cocktails

Stirred Cucumber Drinks

/ jasonobryan / 1 Comment

This week’s Robb Report article was about a cocktail called the Archangel. You can read it here if you like, but briefly summarized: the Archangel is a neo-classic from 2006, essentially the build of a Gin Martini, but with the bold bittersweet liqueur Aperol subbed in for dry vermouth’s herbal whisperings: 3 parts gin, 1 part Aperol.

It also has one additional twist, the curious addition of a lightly muddled (or “bruised”) cucumber, stirred all together and strained up.

If you don’t live and work in the cocktail world, maybe you don’t know how strange this “bruised” cucumber business is. Cucumbers are for shaken refreshing drinks, not boozy stirred ones. Cucumber Margaritas. Cucumber ‘Tinis. This sort of thing. They bring a cooling herbaceousness to the palate that is broad and almost urgently refreshing, and are what make drinks like the Eastside Rickey (gin, lime, cucumber, mint, soda) so irrepressibly, grab-the-table-with-your-eyes-closed delicious. As far as I knew, the Archangel, invented in 2006, is the first time anyone specifically designed an all-booze, no-juice drink with a muddled cucumber (I wasn’t exactly correct about it being the first, more on that below). 

I’ll do you one more: the Archangel is fucking amazing. The drink is a total banger — the cucumber takes on a floral resonance, a green ribbon of flavor that weaves throughout the entire tasting experience, like a smell in a cartoon that lifts you off your feet and tractor-beams you toward a pie. It’s great both on the rocks or up, and, in another big surprise to me, it’s great across styles of gin, from Tanqueray to Plymouth to Hendrick’s to even something wild like Aviation.

It’s just great. It’s a great drink. Full stop.

So what, we’re stirring our cucumbers now?

Every idea has to start somewhere, so I understand that maybe no one had done that exact thing before Michael McIlroy and Richard Boccatto came up with it at Milk & Honey, but that was 18 years ago. What about since? Where are the cucumbers in stirred drinks now? Surely the Archangel isn’t the only possible way to use this technique?

This is not rhetorical, it was an honest question. When Jeffrey Morgenthaler came up with barrel aging cocktails in 2010, they were doing it at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouses by like 2012. A technique breakthrough, especially one with such a delicious proof of concept, should be everywhere, but before I started writing this I only knew of one other bruised cucumber stirred drink, and that one sucked.

Incredulous, I scoured a bunch of cocktail books and blogs and gathered as many as I could find, which ended up as the following 10. Of those 10, I made 8 of them, because I would have needed to buy six new bottles to make the final drinks, and that’s too many.

And now, may I present:

WONDERFUL COCKTAILS with STIRRED CUCUMBER

Archangel

  • 2.25oz Gin
  • 0.75oz Aperol
  • 3 cucumber wheels

Muddle cucumbers in a mixing glass. Add liquids and ice and stir for 10-20 seconds. Strain up into a coupe, and garnish with a lemon peel or a cucumber slice.

Green and Red — Thomas Waugh, 2012, as detailed in the Death & Co. Cocktail Book.

  • 1oz Siete Leguas Blanco Tequila
  • 1oz Jalapeno-infused Siembra Azul Blanco Tequila
  • 0.75oz Cocchi Americano
  • 0.75oz Dolin Dry Vermouth
  • 0.25oz Alvear Festival Pale Cream Sherry
  • 3 cucumber wheels

Muddle cucumbers in a mixing glass. Add liquids and ice and stir for 10-20 seconds. Strain up into a coupe, and garnish with a cucumber ribbon, on a pick

My notes:

Oh, that’s wonderful. Tequila and the cucumber goes super well together — the green notes from the tequila melds with cucumber like a dream, and the jalapeno infusion obviously helps. The way the cocchi + sherry interact, especially on the finish, is phenomenal. Goddamnit Cocchi is such a good product. Arcs over the palate, while the cucumber plays it’s floral game. Heat helps with sweetness. Really good.

Mexicano — Jim Meehan, 2010, as detailed in the PDT Cocktail Book

  • 1.5oz Partida Reposado Tequila
  • 0.75z Gran Classico Bitter
  • 3 Cucumber slices
  • 2oz Champagne

Muddle cucumbers in a mixing glass. Add tequila and liqueur and ice and stir for 10-20 seconds. Strain up into a coupe, top Champagne, and a lemon peel.

