,

Around The World In Cocktails: Meet Atholl Brose, Scotland's Ancient Drink

,

When I started this around the world cocktail series in 2020, I took requests on Instagram for countries that people wanted to learn drink history about. And one of the first requests I got was for Scotland. So considering my Scottish roots, I had to explore the drink history of Scotland, and more specifically, Scotch whisky. Enter Atholl Brose, a Scottish drink that dates back centuries.

Some purists may say that Scotch is meant to be enjoyed neat, but even with my Scottish heritage, I am not one of those. Some of the best cocktails I’ve had were Scotch cocktails, not the least of which is the Penicillin (too bad it doesn’t stave off Covid). Today I’m talking about what might be one of the oldest cocktails ever. That Scottish drink is Atholl Brose.

Story has it that in the late 1400s, The Earl of Atholl (Scottish Highlands) was trying to capture the Lord of the Isles, who was leader of a rebellion against the king. Hearing rumors that the Lord drew water from a small well, the Earl had the well spiked with whisky, honey and oatmeal, which in turn resulted in one drunk Lord who then became one drunk captured Lord. While that would be one heckuva lot of whisky, honey and oatmeal to fill a well, who am I to dispute it? The rest is history.

Atholl Brose may not have the same following as say a milk punch or eggnog, yet deserves its place among milky cocktails. Much like eggnog, Atholl Brose is often enjoyed around the holidays and New Year’s Eve. Scotland has its own New Year’s Eve celebration, known as Hogmanay. Traditional Atholl Brose recipes call for steeping steel-cut oats in water to create an oat milk, but in my recipe, I skipped that step and just got store-bought oat milk. It traditionally calls for heavy cream, and I skipped that, too, lest I drink my daily calorie allotment in one drink. See my recipe for Atholl Brose below.

Atholl Brose

🍹2 oz. blended Scotch whisky
🍹2 oz. oat milk
🍹1 spoon honey
🍹1 spoon orgeat

Method: To make it, add the honey and whisky together to dissolve the honey. Then add the rest of the ingredients along with it to a cocktail shaker with ice and shake. Strain into the fanciest looking glass you have, and voila. My housemate said it was absolutely delicious and asked if she could have it for breakfast, so I’ll take it. Slàinte Mhath!


,

Around The World In Cocktails: Meet Ancho Reyes, Mexico's Chile Liqueur From Puebla

,

Fittingly on Cinco de Mayo, let’s go to Puebla, Mexico, known for its ancho chiles and one of my all-time favorite spirits, Ancho Reyes. More importantly, Puebla is known for the Battle of Puebla. What is that, you ask? Well, it’s the reason for Cinco de Mayo. No, Cinco de Mayo is not Mexico's Independence Day. Rather it commemorates the Battle of Puebla on May 5th, 1862, the underdog Mexico victory over France. Napoleon III (not to be confused with Napoleon Bonaparte), sent thousands of troops to Mexico to invade it because of Mexico’s debt to France. However, greatly outnumbered, the Mexican military defeated the French.

In Mexico, it’s much more of a regional holiday, and isn’t the big nationwide Mexican celebration that some may think. Cinco de Mayo gained popularity in America several decades ago because to no one’s surprise, beverage companies commercialized it. To paraphrase what the owner of one of my local Mexican bars said, “It’s the quintessential white person holiday in America.”

So today we’re making Ancho Reyes cocktails, which are rooted in Puebla. In short, Ancho Reyes is a liqueur made from ancho and poblano chiles, dating back to a 1927 Puebla recipe. Today, I’d argue that it’s one of the most versatile spirits of a bar. Add a splash of Ancho Reyes to a Tequila Old Fashioned (instead of sugar) or to a margarita, mule or gimlet, and it completely changes the cocktail. Ancho Reyes makes two versions, an ancho chile liqueur and a Chile Poblano liqueur, dubbed Ancho Reyes Verde. The ancho chile liqueur is more rich, warming, and smoky, while Ancho Reyes Verde is more earthy and herbaceous.


