Well it depends. Obviously you want something sophisticated, as they are putting away childish things, and you want something that suits the chilly winter season, but that leaves a hell of a lot of cocktail options. Can you tell us more?
Gougeres. AWB just mentioned making them on FB, and they're really easy and delicious. It's just a dough with flour, butter, eggs and grated cheese (cooked on top of the stove for a bit) and then piped or spooned out in globs and baked, and they inflate into little crusty cheesy balloons. Really good.
I would suggest milk punch except that takes two days to make.
you want something that suits the chilly winter season
Not to quibble with what would normally make good sense, but it's 62° here today.
Spiced nuts and marinated olives of various sorts are 1. super easy and 2. fancy cocktail bar-ish.
As for cocktails, like Sifu, I'm trying to think of things that can be made by the vat, rather than one-by-one.
One quick, easy, and delicious horse duvet: baguette slices topped with brie and red bell pepper and toasted. Guaranteed to vanish before they cool off.
4: if we all pretend it's winter really hard, maybe we'll sequester enough carbon in our hearts to make it so.
Can you tell us more?
I'm leaning towards two drinks: one, rye-based and bitter-ish/orange-peel-ish, inspired by a drink I had with JM and Blandings on my last NYC visit; the second, something in the vein of a greyhound, a cape cod(der)*, or a Sea Breeze, which is to say, vodka plus (possibly freshly squeezed although it's not a great time of year for fruit) fruit juice.
*I've only ever heard them called Cape Cods, but Cape Codder is apparently a name? That adults use? Weird.
things that can be made by the vat, rather than one-by-one
Ah, this may not be necessary. We're expecting only ten to twenty people, and several guests are bringing their own food and drinks to supplement the house menu and share.
9: aha! Okay! That is the kind of "more information" that I wanted.
For the second drink I think you should skip the vodka and make some kind of citrus-y gin drink with Plymouth (it's a really mild gin; I promise even non-gin drinkers will like it fine), like an Aviation or something.
The first drink, hm you should probably just make rye manhattans, or barring that old-fashioneds, or barring that offer both.
This involves a lot of individual drink-making, but what the hey.
If you want to get a bit fancier with the rye-based cocktail, this is a really excellent Sazerac recipe.
13 cont'd: for which ricard or pernod substitutes in just fine for absinthe if you don't have any.
The champagne punch recipe on Epicurious is very tasty and very alcoholic.
This is a tasty, sweetish rye-based drink, but requires Cherry Heering, which isn't terribly easy to find.
Is there any reason not to make Manhattans by the pitcher?
Ah! 15 is the one I was looking for in 6. That is a damn good punch.
17: well, since they're served up you would typically want them to be chilled/mildly diluted by the ice immediately before serving. I guess maybe you could make them in a pitcher of ice, dump out the ice, and then put the pitcher of manhattans sans ice into a bucket of ice to keep it cold.
If you want to go citrusy with gin, a French 75 would require fewer fancy liqueurs.
20 makes a good point. Here is a recipe.
19: I was thinking make them ahead of time and put the pitcher in the refrigerator. Or premix a pitcher and shake each serving with ice as you poured it.
Punch is all the rage among the hipsters, I think, or was a few months ago until the next vaguely stupid thing came along. (I always thought milk punch sounded disgusting when Sharpless offered it to Pinkerton or vice versa but I have no idea what's actually in it.)
I am laughing about horse duvet.
16: Cherry Heering is pretty easy to find, I think. The creme de violette for aviations less so.*
*I mean, you can make it without, I guess, but it rules, and gives it the color that gives it its name (disputed/citation needed).
This is going to be one big nerd thread of the above, huh?
(I just re-read the first chapter of The Wicked Pavilion and had no recollection they drank French 75s at the Julien perhaps because I'd never had one.)
I love a Twentieth Century, myself.
Milk punch can be pretty yummy. We made some, and were like "oh! It's sort of a lighter egg nog. Okay."
This is going to be one big nerd thread of the above, huh?
I hope so!
Stanley, what kind of bitters do you have?
This isn't fancy in the least, but lately I'm obsessed with feta cheese stuffed in papadew peppers. Creamy plus pickled spiciness!
24 to be excruciatingly curatorial, you need Crème Yvette for an aviation. Because of the cocktail craze you can find both this and Crème de Violette but only in that kind of store. C. Yvette was not made at all for years, perhaps because it's in exactly one cocktail.
Wait maybe it's a blue moon that uses Crème Yvette.
