TO BEGIN WITH, I love infusing. To infuse vodka with a fresh ingredient  is to simply turn your favorite food into your favorite cocktail. For instance, if  fresh apples go into vodka, in time the vodka will taste like fresh  apples. This goes on and on with spices, vegetables, herbs, and various combinations of  unlikely suspect.

 For instance:

 

JUNE--Granny Smith Green Apple Vodka

This is the best vodka I've ever made.

If you work at McDonald's and go home at night to make yourself a quarter-pounder for dinner, then you really love McDonald's. When I go home, I infuse vodka using organic, natural  green apples. By far my greatest success (so far) is Granny Smith Green Apple Vodka.

I can make any cocktail I've ever heard of at home. I have the ingredients to make any cocktail from any era going back to ancient Babylon—seriously. But at the end of my Friday, this is what I reach for.

Virtually no vodka on the market uses fresh ingredients. If they did, then they would shout it from the highest rooftop. ALL NATURAL, ALL ORGANIC, NO SUGAR ADDED! NO PERFUMES, DYE OR ARTIFICIAL FLAVORS! They can't say this because it's not true. I can say it.

No sugar is needed and the tartness balances naturally. Purists value clarity of color over flavor. I value flavor over anything else. And while some bartenders grimace at the thought of a vodka martini on the rocks (because vodka snobs think of this as diluting) what I make myself hold bright, authentic flavors whether straight up or over ice. 

When my workweek—finally!!!--ends, I come home to kiss my wife, I look in on my baby boy asleep, and then I can relax. She and I sit and talk. I mostly listen as she tells me about her day, her work, our baby boy, over two glasses of Granny Smith vodka.

 

JULY—Cilantro Vodka

Too hot and too much rain: bad for summer weather but good for rich, green cilantro. Local farmers in upstate New York and New Jersey (don't judge) hail their best crop in a decade. Crisp, sharp, delicious. Natural earth notes and a finish of light pepper.

My family caught some good weather and adjourned from the sweltering concrete jungle to celebrate pastoral pure sunshine on the Harlem Meer in Central Park. Heirloom tomatos and carmelized onions on French bagette. Crisp kale chips. Gourmet sausage. 

Washed down with glasses of dry, fresh cilantro vodka. As my son chases pidgeons and we threw a ball around. We took a break and I joined the rest of my family for a cilantro vodka on the rocks. My best day in Central Park.

 

AUGUST--Montauk Spiced Rum

One month ago, I saw Montauk for the first time. I was raised in a quiet meadow of a southern beach town, so this felt like getting back to my roots. Sand dunes and open water deserve respect and get it here.

Astonishingly, from jaded, harried New Yorkers. In a small downtown square, my wife and son and I find a small seafood house. My son ate fish, which is rare, a snow-white piece of scalar. She and I had a thick stew made for a man's man. Blocks of potato, crushed carrot and celery in the stock, along with all manner of shellfish.

After I finished a pint of local micro-brew, the sun had gone down and the breezes blew cooler and as slow as the waves. I asked the bartender if there was a fisherman's rum or local night-warmer for flasks out on the seas.

Wrong question. He glared at me, looking down through thick eyebrows pulled low. No professional fisherman, I was corrected, drinks on the job.

Oh, I said.

Further, I was asked, if I drank when I was working; I replied that I was a bartender in Manhattan, so drinking IS my business.

On the drive home my mind started building an idea for a spiced rum to capture my trip to the Hamptons, a culinary scrapbook of Montauk for the first time. It was a perfect day, old and new. Land and sea. New England's traditions mixed just right with Manhattan's cocktail iconoclassicism. Cranberries, cinnamon sticks, citrus zest balanced with allspice berries, sweetened only slightly with fresh pear.

 

(I sure think all these are good as they are, but if you’d like a cocktail recipe for any of these, then all you have to do is ask.)

 (If you enjoy mixology, and think you know a good cocktail for any of these liqueurs, then let me know.)

           

 

A HUMBLE INTRODUCTION

A HUMBLE INTRODUCTION

By Paul Johnson

How far can any artform go?

