England - Pimm's cocktail

In England, the Pimm's cocktail is a refresher most associated with Wimbledon and summer. In San Francisco, the drink has remained on several restaurant and bar menus since earlier this year, perhaps because our fog is reminiscent of the stereotypically unpleasant London weather.

The Pimm's No. 1 Cup, the main ingredient in the Pimm's cocktail, is a brown-burgundy-colored, gin-based, semisweet, fruity liqueur. The liqueur is so strongly associated with the Pimm's cocktail that the cocktail is often called the Pimm's cup, the Pimm's No. 1 cup, or Pimm's and lemonade. Pimm's No. 1 Cup (the liqueur) is often simply called Pimm's.

Michael Garcia, sommelier for the W Hotel, suggests that Pimm's recent popularity may be due to the revived interest in classic drinks.

"More and more people are ordering it. I think people are interested in trying spirits that have a history to them and that's definitely one of them," Garcia says.

The Pimm's history begins in London in 1823, when James Pimm opened Pimm's Oyster Bar. He served oysters alongside the "house cup," a gin sling with a proprietary mix of liqueurs and fruit extracts. The drink was a big hit and he expanded the business to sell it by the bottle to other taverns. Several years later he followed with Pimm's No. 2 Cup, made with a Scotch base, and Pimm's No. 3 Cup, with a brandy base.

Eventually six Pimm's Cup versions were released, with base spirits rum, rye and vodka completing the line. Today, liquor giant Diageo, who owns the brand, sells only the original gin-based No. 1 Cup in the United States. In the United Kingdom, the gin-based No. 1 Cup, vodka-based No. 6 Cup, brandy-based No. 3 Cup (now labeled Pimm's Winter No. 3) are available.

The Pimm's and lemonade recipe on the official Pimm's Web site calls for one part Pimm's No. 1 Cup with three parts lemonade. But note: "Lemonade" to the Brits means lemon-lime soda to us. The Web site also suggests using ginger ale instead for "a tangy twist."

Bay Area bars and restaurants use a variety of mixers in their versions of the Pimm's cocktail, including some combination of ginger ale, ginger beer, American lemonade, soda water, and sparkling wine or Champagne.

Fruit and garnish are as much a signature of the drink as the mixer. Bartenders commonly include some combination of cucumber slices, apples, oranges, lemons and strawberries, and often top the drink with a mint sprig.

In his book "The Cocktails of the Ritz Paris" (Simon & Schuster, 2003) author Colin Peter Field includes green and black grapes and pear in his version of the cocktail, and says that he often adds strawberries and raspberries with red currants that "enhance the presentation. For the ladies I add a few petals of rose or an iris flower whole."

At the Slanted Door restaurant in San Francisco, bar manager Erik Adkins bases his Royal Pimm's Cup on Field's recipe, but skips the gender-specific garnish.

Adkins attempts to make the quencher as aromatic as possible, zesting orange and lime peel onto the finished drink, nesting a large slice of cucumber inside the rim of the glass, and topping it with a sprig of Thai basil. He suggests people sip the drink instead of using a straw to get a noseful of flavor.

Adkins doesn't use Pimm's No. 1 but a homemade version similar to Field's. It is a combination of gin, several kinds of sweet and dry vermouth, Campari and Dubonnet Rouge.

Adkins introduced the drink this summer as a Wimbledon-themed special. He says the drink is still popular, but he may take it off the menu soon to make room for a more winter-appropriate cocktail. He says, "Once someone sees one go out, everyone orders it, but if no one orders one we can go days without serving one."

Holly Crisson of Noe Valley became a fan of the Pimm's cocktail during a summer trip to London. "It seemed to be the appropriate drink," she says. Since returning, she's made an effort to seek out Pimm's in better bars and restaurants. She says her favorite Pimm's finds (in order) are San Francisco's Market Bar, the XYZ Bar in the W Hotel and Boulevard.

Pimm's cocktails appeared on several other restaurant drink menus this year, including Town Hall, Range, RNM and Cortez.

There are several other classic cocktails that call for Pimm's No. 1 Cup, but in San Francisco restaurants, bartenders tend to invent new ones. At Bambuddha Lounge, Pimm's is served in a Lucky Bamboo with ginger beer and ginger syrup. At Citizen Thai and the Monkey it is used in a Citizen's Cup with gin, ginger beer and fresh sour mix. At the Stray bar in Bernal Heights, it's served in a Kameleon with rum, blue curacao, pineapple juice and orange juice.

At Bourbon & Branch, the traditional Pimm's cocktail is sometimes available with added aromatic cucumber-mint foam on top, and bartender Todd Smith says he'll soon offer it as a martini-style drink without ice.

Many of San Francisco's British-style pubs keep a bottle of Pimm's No. 1 on hand, but Pimm's fan Crisson says she's no longer ordering them at neighborhood venues after some negative experiences. "Pimm's is not the kind of liqueur that you keep on the shelf unless you know what you're doing with it. I'm not going to order it from just any old bar. To have a disappointing Pimm's Cup is really disappointing."

Communist

Then we skipped over to Bourbon & Branch. Cior had the cucumber gimlet there that she really wanted. I tried it for the first time and I've got to say: Believe The Hype. Ciaran had the Rouge No. 10, which was magnificent as always. I tried The Communist, which has gin, orange juice, Cherry Heering, and lemon. It was excellent, and made even better after I tried a sip of the Rouge No. 10 and the taste of pepper was still in my mouth.