Ooh, Twentieth Century is a great idea! Except that if you get the proportions even a slight bit off, either the creme de cacao or the lemon juice dominates, and then they're pretty mediocre. You'd have to experiment ahead of time with the particular ingredients you bought.
I first tried a Twentieth Century when nosflow ordered one and I tasted it.
Just got Vampire Weekend reference.
Stanley, what kind of bitters do you have?
Sheepishly, I report I've never bought nor owned any, but I've had some that I liked. Open to suggestions.
Being sheepish about not owning bitters deserves its own question in the anti-Murray "How delightfully elite are you?" quiz.
34: well, it all depends. I am a big fan of Peychaud's for Manhattans, but there are way more recipes that call for Angostura. Those are the big two, so you should probably have both.
People like the regular Biiterman's bitters, and then you get into all the weirdo kinds which have specific uses. We have orange bitters that we don't use terribly often. I'd like to get some Molé bitters. Other than that? Dunno. That's as far as we've taken it.
31: One didn't want to correct, but one is fairly sure.
I suppose rose water and Grand Marnier aren't immediately to hand? One could make moon walks in honor of Newt! (Grapefruit, G. M., rose water, champagne)
I'd like to get some Molé bitters.
Then we'd also have to buy tequila and/or mezcal. I'm not sure they'd go particularly well with any other liquors.
A White Lady is very easy to get ingredients for and to prepare.
If you're into the "proportions have to be exactly right for it to be really good" thing, you can add the Corpse Reviver to the 20th Century. (There also exists a 20th century variation called the 18th Century, but I am finding it difficult to google up recipes.)
I came up with a very well-received new appetizer recently: roasted red onions (chop, toss with olive oil and salt, roast until charred) piled on something crusty (I used pie crust but that wasn't optimal), sprinkled with feta, and broiled briefly.
I can't advise you about home-cocktails.
However, I am now CRAVING bacon-wrapped water-chestnuts. Anchor with a toothpick, pour over with teriyaki sauce (homemade is better), and broil until delicious.
Thanks to Pennsylvania's unjustly criticized liquor laws you can make an Aviation in any hamlet or village, as long as you order the ingredients online to be shipped to your local wine & spirits store.
We have orange bitters that we don't use terribly often. I'd like to get some Molé bitters. Other than that? Dunno. That's as far as we've taken it.
Fee's peach bitters are nice. Not very bitter, though.
There also exists a 20th century variation called the 18th Century, but I am finding it difficult to google up recipes.
Google was very limited back then.
Modern/reintroduced Crème Yvette is a reddish-purple color, which makes for a funny-looking Aviation. I have both now, but prefer the Crème de Violette and haven't figured out what else to do with the Yvette.
Yvette is indeed for a Blue Moon.
I should try a White Lady (though it puts me in mind of the "nice white lady" sketch from Mad TV) so as to add to the list of cocktails with "lady" in the name I have had.
(Blue Lady, Plum Lady, Tijuana Lady thus far.)
The Pink Lady is also nice (be warned of many bad recipes floating around)!
I just heard from a bandmate, and she's bringing Moscow mules.
49 might be more useful if it had a link to a good recipe.
I can't link to a book several miles away from me.
Damn, I love the fact Wikipedia has a standard infobox format that summarises the details of a cocktail. What next, CocXML?
Be warned that if you get a Perfect Lady that isn't listed on the bar's cocktail menu, it will quite possible cost a lot more than all the other cocktails.
I believe that I have used this Pink Lady recipe successfully.
The key with egg-based cocktails in my experience is to combine the ingredients in a shaker without ice, really shake the shit out of it, and then add ice and shake the shit out of it again. That gets the egg white nicely emulsified.
then add ice and shake the shit out of it again
I disagree with this part. Little shards of ice ruin an egg-based cocktail. Shake gently with the ice.
Okay! I'm making a Sazerac and probably that champagne punch recipe (as I predict I will tire of making people individual cocktails).
So, pretty much Tweety and Blume are throwing a party at my house but not attending.
Yay for champagne punch! Festive and highly drunk-making! It's also a good choice for people who might not want something as hard-liquor-tasting as the Sazeracs.
Make the gougeres, too! They're really easy and they impress people.
Dr. Ho's Pizza with a side of Gus Burgers.
re: 53
Yeah.
'We are using standard CockOntology schema. Don't you have a sparql cocktail engine?'
