Don't cry for me: Argentine cocktails, anyone?

Tato with a clericot that he has just made me

I don’t normally do bar reviews as such, but an invitation to a new watering hole in South Kensington piqued my curiosity recently—the Gaucho restaurant chain have opened Galante, a cocktail bar on Sloane Avenue inspired by the golden age of Argentine cocktails. No, I didn’t know that Argentina had a golden cocktail age either, but it seems that when US bartenders were fleeing Prohibition some settled in Buenos Aires, just as others landed in London, Paris or Havana, and brought with them a cocktail tradition. Argentina at that time had the world’s sixth largest economy so it was not surprising that Buenos Aires found a stylish international cocktail set to make drinks for—perhaps in the same way that Shanghai became such an exotic melting pot precisely because of all the terrible things going on elsewhere that people seemed to be fleeing, such as Nazism, Bolshevism or indeed Prohibition.

The most famous South American bartender of this era was Santiago Policastro, known as “Pichin” or, because of his dashing personal style, “El Barman Galante”. It is he that the bar is named after and the menu features a number of his classic cocktails from the period 1935 to 1955 (at which point Peron was overthrown by a military coup and Pichin left, spending time in Colombia before ending up in Miami where he died only three years ago). I’m a sucker for anything from this period, and the promise of an “Art Deco inspired” interior was too much to resist.

Santiago Policastro, known as “Pichin”

The cocktail menu at Galante is divided into sections: first come Pichin’s own classics, adapted from recipes he published in his 1955 book Tragos Mágicos (Magical Drinks), followed by a section exploring the various European influences as expats came to Argentina and exposed bartenders to new spirits, liqueurs and fortified wines. Next is a section showcasing hep new drinks created by four top barmen operating in Buenos Aires today and featuring distinctive local ingredients such as Hesperidina, a classic Argentine aperitif with a minty orange flavour, and Legui, a rum-based liqueur. Finally comes a section of “future classics” all created by Renato “Tato” Giovanni, who in 2010 was voted South American Bartender of the Decade. Which is quite something. Tato has been helping launch Galante and he was there on the night manning the shaker. A modest, fascinating chap, he helpfully filled us in on some of the idiosyncrasies of Argentine drinking, such as the yerba maté tea that everyone stands around sipping. It comes in large, loose leaves and is drunk through a metal straw called a bombilla that sieves out the bits. Not only does the tea feature in a number of the Galante recipes but many of the cocktails are served with bombillas—see the photos. I thought it was a cigarette holder at first!

An El Pato, with toothsome nibbles in the background

I kicked off with El Pato, Pichin’s signature drink and named after the Argentine national sport. A mixture of gin, sweet and dry vermouths, Campari, Cointreau and kirsch, served over ice, it is subtle and dry, with a characteristic bitterness from the Campari. In fact the combination of Campari with sweeter elements makes it taste more like Aperol, and the colour is an Aperol shade of orange too. Mrs H. went for another period classic, the Calipso, merging pineapple, grapefruit and raspberry juices with white rum and maraschino. Again this was a subtle combination, a clever interplay of fruit flavours and not sweet, sticky or bubblegummy. I followed with a clericot (an Argentine fruit cup) from the modern end of the menu, in this case a blend of gin, bianco vermouth and mandarin juice (see recipe at the end) garnished with cucumber, mandarin and a sprig of eucalyptus; again this was a restrained and balanced drink, its fruitiness more in keeping with the dry subtlety of classic cocktails than the 1980s “tutti frutti” approach. Mrs H. chose the Torta Galesa (Welsh Cake), made from rum spiced with vanilla, nutmeg and cinnamon, shaken with demerara sugar and an egg yolk, a reference to a dish eaten by the Welsh immigrants to Argentina’s Chubut Province. Tato crossed two bombillas over the glass before sprinkling cinnamon, creating a pattern that made it look like a hot cross bun…

Among all the local ingredients in use (they even make a cobbler using Argentine cider) you might expect there would be some local gin—in fact DBS, whose dream is to taste gin from every country in the world, had specifically tasked me to ask about Argentine gin—but Tato told me there were no quality ones. He is in the process of creating his own, which will include among the botanicals yerba maté tea, eucalyptus, local grapefruit from the Mesopotamia region and the aromatic herb peperina, which is also used to make a bitters at Galante. The gin doesn't have a name yet but it should be ready mid- or late 2012 and will then appear at Galante and Gaucho outlets. Perhaps rather rashly, Tato even offered to fly me to Argentina to taste his gin when it was ready!

