Two Drink Minimum; The After 5 Cocktail Blog

Bandolier

While we’re on the subject of tequila, I’d like to send a shout-out to my favorite Agave of the Gods, “Oro Azul Reposado.” This is a true sipping tequila, rich and complex, easy on the gullet, and not to be squandered in margaritas or shots. I discovered this excellent elixir in Baja a few years ago at the Hotel California in Todos Santos. (Yes, it’s rumored to be the Hotel California from The Eagles song, though Don Henley denies it. But I can attest: There is a dark desert highway, a shimmering light, a mission bell, and it’s a lovely place.)

And I got tiffany-twisted drinking Oro Azul that night. My drinking pals – one older brother and two childhood buddies – lined up about seven tequilas at the recommendation of the very knowledgeable bartender at Hotel California. I couldn’t tell you what the other tequilas were if you held a gun to my head. Was I too drunk to remember? No. But who remembers the 2nd, 3rd and 4th place finishers? I’m all about winners. ABC: Always Be Closing. Second place is a set of steak knives.

Among us four very different drinkers, Oro Azul Reposado was the unanimous favorite tequila.
And we each swore, upon our return to the U.S. and A., that we’d fill our liquor cabinets with the stuff. I found a bottle in Portland, Oregon (where I live) for $39.99, but you can purchase it online for as low as $33.99 through

Tequila_liquor_bottle

According to Oro Azul’s website, the Reposado is “double distilled 100% blue agave… carefully rested for over six months. The special resting process delivers a richer, cleaner and deeper tequila. It has a deep old gold color with pickling spice and sweet, creamy nougat aromas. A round entry leads to a dryish medium-bodied palate with creamy caramel, faint brown spices and ripe tropical citrus fruits. Finishes in a very lengthy, fruity manner, with nutty toffee and spice notes. Well-knit, balanced and delicious.”

I concur.

Written by Trevor Pitchford

Since the mere hint of the Margarita was mentioned in one of my last ramblings, I have tequila on the tongue ever since. The Margarita, sharing some of the same naive bartenderal problems as the Mai Tai, has a wider array of presentational and desired acceptance. When done right, especially on a hot summer day, blended is great. (Watch the cerebral freezer burn).

Margarita_pick

This style kind of kills two birds with one stone. Thirst quencher and tequila cocktail. There is even a dedicated blender that just came out called the Margarator, a bit like a smoothie machine on steroids. I must admit I prefer I like my margaritas on the rocks, with salt.
The flavor comes through much better without exposing the drink to all that surface area in the ice that you get with having it blended. On the rocks is harder to drink fast yes but, you can appreciate the fine subtleties of good tequila and a good mix. The Cadillac margaritas used to be, well still is, one of my favorite drinks. For those unfamiliar with a Cadillac the main difference is the floater of Grand Marnier on the top of the drink. It does a great job of cutting through young fresh lime juice if your drink is so tarnished. Margaritas, like wine, are also subject to the evolutionary change of the palate that just comes from time at the bar.

There are a pile of stories as to whom actually created this popular Mexican cocktail, personally I think people just got tired of drinking the worm an had a mission to try and make tequila more appetizing. Don’t get me wrong, the “good tequila” strait is very tasty. But don’t waste it on a fancy sweet blended one. You can’t taste it.

My taste for this drink has changed over the years from sweet too a hint of tart. Below is my favorite way to enjoy this classic drink;

Cadillac Margarita Recipe;

Margarator

3 oz’s of Silver Patron Tequila
1.5 oz’s of Cuantreau ( orange liquor)
.75 oz’s roses lime juice
.75 oz’s fresh squeezed lime juice
Floater of Grand Marnier
Serve on the rocks with a salted rim

There are many ways to make margaritas. Just about any fruit you can think of has been tried. This cocktail has a very flexible platform that enables a bartender to add many different flavors and still pull of a good cocktail.
This drink, like most tequila drinks, is potent, rowdy, tasty, (when done right) and can give you a nasty bottle flue if over enjoyed. Caution - it’s a sneaky cocktail, it creeps up on you. Ole!

Our friend Steve Marsh owns the Shoreline cafe. It’s the only restaurant in Santa Barbara that you can have lunch, island style, with your feet in the sand a cocktail in hand and chow on one of Enrique’s, the cook, famous jalapeño turkey casadias. (Not on the menu so you have to ask) Every Saturday my wife and I go there for lunch, rain or shine. Its our little weekly mini Hawaiian vacation. Probably one of the best kept secrets in SB. Great food great drinks. Especially Steve’s Mai tai.