SPARQL. Imagine you're in some sort of hideously expensive cocktail bar, looking at the enormous display of bottles. But if you don't specify all the ingredients, in the format used in the underlying triple store, in order and correct quantity, for the exact cocktail you want, with the {} and . in the right places...it won't even serve you a beer.
9: for a vodka-based greyhound-like drink, which is easy to make, and could be made in batches, is a Hooker Sunrise (so named, by me, as it's (a) the color of the morning sky and (b) what all good hookers need following work). Vodka tonic and a splash of grapefruit juice (freshly squeezed would be a decadent addition). Turns out less is more with the juice. One can always also garnish with lime (and a bit fresh squeezed lime juice could go in the drink too).
re: 65
Heh. I work in the sort of place where whenever a project gets started some fucker immediately proposes we develop an ontology.
Agreed that bits of ice can ruin a cocktail.
Someone should check Sifu's gin for bruises.
I pointed out to Blume that every time I made her a Pink Lady she enjoyed it greatly. Maybe my shaking was both gentle and vigorous.
This fruit intentionally left low.
It's my wife's birthday, and I'm putting on a surprise party tomorrow night. We won't be having cocktails, since we're Regular Americans.
My car is in the shop, so operational security has been a much bigger issue than it would otherwise be.
Well and I enjoyed it a great deal when you made me a blue lady. Was thinking of this place Stecchino in midtown that ruins their cocktails with bits of ice. Um, and I wanted to make the bruised gin joke.
I endorse Parenthetical's stuffed pickled peppadew, particularly with a bit of smoked turkey on top.
Little shards of ice ruin an egg-based cocktail. Shake gently with the ice.
Little shards of ice are removed at the straining stage?
12 is about right, though I would make 3 emendations.
1) Plymouth is fine as a mild gin, but if you can get Leopold's, do so. You are unlikely to regret the substitution.
2) Use a good rye. Rendezvous Rye and Bulleit are both 95%+ rye, and neither is terribly pricey as far as whiskies go. Dry (high-rye) ryes go better with sweeteners.
3) Consider, as the garnish for the Old Fashioned (or even the Manhattan), using a lemon peel, instead of the more common fruit salad approach.
Suggestion 3 should apply to the martini as well. Unity of garnish would make the cocktail combination operationally simpler, as well as adding a touch of extra refinement (relative to the comparatively course cherries and olives &c.)
74: They should be, but we don't have a proper strainer here, just the holes in the top of the shaker, which are large enough to let bits of ice through.
78: except that we've never had this problem!
You could try a vat of this (or half a vat) and get everyone thoroughly sloshed:
Original Chatham Artillery Punch
Time: 90 minutes
8 lemons
1 pound superfine sugar
750-milliliter bottle bourbon or rye
750-milliliter bottle Cognac
750-milliliter bottle dark Jamaican rum
3 bottles Champagne or other sparkling wine
Nutmeg.
1. Squeeze and strain the lemons to make 16 ounces of juice. Peel the lemons and muddle the peels with the sugar. Let the peels and sugar sit for an hour, then muddle again. Add the lemon juice and stir until sugar has dissolved. Strain out the peels.
2. Fill a 2- to 3-gallon bucket or bowl with crushed ice or ice cubes. Add the lemon-sugar mixture and the bourbon, Cognac and rum. Stir and add the Champagne. Taste and adjust for sweetness. Grate nutmeg over the top and serve.
Yield: About 25 drinks.
5: Spiced nuts and marinated olives of various sorts are 1. super easy and 2. fancy cocktail bar-ish.
The OP: Caveat: there are several people with severe nut allergies planning to attend.
Why do you hate Stanley's friends?
BTW 17 gets it right, many of these recipes were designed to be equally good when made one at a time or in batches.
I tend not to make things in advance so I can cater to my guests' tastes, but will try to make 2-4 cocktails of the same kind at once, so as to spend less time away from company.
Recent experiments have indicated that, far from being a problem, pre-mixing manhattans can be advantageous. There is a new trend to barrel-age already-mixed manhattans. I've had one, and it was quite good.
Wrap anything in prosciutto or jamon and bake it and you're good. Asparagus, pears, goat cheese, shrimps...
so as to spend less time away from company.
Perverse.
Wrap anything in prosciutto or jamon and bake it and you're good.
Also stops nosebleeds.
Stanley will have to report back on how things went.
I am drinking an aviation now because of the bad influence of all you people.
You really do need to get the Crème de Violette, Tweety. It makes it look *and* taste purty.
What next, CocXML?
