#28. Champagne Cocktail

We had some champagne because neighbor A brought some to drink with strawberry basil sorbet. Strawberry basil sorbet and champagne is not in this book, but it is delicious. Note to everyone: get some strawberry basil sorbet, and some champagne, and combine, as it is delicious.

Ensslin's champagne cocktail is angostura bitters, a lump of sugar, orange peel, lemon peel, and champagne. This is a pointless drink, so I'm going to add a new tag: pointless. Look: you're already drinking champagne. Drink the champagne and be happy. Or, if you must add something to it, fine. Get some sorbet. This other stuff is just silly and a needless delay between you and your champagne.

Difford's version is similar but involves cognac too. He doesn't see much point in it either, I might add.

#24. Mint Mash

This is just a name variant on the old, familiar Mint Julep. It's pretty tasty. Sugar, mint, booze (Ensslin says rye, bourbon, or gin) topped with fizzy water.

We did bourbon and gin both (No, not at the same time. Gross.) The bourbon was a little better, I think. The bourbon taste came through in a strong but not overpowering way. Gin, I found, faded into the background to such and extent that you could barely remember that it was still around. The gin Mint Mash was downright watery tasting, compared to its tastier, bourbon cousin.

Neither was as good as a mojito, though. Needs that lime, is the thing. Lime is an important ingredient, and one we'd best not forget about. It gives things a nice lime taste, lime does.

To be fair, there are those who insist on all sorts of other rules where mint and juleps are concerned. I've read various arguments about infusing syrup with mint, muddling mint with straight sugar, frosting a silver cup, etc. etc. So maybe I did it wrong and was totally missing out. Still pretty good though.

#11. Canadian Cocktail

There should be a subsection of this blog listing cocktails named after places that have relationship to the place that they're named after. A Canadian cocktail should have at least one ingredient that's Canadian, like maybe Canadian whiskey. Instead, this one is half a lemon, powdered sugar, curacao, and a tiny bit of rum. No idea what any of these ingredients have to do with Canada. Maybe Canadians liked this cocktail in 1916 because it made them feel like they were somewhere tropical and not Canada.

This is a fine drink, but anything with such a strong citrus taste can't be that bad. It barely tastes like a drink at all. It's more like some new kind of orangey lemonade. That's really my principle complaint about this drink--it's kind of overkill. It would be much easier and more satisfying to just mix something with lemonade, and not go through all the lemon squeezing. (Side note: last night I saw Fleur de Tease at a casino on a boat. A dancer made lemonade on stage. More entertaining than it sounds just from me saying "a dancer made lemonade on stage.")

So, the Canadian Cocktail is pretty good, and next time I'm hanging out with some Canadians, I'll show my hospitality by offering them one, since it's the national drink of Canada, I'm sure. Otherwise, I'll pass as there are easier ways to combine citrus and liquor.

#5. Bacardi cocktail / Cuban cocktail

These two are identical. Rum, sugar, lime. DONE. They get separate listings, though the only difference between the two is that Ensslin calls for a "drink" of Bacardi and a jigger of Cuban rum. The Bacardi cocktail is the stronger drink, but considering that we're dealing with units like "dashes" and "half a lime" I think it's fair to go ahead and count these two at once.

You cannot lose with this one. This is probably the way the majority of all rum has been consumed. Some combination of sugar, lime, and sometimes water is the typical way to make Caribbean rum tasty, and it works. No frills. I read all about it in And a Bottle of Rum which is a wonderful book about the history of rum.

There's no reason at all to use Bacardi, of course. I did, but only because Ensslin told me to, and I try to obey the letter of the law and the spirit. I would have rather used the perfectly good (perfectly better, in my opinion) bottle of Cruzan I've got, but that can wait for a recipe that asks for St. Croix rum since that's what it is.

Difford's guide includes a pretty interesting story about this one. Apparently Bacardi ended up suing a bar for not using Bacardi when people asked for a Bacardi cocktail. I'm not convinced it was worth suing over, but I see their point. It does only seem fair that a person get the liquor they ask for. Maybe if Bacardi has lost their lawsuit (they didn't) bartenders would just give us whatever they wanted when we say, "Ketel 1 and tonic, please," and we'd have to watch carefully to make sure we didn't get Cosmonaut or whatever. (I just made up cosmonaut, but I see no evidence that there's already a brand of vodka called Cosmonaut. I CLAIM IT. This will be my vanity vodka brand, ala Ciroc. Only mine will be better, because each bottle will have been FLOWN INTO SPACE. That is the COSMONAUT guarantee!)

Also I'm using simple syrup instead of gum syrup because I'm pretty confident it's the same thing, or near enough. Gum syrup might be a bit sweeter, and it might last longer at room temperature. Whatever. I'm calling simple syrup close enough.

Also, let's have another one of these, yeah?