I also tried Peregrine Rock, another Californian single-malt. (If it were made in Scotland, it would be a scotch, coming from malted barley instead of the usual American corn or rye.) It had a wonderful cherry nose and leading flavor. Usually the cherry flavor I pick up in whiskies comes from aging in casks that previously held port or sherry. This whiskey, on the other hand, smells of fresh cherries. Usually the only 'fresh' flavors I usually pick up in scotch are of the grains, and the fruit tastes of dried fruit flavors or candied fruits. The finish of the Peregrine Rock is clean and neat, without the residual sweetness I'd expect from something that starts off so bright. I really liked this one.

Holy Negroni

A lot of bars are putting Campari into cocktails these days, so I figured I should get better acquainted with the stuff. Campari is a liqueur that tastes like like Robitussin mixed with Jaggermeister, but in a good way. It's starts out sticky sweet on the lips and finishes intensely herbal. So, as with some other strong liqueurs and most bitters, it can act as a bridge between sweet and dry parts of a cocktail, or add some depth to a drink.

Case in point: The Negroni. The traditional Negroni recipe is
1 part Gin
1 part Campari
3/4 part Sweet Vermouth
Garnish with burnt orange/orange wedge

You've got dry gin and sweet vermouth, which sound pretty gross alone. (I found two differently-named recipes that call for 1 1/2 ounce gin to 3/4 ounce sweet vermouth on DrinksMixer.com, so I decided to give it a try. It wasn't what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't good. To me, it tastes like gin and grease.)

Anyway, the Campari is the dominant flavor in the Negroni, so it's a lot more present than would be a few splashes of bitters. The other ingredients smooth out Campari's rough edges, while the Campari helps the gin and vermouth work together. It's kind of like a flashy hostage negotiator between the gin and sweet vermouth.

It may be clear at this point that I've had a few already tonight. But here's the lesson: I still need to try other Campari drinks, but I now know that the Negroni is a damn fine cocktail, and that I should have six more of them. See you in rehab.

Batidas

Caipirinha Recipe

60 ml Cachaça*
1/2 lemon
2 dessert spoons of refined sugar, honey or artificial sweetener

Mounted. Put the half lemon, cleaned, without seeds and with the peel in a glass on the rocks; cut the lemon in 4 pieces; put the sugar and mash in the same glass with a crusher until the lemon juice dilutes the sugar. Add crushed ice and put the cachaça. Decorate with a mixer. NOTE: we can also prepare mixed caipirinhas (with more than one fruit or fruit juice). Ex: strawberry and kiwi caipirinha.

Recipe for Batida de Coco

45 ml cachaça*
30 ml coconut milk
2 teaspoons confectioner’s sugar Shake with ice, in the manual cocktail shaker, serve in a cocktail glass. Decorate with half lemon slice.

Recipe for Batida de Maracujá

45 ml cachaça*
30 ml passion fruit juice
2 teaspoons confectioner’s sugar Shake all ingredients with ice, in the manual cocktail shaker, serve in a cocktail glass. Decorate with a slice of orange or half kinkan.

Notes

* Ojea stipulates the brand “51” for his recipes. We scent a merchandising deal, and since we didn’t get a cut, we’ll note that independent of the brand, “white,” non-aged cachaça (including the 51 brand) is best for caipirinhas and batidas.

I am Dumb When it Comes to Rum

I’ve been contacted recently by the team behind Aqua Luca, a Brazilian cachaca, as they’re launching the brand in San Francisco with a big party Sunday at the Bambuddha Lounge. This new brand was created by two east coast banker types who were looking for a new venture.

I was curious as to why they chose a cachaca, when the only drink that calls for it is the Caipirinha. When I looked into it, I learned that I didn’t have a clue what cachaca is.

Cachaca is just rum made with sugarcane juice instead of molasses. I did not know that. According to Wikipedia, some other rums are actually made with sugarcane then flavored to taste like molasses. I’ve heard that Oronoco is actually cachaca but it’s labeled as rum.

They sent me a (very pretty) bottle of it in the mail to try. Now, I don’t claim to be a rum connoisseur (since I didn’t even know about a whole category of the stuff), but here are my impressions on tasting Agua Luca.

The nose of this cachaca is very much more sharp and alcoholic than the rums I’m used to. It’s almost medicinal like rubbing alcohol rather than giving off coffee notes like Bacardi, though after nosing it enough I can smell baker’s chocolate. It’s also hot and thin in the mouth- not as creamy and slow as other rums, and it’s sharp in the mouth after swallowing, but not in the throat.

The bottle says it has a “lively finish,” and they’re not lying. The flavor is very compact and flies past the pallet so fast that your brain has a hard time capturing the flavors as they speed past. The main thing I taste is something between a barrel and tea, like a woody stalk of a plant (not that I’ve been sucking on many of those lately). I also taste ink, but I haven’t had too much of that lately either, though I clearly remember the flavor of the Scripto erasable pen from sixth grade.

Anyway, on my first cachaca tasting I’d have to say that I prefer regular rum to sip. The next step will be trying each in Caipirinhas and other mixed drinks. Because, you know, I have to be thorough.