Ted Haigh reminds us in Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails that there’s a reason why the Pegu Club in New York has its name.
Pegu Club Cocktail
1 1/2 oz. gin
1/2 oz. Cointreau
3/4 oz. fresh lime juice
2 dashes Angostura bitters
Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.
Goes down a little too easy. Note: The better the quality of the gin you use, the better this drink will be.
Tonight you’ll be consuming vast quantities of alcohol (remember one for your homies at Drinkhacker, y’all), so what better way to prep for the festivities than by downing something to up the level of your game.
That’s the theory, anyway, of Fever, which aims to “Make Healthy Sexy,” with its collection of herbal, non-carbonated beverages designed to “stimulate the body.” (Some say that’s code for aphrodisiac… you be the judge.)
They aren’t energy drinks, mind you, but herbal-infused concoctions that include such ingredients as Epidmedium brevicornum Maxim DeL, Clavo Huasca, and Pfaffia paniculata MK. Mostly exotic herbs, they’re designed to promote “pleasure, euphoria, and anti-oxidation.”
Three versions are currently on the market, each with natural caffeine from green tea and containing 260 calories in each (very, very cold) 16-oz. can.
Mango Banana tastes like neither of its namesakes, but it has a chalky texture and a muted banana finish that makes it at least hint at the yellow fruit. All versions of Fever have a bit of bitterness to them — almost certainly the result of all the herbal infusions — hence the need for big fruit flavors to make them more palatable. Mango and banana may not be enough. C
Kiwi Strawberry packs a more teen-friendly punch, berry in the body but with a raisin-like finish that makes it a bit less pleasant. C-
Pineapple Coconut is arguably my favorite of this bunch, a pina colada wannabe that is hefty on the coconut, which helps to mask some of those bitter herbal notes. B
As for the functional claims of the drink, ultimately I’m feeling about as “stimulated” as usual… but mostly I just want to find something to get this taste out of my mouth.
each $2.50 per 16-oz. can / feverusa.com
Vermont Spirits already makes two vodkas with the strangest source material around — milk sugar and maple sap — and now it’s gone the “limited edition” route.
Vermont’s Limited Release Vodka is also made of maple sap, but only the “early run sap,” the first flows of the “sugaring” season when sap is drawn from maple trees. This sap is lighter in color and milder in flavor, supposedly it’s used to make the very finest maple syrups available.
It’s also used to make vodka, in this case less than 1,000 hand-numbered 375ml half-bottles each year. While the idea of “limited release” vodka might sound a little absurd, this one’s legit. A very limited quantity of this early run sap is available, and if you’re fortunate enough to find a bottle of this stuff, consider yourself lucky.
Like Vermont Gold (the company’s maple sap vodka), Vermont Limited Release is sugary but not overwhelmingly sweet, balancing vodka’s medicinal character with light and playful sweetness. It’s not as sweet as Vermont Gold — in keeping with the early run sap story — which probably makes it more of a connoisseur’s vodka than its forebear. Good stuff, even if its price tag does make it one of the most expensive vodkas on the market.
Tasted: 2008 Edition (the current release). 80 proof.
A /$45 (375ml bottle) / vermontspirits.com
Newly released, this Sonoma Coast pinot is a rather archetypal version of the grape and the region, an earthy, chewy wine with a plummy, almost prunish, core — but with a twist. Raspberry is big on the nose, which makes Picket Fence’s creation a little more jazzy and exciting. It’s a shame that doesn’t translate into the body of the wine, but it’s enough to merit checking out a bottle should you run across it at a shop or wine list.
A- / $42 / picketfencevineyards.com
It’s not a bad idea at its core: Take Spain’s national grape, tempranillo, and blend it with grapes that American consumers might actually know, and sell the concoctions as double-varietal bottlings.
Tempra Tantrum (get it?) takes cabernet sauvignon, merlot, grenache, and shiraz, and blends them in 40% concentrations with tempranillo (60%), in each of the four versions of this wine. All are from the 2008 vintage and hail from the Tierra de Castilla region of Spain.