Always a knotty problem, but particularly vexing if you're a bartender. How far out can you go with a cocktail? And what makes a great bar into a great bar?

I'm suppose to say that there are no limits, but I really don't know. The web is full of blogs, and I doubt it needs one more, but here I am. For me Booze of the Month is about how far something can go, and when do we say "Wherever our limits are, they are not here."

Please remember: I'm no defeatist. I keep thinking of old painters with their portraits in 1912, just before they saw "Nude Descending A Staircase." What a mind-bender that must have been!

What must it have been like to see Jackson Pollack in the 50's, if you were a conventional painter? One would have thought the avant just became much less guarded. 

I've never thought of myself as a conventional bartender. I used herbs before most, fresh ingredients for a long time now, and truly enjoy what I do. I love taking it as far as I can. But even my fellow bartenders who are used to flying at Icarian heights often fall for the same old tricks: like basil and cucumber in gin. Basil leaves and a slice of cucumber muddled into gin makes for a yummy cocktail, but it stopped being the cutting edge more than a decade ago.

Ever seen two white spirits with lime juice and simple syrup? Sure you have, not an idea with the dew still on it. So why is this the tail end of most cocktails on a drink list? Did the bartenders of the Big Apple get rid of all their sour mix (finally!) only to replace it with the fresh version? Is that good enough? 

Even for those of you who mix a juice or two with vodka, please realize that sooner or later (in two years? in five years? ten at the latest?) you'll grow tired of the same-old-same-old. Then your palate with develop and yearn for more. You'll want more flavor, Earth will run out of different kinds of juice to mix with your Absolut, and finally want something new and more satisfying. Something better and more exciting. 

It's just around the corner. A few years away. You'll want it.

More.

This is what Booze of the Month is all about: authentic flavors, real innovation, for a mature palate. Look for some great infusions, some great recipes, and words of wisdom from some of the best bartenders in New York City. 

Bringing Back a Classic--the Hard Way

STEP 1: FROM VISUALIZATION TO LIBATION

On Sundays I make what I don't have, and get ready for as much as can be predicted. This is not so much a battle-plan, as marshaling one's resources. If you are swimming in the waters of mixology, there is only the deep end. 

I make my own ginger-infused cachaca, spiked with brown sugar.  If one of my guests feels for a regular capirena, then imagine offering a ginger spiced cachaca with fresh lime juice and muddled basil leaves instead of mint. This takes weeks to create, but is my labor of love. 

I also make an Indian spiced rum. 

And cook up a  subtle take-off on Bailey's Irish cream, with fennel, vanilla, and vodka.

Even my own ginger beer.

But this past Sunday was the least sexy of all: mixers. But I'm ahead of myself. Weeks past I looked up some great articles at home on tiki cocktails, those fruity drinks with umbrellas and six kinds of fructose as garnishes. Little did I know that these are classics and deserve respect. The more I read of them, the more I respected them.

After World War II there was a tiki craze in the states. Don the Beachcomber, as he called himself, was an expert in these Polynesian concoctions and is the man responsible for making Trader Vic's a household name. He was a celebrity bartender from the 40's to the 70's. He changed the way America drank, which is to say, he is now my hero.

The drink that put Don the Beachcomber on the map was the Zombie. What a name! My favorite thing about this drink is that you could have two before he cut you off, period, thanks for coming/here's the home-game. If there was a table of eight and they ordered two Zombies, no third Zombie would be served. It was just too much booze in too easy a cocktail to swallow. 

Light rum, dark rum, a splash of pernod of all things, and some fruit juices, and finally the hard part: grenadine, "Don's mix", and something called falernum. Grenadine is pretty easy to make (equal parts pomagranate juice and simple syrup) and Don's mix is equal parts grapefruit juice and cinnamon spiked simple syrup. 