A Calipso, another Pichin classic from the 1930s

As for the décor, well, perhaps it is Art Deco “inspired”, but don’t expect to step into the set of a 1920s musical. Black and silver predominate and the walls are covered in beveled panels of mirror, which segue cleverly into the windows and make the place seem much bigger than it really is. There is lots of heavy glass, and some of the light fittings do look quite Deco while others look more 1980s. Staff wear black ties and white bartender’s jackets of the period, of which I obviously approve. If you’re peckish try the canapés—they are exquisite.

Overall I can’t recommend Galante highly enough as a chance to try an Argentine take on mixology, with a very classic sensibility, subtly complex, restrained and with a tendency towards a refreshing bitter edge. One cocktail, the Clarito, is essentially a dry Martini served with a sugar rim and was famously created by Pichin for a customer who wanted “a man’s drink that is slightly sweet”. While this might seem to buck the trend I think it is the exception that proves the rule—the very fact that the request was phrased the way it was perhaps tells you a lot about prevailing tastes in Buenos Aires at the time. If you want a man’s drink, albeit an urbane, “galante” man’s drink—hell, the sort of cóctel Humphrey Bogart might drink—give Galante a try.

Recoleta Clericot
1½ shots Tanqueray gin
½ shot vermouth bianco
½ shot mandarin juice
2 slices cucumber
Dash eucalyptus syrup
Dash tonic water

Shake all ingredients together except the tonic, strain into a large wine glass filled with ice and top with tonic water. Garnish with a mandarin wedge, slice of cucumber and some eucalyptus leaves. Tato doesn't specify the tonic but elsewhere in the cocktail menu is a reference to the excellent 1724, which would make sense, given that it is made in Argentina. As mentioned in a previous post, 1724 has a fresh, clean taste characterised by quinine bitterness and citric tartness, with less of the cloying sweetness of typical UK tonics—which matches with the general flavour profile I got from the cocktails I tried at Galante.

Galante, 87 Sloane Avenue, London SW3 3DX, 020 7589 4256, www.bargalante.com

Pash-ion For Vodka #10 - Smirnoff No:16 Black 'N' Blue (Russian Berry Flavours)

I was recently rooting in the back of the vaults at the institute when I found a box labelled "Pimm's". In fact it contained a variety of unusual vodkas including this one by Smirnoff.

Smirnoff Black 'n' Blue dates from the early 2000s and was replaced in 2005 by Smirnoff Norsk (later relabelled North/Nordic Berries) this latter vodka is tinted blue and has a dry, less fruity profile compared to this variety.

Black 'N' Blue was part of a range of flavoured vodka which included Chilli, Mixed Citrus and Spiced Vanilla. The label describes it a recipe No:16 and is bottled at 37.5%ABV.

So what does it taste like?

Own

Berry nose, like chewy Ribena Multivitamins. A hint of marzipan too. Not too smooth in terms of taste with some unpleasant muskiness that I can't quite put my finger on.

Frozen (from the freezer)

Berry (blackberry and raspberry) on the nose slightly reminiscent of cough sweets. strong and complex.

In terms of flavour berry and vanilla comes through but I think overall it is a bit harsh, even though it is ice cold. A bit of anise too but it could be fresher and it is a bit artificial. Average.

Martini

Very pleasant, flavours of berry and cream. Good flavour and a nice crispness. Quite smooth too.

Whilst I'd rather drink Smirnoff Black, blue or the old Penka as flavoured vodkas go, this better than average but it needs to be mixed.

For more Vodka Articles click here.

Cocktails to defeat your New Year's Resolutions

The third week in January is apparently the most depressing of the year (and the Monday of the last full week is the most depressing day*), so it seemed appropriate that we theme the Candlelight Club event last weekend around New Year’s resolutions—specifically the abandoning of them! The cocktails were loosely styled around things you might have been trying to give up, and a general encouragement to slip back into your old hedonistic ways. Hey, we’re here to help.

