Author Archives: dh

Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel Tennessee Whiskey

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For me, Tennessee whiskey looks like bourbon’s wild neighbour. Its smell and taste differs from bourbon whiskey so much, its character’s so robust.

I think the point is the Lincoln County Process according to which the whiskey is filtered through a huge layer of sugar maple charcoal. Definitely that makes a difference in the Jack Daniel’s aroma.

One day I got a chance to taste interesting Jack Daniel’s product – Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel Tennessee Whiskey. That’s nice idea: every barrel brings whiskey with unique flavor. So you can’t say that you tasted  Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel because you tasted whiskey just from one barrel.

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Woodward

I have to admit that I count grapefruit juice as a perfect mixer. Despite it’s not as popular as lime juice, grapefruit juice brings richer flavour, fresher fragrance and unique bitter and tart aftertaste.

I prefer pink grapefruits because I think they give more constant taste than white ones.  Pink grapefruit juice combines perfectly with gin, vodka and tequila. But does it work with scotch?

Recently I’ve found simple cocktail recipe at CocktailDB in which blended scotch mixes with grapefruit juice and dry vermouth. It’s called Woodward, and I was going to learn how it works.

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Bananas Foster Cocktail

This cocktail is adapted from Bananas Foster Cocktail created by Shawn from Rejiggered. According to his words, he made it as liquid version of Bananas Foster dessert he enjoyed at one New Orleans restaurant.

For me, it was just one more cocktail experience in which I had a training how to properly use cream in cocktails. Honestly I was skeptical about this cocktail because usually I prefer bitter and strong drinks. But I was wrong and eventually ended up in love with sweet creamy cocktails.

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The Smoking Gun

Here is one more cocktail with single malt scotch whisky. That looks unusual but personally I love this trend.

The Smoking Gun was created by bartender Mark Allen, Red Feather Lounge, Boise, Idaho.

In this recipe Fernet combines with peaty scotch – unusual and a bit audacious decision at first sight. Both spirits ain’t components in general use. Quite the reverse, they look like very unfriendly when mixing with other spirits. But here is the case when first sight is absolutely wrong.

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The Bloodhound Cocktail

One more article about summer cocktail with berries I failed to post at the right time because of two-month abnormally heavy heat in Moscow.

The Bloodhound Cocktail isn’t modern recipe. I saw it on Noilly Prat promo website and later found it in two books I have available.

The first book was Frank Meier’s «The Artistry Of Mixing Drinks» (1936). The second one was Mardee Haidin Regan’s «The Bartender’s Best Friend» (2003). And I found another third version at the CocktailDB. All these recipes differ from each other so it was interesting to me to find my own perfect variant.

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Olga Cocktail

My wife is definitely not an imbiber, nevertheless she always supports me in my daily efforts of mixing, shaking, stirring, tasting, macerating, blending, buying and drinking, drinking, drinking. That’s why I’m always ready to do something when she asks me to «pour her something tasty». Usually a dram of Laphroiag 10 yo or fresh grapefruit juice with Campari are enough but sometimes she wants something special.

So one day she asked me to mix scotch with apple juice. You think that’s so simple. I thought too, and I was wrong.

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Bruichladdich Islay Single Malt Scotch Whisky 12 yo

Bruichladdich Distillery is the one of three «B» (Bowmore, Bruichladdich, Bunnahabhain) Islay distilliries which produce lightly peated whisky. That’s why whiskies from these distilliries are often regarded as «not typical Islay single malt whisky».

By the way, Bruichladdich  is very old distillery, on of the oldest  at Islay. For a long period of time it has its  owners keeping changed each other so quickly and constantly that no one of them could set things going.. Invergordon Distillers и JBB / Whyte & Mackay , last two ex-owners were at the helm sequentially from  1968. They‘ve managed to stabilize situation.

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S.I.P. #1: Margarita

This post is my contribution to the first Russian Internet imbibers event called «S.I.P.».

At first blush similar to «Mixology Monday», our event is targeted to few Russian-speaking cocktail bloggers who already knew each other. We just want to share our passion and ideas with other Russian imbibers and to invite new people to join our cocktail community. And the main differences from MixMo will be very close and friendly atmosphere and much more opinions and discussions.

Well, the topic for the first event is Margarita, famous tequila-based cocktail.

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Honeysuckle Cocktails

In our garden we have some honeysuckle shrubs. That plant is very important in the beginning of the June when it usually starts to fruit, first of all shrubs. Blue and sour berries are similar to bilberry in taste and appearance but honeysuckle berries are sourer though .

This summer our honeysuckle had time to fruit before heavy heat burnt down all plants and shrubs and forced trees to drop their fruits.

I’ve managed to gather a lot of honeysuckle berries and enjoyed it in daiquiri. Later I’ve thought that I would make some new cocktails and started to experiment on it.

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MxMo September: Lime – Gimlet

The topic for September’s MixMo is very cheerful – lime. Thanks Doug who chose this theme and hosted current event at his The Pegu Blog.

Recently I took my time to read carefully Sonja Kassebaum’s article about homemade lime cordial. I wanted to make a couple glasses of  Gimlets and to compare how cordial and fresh lime juice work there.

So then I knew the theme for new MixMo, my Gimlets were ready to be tasted. What a coincidence!

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