert and bartender Dale DeGroff, who resurrected the cocktail, refashioned the quantities. I actually prefect a touch more red vermouth than he does so I up that to 1 ounce, but you can leave it as is.

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What to Buy When Starting a French Bar at Home

Weeks before Drinking French came out, people were asking me what liquors and spirits to buy in anticipation of the book’s release. Skimming through the 160 recipes in the book, many of which are for cocktails and apéritifs, I offered up tips here and there, suggesting a few essential bottles that could be used for a number of recipes in the book. I also added a few extras (at the end of this post) to those suggestions, that aren’t vital to have, but are some of my favorites in case they wanted to branch out a little into some other French drinks, and spirits.

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The Alaska Cocktail

[Note: If you’re interested in learning more about Chartreuse, tune into my Instagram Live today, April 24th, at 6pm CET, Noon ET, 9am PT. I’ll be joined my Charteuse expert Tim Master and he’ll be answering questions and making this cocktail. Because of the split-screen format, this Live session can’t be archived for replay – so tune in live (here’s how) to watch!]

While green Chartreuse has been around for nearly four hundred years, Yellow Chartreuse is a relative newcomer, introduced in 1840. While it’s lower in alcohol than green Chartreuse, it too comes by its color naturally. It’s a touch sweeter and milder in taste than green Chartreuse, so it works well in cocktails where a little sweetness would be called for. Rumor has it the yellow color is because saffron is added, as is honey, but no one will reveal or confirm any of the ingredients in Chartreuse. Where Chartreuse jaune shines brightly in the Alaska cocktail, this bracing mix of gin, orange bitters, and yellow Chartreuse.

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Daiquiri Cocktail

Since the confinement started, I’ve been doing a daily Apéro Hour on Instagram Live, archiving some of the episodes on my IGTV channel. Since I’ve never been able to get a tv show of my own, I decided just to do my own. (What could go wrong? And even so, what happens during confinement, stays in confinement. Right?) And when you’re the boss…and the producer, talent booker, presenter, cameraman, mixologist, and dishwasher…you get to call the shots. So I did, and invited some of my favorite bartenders, cocktail writers, and spirit-makers to come and talk about what they do.

Due to quirk in the platform, split-screen interviews can’t be archived (so I don’t get to call all the shots…) but it’s been really fun having people on that you might not normally get to meet, like my friend Mat who distills brandy and gin in Burgundy, Margot who owns Combat, a great cocktail bar in Paris, David from Belleville Brûlerie who showed us how to make the perfect café crème with a moka pot, and Alexandre Gabriel, who not only distills cognac and Citadelle gin, but also owns Plantation rum.

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Cranzac Cookies

When the lockdown was announced about a month ago, I thought of all the great things I would finally be able to do. I would finally tackle those five- to seven-season tv series that everyone told me that I just had to watch, that require a hundred-hour commitment to get through them. (Breaking Bad and The Wire, I’m looking at you…) I would have the time to go through all those folders of paperwork that pile up like a fallen cheerleader formation when you live somewhere where paperwork is as common (but not as welcome) as wine.

Or I might finally tackle The Goldfinch (769 pages) or finish A Little Life. I only made it to page 30 (of 720 pages) of the latter before my brain felt like an Escher print.

Yet none of those things have happened. I ended up launching a daily Apéro Hour on my Instagram IGTV channel and found myself doing a lot more cooking and baking and writing. I try to squeeze in a little exercise either following videos on YouTube or taking online Pilates classes, and ended up revisiting some vintage recipes, including my variation of one by Marcella Hazan. But I dug into my own personal cookbook archives to make these Cranzac Cookies, and I almost wish I didn’t, because I could not stop eating them. Continue Reading Cranzac Cookies...

Cosmopolitan Cocktail and Roasted Nuts with Rosemary

[I’ll be making this Cosmopolitan cocktail on my Instagram Live tonight, April 20th, at 6pm CET, Noon ET, 9am PT. You can find out how to tune in here!]

I’ve had my blog for a while, over twenty years now, and one of the first recipes I posted on it was for a Cosmopolitan cocktail. Back then, in the 1990s, Cosmopolitans were still the rage. Much of it was due to Sex in the City, where they were the drink of choice for four women who were close friends, trying to find their way in New York City, navigating through boyfriends, parties, careers, and cocktail bars. During their get-togethers, the cocktail of choice was always a round of Cosmos.

The cocktail become somewhat of a cliché and faded from popularity as the craft cocktail movement elbowed in. But everyone once in a while, I still like a Cosmopolitan.

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Cosmopolitan Cocktails and Roasted Nuts with Rosemary

I’ve had my blog for a while, over twenty years now, and one of the first recipes I posted on it was for a Cosmopolitan cocktail. Back then, in the 1990s, Cosmopolitans were still the rage. Much of it was due to Sex in the City, where they were the drink of choice for four women who were close friends, trying to find their way in New York City, navigating through boyfriends, parties, careers, and cocktail bars. During their get-togethers, the cocktail of choice was always a round of Cosmos.

The cocktail become somewhat of a cliché and faded from popularity as the craft cocktail movement elbowed in. But everyone once in a while, I still like a Cosmopolitan.

Continue Reading Cosmopolitan Cocktails and Roasted Nuts with Rosemary...

Drinking French Erratum: Cornmeal, Bacon, and Sun-Dried Tomato Madeleine recipe

Due to an editing error, in the first-edition printing of Drinking French, the metric conversion for the dry ingredients isn’t correct. The metric amounts should be (in bold):

1/2 cup (70g) all-purpose or corn flour

1/2 cup (95g) stone-ground cornmeal

These have been corrected in subsquent editions of the book.

Eeyore’s Requiem cocktail

[Brad Thomas Parsons will be my guest today on my IGTV Instagram Live at 6pm CET, Noon ET, 9am PT and I wanted to share the recipe here for viewers. Brad has written extensively about bitters and spirits, and we’ll be talking about the special world of French bitters. To feature them, he’ll be making this drink from his book, Amaro: The Spirited World of Bittersweet, Herbal Liqueurs, with Cocktails, Recipes, and Formulas. His most recent book is Last Call, which chronicles closing time at his favorite bars across America. You can watch us by visiting my Instagram Profile at the time listed above. If you miss it, you can watch the replay in my Instagram Stories up to 24hrs afterward.]

Named after Eeyore, a character from Winnie the Pooh, like the grey donkey, which Toby Maloney, its creator, calls “the most bitter character in literature.” In spite of that moniker, this alluring cocktail has an appealing bitterness that I can’t resist. And not to mention the color; if you’re in the doldrums, this vivid Eeyore’s Requiem cocktail will definitely lure you out of it.

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