No.1 on the resolution list must be to quit smoking. Tobacco in drinks is a hot topic at the moment, and plenty of people have doubtless tried making their own infusions. But proceed with caution! Ted Breaux of Jade Liqueurs (an environmental scientist by background) and infusion-meister Tony Conigliaro of 69 Colebrooke Row have both warned about the dangers here. I believe that soaking tobacco products in alcohol actually extracts harmful substances much more efficiently that burning them does, meaning that infusing tobacco is potentially more harmful than smoking it. And gram for gram nicotine is as toxic as hydrogen cyanide. I was in a bar last week and the bar manager handed me something to taste: it was a tobacco syrup made by infusing a cigar. “Don’t worry,” he said, “cigars have hardly any nicotine in them compared to cigarettes.” This didn’t ring true, and in fact a cursory trawl of the internet reveals that a good-sized cigar can contain as much nicotine as an entire pack of cigarettes. Tasting the syrup nearly knocked me off my barstool: at first it is just sweet on the tip of the tongue, but then it hits the back of the tongue with a prickling, burning sensation. I swear I got a small nicotine rush, but then I’m not a smoker, so it probably doesn’t take much. (See this interesting post.)

So using a tobacco infusion in our cocktail was out. But Ted Breaux himself makes a liqueur from perique tobacco, a rare strain that only grows in Louisiana (cultivated on just two farms now). Ted is a New Orleans man and proud of it, and his motivation in making the liqueur is partly to save the plant from extinction. The drink is distilled in such a way that there is no nicotine or other harmful substances in it, and in fact it doesn’t really taste obviously of tobacco. It has a delicate flavour that always reminds me of violets, with just a subtle whiff of aromatic pipe tobacco at the end (perique still crops up in pipe blends as well as a few rare-groove cigars and cigarettes). So it immediately occurred to me to make an Aviation using this instead of crème de violette. Speaking to Jenny from Sipormix, which handles the liqueur in this country, I discovered that Ales Olasz of Montgomery Place had already tried this, so I used his recipe (although I think I prefer it with more like 20ml of Perique rather than the 15ml specified).

NiQuitini
50ml SW4 gin
15–20ml Jade Perique Tobacco Liqueur
10ml maraschino
20ml lemon juice

Shake all ingredients with ice and strain into a Martini glass or coupe. Garnish with a cherry.

A NiQuitini snapped at the Candlelight Club

Dieting has to be up there on the resolution roll of honour, so we decided to include an Alexander—what could be more apt than a combination of gin, cream and chocolate? When I wrote about this cocktail before I decided that two parts gin to one part each of the other ingredients was about right, but this time I was using white crème de cacao rather than brown (specifically Briottet’s version). This is a much subtler flavour so I biased the cocktail more towards this ingredient. I also found that it needed sweetness, so some syrup was in order. The end result is pure, opaque white: originally intended as a marketing gimmick for a railway that burned cleaner coal, here it can remind you or the purity of your original intentions for 2012, now sadly fallen by the wayside…

The Alexander Diet
1½ shots gin
1½ shots crème de cacao blanc
1 shot single cream
Splash of sugar syrup

Shake all ingredients together with ice and strain into a Martini glass or coupe. Optionally dust with nutmeg, cocoa or cinnamon. I think the Alexander is a great drink, but it didn’t prove very popular on the night. Perhaps many of our guests really were on a diet!

A common resolution is to help others or spend more time with loved ones, yadda yadda. This one is for you:

Bleeding Heart
8 raspberries
2 shots bourbon
1 shot crème de framboise (we used Briottet but Chambord is probably more easily available)
½ shot lime juice
¼ shot sugar syrup
Cranberry juice

Muddle the raspberries in the shaker, then add everything else except the cranberry, shake with ice and fine strain into an ice-filled highball. Top with cranberry juice and give it a bit of a stir. Bourbon and raspberries are a great combo, and this appears to have been the most popular drink on the night. I adapted it from a cocktail called Mrs Robinson, but the original used soda water; I used cranberry mainly for the bloody colour, but it also gives more body to this long drink. I also appear to have switched from lemon juice to lime juice: not sure why but it works nicely.