And you know what: All four pretty much taste the same. Indeed, as vintner Rocio Osborne desired, these wines are all fruit forward and easy to drink, pleasant as all get-out with cherry notes and light herb character — but, to be honest, lacking much real character. In fact, tasting through all four varieties, I was hard pressed to find much difference among them. The cab blend might be a little chewier than the lighter merlot and grenache, and the shiraz has a touch of spicy raciness to it, but if you served this quartet blind, you’d be hard-pressed to pick out much of a difference.
For a $10 wine, they’re pretty high-quality and represent amazing values, but, on the whole, none of them are entirely memorable.
all varieties: B / $10 / tempratantrum.com
I’m calling it now: This will be the “it” cocktail of 2010. Very simple to make, nicely bittersweet, beautiful to look at, and easy to drink, especially as an aperitif.
Aperol Spritz
1 1/2 oz. Aperol liqueur
2 oz. Prosecco
splash of club soda
Build in a tall glass over ice and stir gently.
Prosecco works best, but pretty much any sparkling wine can be used in this recipe. Delish.
On the heels of Pierre Ferrand’s 10-year-old Ambre, I gave the distillery’s 20-year-old Reserve cognac a try.
I was less of a fan of this edition of Ferrand’s brandy, which is considerably darker in color but comes off as a bit brutish and somewhat unbalanced. The flavors are relatively typical of the space, veering more toward the citrus. There’s lemon, orange, honey, and a big oak finish. But something is off in the finale… I can only describe it as having a little bit of a whiff of a fishmonger’s stall, though — and again I can’t really put this properly into words — it’s not entirely unpleasant, just off.
On the whole it’s a fair cognac, but the younger Ambre is considerably easier on the palate. Note that prices vary widely.
80 proof.
B / $65 / le-cognac.com
4 Orange Vodka: Orange-flavored vodka, right?
Wrong: Vodka made out of oranges. Nothing but Florida oranges (four varieties of ‘em, hence the name).
Technically I’m unsure you can actually call 4 Orange a vodka, legally speaking, I mean. By law, I’ve read that vodka is supposed to be flavorless, but 4 Orange is decidedly flavor-full. As you might expect, it’s quite orangey, jammy/marmalade-like in character and with only a little bit of bitter orange peel bite in the finish.
Very clean and refreshing, it’s not cloying at all, and the taste is very natural. Maybe 4 Oranges is on to something here, distilling the vodka out of the product you want it to taste like, rather than mixing in a bunch of flavoring agents after the fact.
A- / $25 / 4orangevodka.com
Plantation Rum. The name sounds innocuous, but the way these rums are made are unlike any others you’re likely to encounter.
The rums are produced by the team behind Pierre Ferrand cognac and Citadelle Gin, single-country in origin with a bit of a twist. The rums are distilled in the country in which the sugar cane is grown, then put into either old bourbon or sherry oak casks, then aged in country. After several years of aging, the casks are then shipped to France and aged a second time in French oak barrels, after which they are then bottled for sale.
Plantation comprises nine different rums and produces a different “vintage” each year (with a couple of special, non-vintage editions in the mix). We got our hands on four to try. Thoughts follow.
Plantation Rum Jamaica 2000 – The nose is surprisingly a bit harsh, as is the initial rush on the palate. But this rum grows on you, with big, sweet flavors that are intermixed with banana and pineapple notes. Coconut on the finish, plus some less savory vegetal notes. It’s a very interesting rum to sample… I think of it as a working man’s rum, simple on the surface but with some bite beneath. 84 proof. B+ / $35
Plantation Rum Trinidad 2000 – Intensely spicy, with an overwhelming smokiness and a boozy kick. There is cane, pineapple, and guava-like tropical fruit in the finish, but it’s still a harsh one for sipping straight. 84 proof. B / $35
Plantation Rum Barbados 2000 – Ah, the smoothie of the bunch. This one goes down easy, and while it has less up-front character and nuance, it’s so drinkable it’s hard not to love. A blend of pot- and column-distilled rums, the whiskey-like character shows lots of vanilla notes. My favorite of the 2000 series. 84 proof. A- / $35
Plantation Rum Grande Reserve 5 Years Old Barbados – Darker than the 2000, though probably not aged for as long a time. Despite the name this is actually Plantation’s entry-level rum, and it’s amazingly good for its $20 price tag. Like the 2000 Barbados, it’s smooth and simple, with vanilla to spare. Slightly less alcohol makes it even easier, and very sweet. Love it. A- / $20