Steve’s Mai Tai Recipe;

1 oz white rum

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1 oz Meyer’s dark rum
½ oz Orange Curacao
½ oz fresh pinapple juice
½ oz fresh orange juice
¼ oz sweet & sour juice
¼ oz Roses Lime Juice
¼ oz Passion Fruit Juice
Float 151 Lemon Hart rum on top

It is the one we base all others from. A perfect balance of not too sweet tropical fruity taste and a mellow mix of dark and light rum topped off with flammable 151. (No it’s not lit). Finding a blend like this tropical masterpiece is a bit of a crap shoot at most restaurants. Half the time Mai Tais are too sweet, not strong enough or like in Islands, expensive Hawaiian punch but with out the punch.

There is a larger cocktail bandwidth of acceptability when talking Mai Tais in comparison to lets say martinis, I know some of you might argue that but in a way its like developing your pallet with wine. It takes years of liver assault before you really discover the difference between two buck Chuck and Cuvaison. A bit of a gross exaggeration I know but the point is this - younger pallets typically don’t appreciate the subtleties of the better liquors and the more refined tastes of good booze.

When I first started drinking wine it was box wine and white Zin…sweet, cheap. Now, I will mostly blame my wife here, we have learned to drink beyond our budget with the more expensive sophisticated wines. My biggest mistake was buying her a wine cellar refrigerator for Christmas. Yes it does make a difference if you keep the wine at 54 degrees I must admit. But it’s kind of like filling up the Suburban with gas having one of these mini cellars. $150 for gas? I wish that’s all the cellar needed to be full. The only saving grace is Costco occasionally carries her brand or when we feel like leaning on Steve we hit him up for the bro deal on cases. Still. $20 for a bottle of fermented grape juice? It’s easy to bitch about our alcoholic indulgements but appreciating good wine has now become a standard with ourafter 5 cocktail hour. It used to be so easy in my younger days - Coors, Jose Cuervo, Two Buck Chuck, not the case anymore. Oh sure we still drink Jose but lets talk tequila another time.

Anyway, digressing again,

Tiki_mugs_2

I don’t think anyone that has gone to Hawaii’s Waikiki beach and had a good Mai Tai. Most of these have a splash of cheap rum, canned pineapple juice, Grenadine for that sweet cherry flavor, and a dry piece of pineapple for a garnie. Probably the best place to find a slaughtered Mai Tai is at one of those Hawaiian luau’s. I swear they use Hawaiian Punch here. If you go to the islands you will eventually go to a luau so be warned and take an extra flask of rum. Better yet drink beer here. It won’t pollute your memory of this great rum drink. As Rick Carrol states in his History of the Mai Tai, “Most Mai Tais served in Hawaii today are too strong, too sweet and, at $7 and up, too expensive. They are pale imitations of the original. Some taste like gasoline, others like cough syrup. They burn the throat, produce terrible headaches and generally give Hawaii a bad name. They should be served with a Surgeon General’s warning.” He has lots of great Mai Tai facts, recipes, and “where to get a good one” while in the islands, at this link. Summing it up, getting a good mai tai depends entirely on the bartender. They are a pain in the ass to make, encouraging a lot of short cuts, they require experience behind the bar, and are subject to the mood of the porer. But it is one of those cocktails that while watching it made by a good mixologist makes you salivate in anticipation. It’s getting close to 5:00 and I’m getting thirsty. Aloha!

Written by Eric States

The

Fairmontbar

If unplugging your mind from the rigors of work calls out than this is your remedy. They have a koa wood bar, the most prized cabinet and furniture wood in Hawaii, on the lower level of the lobby that with a floor to ceiling rear housing some of the worlds most classical cocktail shakers. Every time I go to this magical paradise I deliberately walk down to this bar and gawk at the artistic examples of barware mastery. Penguin shakers, classic crystal and stainless steel shakers, barbell shakers, cocktail shakers, there is such history there that the plating is worn off. Not that this inspires work for me, being that it ties in with After 5, but it just exemplifies that you are here to enjoy, grab the sunscreen get a Mai tai and forget about time. A cocktail for breakfast? No problem. Hawaii has a way of shedding that mainland guilt associated with drinking alcohol before five o’clock.

Ladyslegfrosted_2

So who invented the cocktail shaker ? How long has it been around? Well, these bar tools have elements of the cocktail connoisseur for a long time. Early shakers go back thousands of years BC in Egypt, South America and Mesopotamia. Bartenders discovered cocktail shakers as an efficient, showy bar tool in the late 1800s. The popularity of cocktail shakers really surged in the 1920s when martinis became the “In” drink. Enter prohibition. Bummer.
The cocktail shaker as well as the alcoholic drink were pushed underground spawning the world of speakeasies. During this time the shaker took on a life of its own and transformed into a piece of art. In order to disguise the barware, as well as provide a place to store your booze, they deceptively took the form of airplanes penguins, skyscrapers, bowling pins, barbells, rocket ships, and even a women’s leg. This was prime time for the cocktail shaker. It was in its hay day.