Going to the gym is another popular resolution (I gather that gyms fill up at the beginning of January, but the staff also know precisely when more of these new people will stop coming). So here is a healthy sports drink that also replaces the gin and tonic lost through exercise:

Iso-Tonic
6 basil leaves
2 shots gin
2 shots pineapple juice
½ shot Passoa passion fruit liqueur
½ shot lemongrass syrup
½ shot Lucozade Sport Lemon & Lime
Tonic water

Muddle the basil in the shaker, add everything else but the tonic, shake with ice, fine strain into an ice-filled highball and top with tonic water. Stir gently. This cocktail is mainly about the unexpectedly good combination of basil and pineapple; the passion fruit is less prominent but it plays a part. The recipe was adapted from a cocktail called the Byzantine which I found on Simon Difford’s impressive online database. The original used passion fruit syrup and lemon and lime cordial; I like the aromatic, herbaceous flavour of lemongrass (I made the syrup just by bringing 500ml granulated sugar and 250ml water to the boil, simmering eight split stalks of lemongrass in it for 10 minutes, leaving it to cool then straining it). The Lucozade Sport is obviously there primarily as a joke, but it does add some citrus that you would otherwise have to get from somewhere else.

The final cocktail was just something I had come up with and wanted to use. It’s an unexpectedly effective combination—I thought the grapefruit juice might put people off with its bitterness, but in fact it was so popular that we had to restock with the ingredients for the second night and even then ran out. The name comes from the discovery that a popular resolution is to dump a useless boyfriend/girlfriend and strike out anew. The zingy, quirky, unusual flavours seemed apt for a “new you” cocktail.

Me Time
1½ shots Zubrowka bisongrass vodka
1 shot St Germain elderflower liqueur
1 shot grapefruit juice
¼ shot crème d’abricot/apricot brandy

Shake everything with ice and strain into a coupe. The precise amount of apricot brandy depends on the brand (we used Briottet), and you may want to use slightly more. It should be subtle, though its sweetness helps balance the drink.

* This was established in 2005, using a hokey formula, by Cliff Arnall, a tutor at Cardiff University (which later distanced itself from him and his discovery).

A Cocktail to Relish

I'm quite fond of the delicacies of the Englishman and one of these is Gentleman's Relish. For us at the Institute, Breakfast/Elevenses/Supper is not complete without a little bit of Patum Peperium.

But can it be incorporated into a cocktail that tastes good rather than just seeming a bit fishy?

25ml Gin (Preferably something herbal like Gin Mare, Berkeley Sq. or Leopolds
20ml Lemon Juice
1/4 Tsp Gentleman's Relish
SHAKE & STRAIN

Taste
I think I'm still to get me head around savoury cocktails but this works quite well with the the gin. Initially you get  the herbal and juniper notes of the gin, freshness of the lemon and then a very slight salty fishy aftertaste from the relish. I think it would work even better if a accompanied by some small savoury biscuits.

An Old Fashioned Badger

Our man in Wisconsin (the Badger State), USA, recently alerted me to this article in the New York Times Magazine. In it the reporter talks about how this classic cocktail in made in his home state.

It seems that in Wisconsin the Old Fashioned is primarily a brandy based drink and made to a different standard to that you would find in the fine bars of New York, San Francisco and New Orleans. Like the Martini, the Old Fashioned is a very personal drink with each "connoisseur" having their own particulars. In fact the variables in an Old Fashioned are probably even greater than the mix of gin and vermouth.

So how do they make them in Wisconsin?

"Every bartender here knows the drill: a bar spoon of sugar, three dashes of Angostura bitters, a lightly muddled slice of orange, a slug of brandy, lots and lots of ice, a splash of soda and, of course, a bright red maraschino cherry, often with an extra dose of the fluorescent juice that they swim in."

Taste
This is a different kettle of fish to my usual whisky or gin old fashioned. It is sweeter, more dilute and fruitier but still quite a nice drink.

Some aficionados will squirm at the fact that I included a little zip of 7UP for some extra zing; others will hate my fruit medley of a garnish. But in true honesty I like the drink; it is more refreshing than a traditional OF and, with the extra dilution, is much lighter.

I also really like the brandy combination with gives the drink a sweet, more rounded flavour profile. Given my fondness for the Horse's Neck I wonder how it would work if I replaced the 7UP with ginger ale..?

The Trouble with Vermouth II

It's a new year but one problem still plagues us here at the institute, the issue of oxidizing vermouth. This is the thorn in the side of every Martini drinker and an off bottle can ruin a good silver bullet. It has been noted that Lillet and red vermouth last longer and that dry vermouth can be used in other cocktails; but none of these have really mitigated the problem.