My notes:

Oh shit this is actually pretty good. Very bitter. Cucumber plays toward the vegetal-ness of the tequila. Cucumber more apparent on the nose than on the palate. Lemon peel helps. Robust vegetal bitterness on the back palate that the cucumber seamlessly transitions to. I hate the name but this is pretty good. Bubbles manage to lift it up. They clash with the gran classico, at least cava does, but that’s all on the finish. From the front to the midpalate it’s like “hi I’m lemon cucumber brightness” and then abruptly the Gran Classico is like “i’ll take it from here, son” and cucumber bitterness takes over.

Wheeler and Wilson — Leo Robitschek, as detailed in the NoMad Cocktail Book

  • 0.5oz Amaro Montenegro
  • 0.5oz Dolin Blanc
  • 0.5oz Lustau Los Arcos Amontillado Sherry
  • 0.75oz Diplomatico Reserva Aged Rum
  • 1oz Old Forrester 100 Bourbon
  • 3 cucumber slices

Stir with cucumber slices, then strain into a coupe, and garnish with 2nd cucumber slice

My Notes:

Woah. So much going on. Great though. Deep complexity. Harnesses the weirdness of the Montenegro well. There’s some noise here, and I strongly suspect it’s because I didn’t use the same brands (I had Dooley’s XO rum and Old Forrester 1920 Bourbon), but that’s not the drink’s fault. Even still, with the proof off and the rum very off, it’s solid — the cucumber gives a broad green base to a ton of complexity. If you’ve got the brands on hand, or even if you don’t, I recommend.

A STIRRED CUCUMBER DRINK that ALMOST BROKE MY BRAIN

Spring Sting — Pietro Collina, as detailed in the NoMad Cocktail Book

  • 1oz Pierre Ferrand 1840 Cognac
  • 0.75oz Cocchi Americano
  • 0.5oz Laphroig 10
  • 0.5oz Chareau
  • 1 tsp Amaro Nardini

Stir all together (no cucumber), then strain into a Nick & Nora, and garnish with a cucumber ball, placed into the drink.

My Notes:

WHAT THE FUCK. This is so fucking cool. Chareau and Laphroig? I’m sorry, what??

The description calls this “a stirred savory grasshopper,” and I see it vividly, but I’m not sure how it’s working. Starts with minty melon from Chareau, and smoke almost immediately makes a presence. Everything fits together amazingly well, and I’m not even using the right amaro [I used Averna]. This starts almost chocolaty, from what, the amaro+cognac? Then Chareau, then Laphroig. Cucumber supports Chareau aromatically and otherwise. Fabulous.

I’m not supposed to muddle cucumber but I did anyway. It’s great. Made it again without muddled cucumber, just placing a freshly cut cucumber into it after it’s made. Also great. Too insane for me to pick a favorite, I’ll have to try it side by side. I will be making this again.

STIRRED CUCUMBER DRINKS that ARE JUST FINE

For the sake of completeness, here’s the others. The next four I made and didn’t think were excellent, and won’t be making again. Listing them for completion, because there is otherwise no catalogue of all these in one place:

Polaris — Brandon Bramhall, Attaboy Nashbille, 2018, as detailed in the Bartender’s Choice App

  • 1.5oz Gin
  • 1oz Manzanilla
  • 0.5oz Aperol
  • Bruised cucumber

Stir. Up. Lemon twist 

My notes:

Good. Just an Archangel plus sherry. Sherry changes it. Completely takes over the finish. Aperol to gin to sherry. Adds complexity. Not sure it’s better, but it is good. Lemon really adds this time, in a way I don’t think it adds in the Archangel itself. Sherry fans might even consider this an improvement, but I mostly just want an Archangel. Shery fits in super well, but totally dominates the finish. It shortens the tasting process of the other, and then sherry’s like HI IT’S ME SHERRY.

Cobble Hill — Sam Ross, Milk & Honey, 2005, as detailed in the Bartender’s Choice App

  • 2oz Rye
  • 0.5oz Dry Vermouth
  • 0.5oz Montenegro
  • Cucumber

Stir. Up. Garnish with a freshly sliced cucumber.

My notes:

I tried this twice, and it is unique for me in that it’s the first Sam Ross cocktail that I haven’t liked even a little. Rye is weird. First impression is that this isn’t special. At least not with Bulleit rye. Doesn’t come together. Cucumber is a presence on the front palate, but the finish is just rye and weird. I see what he’s going for I think, and maybe gets there with a different rye, but not this one.

Trying again with Rittenhouse this time. Rich on the body. Still bad. What the shit. Bad. In that it’s not at all good. Tastes like pickles. Too dry.

Chin Up — Sam Ross, Milk & Honey, 2005, as detailed in the Bartender’s Choice App

  • 2oz gin
  • 0.5oz Cynar
  • 0.5oz Dry Vermouth
  • Salt
  • Cucumber 

Stir. Up. Lemon Twist

My notes, such as they are:

MUCH better than the Cobble Hill. Gin is just a better call. Still, nowhere as good as the Archangel. This sticks out in all the wrong places.

