The Bon Vivant’s Companion

I’ve been working on this blog post since March.  Not because it’s so special, but because life happened, and then death did.

Originally, my plan was to write about the St. Francis Hotel’s newly opened Clock Bar and their best selling cocktail, the Persephone — a new drink done in a classic style by mixologist Marcovaldo Dionysos (who, unless he’s using a nom de plume, was clearly born to be a bartender.)

The Clock Bar, run by Chef Michael Mina, features world-class bar snacks and a cocktail menu that thinks it’s 1935.  But it’s not 1935.  It’s not even March any more, and this blog post has lingered unwritten long enough…

I’m a sucker for all things mythological and the Persephone, a cocktail made with Charbay vodka, homemade grenadine, and pomegranate juice, struck me as clever (and made me wonder why more libations aren’t named after Olympians…the Hephaestus anyone?)

Persephone, the goddess of spring, and daughter of Demeter (harvest) and Zeus (everything) was a hottie, devil-may-care kind of Olympian until Hades fell for her, dragged her to the underworld, and made her his queen.

Demeter, unable to find her daughter, rendered the earth barren while Persephone was missing.  Needing live people to worship him, and seeing no upside to mass starvation, Zeus stepped in and forced Hades to release his new bride.  Persephone was returned to her mother, but having eaten several seeds from an underworld pomegranate, she was tied to Hades forever.

(Travel advisory – skip the roadside snacks in hell.)

In a rare compromise, the gods decided to share, and Persephone spent the rest of her days splitting time between her mom’s house and her husband’s kingdom.

Mythology meets modern mixology. That was the concept.  That’s what I planned on talking about back in March, but as I said, life happened, and then, ironically, death did.

Shortly after I got home, and busy, and sick, my cousin Jamie died.  She was more than the word cousin implies, she was my little sister, my friend.  Jamie died suddenly, and young, and without much explanation.  Reeling is what I’ve been up to since it happened. In general, mornings have not been seen, work has not been done, and blogs have gone unwritten.

In dealing with the loss of Jamie, and my aunt’s grief, the myth of Persephone has taken on a whole new meaning.  I understand it better.  I know first hand that, if she could, my aunt would make it snow every day until someone gave her Jamie back.

So as the weeks have passed, and the fog has lifted, I’ve decided to revisit the Persephone.  After doing research, and discovering that there isn’t a definitive version of this cocktail (all apologies to Mr. Dionysos) I decided to come up with my own.

Because it’s summer now, I turned to gin as my base spirit.  I added homemade grenadine, pomegranate juice, and a little muddled mint.

Turns out, mint is a sacred plant closely tied to Persephone.  As the story goes, Hades cheated on Persephone with a nymph named Menthe.  When she found out, Persephone trampled on Menthe until she became a sprig of mint.

Maybe I find retribution funny, but I get a kick out of that story.  I think Jamie would too.

Here’s the recipe:
The Persephone
1 ½ oz Plymouth Gin
1 oz Pomegranate Juice
¾ Homemade Grenadine (I chose a recipe created by Jeff Hollinger, owner of Absinthe and author of “Art of the Bar”)
¼ Fresh lime Juice
3 or 4 pieces of mint
Fever Tree Bitter Lemon to taste
Mint for garnish
Put 3 or 4 pieces of mint in a Boston shaker, cover with Grenadine, and muddle ingredients until completely mixed.  Add gin, pomegranate juice, and ice, and shake until chilled.
Pour entire contents of shaker into a rocks glass.  Garnish with mint.

Jamie

Wanted to take a minute to brag a little about my guys, the Bon Vivant Bartenders.

Over the last two years I’ve developed a team of bartenders for catering events, private parties, and corporate clients. They are smart, funny, creative mixologists, and a hell of a lot of fun to work with. (Unfortunately, not all of them are pictured.)

I was filing away event pictures yesterday and (besides being struck by how cool my guys look) was amazed by the number of events we’ve executed in the last twelve months.  We’ve been in Prince’s living room, at the Kentucky Derby, the SAG Awards, the Golden Globes, and behind every bar at every party thrown by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.  (We spend so much time at the Academy, they’re thinking about getting us an office.  Actually, we could use a statue….)

We’ve been to San Francisco for the Black and White Ball, to Vegas for the Tiger Woods Foundation, and Phoenix for the NBA All Star Game, and that’s just a random sampling.  Last year, as a team, we knocked out more than 200 events.

Recently, we’ve taken our our act global (or at least international), with one guy representing me at a Michael Jordan event in the Bahamas, and another in Cabo with Chelsea Handler & Friends overseeing her birthday cocktails on the beach.  Tough job, but as the saying goes…

The BV Bartenders are a group of really great guys.  I’m thankful for their hard work, impressed by their talent, and moved by their sense of teamwork and loyalty.  (Occasionally, I want to hold one of them down in a tub of ice until they’re unconscious, but overall, I’m a very lucky girl.)  Their professionalism and talent is the reason for my company’s growth and success.  I, quite literally, couldn’t do it without them.

