Category: Recipe

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Blue Curacao: Drillaud vs. Giffard

Blue Curacao Shootout

Back to our regularly scheduled program. I found the Drillaud Orange Curacao to be pretty serviceable and a great option for those looking for a lower-priced liqueur. So, it’s time to give the Drillaud Blue Curacao a spin and compared to my recommended spirit in this category, Giffard Curacao Bleu.

Both spirts are 25% ABV and the color is deep and blue in both. Tasting both neat, it does seem that that the Giffard has a more complex flavor that is a pleasure to flow over the tongue. The Drillaud is thankfully not as sickly sweet as some liqueurs I’ve tasted, and without any unpleasant after-taste. But, it does taste a bit “thin” compared to the Giffard. Nonetheless, this is a good sign for Drillaud.

Next, I tasted both in a Blue Hawai-Tai. As you can see, the colors are similar and both make an excellent version of our Blue Mai Tai with heavy rums. Here too, the Drillaud makes a good cocktail but indeed the Giffard is still better. Just a little bit more satisfying and rounded.

Giffard is the winner on taste alone but what about the price? I see the Giffard for sale at around $28, where the Drillaud is around $13. So, the Drillaud is a pretty good substitute and is just about half the price.

Learn more: Giffard vs. Senior Blue Curacao

Blue Hawai-Tai by Kevin Crossman
1 oz Lemon Juice
1 oz White Overproof Jamaican Rum
½ oz Aged White Rum
½ oz Orgeat
½ oz Simple Syrup
½ oz Blue Curacao

 

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Cocktail Delivery: Painkiller and Blue Hawai-Tai

Cocktail Delivery for a teacher friend who’s had a hard week (a friend of Mrs Mai Tai). I got some stickers to put my collection of mason jars to good work.

Standard issue Painkiller (with Lemon Hart 1804/Plantation Dark) and a Blue Hawai-Tai. It was fun to share the love of a good cocktail, and in this case for sure went to a worthy cause.

Blue Hawai-Tai by Kevin Crossman
1 oz Lemon Juice
1 oz White Overproof Jamaican Rum
½ oz Aged White Rum
½ oz Orgeat
½ oz Simple Syrup
½ oz Blue Curacao

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Old Cuban

Tried something new, the Old Cuban. This calls for Cuban style rum, and is sort of a Mojito-meets-sparkling wine. I tried with both Bacardi 8 from Puerto Rico and Real McCoy 5 from Barbados and indeed the lighter rum is actually much better.

Old Cuban
¾ oz Lime Juice
1 oz Simple Syrup
6 Mint Leaves
1½ oz Cuban-style Rum
2 dashes Angostura Bitters
2 oz Sparkling Wine

Muddle the lime, syrup and mint. Then add the rum and bitter. Shake with ice and strain into a coupe glass. Top with sparkling wine (I used Prosecco). Very nice, and I normally don’t like wine.

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How to Make the Ultimate Mai Tai

How to make the Ultimate Mai Tai? Follow along with our recipe and make a Mai Tai yourself to celebrate Mai Tai Day on August 30.

Ultimate Mai Tai by Kevin Crossman
½ oz Appleton 12 Rum
½ oz Smith & Cross Rum
½ oz Plantation OFTD Rum
½ oz Plantation Xaymaca Rum
1 oz Lime Juice
½ oz Orgeat (Latitude 29)
½ oz Orange Curacao (Ferrand Dry Curacao)
¼ oz Demerara Syrup (BG Reynolds)

Garnish with Mint Sprig and spent Lime shell

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Mai Tai Day is Here

August 30 is Mai Tai Day, the date where true Mai Tai fans celebrate the birth of the Mai Tai in Oakland, California in 1944.

I celebrated by making a standard proportion 1944 recipe Mai Tai with some special rums. A tribute to fine rums that belong in the finest cocktail. And a salute to Mai Tai Nation.

¼ oz Mount Gay XO
¼ oz Pampero Aniversario
¼ oz Clement VSOP
¼ oz Hampden Estate Overproof
½ oz Denizen Merchant’s Reserve
½ oz Appleton 12 Rare Casks

Float ¾ oz Ultimate Mai Tai Blend (Appleton 12, Smith & Cross, Xaymaca, OFTD)

A delicious Mai Tai, slightly boozier than average. Though by Frankensteining the rum blend it doesn’t have a particularly unique character that you’d get using one of these rums all by themselves.

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BG Reynolds Syrup Day

Do you love making your own homemade cocktail syrups? Does it bring you pleasure to come up with a unique approach or taste for a special ingredient? Do you love saving money by leveraging ingredients you already have in your house? If so, I salute you. Truly, good for you.
 
But that is not my gig.
 
It doesn’t move me. I don’t really care. Or most probably I’m just lazy. If I can find a commercial solution, I’m totally okay with that.
 

Yesterday I went to Total Wine to sample some new spirits and cocktail ingredients. I bought three things, and they were all losers. But today, my shipment from BG Reynolds arrived. It’s a good day.

I ordered three syrups:
 
1 – Passion Fruit Syrup. I used the last of mine the other day, so just in time. I find this syrup to be a nice balance of sweet and tart.
 
2 – Devine Vanilla. I use this for a couple holiday cocktails and I was hankering to make some new Don’s Spices #2 (equal parts Vanilla/Pimento Dram)
 
3 – Honey Mix. I had a heck of a time making honey mix at home in the past, so I thought I’d give this a try. It’s made with Orange Blossom Honey and it’s really great. It smells like orange but tastes like honey. This is going to work great for some cocktails I’ve been meaning to revisit.
 
The cocktail tonight is the Ultimate Navy Grog, leveraging the ingredients procured tonight. I’m still digging this version of the classic tiki cocktail, incorporating elements of the Don the Beachcomber and Trader Vic’s version. The Honey Mix in particular works well in this cocktail.
 
Thank you BG Reynolds!
 

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Saturn

Most tikiphiles are familiar with the classic cocktails that Jeff “Beachbum” Berry brought back from the dead, finding their original recipes and sharing them with the world. The 1934 Zombie is the holy grail but there’s also Three Dots and a Dash, the Q.B. Cooler, and others. But an overlooked recipe that deserves just as much praise is the Saturn.

The Saturn was originally prepared by J. “Popo” Galsini in 1967 for the IBA World Cocktail Championship – and Popo won the darn thing. You’d think that thereafter this drink would have been world famous, but nobody was drinking these until Berry discovered it and published the recipe in his book Beachbum Berry’s Taboo Table in 2005.

Saturn
½ oz Lemon Juice
½ oz Passion Fruit Syrup
¼ oz Falernum
¼ oz Orgeat
1¼ oz Dry Gin
8 oz Crushed Ice

Blend and pour into a Pilsner or other tall glass.

The cocktail is surprisingly refreshing. Popo was said to have tended bar in several tiki bars, so he would have been familiar with Orgeat and Falernum that were already starting to lose favor along with the rest of the classic exotic cocktail ingredients in 1967.

I personally prefer up the Orgeat to ½ ounce and then to prepare shaken with crushed ice and served up in a coupe glass.