The cocktail I’m highlighting in this post is what I’ve dubbed a Mexico Martini. I made a Tarragon Syrup, which you’d make by bringing a cup of water and a cup of sugar to a boil, and then removing from heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar, and infusing with a couple sprigs of tarragon for 30 minutes. I then added a couple bar spoons of tarragon syrup, 2 ounces of mezcal and 1 ounce of Ancho Reyes Verde to a mixing glass with ice, and stirred for 10 seconds. Strained into a coupe, and there you have a Mexico Martini. Salud!

,

Around The World In Cocktails: Meet The New York Sour

,


Round The World Cocktail edition coming in hot, or rather cold, served on the rocks. Today, I’m highlighting one of my first cocktail loves, the New York Sour. SPOILER: The New York Sour didn’t originate in NYC.

As the name presumes, in the cocktail canon, the New York Sour is of the sour cocktail family, dating back to the mid-1800s when we first see sours referenced. The New York Sour cocktail seems to have first appeared in print in the late-1800s, in Chicago. Back then, it went by a few names, including the Continental Sour, Southern Whiskey Sour, and Claret Snap. It’s not too clear how the New York Sour name came to be, but it’s fitting considering New York City’s contribution to cocktail history and culture.

For those Boardwalk Empire fans, you may remember the premiere of season 4, aptly named “New York Sour,” in which the New York Sour makes an appearance. While the New York Sour may not have the pop culture clout of the Martini, Vesper, or White Russian, it deserves its place in cocktail canon.

What makes this whiskey sour such a unique cocktail is the red wine float on top. The New York Sour cocktail may not be your everyday cocktail, but don’t sleep on it, just because there’s wine in the ingredient list. In my opinion, the New York Sour is one of the best, most interesting four-ingredient cocktails. Read on for the recipe.

New York Sour

🍹2 oz. whiskey
🍹.25-.5 oz. simple syrup
🍹 .75 oz. lemon juice
🍹 .5 oz. red wine

Method: Add all the ingredients, but the wine, to a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake and then strain into a rocks glass filled with ice. Then place a spoon just over the surface of the drink, turning it over so that the bottom of the spoon is facing up just over the top of the liquid, and gently pour the wine over the back of the spoon. Cheers!


,

Around The World In Cocktails: Meet Port, the Fortified Wine Of Portugal

,

Let’s go to Portugal. Yes, we’re making port cocktails, and no this isn’t your grandma’s port. SPOILER: This time there are TWO cocktails we’re making!

But first some history. As many may know, port is a fortified wine, which in short means that it has distilled spirit added to it, which in port’s case is brandy. While it may seem sacrilegious to add booze to wine, there’s a story behind it. And like many stories about alcohol, it involves a fight, or in this case, war.

Port historically hails from the Douro Valley in North Portugal. Way back in the day, when the English and French were at war, the English weren’t able to get French tipples like they used to. Their search for better wine brought them to the Douro Valley of Portugal. However, the wine would often spoil by the time they got back to England. So someone had the bright idea of adding brandy to keep the port from spoiling. And the rest is history.

Picture of Douro River from balcony of hotel room in Porto, Portugal

The view from the Pestana Vintage Porto, overlooking the Douro River

Most ports are pretty sweet and rich, typically enjoyed post-dinner. For many people, that’s not how they like their wine, and who can blame them, since a lot of wine is delicious in and of itself. Port has also become synonymous as something that grandmas drink. Is that why they live so long? Be that as it may, let me recommend an alternative: Port cocktails!

I use most ports in cocktails similar as I would sweet vermouth, albeit port is less bitter. But did you know there’s dry white port, in addition to sweet? Below, I include a recipe for one of my favorite two-ingredient cocktails, the Port and Tonic, plus a concoction of my own, a Pecan Pie Manhattan.

