Chivalrousgent's Posts

Chivalrousgent said:

"Spank" the mint

MRDICKIE said:

Love this.

Chivmiester...I have never had the pleasure of sampling one of these as the only time I go to Hawksmoor tends to be for lunch. What are your thoughts on this one and how the heck do you get hold of Absinthe!!!!!

ZOMBIE
Three Rums, Falernum, Absinthe, Homemade Grenadine, Grapefruit & Lime Juices,
with a Navy Rum float
Don the Beachcomber took infinite pains to safeguard his recipes. His bartenders were given them in code, along with bottles containing complicated pre-mixes, marked only with letters and numbers. The Zombie, his most infamous invention, was the most closely guarded of them all. It’s Tiki-land in a glass, but be warned, ours is as strong as Dons, so we recommend you find a friend to share it with.

I too am a Zombie aficionado ... they even waive the "maximum one per person limit" in my case

You can get absinthe in just about about half-reasonable drinks retailer - maybe even larger supermarkets!

There are a ton of recipes for this, each as drastically different as the others, but my twist on it looks something like this:

75ml of mixed rum (ideally) ... I would use a dark (Cruzan Blackstrap, Kraken, Goslings etc.) gold (Angostura 1919, El Dorado 5 preferably) and a light (El Dorado 3 or equivalent)
10ml Dark Overproof Rum (preferably Goslings 151)
10ml Falernum
50ml Grapefruit Juice
50ml Pineapple Juice
25ml Lime Juice
10ml Orgeat
Cherry Bitters
Grapefruit Bitters

(1) Add bitters to glass
(2) Shake everything else except overproof rum with ice
(3) Pour in to the largest ice-filled Tiki-mug, hurricane glass or highball (if you must)
(4) Pour an overproof rum 'float' (just tip it in at the top and it'll sink a little, but largely stay at the top, hence the "float" - it's because of differing densities)
(4) Garnish with whatever spectacular crap you have knocking about - I love Hawksmoor's triple pink grapefruit slices and mint combo tbh.

Be warned - this is very strong. And it's also not really a traditional zombie. But IMHO it's got enough of the key ingredients to be a Zombie variant rather than something completely separate.

For Tiki recipes I highly recommend ripping off just about anything the guys at PKNY (formerly "Painkiller" in NYC) do ... theirs are definitely up there with Hawksmoor (and mine):

PKNY

Though the site appears to be down at the moment ...

Sorry for the quick post, bed beckons.  

scarfacechen said:

dear cocktail corner,

what's the best way to make a mojito? i can never make it consistently nice.. its neither sickly sweet or too much rum?

thanks

The best Mojitos ultimately depend on your preferences (choice of rum and quantity of lime being the main thing), but this is a really solid recipe that I use:

50ml Havana Club White Rum (or something else - mojitos can use golden rum instead, or a different brand ... use Bacardi if you absolutely must, but don't buy all the marketing spiel ... it's shite)
15ml fresh lime juice
2 bar/tea-spoons of sugar
A good half-handful of mint - 10-12 leaves
Club Soda

(1) Get a Highball glass. "Spank" the mint (hold it in the palm then slap your other hand down on to it - this helps break down the cell walls and release the mint flavour) and place in the bottom along with all other ingredients except the soda.
(2) Fill half-way with crushed ice and take your bar-spoon (or something else) and thoroughly agitate/mix the drink - try to make sure, for presentation purposes, that the mint is worked through, not just sitting at the bottom looking miserable.
(3) Top up the rest of the way with crushed ice.
(4) Top up with club soda (shouldn't be much).
(5) Garnish with a couple of lime wedges

As an FYI - in Cuba, oddly enough they tend to make this with lemon juice, far more watery and without much rum. A proper Cuban mojito is a very different beast, and not as good as a version like this IMHO.  

Wolfy - Awesome, Guardalavaca is supposed to be lovely - worth a visit?

Fallen - Whilst I love both, you're right that Cohiba is overhyped to a degree. Sure they probably are the best (on average), but do they justify the ridiculous price premium? Nope.