Nambe_shaker_2

Eventually being massed produced this bartenders tool became a standard household item for anyone who had a home bar. The drink shaker was eventually overshadowed by the electric blender, and that as you can imagine, stole the show. Turbo blend my cocktail with a flip of a switch? Wow. Since then we have discovered that beating alcohol to death at 2,000 rpm with a metal blade and 110 volts of power is just not cool. How would you like your martini Mr. Bond… Shaken or stirred? How about in a blender…not. Let’s leave the blender to the daiquiris, margaritas and any of the other sweet tropical drinks that need to beaten. (By the way they do make daiquiri to die for at the Fairmont swim up bar, I digress). Anyway, not to get too off topic here but the cocktail shaker has seen a strong resurgence as of late. When we sent out our first After 5 catalog with its impeccable timing of 9/11 in 2001, yes that really did happen, the country basically curtailed air travel. As a result many people turned towards home entertaining.
They bought more things for the bar, kitchen, the home, and possibly invigorated a new appetite for the venerable cocktail shaker. Are we responsible for this renewed interest in these stainles steel cocktail mixers? No, I seriously doubt it but maybe the timing of our little After 5 catalog might have been OK after all.

Last spring, I took my wife and daughters on a 4-day Disney cruise – and almost every day since, my home mailbox has runneth over with catalogs, brochures and magazines from high-end cruise lines. (Are all these upper crusty companies aware that I’m a cheapskate who purchased an off-season package w/ an inside stateroom – no window, just a round mirror?)

Regardless, my new favorite magazine from all this high-end junk-mail is Virturoso Life, “The Traveler’s Guide to Inspired Pursuits” (aka “Vacations You’ll Never Afford”). This month’s issue has a good story about boozin’ – “The American Cocktail Revolution,” which traces the history of the cocktail, and also details how we Americans (and our bars) have lost our sauce-superiority to a new breed of “handmade” European cocktails.

The culprit? Cheap cocktail mixes and artificial fruit juices and sweeteners. While our spirits have certainly improved – Absolut Vodka, Patrón Tequila, Bombay Sapphire Gin, Grey Goose Vodka, Cruzan Rum – our cocktail mixes haven’t.

So nix the mix? Yup. Think about it next time you’re out at your favorite bar or restaurant: all those those trendy, hyper-sweetened martinis; or the 31 flavors of margaritas; or the wacky red, white and blue festive cocktails with the sparklers and swizzle straws. They’re all tasty, sure, but so’s Kool-Aid on hot day.

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And think about it when you’re entertaining at home: It’s one thing to buy margarita mix. It’s another thing to buy bottled lemon and lime juice. And it’s quite something else to pick ripe lemons and limes from a neighbor’s tree and squeeze your own margaritas. C’mon – you ponied up $60 for the bottle of Patrón tequila; Why ruin it with cheap margarita mix? It’s like grilling up a beautiful porterhouse steak, then smothering it with ketchup.

The magazine story mentioned a few other tips for cocktail mixing I thought I’d pass along:

For drinks like mojitos
and mint juleps, try using sugar cane juice (guarapo) or raw sugar in lieu of standard sugar. It takes away any sickening sweetness, and adds a more complex and textured flavor to your cocktails.

Try using fruit juice ice cubes in place of standard ice. This prevents “water-down” as your ice melts, and it can also change/enhance the drinking experience as you sip. For example, cranberry ice cubes in a glass of vodka and orange juice will transform the cocktail into a Madras as the ices melts.

Got any fresh or handmade cocktail tips you’d like to share with us? Please do!

Written by Trevor Pitchford

James Bond: “Vodka martini.”
Bartender: “Shaken or stirred?”
James Bond: “Does it look like I give a damn?”

Casino Royale, 2006

Cheers to the latest James Bond movie (I just watched it on DVD), especially the new dark and edgy tone, and its welcome lack of goofy one-liners, cartoon stunts and throwaway bimbos. What also caught my attention was 007’s loose cannon inexperience as a secret agent. (Casino Royale was Ian Fleming’s first Bond book, and Bond’ first mission.) In the movie, greenhorn Bond makes a lot of mistakes – gets the %$&* kicked out of him, loses the girl, and apparently doesn’t even know how to order a martini yet (see above).

Which got me to thinking about this whole “Shaken, not stirred” martini catchphrase that’s developed over the last couple of decades. Does it really make a difference? If you line up two martinis side-by-side – one shaken, one stirred, both from the same recipe – how many people could honestly pick or prefer one over the other?