Port and Tonic
🍹2 oz. extra dry white port
🍹4 oz. tonic
🍹Cucumber, lime, and/or mint to garnish

Method: This is made like a traditional Gin and Tonic, so the ratios can vary, such as 3:1, 1:1 or 2:1 like I have here. You’ll add the port and tonic to a highball or wine glass, fill it with ice, and then squeeze a wedge of lime and garnish with lime, mint or basil. Set up a small circular table beneath your patio umbrella with an uncomfortable metal chair, and it’ll be like you’ve been transported to a Porto cafe.

Picture of port and tonic cocktail

Pecan Pie Manhattan

🍹2 oz. pecan-infused bourbon

🍹1 oz. tawny port

🍹Dash bitters

Method: This is made using pecan-infused bourbon (hat tip to Death and Co.), which involves adding a cup of lightly toasted pecans to a half-bottle of bourbon and letting it sit in a sealed mason jar for a week. To make the Pecan Pie Manhattan, make it just like a Manhattan cocktail, stirring the ingredients in a glass with ice and then straining into a coupe or martini glass. If you want a frothy top like this, then shake it rather than strain. Saúde🥂!



,

Around The World In Cocktails: Meet Brennivin, The Original Spirit of Iceland

,

If you’ve spent any time in the far Northern reaches of Europe, then you may be familiar with aquavit, which is the spirit of Scandinavia. For those language lovers like me, or if you studied Latin, then you may know of aquavit from the Latin term from aqua vitae, meaning "water of life." While aquavit isn’t exactly an everyday spirit in America that you’ll find at your local bar, it’s been distilled in Scandinavia for centuries. Aquavit is a neutral spirit, typically distilled from grain. However, it's different than other neutral spirits because of the dominance of caraway, an aromatic plant that can have a very sharp flavor. It has a citrusy, anise flavor to it. Spend a week in Norway, and you won’t be able to miss seeing aquavit everywhere.

picture of Brennivin bottle and cocktail made with Brennivin

In Iceland, which isn’t technically Scandinavian (rather Nordic), it’s all about Brennivin, a spirit that is often characterized as a type of aquavit. While caraway and dill are typically used in producing aquavit, Brennivin only uses caraway. It's the OG Iceland spirit, first introduced in the mid 1930s when the government partially lifted prohibition. The black label was used by Iceland in an effort to limit appeal and demand in favor of temperance, but it had the opposite effect. The rest is history, and Brennivin remains a uniquely Iceland spirit, and the signature spirit.

In Iceland, it’s typically served neat, and very cold. I interviewed Icelandic actor Ólafur Darri Ólafsson a couple years ago, and I agreed with what he said about it being an acquired taste. As he further shared, many people in Iceland will have it with fermented shark. As I learned from Darri, around Christmas, Brennivin releases a limited edition winter aquavit, which they call "The Real Christmas Spirit," that is finished in former bourbon and sherry casks. Sign. Me. Up.

For me, it’s a hard pass on fermented shark. But as I started making cocktails with Brennivin, I liked using it in a similar way as gin. Anyone who knows me knows that the Negroni, which uses gin, is one of my favorite all-time cocktails, but also one of my favorite cocktails to make variations of. So I came up with an Icelandic Negroni, which replaces the gin with Brennivin, and uses another favorite ingredient of mine that’s popular in Iceland, rhubarb, but in the form of rhubarb bitters. Instead of Campari I used Aperol, making for a less bitter version of a Negroni. Consider this a gateway to the Negroni family of cocktails.

Brennivin Negroni

🍹1 oz. Brennivin
🍹1 oz. Aperol
🍹1 oz. Red Vermouth
🍹Rhubarb Bitters
🍹Lemon peel, for garnish


Method: To make it, you add all of the ingredients to a mixing glass with ice and stir. Then strain into a rocks glass over ice, and garnish with a citrus peel. Skal!

