Not Even Remotely Close to My Favorite Beverage

Working Sundays means Fridays off, a heavily anticipated day in summertime when Jason and I like to go to the beach (and, all week before going, talk about it in front of everyone else who has to work). We meet at precisely 9am at Broadway Junction, transfer to the A-train to Far Rockaway and then the shuttle to the beach. We’re in the sand and sipping foam cups of Connolly’s piña coladas by 10:15. The piña coladas may, in fact, be my favorite beverage.

Americano Cocchi is best enjoyed simply, 2:1 with club soda over ice, but we can’t resist adding its subtle spice and bitterness to some classic cocktails.

Our favorite, rumored to have originated as a cure for hangovers, has also proven to be a potential cause of them (though a delicious, worthwhile one).

The Corpse Reviver No. 2 is a perfect example of cocktail alchemy: the transmutation of basic ingredients into liquid gold.
 

3/4 oz Plymouth Gin

3/4 oz Cocchi Americano

3/4 oz Stirrings Triple Sec

3/4 oz lemon juice

2 dashes Edward III absinthe

Combine with ice in a shaker, strain, and serve with dried cherries reconstituted in Cocchi.
 

Special Email Corpse Reviver No. 2 Cocktail Bundle Price: $89.50

Bundle includes the following:

1x - Cocchi Americano (750 ml)
1x - Plymouth gin (1 L)
1x - Stirrings Triple Sec (750ml)
1x - Edward III New York Absinthe (375ml)

To order, please email us at offers@crushwineco.com or call (212) 980-9463

The saga (more on that below) started with a casual hunt to find Cel-Ray for a signature cocktail recipe I developed for a bachelorette party:

The Yana Yana Yana (saluting Ann – Ana en Español – and her Spanish fiancé, Yago)

3 oz. Fino Sherry
2 oz. fresh lemon juice
1 oz. fresh orange juice
1 tsp. liquid honey
Cel-Ray Soda

Insert Dog Joke Here

It’s not uncommon to finish off an eight-course Italian meal with a little glass of grappa. With all that garlic, onions, tomato, and cheese kicking around, and the copious red wine to wash it down, sometimes you need the bulldozing effect of a pure, high-alcohol content digestif to put an exclamation point at the end of your gastrointestinal death sentence. But what if you swapped out the pasta for hush puppies, traded tomatoes for Pimientos de Padrón, and eschewed osso bucco in favor of seared diver scallops? Wouldn’t you still want a digestif? Mightn’t you need one?

A few nights ago, I had trouble sleeping due to an intense desire to consume hush puppies immediately. I can’t explain these things. As luck would have it, next day, Dan arrives in the tasting room with joyous word that his CSA share appeared this week with five ears of sweet corn!!!

Dream realized.

Last night, while Dan, Jason, Molly and McRae finished sweating after their bouldering, I haphazardly made my way through an amalgam of hush puppy recipes, dumping in excess delicious sweet corn, subbing sour cream and milk for buttermilk, and overleavening – just to see what would happen (plumpness, airiness, delectableness!)

Ingredients
- 4 bottles Gazela!
- 3/4 cup gin
- 1 cup Cointreau
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 bunch seedless white grapes
- 3 sliced lemons
- 3 sliced white peaches
- 1 sliced honeydew melon
- 1 liter club soda or seltzer

Directions
1) Mix the Gazela, gin and Cointreau together; then drop in the smorgasbord of fruit. Let this concoction steep for a few hours.

2) When you're ready to serve, add the seltzer water and plenty of ice to make it cold, cold, cold.

If you're feeling wild, buy some extra white grapes to freeze and use as ice when you serve.

3) Serve and beat the August heat!

We'll be enjoying Michael Collins tomorrow in the following three ways (choose any for yourself, or perhaps all three, depending on the time of day):

Perfect to pair with 1989 Vajra Freisa.

Ingredients

- 3/4lb of fresh morels or 3oz. of dried morels
- 1 Chicken cut up or 4 drumsticks and 4 thighs
- 1 oz. butter
- 2 tablespoons of olive oil
- 1 cup Vin Jaune (the Macle Cotes du Jura would work)
- 1 pint of cream
- lemon juice

Directions
If using dried morels, boil water then let cool for a couple minutes and add to a bowl containing the morels. Soak for 15-20minutes. Pass the soaking liquid through cheese cloth and reserve a table to add to the sauce.

Add butter and olive oil to a heavy pot on medium heat. Be careful not to brown butter. Salt and pepper chicken and brown in pot. Once brown remove chicken and place it on a plate. Add Vin Jaune or Macle Cotes du Jura and stir with a spoon to dislodge anything stuck to the pot. Add the morels (and a tablespoon of soaking liquid if you've reserved some). Reduce wine by half. Add cream.

Return chicken to the pot. Turn pot to low heat and cover. Stirring and flipping the chicken occasionally, cook for approximately 45 minutes. The sauce should coat the back of the spoon. Feel free to add an additional tablespoon or so of wine. Add lemon to taste. Serve with rice and pour a big old glass of Macle's Côtes du Jura.
(Serves 4 people.)

Preparing and Drinking Absinthe
Preparing absinthe is a complex ritual befitting the spirit's mythic lore.

This is a process in which, with every painstaking step, the anticipation builds to a crescendo culminating, finally, in actual consumption. In this way serving absinthe is similar to a Japanese tea ceremony.

Absinthe is a wonderful aperitif when diluted with water though, for you mixologists out there, absinthe can also be used in the construction of any number of historical cocktails like the Sazerac, or Ernest Hemingway's favorite cocktail - Death in the Afternoon!

Vermentinos are such rich, complex whites with such big acidities that they marry very well to finessed winter fare. To plow through the winter blues, Joe, Chris and I got together last week to indulge in Giacomelli Vermentinos - both the regular Colli di Luni bottling as well as Giacomelli's first-ever, single-vineyard "Boboli" - with a menu from the wickedly intelligent culinary mind's eye of Joe Salamone.