 False Start — Anne Robinson, Westlight, as detailed at Punch

  • 1.25oz Siete Leguas Reposado Tequila
  • 1oz Cardamaro
  • 0.75oz Dolin Rouge Vermouth
  • 0.25oz Cynar

Muddle 2 cucumbers slices, then add all ingredients and ice and stir, then fine strain into a coupe and garnish with a cucumber wheel.

My notes:

Pretty good. I see what it’s going for I think. I certainly don’t hate it, just a little anodyne. I didn’t use Siete Leguas Reposado which might make the difference [I used Siesta Repo], but I don’t think so. If the cocktail is that brand-dependent it’s a little meh. Just meh. Nothing bold, nothing sticks out, just sweetish, kinda boring. No edge. Like bobbing in an above-ground pool.

STIRRED CUCUMBER DRINKS that I HAVEN’T TRIED YET

Stone Crush — Chaim Dauermann, Up & Up Bar, as detailed in Spirited

  • 3-4 cucumber slices
  • 1.5oz Brennivin
  • 0.5oz Blanc Vermouth
  • 0.25oz Rabarbaro Zucca Amaro
  • 1oz Pilsner Beer

Muddle, then shake everything but beer, strain into rocks glass, top with pilsner, and stir to combine. Garnish with a lemon twist and a couple cucumber slices.

Beau Four — Leo Robitschek, as detailed in the NoMad Cocktail Book

“A springtime Manhattan with mentholated complexity and depth”

  • 1.5oz Jim Beam Black bourbon
  • 0.75oz Dolin Dry
  • 0.5oz Amaro Nardini
  • Short 0.5oz Amaro Foro
  • Cucumber slices

Stir on ice with cucumber slices. Strain into the coupe, garnish with a cucumber slice

Thanks for reading! Let me know how these strike you. Especially the Spring Sting. Good god.

FYI: I have an affiliate thing set up through Amazon, so buying the books through the links will give me a very small amount of money. It seems honorable to mention it.

My Favorite Manhattan Recipe

/ jasonobryan / 2 Comments

Or: How I think about the differences between a good drink and a great one.

My Definition of a Great Drink:

This seems like an easy question, admittedly — “the one that tastes awesome” — but there’s more to it than that. A great drink:

  1. Has a distinct beginning, middle, and end. Each ingredient plays a role, and you taste everything — not as a shotgun blast of complementary flavors, but as an elegant unfolding on the palate.
  2. Spans the palate across high tones, mid tones, and low tones. If it were all high notes — lemon zest, St. Germain, and fresh raspberries, say — it would be good but not great, because it would just hang out up there, on the tip of your tongue. Similarly vanilla, Cynar, and coffee: delicious but redundant, because they’re all low tones. Great drinks, for me, travel across the tonal flavor spectrum.
  3. The Flavors work. Obviously. No amount of clarity or tonal fascination can save it if the flavors don’t work together.

There are exceptions to this — some great drinks aren’t #2, and some aren’t even #1, though they all are #3 — but for the most part, this is what I’m looking for when I’m making or drinking cocktails. Below, I will explain a little more.

Mercy Rule: If you’re just here for the advertised “favorite Manhattan recipe” and don’t have five minutes for the why of it all, just click here.

Good Drinks vs. Great Drinks

Good drinks are easy. Anyone can make a good drink. Grab the Flavor Bible, pick any two ingredients that go together — blackberries and sage, say, or peaches and thyme — and put them together with a spirit and then sweet/sour balance, and voilà. You did it. Amazing.

Great drinks are a different thing entirely. Great drinks aren’t just about the flavors working, they’re about the unique flavor signature of each particular ingredient. To explain:

The problem with cocktails is that unlike chefs, we don’t have texture to play with. Take a caprese salad: Basil, tomato, and mozzarella, combined to form one of the best things on earth. The textures mean that even though you get all three on the same bite, they hit your palate at different times — the tomato is up front, sweet and acidic, and you taste its juiciness before you even start chewing. Then comes the creamy mozzarella, rich and resonant, occupying the middle and tempering the sweetness of the tomato. Then finally, after a few chews, basil begins to really express itself, from what was just a fragrance to a musky and robust herbaceousness that lingers on the finish.

High, middle, low. Beginning, middle, end. The Caprese is a great dish.

Now imagine that someone put those three in a blender and invited you to drink it with a straw. Still good? It’s the same flavors, right? Ignoring the fact that you’d be dealing with a psychopath, perhaps you take my point: remove texture from the equation and suddenly everything hits all at once, and while the flavors are still fine, you lose something essential of the dish.