,

Around The World In Cocktails: World-Renowned Cocktails And Their History

,

“Well National Mezcal Day seems like as good of a day as any to start a little ‘Round The World’ Cocktail series.” And that, which I wrote on Instagram, is how it started a year and a half ago. It was October 2020, month 8 of a pandemic that didn’t seem like it was going anywhere anytime soon. I had built a career in travel, as a writer, photographer, and content strategist, and well if this is your first pandemic like it was mine, or if you’d read Station Eleven, then you know that travel is typically the first thing to go. Some people immediately took up bread baking, language learning, instrument playing, or home bartending, but I evidently sat with the reality of this new normal. And then on National Mezcal Day, I decided to put my nerdiness, travel knowledge, cocktail making, and photo skills to use. What I thought may turn into a few weeks and a handful of cocktails and Instagram posts about the history of said cocktails, has now turned into some 75 weeks and 20 posts.


So, considering Instagram’s word count limitations, and since like the Energizer Bunny, this series has kept going and going, I’ve decided to start posting some of the stories and photos from my Instagram drink series onto my website. If you want to see the entire series, head over to my Instagram page, @spencerspellman. Continue reading for the first iteration, about one of my favorite spirits, mezcal, with some additional commentary from yours truly.

While this was originally published on National Mezcal Day in 2020, it seemed fitting to publish ahead of Cinco de Mayo this year. Though Cinco de Mayo in America often has appearances of a boisterous affair involving margaritas and tequila shots, I like to shed a light on some of Mexico’s lesser-known spirits and flavors.

While I’m not going to get started on why there’s a National Mezcal Day in America for a spirit rooted in Mexico, I am going to share about one of my favorite spirits, and what I think is the most interesting spirit in the world. In short, mezcal refers to spirits distilled from agave. Tequila then is technically a type of mezcal. But tequila can only be made by blue agave (and distilled in specific Mexico states). A majority of mezcal is made with the Espadin species of agave (and often made in the state of Oaxaca), but there are more than 200 species of agave (though many aren’t able to be distilled into mezcal).

The species of agave, combined with the terroir of the region its grown, creates a wide range of flavors across different mezcals. Families and villages for hundreds of years have taken part in the traditional method of distilling mezcal, in which agave is roasted in earthen wood-fired pits and then the agave juice is distilled in copper pot stills. Hence the “smoky” flavor profile. I’ll never forget being on the Oaxaca coastline a few years ago, in Puerto Escondido, and walking down the town’s main drag when a restaurant owner excitedly pulled me off the sidewalk and brought me into his open-air restaurant overlooking the Pacific in order to try his uncle’s mezcal. I kid you not, the label on the bottle was clip art. But I don’t know if I’ve met someone who was so excited and proud to share with me a taste of something that their family had made.

I’ve discovered a similar sense of passion and pride from others I’ve met who are involved in mezcal’s production. This includes Fausto Zapata, co-founder of El Silencio, who I met years ago in L.A. What began as a quick meet-and-greet with El Silencio’s PR agency, which years later would employ me, evolved into a mezcal and taco tour of the Hollywood bars that carried El Silencio. It’s one of my favorite nights out in L.A. Later, while living in Sonoma County, I met Sal Chavez, of La Luna Mezcal, at the Wine Country Distillery Festival, as he passionately shared about La Luna’s expressions of mezcal. It’s stories like these that have drawn me so much to Latin American food, drinks, and culture.

The history, uniqueness, process, and family nature of mezcal all makes it one of my favorite spirits. I love how in Mexico I’ve often had it served to me in small clay copitas alongside orange slices topped with ground pepper, and in some cases served with worm salt and/or crickets (yes, seriously). So for National Mezcal Day, I created this mezcal cocktail featuring El Silencio mezcal and another one of my favorite cocktail ingredients, Ancho Reyes.

Why yes, that is worm salt on the grapefruit and a mound of crickets


Smoke, Spice, and All Things Nice

🍹1 oz. Mezcal
🍹1 oz. Ancho Reyes
🍹.25 oz. cinnamon simple syrup
🍹.75 oz. lime juice
🍹Sparkling grapefruit (Fever-Tree, Bundaberg, or Q Mixers, for example)


Method: Add all of the ingredients, except the grapefruit, to a cocktail shaker with ice and shake. Strain into a glass with ice and top with sparkling grapefruit. Garnish with a lime, and if you have it on hand, a cinnamon stick.