Thanks guys,
Jen

To learn more about these highly-trained cocktail professionals,

check us out at:
www.bonvivantevents.com

Below is a recipe based on the one created for Chelsea Handler’s Birthday extravaganza.

(Ms. Chandler pictured above)

Grey Goose “Margarita”

The “We know it can’t really be a Margarita without tequila, but this is pretty damn close, cocktail”
Based on a Recipe by Randy Evans

2 oz Grey Goose Le Citron
Homemade sour mix to taste (recipe below)
½ oz Cointreau
Salt for Rim
Lime wedge

Pour vodka, Cointreau, sour mix, and ice into a shaker.  Shake gently.
Pour entire contents into a glass rimmed with salt.  Garnish with a lime.

Homemade Sour Mix:
(Randy’s recipe is top secret.  This one is mine)
1 cup lemon juice
¾ cup lime juice
1 cup simple syrup
2 egg whites (the egg whites are optional).  They add a really great texture and mouth feel to the finished cocktail.

If you are worried about the raw egg, I recoment using pasturized Eggology Egg Whites.

After a month (or two) of holiday imbibing I take it easy during the first week of the year.  So instead of a cocktail recipe, I wanted to share a fun find — Absinthe lollipops.

Available online from Lollyphile, these pops are substantial but won’t leave you tipsy, or talking to green fairies (that’s what the liquid stuff is for).  They use real absinthe in these (excuse the pun) suckers, but during the cooking process the alcohol burns off.  Legal levels of thujone (the alleged hallucination causing chemical found in wormwood) and a subtle licorice-green flavor remains. Yes, I said licorice-green flavor.  (Turns out candied Absinthe is tough to describe.)

Made in San Francisco by Jason Lewis, a self-described candyphile, these lollipops are elegant conversation-starters.  Give Absinthe lollipops as gifts, add them to packages, or share them as party favors.

They’re tasty, so remember to keep a couple for yourself.

Check out the Lollyphile website for a chuckle and more info:

http://www.lollyphile.com/

Wasabi-ginger, and maple-bacon (yes, bacon) lollipops also available.

It’s New Year’s Eve.  We could talk champagne, cocktails, and New Year’s traditions.  We could chat about resolutions, goals, and plans for the New Year.  All quaint New Year’s topics to be sure, but ones you won’t give a rat’s ass about tomorrow morning when you’re hiding in a dark room begging a higher power to make the pain go away.  So, if you really want to start 2009 on the right foot, let’s discuss hangover cures.

There are hundreds of them, hair of the dog, spicy drinks, heavy foods.  Jumping up and down on one foot, huge amounts of Gatorade, breathing into a paper bag (that might be panic attacks).  If you have a cure that works for you – great – keep it, share it, get it warmed up for tomorrow.

If you don’t, here is mine, given to me by a bartender, and voracious consumer of spirits.
Hangover Cure:

A large glass of water
A package of Emergen C
(a small glass of orange juice can be substituted)
A spoonful of honey
2 aspirin

Before Bed:
Dissolve Emergen C in water, swallow honey, and down the aspirin.

Now sleep.
If you wake up hours later feeling a little fuzzy repeat spoonful of honey/ glass of water.

WHY:
You are dehydrated.  When patients are suffering from extreme dehydration (which you are not, by the way) the are given glucose water.  Water with natural sugars that can be easily processed by the body in it’s damaged state.  The sugars bind to protein cells in the kidneys and keep nutrients from being lost, and allow for re-hydration.

For your comparatively mild dehydration,  honey is the natural sugar that will perform the binding/hydrating/energizing task outlined above.  The body also easily absorbs Emergen C (for nutrients); water is the conduit, and aspirin – well – that’s just insurance.

A Bloody Mary in the morning won’t kill you either.  Stay clear of sugary drinks, and caffeine, and take it easy.

Happy New Year’s!

There is something iconic and beautiful about a single shot of Whiskey.  It’s the drink of choice for cinematic tough guys who sidle up to bars and drink from dirty glasses before demanding the bottle.  The drink of writer’s and poets on their road to self-destruction, and of Chris, my best friend from college, who slugged whiskey from the bottle (and then chased it with Coke from a Big Gulp).  Personally, the Big Gulp ruined the aesthetics for me, so when we drank together, I’d belt my whiskey unflinchingly straight, no chaser.  Grrrrr.  When you’re really badass, no mixers or glassware required.

