The List Post

In honor of all the great fall beers available this time of year, I've decided to make some lists of the best ones I've tried (and a few other lists):

Top 3 Autumn Beers (2008)

3. Dogfish Head Punkin
A nice touch of pumpkin and spice, but it doesn't overwhelm an otherwise very nice brown ale.

2. Sierra Nevada Anniversary Ale
Perhaps not strictly an autumnal beer, but it's available this time of year. Fantastic IPA.

1. Avery "The Kaiser" Oktoberfest
Rich oktoberfest lager at 10% abv. Delicious and inebriating.


Top 4 Overrated Beers

4. Blue Moon
If you're going to drink a Belgian ale, it should be Belgian. (Or at least French Canadian, i.e. Unibroue)

3. Heineken
A pale lager is, after all, just a pale lager, even if it is from the Netherlands.

2. Fat Tire
Fat Tire. Fat Tire is SO hot right now. Fat Tire. Seriously, it's not that good, get over it.

1. Stella Artois
Just because it has a French name doesn't change the fact that it's boring.


Best Beer Bars in C-U

3. Radio Maria
20+ taps and a decent bottle selection, but they don't change the list as often as other places.

2. Crane Alley
Several taps which rotate a lot and a bottle list spanning several pages of a menu. Great burgers, to boot.

1. Blind Pig Co.
Over 20 taps which change many times per season, great wooden pub atmosphere, proper glassware, and fair prices. Occasionally cask-conditioned ales, too.


Best Cocktail Bars in C-U

3. Seven Saints
A very large selection of all types of spirits, which they tabulate nicely in a bar menu. My only gripe is the occasional inexperienced bartender.

2. Radio Maria
Again, great list of spirits, cool blue-lit bar top, and one of the best bartenders in town (Chris), although I can't say the same for some of their other bartenders.

1. Boltini
Awesome house music on the weekends, never any cover, great interior decor, and HUGE cocktails expertly made almost every night.

Quebec Cocktail

My most dedicated (only?) reader pointed out that I had not posted in awhile, so here goes. This is something I tried today, actually, at Seven Saints. Today being a Wednesday, they had their usual whiskey Wednesdays going on, and this week was Canadian Whiskey. I'd never actually heard of this cocktail before, but it was on the Canadian whiskey menu and looked good so I decided to give it a try. My first impression was BITTERS - the orange bitters stand out in this drink. Although I've never tried maraschino before, I tasted a hint of cherry-almond flavor, and I'm guessing that's what it was. The whiskey is there too, of course. A pretty solid cocktail, certainly not for the sweet-toothed among us, but not bold enough to deter the average drinker, in my opinion.

• 2 measures Canadian Whiskey (Crown Royal was in mine)
• 1/2 measure dry vermouth
• dash Orange Bitters
• dash Maraschino Liqueur

Stir all ingredients with ice and serve on the rocks in a short tumbler.

Grapefruit Diet

Contrary to my last attempt at making my own cocktail using Campari, this one actually tastes pretty good. This drink came about because I wanted an Americano and I was out of soda water, so I substituted the Cointreau and made it a short drink instead. The bitter orange flavor of the Cointreau blends well with the Campari, to make something that tastes like... you guessed it - grapefruit. Voila:

• 1.5 measures gin
• 0.5 measures Campari
• 0.5 measures Cointreau

Mix ingredients over ice in a lowball or rocks glass, stir a few times, and enjoy.

Bitter Enemy

I threw this together on a whim, trying to incorporate some of my favorite ingredients. It's very bitter, pretty strong, and really not very friendly, hence the name. But here it is, all the same:

• 1.5 measures gin
• 1/2 measure Campari
• 1/2 measure dry vermouth
• Dash absinthe

Shake it with ice, strain, and beware. Garnish with a maraschino cherry, for irony.

Cocktail Preachers + Boltini + Negroni = A Great Night for Cocktails in C-U

Tonight was a terrific night for cocktail exploration in Champaign-Urbana. Boltini, the fantastic martini bar in downtown Champaign, featured a *free* show by swingin' surf-rock band The Cocktail Preachers. The place was packed full of cocktail culture enthusiasts and retro hipsters, including local lounge/exotica/retro swing DJ and bachelor pad king Java, of Java's Bachelor Pad, who was handing out samples of his new quarterly magazine.

Boltini is notoriously awesome for never having a cover charge, and shaking arguably the best cocktails in town. I tried a negroni, a gin-based cocktail I've wanted to sample for awhile, and it was indeed tasty. It's made with gin, sweet vermouth, and bitters (the "poured" style bitters, such as Campari, versus the "dashed" style, such as Angostura), the last ingredient lending most of the flavor to the cocktail. The gin and vermouth are still there, though, and add a smoothness to the bitterness of the Campari.

