TotC2009 notes: Cocktails Born from the Seven Seas

10
Jul/090

Cocktails Born from the Seven Sea was a Robert Hess history lesson on how the sealanes carried spirits and mixed drink recipes around the world.

  • Originally the 7 seas were those just around southern Europe and Arabia; pre-Columbus (Adriatic, Mediterranean, Caspian, Black, Red, Aegean, and Persian — thanks Louisia W-S)
  • 13th century world was just Europe, Arabia, and China; countries (cf, VOC in Low Country Libations)
  • silk route both overland and water, but nobody traveled the whole route, just legs, but moved textiles, spices, and culture along the routes
  • 1274 – Marco Polo was (one of the) first to travel the whole route
  • 1295 – returned to Europe (but the Chinese were reluctant to see him go)
  • 1312 – wrote the story of his travels down, and was initially disbelieved
  • 1280-1370 – Mongolion Empire made the land silk route possible, the route broke apart when it collapsed
  • 1488 – Portugal finally passed Cape Horn to replace the land route
  • 1492 – Spain went westward
  • 1494 – Treaty of Torbesillas split the world between Portugal, getting Brazil & east, Span got the North American coast and west
  • British Empire was later to world travel, battling with France and Holland
  • 1578 – Great Britain sent ships out [where?], but failed
  • 1584 – GB found Roanoke (but we know how that ends)
  • 1624 – GB in the Caribean
  • ca 1815 – British Empire the largest out there
  • Tasting: the Voyager
    • 2 oz Don Q gold rum (”top-selling rum in Puerto Rico”)
    • ½ oz Benedictine
    • ½ oz Falernum
    • ½ oz lime juice
    • 2 dashes Angostura
    • served on the rocks, with a lime wedge
  • tiki drinks started in the Caribbean because fruits, etc were plentiful there, but are modified punches
  • 15th century, first [modern] distillations
  • Brandy, first in the 12th century, became popular in the 14th
  • Romans made wine (and probably distillates as well; we rediscovered both later), but they added garlic, salt water, honey, and other things, which indicates it wasn’t necessarily great
  • punch was also designed to cover less than ideal flavors
  • cachaça b/n 1530 and 1550, “sugar wine”, doled out to slaves as incentive to work
    • appellation not so big a deal – just had fermented product, distilled it, it’s stronger
    • consumed at a rate of 2 gallons / person / year in Brazil
    • caipirinha is the diminuitive of caipira, which means “hill billy”
    • See also Jared Brown & Anistatia Miller’s Soul of Brasil for a history of cachaça
  • pisco:
    • first wine grapes in Pisco, Peru in 1500
    • distillation technique from European brandy
    • early piscos were pomace wines
    • 1641 – Spain banned exports of pisco from the colonies because it was cutting into the native Spanish wine market
    • pisco is distilled at bottle strength (rather than diluted as most spirits), so it retains more flavor
    • aged in clay casks, rather than wooden barrells
    • originally pisco was the word for a bird, then for the people who lived in the area, then for the clay of the area, then for the spirit stored in that clay
    • Chilean pisco claims origination; they were distilling, but differently
    • originally the pisco in North America (especially San Francisco) came from Peru, but Chile took over the market; Peru’s just now getting back on its feet
    • 1928 – first printed reference [or recipe?] to a pisco sour, Victo Morris in Lima
    • Chileans leave the egg out of pisco sours
  • Mescal:
    • 200 AD at least for palque, fermented sap of agave
    • distillation beagn mid 1500s (probably 1531)
    • some evidence that distillation was introduced by Filipinos in Colima & Jalisco (most say it was introduced by the Conquistadors)
      • the equipment more resembles Filipino’s than Spanish
      • the Spanish were conquerors, but the Filipinos were traders
  • Some margarita origination stories I didn’t note down; “margarita” = “daisy” (and is similar, as is the Cosmo)
  • Rum:
    • on ships to kill the contamination in the water
    • began with the import of molasses (and slave triangle)
    • gradually moved north from the islands
  • the Mojito:
    • preceded by El Draque, 1586, named for Sir Francis Drake
    • Angel Martinez standardized the recipe in 1998
  • gin:
    • based on jenever from the Netherlands in 1595 [but see also Low Country Libations]
    • British soldiers introduced to it in 1625
    • British gin still foundings:
      • 1793 Plymouth
      • 1796 Gordon’s
      • 1820 Beefeater
      • 1830 Tanqueray
    • 1751 – gin act limited and taxed production & sales
    • Pink Gin – most likely invented by the Royal Navy in order to take Angostura for seasickness
    • Gimlet, named for Thomas Gimlette; 1879 mandated consumation of limes and got it into the Merchant Shipping act (see also Lauchlin Rose production of preserved lime juice, in 1867)
  • [From the QA, maybe?] There were some truly weird things during mid-millenium; yeast was unknown until Pasteur, so there was something called chicha – pineapple, apple, chewed to soften it, fermentation started with feces from guinea pigs, then add star anise to cover the odor
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TotC2009 notes: Low Country Libations