I suspect that, were CocXML to exist, it would be oriented towards rather different applications.
Oh FFS. Stupid html.
I'd be in a bad mood, but it's 62 and sunny and clear enough that I can see the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge from where I'm sitting on my roof. I suspect that there's no way to make "figuring out what's the deal with California's high-risk pre-existing condition health insurance plan, having just been turned down for normal insurance" fun, but the weather's certainly helping.
81: three bottles of hard alcohol plus three bottles of champagne = 25 drinks?
That's about 50ml of ethanol per serving, equivalent to three beers. That stuff should come with a warning label.
82: D'oh! My plot is foiled! (Dummy.)
94: You never hear anything about the heroic accomplishments of the Chatham Artillery, for some reason.
93 A few of those artillery shots should put you in an even better mood.
Late to the party, but fortunately I lost the very excellent recipe for a good-by-the-pitcher gin drink called The Eastsider that they wrote me out down at the cocktail shop last year.
While it's important to get a good rye, Old Overholt is a perfectly good rye, and ridiculously cheap.
The price/quality balance with rye is shockingly favorable. You can pay a lot if you for some reason want to, but it's completely unnecessary.
I agree with 99 and 101. Is there some reason why ryes are good and cheap?
While it's important to get a good rye, Old Overholt is a perfectly good rye, and ridiculously cheap.
Agreed! We like to call it "Old Overcoat."
Chatham Artillery Punch. You don't have to let it age a whole week if you are in some awful hurry, but it's better if you do.
Is 104's commenter name a mistake?
Belle's recipe sounds more delicious than mine, which also came from the Times and so is suspect as to its authenticity, despite having "original" in its name.
When is Stanley going to report back?
Right now! Everything was great, and thanks for all the suggestions. In the end, we served hot spinach and artichoke dip, homemade hummus with veggies and pita chips to dip, bacon-wrapped dates, AWB's gougères, baked brie with raspberry preserves and honey wrapped in pastry dough, and an array of cheeses and breads.
For drinks, the champagne punch was an early hit. I made my first Sazerac with too much Pernod, but the second one was delightful. White Russians featured strongly, thanks to a friend who brought the fixings, as did Cape Cods and Sea Breezes and Greyhounds.
And now I'm at work.
Oh, and a cake from ABC (Albemarle Baking Co., so named because it's where Lord Albemarle used to get all his marzipan-frosting birthday cakes). Fact.
I half-agree with 99. OO is perfectly serviceable, which is surprising at the price. But it is not what I would call a truly good rye.
I think there is an illusion of cheap rye quality created by the fact that there just aren't many really excellent ryes available, so the mediocre ones register as good and the good ones register as excellent.
OTOH Bourbon and Scotch are somewhat more mature product categories so implicitly the mediocre ones are tasted in contrast to the best specimens, and thus do not seem like such good value for money.
Although I'm sure really good ryes are much better, I don't think this effect is an illusion. $12 bottles of other liquors can be truly foul. I don't just think it's the fact that I've had good tequilas that makes a $12 bottle of tequila undrinkable. I guess I haven't had much blended Scotch, my "drinkable Scotch" comparison point would be something like Glenlivet which is way way more expensive.
I think there's a similar effect in white wine vis-a-vis reds, where there's plenty of solid drinkable cheap white wines at low price points, but red you have to pay more to get something drinkable.
To be fair, there is also a $12 bourbon that I find perfectly acceptable.
But, like, Bulleit Rye (mentioned above as a superior option) is pretty cheap itself (often less than $25)
I think there's a similar effect in white wine vis-a-vis reds, where there's plenty of solid drinkable cheap white wines at low price points, but red you have to pay more to get something drinkable.
That's strange, this side of the ditch it's the other way round.
Yeah, to 115. I'd have said the same.
re: whisky. I find some of the mass-market blends perfectly acceptable. The price difference between Johnny Walker Red, the usual Bells/Grouse/White&Mackay, Black Bottle etc and a malt isn't really that huge, though. 15 quid a bottle versus 20/25 a bottle.
115: I agree with you, even over here on my side of said ditch.
I am drinking an aviation now because of the bad influence of all you people.
Me too! (Well, last night. Also had a Corpse Reviver. And tastes of a bunch of small-batch gins. There's a picture in the Flickr pool.)
Barrel-aged gin is good stuff, I have fairly recently discovered.
On no account ever make -- let alone eat -- beef cornets...
I'm mystified. There's nothing wrong with a beef, whipped cream, and horseradish combination.