Two Drink Minimum; The After 5 Cocktail Blog

Cocktails @ 35,000 Feet

I am writing this at 35,000 feet above the Pacific with our traditional rum and coke on our way to Kauai for the yearly fun in the sun family vacation. We were bumped from our original plane tickets that were booked almost a year ago, in hopes of getting good seats, and in trade we were given a red eye. Not…my wife pulled out the guns and made the airlines upgrade us to first class for the inconvenience. Wow. The difference is like going from Paris Hiltons 9 x 12 cell to her house arrest. And the drinks, they make them for you. No more little bottles. You even get real silverware…with a knife!
Like most things, and with no exception in the world of cocktails, its better when someone else makes them. Maybe it’s the self critical nature of our own choices when making a drink or simply the fact that you know there is no mystery to the self made cocktail but for what ever reason it just tastes better when you’re served. Let’s throw in another variable… alcohol and altitude. The cabin pressure is effectively 8,500 feet above sea level when you are at 35,000 feet but the cocktails are like two for one in terms of horsepower. A short time ago I used to take my rum onboard in my barnoculars, order a Coke and presto! I got me a mile high bar. But these days anything over half a shot glass worth of liquid is severely scrutinized by the ATA. Bummer, no more sneaking liquor flasks or my trusty barnoculars on board. The friendly skies are not so friendly anymore.

I will never forget my first drink in the skies. It was with my mother, who warned me about alcohol and air travel, flying west from Ithaca to Monterey. One drink and I was under the seat, two drinks and I was under the wing. I remember at some point over Ohio, or there abouts, I had to use the men’s room.

The thought of getting up, let alone walking in a plane was a challenge to begin with, especially after two cocktails, but thankfully the head rests helped me navigate forward 20 sum rows to the bathroom. Going back to my seat was even more fun. Everyone is now looking at me and smiling. Or at least I thought they were. I tried to ignore there interest but as soon as I go back the seat mom said, as most observant mothers would, “Son, your fly is down”,…Oh, that’s why every one was smiling. Yes that high flying experience is seared in my alcohol altered brain cells forever. And that only happens once. At least as far as I recall. So remember – when on a trip don’t for get to zip.

Hopefully some day soon we can go back to the less paranoid days of air travel when you could bring your own booze on board. Till then its the little bottles of booze when high flying.

Words by Eric States

Dawson’s Shriek: Human toes-to-the-nose cocktails.

Forget martini olives and tequila worms. How ’bout amputated frost-bitten toes in your drink? I didn’t believe this one myself until I had it corroborated by several Alaskans, Canadians and a couple of well-traveled friends of mine.

A few years ago, I was researching the Alaskan wilderness as a travel destination for an adventure-centric company I work for… and I stumbled across this: In Dawson City, high in the Yukon and just east of the Alaskan border, there’s a bar in the Downtown Hotel that serves a drink called the “Sour Toe Cocktail,”
which contains an actual alcohol-preserved human toe!

For a modest $10, you can order the cocktail and be inducted in the proud club of “Sour Toers” if you consume your entire drink and let the dead black toe (with nail still attached) touch your lips at the last swig. Easy breezy, right?

As legend has it, the Sour Toe Cocktail tradition started back in 1973 when the frost-bitten lost toe of a miner was dropped into someone’s cocktail as a joke. Once the shrieks and laughter subsided, someone dared someone else to drink it – and a tradition was born.

Originally, the Sour Toe Cocktail was simply strong local beer or champagne (for the ladies, I assume), but today it can be any drink of your choosing – including non-alcoholic…but the basic rule stands: You have to plop the toe in the glass and plant a big juicy wet-one on it at the end of your drink.

Over time, various locals have contributed their own amputated toes to the bar. And the bartenders will often tell you about the person whose dead toe you’re kissing.

As for my well-traveled friend who helped corroborate the story? He’s actually a card-carrying member of the “Sour Toe Club.” As a nature photographer who specializes in Alaska imagery, he’s up in that neck of the woods almost every summer, and he has visited Dawson’s Downtown Hotel more than once.