Years have passed, Chris has turned to German beer, and I’ve learned to use a rocks glass (and when really being fancy, rocks).  Whiskey is still my drink of choice, and occasionally, when the situation calls for it, I embrace the simplicity of the single shot.

Like when I couldn’t move, a shot of bourbon got me into the car for my grandfather’s funeral.  After a harrowing week on the road, it helped me celebrate my move across the country, and when my college diploma arrived in the mail, after a decade of being held hostage, Jack Daniels and I met it at the door.

This year, while visiting family for Christmas, a single shot of whiskey eased me into my holiday.  For some reason, it was a long road back to Chicago, and it’s negative five-degree weather.  I was alone, didn’t want to be, and while the evening before had been perfect, everything went wrong the day of my flight.  I’d broken the mirror off of my car while parking, forgotten my winter gloves, smashed my cell phone’s headset, and when I checked into the newly built hotel, depressingly located in a suburban shopping mall, record snow was falling.  I watched it come down as I tracked my lost luggage on a website that barely worked.

Starving, and too late for room service, I raided the mini fridge looking for jellybeans.  That’s where I found him.  Jack, wearing a teeny, tiny airport bottle.  After some quick hellos, I powered down my computer, took a long, warm shower, and from the comfort of my “heavenly bed”, sipped a pure shot of whiskey.  I sipped it slowly, and unflinchingly, from the bottle.  No glassware required.

For the rest of the week I enjoyed juices, punches, and the odd Christmas margarita, but that single shot had set the tone.  No matter how cold, or far away from home, I was a badass, and was going to be fine.

Thanksgiving dinner was a family affair this year.  My sister provided delicious experimental cheeses, my cousin threw down with me in the kitchen, and my boyfriend kept a stiff upper lip while my relations teased him about – well –everything.  It was a tough crowd, and we needed a cocktail that would pair well with food, football, and anger management.

I settled on Cornucopia Sangria, a cocktail recently published in the San Francisco Chronicle.  Written by Stacy Finz, this great article suggests holiday cocktails for every imaginable occasion. (Except maybe hating the holidays, which, I guess, is what whiskey and a dark room are for.)

Adapted from “Peterson’s Holiday Helper,” by Valerie Peterson, the Cornucopia calls for chopped whole cranberries, oranges, apples, and red Rioja (a deeply colored, medium bodied Spanish wine with hints of berry).   Macerate (which is a fancy way of saying marinate) the chopped fruit in triple sec for a bit, and then stir the Rioja and sparkling cider into the mix.

Cocktail notes:
*Add the sparkling cider slowly, and to taste.  Depending on the quality and flavor of the Rioja you are using, too much sparkling cider can dilute the flavors of the wine.

*Let the mixture sit for a while, the flavor becomes richer over time.

*Although, not traditionally part of a sangria recipe, for a cocktail with a little more body (and a lot more kick) try mixing in a touch of vodka — we added a little Grey Goose.  By the time dinner rolled around the turkey was a little on the dry side, but we weren’t.

This sangria is great for groups, daytime sipping, and helping you through holiday duties like present wrapping, cookie baking, and the hauling out of ornaments (or fighting about the hauling out of ornaments). Whatever happens in your house.

For the full SF Gate article on holiday cocktails, including the Cornucopia Sangria recipe, click here.

For those who have not voted:
What the Sam-hell are you doing reading this? Log off your computer, tell your boss you’re taking an early lunch, and get down to your polling place!

For those who have voted:
Way to be civically minded. You may continue reading…

The electoral cocktail votes are tallied:

Through random searches, stumble upons, and google inquires, you have overwhelmingly chosen the Obamartini as The Companion’s most popular Candidate Cocktail.

McCain’s “Maverick” experienced a late surge in popularity, but it was not enough to pull off an upset. And in the VP category, The Biden Beer Bomb took top honors, besting the Yukon Sarah by a wide margin.

The Sarah is a tasty cocktail, but its namesake is a drag on the drink’s popularity. To gain wider acceptance, I might rename it the “Tina Fey-tini,” or “The Cocktail that Replaced Elizabeth Hasselbeck on the View.” (A gig Ms. Palin should consider if she doesn’t break her neck leaping over Ted Stevens for his Senate seat.) I would much rather hear Ms. Palin talk diet tips and new fall fashions than foreign policy.

If wishes were horses….

I am not posting new recipes today, just links to the existing Partisan Pours. Throw your support behind one or more of these cocktails, and win or lose, they’ll get you through election night.

We’ll discuss the hangover tomorrow…

Candidate Cocktails:

The Obamartini
The Biden Beer Bomb
McCain’s Cocktail: The Maverick
Yukon Sarah

My youngest sister Megan, who recently completed the Chicago Marathon, commissioned this cocktail to mark the occasion. 