So here is another try.

I opened a brand new bottle of vermouth, decanted it into smaller bottles and then immediately sealed them with a cap and sealing wax. They are now kept in the fridge with the idea that, when I need vermouth I can open one of the smaller bottles.

It should be noted that in the USA you can readily buy 50ml and 350ml bottles of Martini Extra Dry but even the miniatures are hard to come by. The folks at Berry Bros and Rudd do have Dolin Dry Vermouth (an excellent product) bottled for them exclusively in 350ml bottles: they are available here at £5.50 a bottle.

Typically a 70cl bottle of Dolin will cost you £8, so you pay a premium but if the second half of your big bottle of vermouth would just be wasted it becomes attractive.

Price of Angostura Bitters set to skyrocket?

The oversized label apparently happened
by accident with a faulty batch. When
no one corrected the mistake in the next
 batch the bottling plant ended up using
the dodgy batch, and it quickly became
iconic.

A lawyer friend of mine (yes, it is technically possible) asked my opinion back in August for a document he was preparing to challenge a proposal to lift the exemption from excise duty on Angosura Bitters. Angostura is actually 44.7% ABV, so it technically a booze, but since 1970 it has been exempt from UK duty—according to a press release from HM Revenue & Customs, this measure was introduced to help the economy of Trinidad, where it is made. HMRC now feel that that help is no longer needed.

My chum’s argument, however, was that the reason Angostura is not taxed in the UK “and most other countries” is that it is used to add flavour rather than as an alcoholic drink in its own right, and that the alcohol present is simply a preservative. Since it is used in such small quantities, he estimates that a 200ml bottle will contain over a 100 doses and, even in a domestic context, will be used in drinks for at least a dozen people—and obviously far more in bars. Since some 240,000 bottles of Angostura are imported into the UK each year, the tax change will affect an estimated 3 million people here.

HMRC estimates that the lifting of tax relief will raise the price of a 200ml bottle in the UK by £2–3, which is 35–50%, and as a result will cut UK sales by half. It’s worth noting that the turnover of the manufacturer, the House of Angostura (there’s an idea for a theme park ride), represents 3% of Trinidad and Tobago’s entire non-petrochemical manufacturing GDP.

Like many traditional bitters and liqueurs, Angostura started life as a medicine, invented by German ex-pat Johann Siegert in 1824. Siegert had gone to Venezuela to help Simon Bolivar fight the rule of the Spanish throne and Bolivar appointed him Surgeon-General to the military hospital in the town of Angostura. He created the bitters from herbs and roots* to treat fevers and stomach disorders afflicting the troops, and the tincture also became popular with seasick mariners. By 1850 demand outstripped supply and Siegert resigned his commission to focus on the bitters. After the doctor’s death the torch was carried on by his son, Carlos, a bon vivant and dandy who exhibited the product in London—where it was a hit with gin—Paris, Vienna, Philadelphia and Australia. Fearing the political instability of Venezuela, Carlos and his brothers moved the business to Trinidad, where it had remained, attracting various royal warrants and even a visit by the Queen in 1985.

Of course nowadays there is a huge number of new bitters on the market, many focusing on one particular flavour, such as orange, grapefruit, rhubarb, pepper or chocolate. It’s worth noting that none of these rivals gets the same tax relief—just Angostura. But when there was a shortage of Angostura in 2009 there was a panic among the bar community: clearly nothing else could quite take Angostura’s place. This may be, to one degree or another, a matter of history and culture—most normal people have heard of Angostura but are almost certainly unaware of any other bitters. Yet there is more to it than that: there really is something of the magic formula to Angostura. If I myself were on a desert island and, for some reason, were only allowed one type of bitters, it would undoubtedly by this one.

That iconic, if wordy, label. Click to enlarge

My friend’s argument was that a 50% loss in UK sales would actually mean a net loss to the Treasury, partly because the gain in excise duty would be offset by the lost VAT, reasoning that because of Angostura’s uniqueness there would be no alternative product purchased in its stead. I think that for most consumers this is probably true, given that, as mentioned above, they are probably not aware of any other bitters, and are unlikely to come across them in their normal shopping environment. Moreover (and here’s where the argument gets a little more speculative), he contends that the majority of Angostura goes into Pink Gins: he may have a point here, when you consider the hinterland of drinkers of a certain generation, compared to the relatively small community of cocktail-heads.