“So how was your Sour Toe Cocktail?” I asked him.
“I dunno,” he said. “My toe was pretty old and shriveled. It felt hard, like a peach pit, when it touched my lip. I tried not to look at it or think about it too much.”

If you think I’m kidding about all this, check the links below and enjoy!

Sour Toe Cocktail Video

Words by Trevor Pitchford

Nicotini: The Liquid Cigarette.

Now I am no advocate of smoking but yes there is a solution for all of you smoking martini lovers out there and its not a drag. Or some say. It’s the Nicotini. As we all know smoking in bars is becoming a thing of the past, in fact smoking any where except you home is facing extinction. But check this out.- busting up you cancer sticks in a vodka bath infuses the nicotine into the vodka and gives you that two for one, mind bending buzz that martini loving smokers crave. With this cocktail, gone are the days of having to go outback to light up. You can have both right at your own barstool and you don’t even have to get up for your nic fix. The drink was invented in Miami’s Las Olas Boulevard restaurant zone in response to their recent smoking ban in bars law that just went into enforcement.. Born…..The Nicotini. Tastes like an ashtray drinks like a martini. Kool! I wonder if this infusion works with Marijuana?

Not being a smoker but liking the freestyle attitude one can have with vodka or liquor, how about making ice cream with vodka or Kalua! Same idea sorta, if you get your freezer down to that magical 8 degrees below zero (see -8 tastes great from a few days ago) I bet that would make one hell of a desert. You can now have your cake and drink it too! It would make ice cream easier to scoop! Anyone tried that?

Words by Eric States

The Bloody Mary; Liquid Steak

My first confrontation with a Bloody Mary, and I call it that because I just never really liked the taste of a Bloody Mary though everyone else did, was at the Hotel Del Coronado with my friend Jeff. I thought what the hell is this drink all about and why is it revered as being one of the best hangover cures at the same time having the liberty of being called breakfast. Yes I will blame this personal discovery and new found cocktail craving on him.
It was after breakfast…a little, and we were on vacation (before 5 justification), and I needed to understand the allure of this famous cocktail. I watched the bartender make this masterpiece that he ordered and I said “ How can you drink those?” He swore by them and looked at me like I was some sort of neophyte to the alcohol world when I said that. It was time to take the plunge so to speek and learn to like this drink. The previous night definitely played a part here..we had gone to dinner at the Sheerwater restaurant, drank waaaaay too much wine, and excusable result of being sequestered to the motels delicious culinary conveniences, stumbled back to the room, crashed and woke up the next morning with a wicked case of the bottle flue. Great time to try the Bloody Mary. What the heck. Maybe it was all the talk about the mystical properties, the hangover cure all, hey its good for your prostate that lured me into this virgin territory but in my mind the fact remained, I didn’t understand the drink and needed to learn to like it. Plus I was hung over.

At the Del they serve the Bloody Mary with a French string bean instead of the typical real estate consuming stalk of celery. Which I prefer. That piece of celery tree really displaces much of the cocktail and reminds you oof its presents by stabbing you in the eye while lining up for a sip. The drink they make there is off the charts good. Now- I am a major carnivore and I love red meat. When I took a sip my first words were liquid steak. Unbelievable... I never have tasted a drink that had such a beefy flavor. It should come with a side of baked potato. I swear they must be using a bassomatic to get that flavor. They should remove the French bean and put in a bone. It was that good.

Anyway, I was converted. The Bloody Mary became my friend. For me, not all the time like a nightly after 5 style drink but occasionally. It defiantly found a ranking in my arsenal of delicious cocktails.

Beer; The Margarita Mascot

Beer…. that back bone of the bar. It can’t be called a cocktail so it doesn’t count as a cocktail when you’re gathering the ingredients for that laborious task of building a margarita or mai tai. Margaritas especially. What a chore. I dread when I get the craving…Well, kind of. But while in the process I get this pavlovian wetness in anticipation of the happy warm glow that this drink brings. For me there best at my buddy John’s house. I taught him how to make the special Cadillac Margie about eleven years ago. He won’t remember that fact nor will he admit it but now he makes them better than I do. Or so I tell him. This is a case where truly it’s better to watch. Watch with a beer, cause that’s about how long it takes to make a Cadillac when he makes them.

