Even to this day, I am still shocked when I add a dash or two of “bitters” to virtually any cocktail and immediately the drink improves. I think bitters is a cocktail ingredient that remains largely misunderstood by most of the drinking public… which is not surprising, because the drinking public of today is not a very well-informed body. Years of being force-fed hideous drinks such as the Mudslide, Sex on the Beach, and other abominations named after various sex acts has deprived us of our rich cocktail history, and we have yet to fully reclaim it.
Fortunately, bar geniuses touting the virtues of classic cocktails, fresh ingredients, balance, & complex flavor profiles such as Dale DeGroff, Gary Regan, Audrey Saunders, Eben Freeman, Eben Klemm (wow, two Ebens… jesus) and the whole crew over at Death & Co. in NYC, have reintroduced a whole generation of imbibers to what real drinking is. To think: only a few short years ago I was mixing flavored rum with puckers and pineapple juice from the gun and calling it my masterpiece… the “Time Bomb”.
Time Bomb (original, circa 2003/04)
1 oz. Bacardi Orange Rum
1 oz. DeKuyper Island Blue Pucker
1 oz. pineapple juice (from the gun)
Shaken with ice and strained into a small rocks glass. Garnished with a stemless maraschino cherry at the bottom of the glass.
I would sell hundreds of these every weekend to my little college boys and girls who wanted to get wasted and wake up with earth-shaking hangovers the next day. And, yeah, I drank them too. And I, too, suffered the ill-effects of this concoction. The name ”Time Bomb” is reference to the 30-minute time frame which the imbiber would have before the syrupy-sweet liqueurs found in said libation would cloud all judgment and reduce him/her to a blubbering, weeping mess; forcing the consumer to cling desperately to any sturdy monument in the bar for balance, be it a bar rail or a large Captain Morgan statue.
The years have passed and my understanding of cocktail balance has grown, and I now realize that not only is this drink foul and offensive, but in a sick, perverse way I actually still like it. But I cannot bring myself to order DeKuyper products for our bar here at the hotel. Here’s what Colleen Graham from About.com Cocktails had to say about my old friend Island Blue Pucker:
“There is not much to be said for DeKuyper Island Blue Pucker except that it should be avoided if you have any taste buds…Where many of the other Puckers produced by the brand that I’ve tried have a purpose in at least one or two cocktails (as novel as those may be), there was not one mix I tried where Island Blue Pucker didn’t completely destroy the drink.”
She goes on to suggest other blue liqueurs such as Hypnotiq, one of my other guilty pleasures (a story for another time). Also not going to be purchased for the hotel.
So I knew if I was to resurrect this drink, I would have to use a little creativity. Since the Island Blue Pucker provides absolutely no clues as to its fruits of origin, I would have to blindly pick some options and taste to determine whether or not they will recreate the profile.
Time Bomb #2
1 oz. 10 Cane First-Press Rum
.5 oz Patron Citronge
.5 oz Simple Syrup
.25 oz Pineapple juice
.25 oz Lemon Juice
.25 oz Blue Curacao
dash Orange Bitters
dash Peach Bitters
Combine ingredients in a mixing glass with ice. Shake vigorously and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
Here was my thought process: Since I wanted to preserve the integrity of the rum aspect, I wanted a flavorful light rum (not Bacardi) so I chose 10 Cane, because the fact of the matter is that it is freakin’ delicious. With the 10 Cane base in place, I knew I had to get that orange profile as well. Patron Citronge was a no-brainer here… it has a clean, crisp orange taste at half the price of Cointreau. Choosing cointreau as my secondary (or complimentary) liqueur automatically meant that the alcohol content of this drink will really stand out, since both liquors are around 80-proof. So I added some tartness and acidity to mask the alcohol bite. And, of course, I had to leave the pineapple juice… but this time I used real pineapple juice.
Then there was the Island Blue Pucker. To recreate a “tropical” fruit flavor, I used passion fruit concentrate (there are some pretty good ones out there. I used Perfect Puree… they also make a terrific blood orange concentrate) and Blue Curacao (blue color and complimentary orange flavor).
To round this drink off, I used both Regan’s No. 6 orange bitters and Fee’s Peach Bitters… the peach bitters does little more than add a sweeter nose to this drink, and the orange bitters adds complexity… but I wonder if I should have used good ol’ Angostura instead… Angostura has a spicy quality that pairs excellently with rum.
In short, this is a much, much, much better drink… but in the end, I’m still nostalgic for my original high-fructose collegiate masterpiece.
A side note: the original Time Bomb is still available at both Maloney’s on 4th and O’Malley’s on 4th.
No comments:
Post a Comment