If you like Montecristos try getting your hands on some of the Edicion Limitada (Limited Edition) Gran Edmundos. They're the nuts.

Bobby - out of interest, do you store them in a humidor? Otherwise they're going to be a lot less enjoyable than they could be, and that'd be such a shame  

Wolfington said:

I got married in Cuba and bought some cigars back (obviously), couldn't tell you much about them though as i smoked them when i was completely smashed at a Maccabees gig

OMG The Maccabees? That's a blast from the past. My sister knew Felix White ... I think you and I must be connected by 3 degrees now

Whereabouts in Cuba did you get married? Varadero or something similar?  

Wolfington said:

Someone join and then let Chiv win and then he might stay!

Foxy did, and then sucked out on my QQ with 67c ... Brilliant idea, poorly executed (or vice versa, perhaps)  

I actually thought this was surprisingly okay - I expected a lot worse!

But yeah, you look like you recorded this when you were 14 <3  

lundon8 said:

started smoking when i was 13 ,gave up at 38, had a few cigars in the time,i thought they were foul , obviously i have no taste

Out of interest, which cigars did you try over the years? There are many which are absolutely dreadful.

TBH if I had only ever tried a Henri Wintermans I think I'd despise cigars with all my being  

lundon8 said:

all smokings bad ,u can still get mouth cancer

It's a very fair point.

However, smoked once weekly, cigar usage doesn't lead to an appreciable (or statistically significant) increase in the incidence of oral cancer.

But your point still applies for people who smoke on a particularly regular basis!  

Do we have any regular cigar smokers lurking on the forums? Closet aficionados?

I've only gotten in to them in the last year, having been an ardent anti-smoker in the past, but when you realise how good a great Cuban is, and don't inhale it (so none of the same health concerns about smoking fags) a whole new world of joy opens up.

Just got back from Cuba 6 weeks ago and my humidor is fully-loaded with all manner of goodies I'm enjoying over the year to come  

As many of you know, I'm something of a bon-vivant, a lover of the 'finer things in life' and, second to pretty ladies (but if my wife asks, I have eyes only for her!), are cocktails. Or at least that's the reason I give for why I spent 6 months of my life busting my arse behind a bar.

So, whilst I'm in the mood I figured I'd start a little thread series on cocktail recipes as I refine them, and use this as a channel for budding home-mixologists to ask questions, share ideas etc.

For my inaugural post I thought I'd cover off what I'm drinking now:

The Atomic Daiquiri

Also known by various other names (e.g. "Nuclear Daiquiri", "151 Daiquiri", "Overproof Daiquiri" ) this is a super-charged but really pared-down rum cocktail. Daiquiris are composed of 2 fundamental elements of most rum cocktails - rum (obviously) and lime.

But what really makes this exceptional is the rum in question - overproof Goslings Dark Rum. 151 proof. In normal language, not that poxy American terminology, that's 75.5% ABV (alcohol by volume).

"But that's pretty much like nail varnish remover!" I hear you cry.

Yet, like the ridiculously overproofed bourbons like George T. Stagg, OP rum can also be delicious. Though it can also be dreadful, and it's potent stuff so steer clear of shit-looking brands and don't drink this like normal liquor. It's to be carefully harnessed and enjoyed, not knocked back in a night.

Anyway, enough pre-amble, here's the recipe:

50ml Gosling's Overproof 151 Rum
25ml fresh squeezed Lime
15ml Cointreau (Triple sec if you have to)
Bitters (if you have them ... I'm using Difford's Daiquiri Bitters atm)

(1) Chill down a martini glass (crushed ice if you have it, cubed ice in water if not).
(2) Shake all ingredients, except bitters, with ice
(3) Empty glass and put in a few dashes of bitters
(4) Double-strain in to glass and serve with a marschino cherry, if you're feeling fruity

You can substitute in different rums here, but the proportions may need a little tweaking. This also assumes that you like your daiquiris like I do - aggressively acidic and punchy. You can take the edge off by adding 5-10ml of Orgeat (ideally), gomme syrup or sugar

Let me know if you give this a whirl, or think you've got an interesting new take on it