So as far as being a cocktail goes does the beer count? Well technically no. It’s not a cocktail and comparatively, one for one, it’s not even close to the bender you get from a good margarita. And since, in this common bartending example, we are playing with serious liquor, I call a beer a pacifier, a filler, maybe even a primer. I will agree, beer does go with tequila. In fact if you’re doing shots, beer goes great with tequila. Habit in my college days, rarely practiced now. But the next day while grabbing the Advil and asking myself, “what did I drink last night?” I never include that first beer. It didn’t count. Or maybe it was it automatically included as part of the cocktail when I have a margarita. In either case it didn’t register on the alcoholic itinerary from the previous evening.

Beer, not in the cocktail family technically but by far the easiest drink to serve- the opposite of a Cadillac Margarita. Great idea - next time I make a Cadillac I’m using the beer hat. That way I can say I didn’t even see a beer.

Written by Eric States

Frozen Vodka on the Vertical; The Demise of the Ice Cube

When we take the family skiing to Mammoth

the first thing I do after that grueling yet picturesque drive bordering the Sierras, is go to the fridge and crank the freezer to max cold and throw in the bottle of Level vodka. I learned this little trick. If you get the freezer to 8 degrees below, not only does this make ice faster than you can say avalanche, but it makes your vodka into this syrupy semi frozen drool that you actually have to encourage to get out of the bottle. Kind of like the consistency of lava only colder.

Talk about an incredible martini. None of this stuffy “shaken or stirred?” Bond crap. You don’t need a cocktail shaker, no need for stirring. Just pour it into a martini glass. Preferably near a bottle of vermouth but not too close, and drop two olives in. There is no better martini in my mind. Maybe it’s the altitude, but Level vodka at 8 below is silky smooth and very potent. Like a martini should be. It even stays cold up until the last drop. That’s not speed drinking either! And if you are the real purist you can’t beat it. This cocktail trick spares you from polluting your expensive vodka with some rusty, tape water made ice cubes. -8 taste’s great!

Ok so this cool cocktail trick is great for a drink at the cabin so why not try putting frozen delight in the portable hip flask that we take skiing. Yes I know you shouldn’t drink vodka and ski but come on most everyone does partake in a little sippin on the slopes. At least the ones that I ski with do. The big challenge here is getting the vodka into that minuscule Viagra pill sized spout in the liquor flask.
It reminds me of a school science project cause the flask turns to ice right up to the fill line almost instantly. And, like the martini, it stays cold for a long time. Just don’t get the frozen flask too close to your skin. It’s kind of like when you lick a chair lift…it sticks. That you do only once. The bottom line, or the message I am trying to convey is, frozen vodka is better. Its better at home, it’s better at the slopes, and it’s better in the glass. You just need a freezer that will go to -8. Down side? This arctic vodka cellar that we turn our refrigerators into turns your ice cream into concrete, necessitating a microwave just to scoop out…….You shouldn’t eat ice cream anyway.

Words by Eric States

Oro Azul Reposado; Killer Sipping Tequila

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 www.shoppersvineyard.com

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

Cadillac Margarita; Tooling with Tequila

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).
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;

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!

The Art of the Mai Tai ; The Great Hawaiian Cocktail

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
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, Mai Tai's, which by the way means “good” in Tahitian, are to most people a symbolic vacation drink. Invented by Victor Bergron, better known as Trader Vic, "Around 1944, I was sitting at the service bar at Trader Vic's in Oakland and the bartender and I decided to come up with a new drink. We talked about creating a drink that would be the finest drink we could make, using the finest ingredients we could find. And the Mai Tai is what we came up with."

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

Cocktail Shaker Art and Deception

The Fairmont Kea Lani on Maui is a wonderful place.

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.

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.

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.