It’s Cocktail Time

All it takes is two sunny days in a row with temperatures in the 70s to start me dreaming about cocktails. Vodka and tonics in particular.

I know you can (and I do) drink cocktails all year long, but there is something special about sipping an ice-cold, refreshing beverage while laying out by the lake in the late afternoon after a hard day of yard work that a hot toddy just can’t touch.

The weather is not the only reason I’ve been daydreaming about cocktails. On a recent trip to Nelson, BC, Jon and I stumbled upon one of the most delicious concoctions I’d ever tasted. We were in the Library Bar at the Hume Hotel and the bartender was prepping some fresh mint. It smelled so wonderful that I immediately wanted a drink with mint in it, but what to have? The barman said they made a nice mojito or I could try a Koots Ginger Roots. He said it was made with gin, ginger, lime and, of course, mint. I was sold. It’s times like these I wish I had a higher alcohol tolerance because I could have drank these all night. As it was, I had two and enjoyed every sip.

Had I opted for the mojito (with rum as it’s base spirit) I would have partaken of the more historical form of the cocktail. It turns out that rum is the first American spirit and, without it, cocktails may never have been invented.

When Christopher Columbus introduced sugar cane to the New World, industrious colonists discovered how to use the molasses (a by-product of sugar production) for something tastier than molasses. Rum was born. But the British wanted a cut, so the 300-year tradition of taxing liquor began.

The colonists were so incensed by the taxes (there were three, the Molasses Act, the Sugar Act and the Stamp Act) that they founded the First Continental Congress and began the War of Independence (and you thought it was about that other beverage). Once the war was won, the US government realized there was a lot of money to be made on alcohol tax and continues to this day the idea King George started.

But rum alone does not make a cocktail. The earliest definition of a cocktail, published in 1806 in The Balance and Columbian Repository, was “a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water and bitters”.

It was the bitters that set cocktails apart from the plethora of drinks that came before it. I guess possets, popes, and purls were all missing that key ingredient, as were ratafias, shrubs, turnip wines, bishops, sacks, and flips (and here I thought some of the drink names today were strange).

Bitters are a New World discovery. Native Americans taught the colonists how use herbs and plants to flavor and add medicinal properties to beverages. In return, the colonists showed Native Americans how to build stills (probably not the best trade, but that’s fodder for a different story). Combining alcohol with different types of bitter herbs resulted in a plethora of different bitters.

Initially, bitters were considered medicine (in part to avoid the above mentioned taxes) and are still used today as digestifs, but their best use was discovered sometime in the late 1700s; bitters are great at enhancing the flavor of mixed drinks.

There are hundreds of different types of bitters out there today (no, Angostura, is not the only game in town, in fact, there’s been quite a bitters revival of late). Flavoring ingredients range from foods like artichokes and orange peel to herbs like gentian and wormwood. Nowadays, a well stocked bar is expected to have a wide selection of bitters as well as spirits.

Taking a look at my two (new) favorite summertime drinks, I realized that both of them were true cocktails. The vodka and tonic contains all four key components, even if three of them are found in the tonic water. The Koots keeps its four components separate.

Today’s cocktails don’t necessarily adhere to the classic definition. They are often missing any of the three ingredients besides spirits. You could argue that a vodka martini made with just vodka and an olive is not a true cocktail, although it is only missing the sugar, since the ice lends some water to the drink and the olive does offer some bitterness.

But why argue when there are so many fabulous sounding recipes to try? There’s not enough time to quibble when there’s mixing to be done and experimentation to try. The web is filled with cocktail ideas, recipes, and how-to guides, and yes, there’s even an app to help you figure out what drinks you can make with the ingredients you have on hand.

With summertime approaching and July 4th just around the corner, let’s be patriotic and make cocktails.

Gin Hume Mint
This is my attempt at recreating the drink we had at the Hume. It’s close but not quite it. But maybe it’s because we’d not sitting on the deck of the Library Bar while someone else serves it to us. It’s still dang tasty.

½ oz simple syrup or less depending on how sweet you like your drinks (see recipe below)
2 sprigs fresh mint, separated
juice of 1 lime plus a slice for garnish
1 t coarsely grated fresh ginger
1½ oz gin (I used our local Dry Fly)
Dash of bitters (I used Angostura because it’s all I had (I definitely need to remedy that))
Ice
Club soda

In a highball glass, muddle the simple syrup, leaves from one sprig mint, lime juice, and ginger. Add the gin and bitters and stir. Add one of the mint sprigs for garnish. Fill the glass with ice then top off with club soda. Stir again and serve.

Simple Syrup
1 part water
1 part sugar

In a jar with a tight fitting lid, add sugar and water. Screw on lid and shake until all the sugar is dissolved. This takes a few minutes but is still faster than heating up the mixture and waiting for it to cool. I usually make it in ½ cup batches (½ cup sugar, ½ c water) unless I’m throwing a party where I’ll be making lots of drinks. It will keep refrigerated for several weeks.