But falernum is something used only in small touches, a bit more than a splash. Originally it started out as a bitter/astringent rum from Barbados. I based my recipe on Sir Dale DeGroff's. (He's not a knight, but he should be.) He is the Ben Franklin of my industry and he makes falernum by marinating white rum with lime zest, cloves, and almond oil. (Personally,  I softened mine by adding some grapefruit rind, and crushed macadamia nuts instead of some oil. At the risk of heresy, I need to show my boss that I can sell falernum if my Zombies fail to conquer the city. But I digress....)

Finally, a true mai tai needs a white syrup called orgeat --pronounced "OR-zat." I'm sure it's ten dollars a bottle at Whole Foods, but who cares? Why buy what you can make? 

Internet to the rescue: blanch almonds for a half hour, then grind them up in a food processor. Then set them into water for two hours, and strain through cheese clothe. 

But it doesn't end there. Once the oil/water mix has been separated from the almond mush for two hours, you put the mush back in. Then let it sit two more hours. Strain through cheese clothe and let the two separate for another two hours. 

Blah blah blah, this goes on and on for four repetitions. I actually measured my time out so it sat for four hours and once the solution sat overnight. Why? Because when it comes to trying a recipe for something you've never tried to make a drink you've never had, why not be careful? After all, it's my first time.

Believe it or not, this IS the short version of my story. Making orgeat is a mess, and sticky, all of this goes on while I work a shift around it and create hours of cleaning once I'm done--no guarantees this works either. However, once I'm done I've got a liter and a half of orgeat syrup that tastes incredible, as well as several fantasies of making drinks in a Hawaiian shirt. 

At the end of my Sunday night, I had made falernum, Don's mix, and grenadine. The orgeat would take two days to make. Two shirts and pants, too. The stuff is messy if you don't know what you're doing.

Now to test them out.

Step 2: TIKI TAKES THE FIELD

There was a small party in the Roger Smith Hotel's Singular Solarium--only thirty people. I came prepared to make Mai Tais, Zombies, and navy Grog. These are classics, the cosmos of their day. They were huge hits in the 30's, 40's, 50's, 60's, and 70's. There is a subculture of people even now who love tiki bars and their cocktails and follow bartenders wherever they go if the product is right.

I wrangled my way into working the portable bar in the solarium. The party was a sit-down dinner with a cocktail hour beforehand for a tech company from California. Translation: if I messed up my tiki cocktails, then no one would be the wiser, since all involved would get back on a plane in a few days, thus my reputation was protected.

Take it from a bartender for fifteen years: what matters to a patron is the favors in the glass. If a drink is bad, then no one cares what movie star drinks them, and the cute name will not matter. If my drinks suck then no one will drink them. 

Long story still reasonably long: few of the guest in the solarium enjoyed their mai tai or zombie. One man was honest enough to tell me my Don's mix tasted overpoweringly of cinnamon. He was right. It tasted too much of cinnamon. Since then I toned it down, as well as  adjusted the amount of lime juice, and made special garnishes of tropical fruit. 

The most important change was the name of the Navy Grog. The word "grog" implying something too strong that does not taste good. And make no mistake: a good Navy Grog is like Arthur Miller performed well or Douglas Fairbanks in his prime. A perfect thing with both an edge and reassurance, strength and subtlety.

My Uncle Don, who died less than a year ago, was one of a great many brave man who served in the navy during World War II. He was the kind of that tough old man who worked with his hands all his life and spoke of himself as little as possible. My father had done astonishing things in the Korean War (and marvelous things after) but Dad always felt paled in Uncle Don's presence. 

At an age when I was a high school sophomore anxious to meet girls, my Uncle Don was diving on sinking ships in the middle of the attack on Pearl Harbor. He nearly died during the second wave, yet he continued on for twenty six hours in a diving suit with a broken collar bone. He was an amazing man who loved to laugh, to fix things, to drive long highways. 

Thus, after tweaking the Navy Grog for a more modern sensibility, I now call it Don's Punch, after my Uncle Don.

Epilogue: while the tiki cocktails did not take off with my thirty techies, they loved the Indian spiced rum, and most inexplicably the ginger beer. You never know...

The lesson: try everything you can afford to try. Why not?