“It is important to remember that the Pink Gin occupies a unique position amongst alcoholic drinks,” he argues,” being the only way that the vast majority of drinkers will drink a very short, almost neat, gin.**  This is in contrast to other major spirits, such as whisky and vodka, where drinking neat, or with just ice or a small splash of mixer, is much more common.

A pink gin yesterday

“In addition, the drinking of Pink Gins is a particular social action, particularly amongst those who are its regular devotees, for which there is no direct substitute.” He estimates that 20% of Pink Gin sales will be entirely lost, rather than the drinker switching to something else.

So a slump in Angostura sales will lead directly to a slump in gin sales, he reasons, meaning more lost revenue for HMRC. Moreover he believes that those Pink Gin drinkers who do switch rather than abstain will most likely move to premium vodkas made outside the UK, rather than gin made here, leading to yet more lost tax. He also contends that 18 UK jobs will be lost on the manufacturing side and 79 in the bar sector. Overall he reckons the Treasury will be down by some £2.8 million.

His plan was to submit his proposal anonymously under the banner of the Pink Gin Alliance, which tells you something about the degree of tongue-in-cheekery going on here. In any case, the government have evidently not been swayed by his argument, and the lifting of tax relief on Angostura Bitters will come into force in April 2013. Better start stockpiling now.

* The story goes that only about five people in the world know the formula. Some years ago when the writing on the piece of paper locked in a New York vault began to fade, the only other copy was exhumed and the recipe copied on to another sheet, which was then cut into quarters, each quarter sealed and dispatched separately by plane to New York. Who knows if any of this is true but it’s a good story.
** In fact recipes vary. Some people shake gin and Angostura with ice and serve in a Martini glass. My father-in-law likes his half-and-half with water. But the Pink Gin is undoubtedly historically significant, being the signature drink of the Royal Navy, allegedly because the gin was drunk to make the bitters (taken medicinally) more palatable.

Drinking you under the periodic table

I was contacted by www.bestcollegesonline.com, the people who created this ingenious Periodic Table for college students—remember, kids, drink responsibly!

Click on the image to see it larger. At the end of the day it is just a list of drinks, but it has been lovingly categorised and includes details like the year of each concoction’s creation and even the ABV, which is something you don’t often come across in a cocktail context. To be really useful it would need the actual recipes, but I guess that would be asking a bit much given the space available.

Just the thing for an ancient mariner

Mrs H. found these tumblers as a Christmas present for her father, who spent his career at sea, first as a merchant seaman then as a pilot. The advice “do not load above this level” is probably wise, even if you’re not drinking on the deck of a pitching ship.

Samuel Plimsoll* was a British MP who campaigned on the overloading of ships after the increase in the loss of vessels in the 1860s. The line is painted on the side of a ship’s hull, indicating the highest the waterline can be allowed to rise as cargo is loaded. The reason for the multiplicity of lines is that temperature and salinity affect buoyancy—so in fresh or tropical waters the same load would cause the waterline to rise higher than in colder or saltier water. The abbreviations stand for: Tropical Fresh (TF), Fresh (F), Tropical (T), Summer Saltwater (S), Winter Saltwater (W) and Winter North Atlantic (WNA). The main base line is the summer one—the designers of these glasses have taken a bit of a liberty, because the long single line that runs through the circle should really be level with the summer line (“S”). The “LR” here stands of Lloyds Register, though the initials can vary depending on the agency that certified where the lines should be on that particular vessel.

I can’t really think of a reason why you might fill your whisky tumbler to different levels depending on the season or salinity of surrounding water—except perhaps that if you’re in the tropics then you’re probably on holiday so you can let rip and if it’s winter and you’re in the North Atlantic then the risk of spillage may be higher so caution when filling might be advised!

If you know someone who might appreciate some Plimsoll Line tumblers they can be had from from Nauticalia for £4.99 each or MarineStore for £4.34.

* I did wonder if the energetic Mr Plimsoll then went on to invent the eponymous canvas training shoe, but it turns out that Plimsoll shoes were not officially called that at all. It is a nickname given to them because the horizontal line often found along the edge of the sole reminded people of the Plimsoll Line.