NEGRONI

• 1 Measure Gin
• 1 Measure Sweet Vermouth
• 1 Measure Campari
  

Shaken with ice, and strained into a martini glass. The one I had was garnished with orange, which provided a nice color complement to the red hue of the drink.

Heart of Gold (working title)

I was reading about Lillet Blanc, the delicious French vermouth aperitif, on the official website and I came across something that said it was served on the rocks with fresh ginger in Japan. This got my creative juices flowing, so to speak, and I decided to try to mix a cocktail with my home-infused ginger vodka and lillet blanc. This is the result, which may be prone to tweaking in the future:

• 2 measures Lillet Blanc
• 1 measure ginger-infused vodka
• Splash lemon juice

Shake with ice, strain into cocktail glass. Garnish with lemon twist.

(The working title, "heart of gold", comes from the bright golden color of all the ingredients. And, of course, Douglas Adams's "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.")

Bennett

I got this recipe from a book of cocktails I received as a Christmas gift. The author says that this cocktail sometimes includes sugar to sweeten it, but I tried the "original" recipe, at his recommendation. It is short, sour, sharp, and spicy - a very serious cocktail.

• 1.5 measures gin
• 1/2 measure lime juice
• 2 dashes Angostura bitters

Shake with ice, strain into cocktail glass. No garnish.

Diablo Sucio (Dirty Devil)

This is another original (as far as I know) recipe of mine that I've been messing around with since I made the chili pepper vodka. It's simply a dirty martini with a measure of the hot pepper vodka added. The batch I made was very spicy, so this can be a very hot cocktail.

• 2.5 Measures Gin
• 0.5 measures dry vermouth
• 1 measure chili pepper infused vodka (to taste)
• Splash olive juice (to taste)

Shake with ice, strain into glass. Garnish with olive and chili pepper on a cocktail toothpick.

Guangzhou Mule

This is a slight variation on the Moscow Mule which uses ginger-infused vodka rather than plain vodka to give it even more of a strong ginger flavor. I also prefer to use spicier or bolder ginger ales such as Vernor's or Boylan's, rather than dry ones that don't have much noticeable ginger flavor.

• 1-2 Measures Ginger-Infused Vodka (preference)
• Ginger Ale
• Slice of Lime

Pour the vodka in a tall glass and squeeze the lime into it, then drop the lime right in. Add ice, give it a quick swirl, and top up with ginger ale.

NOTE: I chose to call this the Guangzhou Mule for the obvious reason that it has a lot of ginger flavor in it, and ginger is an integral spice in a lot of Chinese cuisine. I chose the city of Guangzhou because it seemed a suitable replacement for Moscow phonetically.

Zen Martini (KoFusion)

I'm a big fan of green tea, and green tea flavors in foods. Therefore, I had to try this martini at KoFusion in Champaign. It's made with vodka, green tea liqueur, and genmaicha green tea (the one with the toasted rice). Of course the color was the dull green of green tea, and the flavor was entirely green tea. It was quite good, very smooth, and very easy to drink. My only complaint is that the alcohol taste was very far in the back and hard to notice. Otherwise, definitely a creative spin on the vodka martini.

The Venetian

This is one of my original creations (as far as I know). It's modeled after the Parisian, which is a similar cocktail using gin and dry vermouth. I chose to call it the Venetian because sweet vermouth is sometimes referred to as Italian vermouth. Vodka gives it less of a spicy flavor than gin would, as well.

• 2 measures Vodka
• 1 measure Creme de Cassis
• 1/2 measure sweet vermouth

Shake ingredients with ice, strain into chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with twist of lemon or orange, if desired.

Godfather

Another one of my favorites, and one of the few drinks that are easy enough to explain to bartenders on campus. Blended scotch whiskey works best for this, because it's a shame to add this much sweetness to a good single malt.

• Blended Scotch Whiskey (Johnny Walker, Dewar's, etc.)
• Amaretto

Pour equal parts scotch and amaretto over ice in a lowball glass. Stir a few times.

Van Gogh

I recently discovered this cocktail at Carmon's restaurant in downtown Champaign, the first establishment in the area to carry Lucid Absinthe, made with genuine wormwood. It's the best (and as far as I know, the only) place in town to try this superb cocktail. The creme de cassis adds a touch of blackcurrant sweetness to the robust flavors of the gin and absinthe, for a very satisfying (and powerful) drink.

• 3 measures Gin
• 1 measure Absinthe
• 1/2 measure Creme de Cassis

Shake these ingredients well with ice, and strain into cocktail glass. Personally, I think a layer of ice on top is not objectionable, but that's at your discretion. No garnish necessary.