Now consider a cocktail. Cocktails are homogeneous — every sip is exactly the same, and you taste every ingredient all at once. So if you want a drink with a distinct beginning, middle, and end — and what’s more, if you want it to have high notes, mid notes and low notes — you need to do it with the inherent character of the ingredients themselves. This is why great drinks are hard. Liquids react to each other in interesting and sometimes unpredictable ways, so to make something great, you need to either (1) know your ingredients preternaturally well, or (2) do a ton of trial and error.

Pictured: a few scant ounces of the metric shit-ton of trial and error I’ve done on Manhattans, and how I spent pretty much all of April 2020.

The Problem with Most Recipes

This is why it drives me nuts to see cocktail recipes that don’t mention a style or a producer, and will be like: “use 2oz rye.”

I’m sorry, “RYE?”

It’s all at least 51% rye and it’s all aged in oak, but beyond that, there are wild differences between the bottles. By “rye” do you mean punchy and full of corn like Rittenhouse? Or soft and green like Templeton? Or also soft and green but also heavily filtered like Dickel? Or fruity and a bit hollow like Old Overholt? Or chocolaty and deep with 100% malted rye like Old Potrero? Or aggressive and intense like Pikesville? Is the sweet rum barrel finish of Angel’s Envy OK? Any help on any of this? Nope. Just “rye.”

I’m not nitpicking here. This is the first 2 pages of Google.

Some cocktails, like the Whiskey Sour or Old Fashioned, are so basic and protean as to taste good with everything, but they’re the minority. When vermouth and juices and liqueurs start getting involved, just calling for a certain measure of “rye” is like giving up on the idea of greatness before you even start.

This is why I tend to get prescriptive about brands. Not because I take any money from them (I don’t), but because a cocktail recipe is like a biometric safe, and to make a great drink — what I’m always looking for, in accordance to those three goals at top — you need the specific fingerprint of a specific bottle or category to unlock it.

The Manhattan

My go-to Manhattan is for me the most dynamic, the one which takes me on the biggest and most satisfying flavor rollercoaster.

That being said, it’s important to note: I’m not here to say there’s one “best” version of each drink. There are, in fact, a bunch of truly great Manhattans, more than a few tall peaks on that particular flavor landscape. I’ve found three so far, and I know there are many, many more I’ve not yet discovered.

I’m going to show you the one I tend to reach for most often because of my particular tastes, but I’m not saying it’s better than other great Manhattans. What I’m saying is that all the great Manhattans are better than the ones that are merely good.

The one I tend to make the most is Bulleit Rye, Cocchi Vermouth di Torino, and Angostura Bitters. Every liquid ingredient has its own flavor curve, where and when on the palate it expresses itself. I think of their flavors like this:

Bulleit Rye: Starts very quiet, with a gentle light grain sweetness, goes a touch low in the midpalate, and then finishes higher with textured oak and the rye’s spice.

Cocchi Vermouth di Torino: Sweet and high fruity up front, then the midpalate swings dramatically down with a low vanilla hum, then it comes up to the rest of the herbs and a lightly sweet, light bitter finish.

Angostura Bitters: There’s a low bitter floor that persists the whole way, but it also has non-bitter flavor notes, which rise in baking spices and citrus through the palate. This complexity is one of the reasons Angostura is perpetually better than its competitors.

The Manhattan, put together:

There’s just so much movement in this version. It goes high to low and then mid-high again, and each peeling off one-by-one. Remember that the liquid is completely mixed, and each sip is exactly the same, so when you can find ingredients that give you this kind of ride just through the interactions of their innate personalities, you, my friend, have found a great drink.

My favorite Manhattan (so far):

  • 2.25oz Bulleit Rye
  • 1oz Cocchi Vermouth di Torino
  • 3 dashes of Angostura Bitters

Chill a coupe or cocktail glass. Then add all the ingredients to a chilled mixing glass with ice, and stir for 15-20 seconds (on decent ice) or 10-15 seconds (on shitty ice). Taste before you strain — you’re looking for the flavors to be clear and articulate. If the ingredients are all trying to speak at the same time, stir for 5 more seconds, but try not to overdilute. The Manhattan is frustratingly easy to under- or over-dilute. It’s not that hard, just a little annoying in the beginning. Once you know what you’re looking for, you can hit it every time.

Two Parting Questions:

  1. What did you think about this? Do the visuals make sense to you? Do you think about tasting some other way?
  2. Do you have a favorite Manhattan? If so, DM me, or leave it as a comment. I’d love to try it out. The work is never over.