Martini_tray_6

I gathered two of my drunken friends and we put it to the test. Using the classic “dry vodka martini” recipe from later Bond appearances, I shook one, stirred the other, and served.

“I thought we were drinking beer,” said my old college roommate. Some things never change.
“The shaken martini is definitely colder,” the other, more successful friend, said. This, we attributed to the ice swishing around in the shaker before I served.
“The stirred martini tastes more diluted, if that makes sense,” the old roommate said. I had mixed both martinis the same strength, but we all agreed that the stirred martini had a weaker, vermouthy taste to it.
“These crackers are good,” said the old roommate, referring to the saltine palette-cleansers I’d put out for between sips. “They’re salty, but not in a starchy, dehydrating way like pretzels can be.” I made a mental note never to invite him back for serious drink studies like this.
“I like the shaken martini best,” said the successful friend, interrupting the doofus. “It’s very cold, like a martini should be, and it tastes more completely mixed.”

We all three agreed that the shaken martini tasted better, though it wasn’t a night-and-day conclusion. It took several swigs, back and forth, and some discussion before we could put a finger on the differences between the two.

If anyone out there can put some science behind our findings, I’d love to hear why one is better than the other, or if anyone prefers their martinis “stirred, not shaken.” And if you have any thoughts about saltine crackers, please keep them to yourself.

Written by Trevor Pitchford

 

 

While
having dinner with my brother in law Zak last Friday night at the Mexican joint
Palapa above his house, we were looking through the menu and I asked, “Do they
have mixed drinks here?”  He responded, "Beer and wine but they have
a margarita served with 40 proof
tequila… 40 proof tequila, is that strong enough?” He said, “Or is that
like one of those winearitas that some restaurants, lacking a full liquor
license, try pass off as a margarita.” The whole conversation reminded me of my

Tiquila_belt_2

youth living as a ski bum in Aspen and not being old enough to buy anything but 3.2 near beer. What a joke that was. You get a better buzz off a garden hose.

So is 40 proof worthy of
consideration when you’re used to the warm hypnotizing glow of lets say, a
Patron or a Cuervo 1800 margarita. Well…no. Patron tequila margaritas are made
with tequila that is 80 proof. This might explain why they are so good. In beer
and wine the alcohol content is expressed as a simple percentage of the amount
of liquid in the bottle. Beer ranges in alcohol content from 3.2 to 6 percent
with most US beers averaging about 4.5 percent, even less with those flimsy light beers.
Wine can hit as high as 20 percent but its typically in the 9-14 percent range.
With liquor, the number 80 proof basically means the percentage of alcohol
content then multiplied by two. For instance, in the case of the 80 proof
Patron tequila that means it’s 40% alcohol. So our 40 proof margarita at Palapa
is actually only 20% booze. Just a hair above what we get in wine. I love the
creative marketing here. Would I rather drink a 40 proof tequila margarita over
a winearita? If forced to pick than yes but not without dolling it up with my binocular
flask that I forgot.

 

So
there is the proof- wine does equal Tequila, as far as the buzz factor goes.

 

Anyway
my carnitas burrito came with a Dos Equis beer. Decision made. "Waiter, do
you have a Tres Equis?"

 

 

Does the world need another blog?

No.

Great. Okay. So why are we starting an After 5 cocktail blog? Well, it’s a long story – and blog entries are generally not very long, so we’ll have to abbreviate:

About six months ago, one of our customer service reps at After 5 received a phone call from a guy who’d just purchased one of our

Martini_glasses_2

He was calling us on his cell phone, standing in the liquor section of his local grocery store – asking us how to mix a martini!! Now, sure, he could’ve just asked the supermarket sommelier or the closest 16-year-old stockboy, but instead he chose to dial 800# information, request our phone number, and ask us. Why??

“Because I want to know how to make the best martini, not just any martini,” the guy said. “Don’t you guys have a favorite After 5 martini recipe?”

It’s an interesting question. (And the answer is yes, by the way.) But are we some kind of authority on cocktails? Keepers of the Holy Grail of booze? Sauciers of the sauce? Hell, no. We all have our favorite spices and vices, but nothing here is definitive.

But the community of After 5 customers, on the other hand – now that would be a very fun and knowledgeable bunch. We’ve always thought of After 5 as a great big cocktail party
– and our customers as the friends we’d like to have at that party. So let’s throw open the doors and get to know each other. With this blog, let’s start some conversations and exchange some ideas on cocktails, wine, beer, eating, entertaining, relaxing, celebrating, recovering, and celebrating some more.

We’ll keep it topical, seasonal, spontaneous, random and fun – and just like a great party, you’ll never know what to expect. Be sure to share your opinions, knowledge and wild experiences with us – and come back often, because we plan to update regularly.

Written by Trevor Pitchford