Personally, I can’t run from my front door to my car. (Even if one, or both, of those things were on fire.  Even if I was on fire.) So congratulations Megan, I’m very proud of you.

Meg ran the marathon with her husband Matt in a show of sporty/adorable togetherness.  (Something else I’m incapable of.)  Steve (my boyfriend) and I rarely go on a hike that doesn’t end in emotional tumult and tears.  He hikes; I’m emotional tumult, and tears.

Anyway, Meg and Matt wanted a cocktail they could serve other “sporty” people during their “we ran a marathon and are still talking to each other” party.  

Megan’s description of life after mile 21 inspired the drink’s theme “passion, blood, and sweat”.  Tasty.  Chambord gives the cocktail its red hue, passion fruit is the main mixer, and it’s finished off with a splash of Izzy, the user-friendly energy drink.  Shake it until it sweats.

Here are the results:

Megan’s Milestone

1 ½ oz Grey Goose Vodka

1 ½ oz Passion Fruit Juice

½ oz Simple Syrup

¼ oz Chambord (raspberry Liquor)

¼ Lime Juice

Izzy Pomegranate Juice Drink

Lime garnish

Pour ingredients from vodka through limejuice into a martini shaker. Shake until beads of sweat form on the outside of the shaker.  Pour the contents of the shaker (including ice) into a rocks glass.   Top off with Izzy (just enough to make it fizzy and blood red).   Garnish with a lime wedge.

Finished cocktail with mixers

In 1919 an American officer stationed in England concocted the French 75 and named it after a 75mm howitzer gun.  Quaint.  The cocktail wasn’t made ring-a-ding  famous until it appeared at the Stork Club in the 1930’s.   And I must say — looks awfully good served in their champagne coupes (pictured left).

The French 75 is a gin-based drink topped off with champagne, and while there are many versions of this cocktail (apologies to the Stork Club) my favorite is based on the one found in The Art of the Bar:

French 75
1 1/2 ounces gin
1/2 ounce simple syrup
1/2 fresh lemon juice
Top off with champagne
Garnish with maraschino cherries & lemon twist

Cocktail Notes:
I recommend using Hendrick’s Gin. It’s a floral tasting gin with hints of cucumber, and doesn’t have the tinny, juniper berry, finish common in lesser gins.  Hendrick’s blends easily into classic cocktails without overpowering them.

Shaken or Stirred?
A decision to make before adding champagne, which is carbonated and will do bad things to the pressure inside your Boston shaker….

Shaken:
When you shake a drink a couple of things happen:
*ingredients become thoroughly mixed
*cocktail gets very cold
*ice melts rapidly diluting the drink (it’s little less boozy tasting)

Stirred:
Stirring has a slightly different effect:
*chills drink  (not as cold as shaken)
*blends without diluting, spirits shine through
*creates a nice foamy texture

When combining flavored mixers and citrus to a cocktail I lean toward shaking, but experiment and see what you like best.

Slight Variations:
These are mine, and unofficial, but give the drink a little blush color and another hint of flavor.

In addition to the recipe’s simple syrup you can add:
*a touch of pomegranate simple syrup
or
*a little of the marachino cherry juice

There is a certain romance about classic champagne coupes.  They conjure up images of movie stars in swank lounges having more fun than you will ever have—ever.

But, a girl can dream.

Which was my thought when I came across replicas of the grand coupes that once graced the tables of New York’s legendary Stork Club.  I bought four and sat by the door every day until they arrived — in eco-friendly cornstarch based packing peanuts no less.

Upon arrival I had those babies out of their boxes and filled with champagne in minutes.  Perfect.  Each saucer is wide and its walls are high, holding more than 16 ounces of liquid — an insane single serving of champagne—and you’d only ever fill it to the brim for serious personal reasons or fear of a sudden champagne shortage.  Point is—the saucer’s deep.  This design feature (once lost to the ages) keeps champagne from sloshing around, allowing you to sip standing upright,  not by craning your neck like a giraffe grazing low hanging leaves.  Through the wonder of technology you are now free to wander about without losing the entire contents of your glass — something that should never be attempted with a flimsy wedding-land coupe.

The Stork Club coupes are ideal for champagne cocktails, kir royals, and my new favorite —  Death in the Afternoon. 

Yes, critics will tell you that champagne bubbles will dissipate faster in a coupe due to the large surface area.  So I recommend you drink that cocktail instead of staring at it.

If you want to feel like Cary Grant or Katherine Hepburn — for just a moment — these are the glasses for you.  They can be purchased online through New York First, a company that specializes in all things related to the Big Apple.  The site is laid out like a department store, and it’s a very nice place to wander around.

Retro Champagne Coupes:
$24 (set of two)
$44 (set of four)