10
Jul/092

Philip Duff (door74 owner) and Timo Janse (door74 head bartender, author of Shake It!, about non-alcoholic drinks for children) discuss Low Country Libations, especially ones we can’t get in the US (with which Philip repeatedly taunted the audience…)

  • “Low Country” means, roughly, the Benelux – “We live in the crotch of Europe.” [I've no doubt that was Philip.]
  • Philip might have missed a word: “Timo’s book is about non-alcoholic children. Er…”
  • modern inventions [this seemed a bit more in context at the time]:
    • penicillin
    • walk on the moon
    • the Internet
    • women in bars
  • Only session with NO sponsors [but I have to presume that Philip didn't buy all the Easter Egg bottles of Old Schiedam himself... they just weren't in the room.]
  • “Der Naturen Bloeme” (1269) – first reference to distilling in Europe
  • juniper – “He who has cramps, cook juniper in wine; it’s good against the pain.”
  • … and early distilling was precisely juniper and wine
  • late 1400s, “Making Burned Wine”
    • botanicals: grains of Paradise, galangeel [what?], nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, ginger
    • served has a [health] tonic
  • 1497 – Brandewijn (sp?) in Amsterdam
  • 1552 – Genieve – aqua vitae
  • 1582 – Kornbrandewijn – “in aroma and taste is almost the same as brandy-wine
  • 1602 – Dutch East India Co., or Verenigde Oost-Indisch Co. (VOC), upon whose conquests Dune was based:
    • 50,000 employees
    • functioned as a nation (conquered states, printed their own money)
    • fueled a spending boom that got silly enough that people were paying ~10 million [whatevers] for a tulip bulb
    • Indonesia (whence Batavia Arrack)
    • rolled up in ships, offered to pay for spices/silks/goods, if the city refused to pay, they politely pointed at all the cannon on the ships
  • Dutch Navy’s drink was Genever (a taste of Olde Schiedam came around here, and I’ll need to get to Europe to bring some back)
  • Genever from satellite cities because distillers kept pigs, feeding them the mash, and “pigs are smelly”
  • Olde Schiedam:
    • a wine-based Genever
    • single malt
    • 2/3 barley & 1/3 rye
    • Schiedam itself is a satellite city of Rotterdam
    • [I have:] “Shippem = Schiedam”
    • the only botanical is juniper
  • 1621 – The Dutch West Indies Co., Geoctrajeerde W-Indische Co (GWIC), was chartered
    • founded US (New Amsterdam)
    • otherwise unsuccessful
    • granted everything west of Capitain
  • The Best selling regions for Genever outside Holland are Argentina & Guadalupe
  • In the movie Ray there’s a reference to Bols Genever – not product placement, he really drank it every day
  • West Africa also drinks a lot of Genever; a good gift for a chief for his daughter’s hand in marriage
  • “So good it’d make a Bishop kick a hole in stained glass” [Philip, of a particular Genever, the name of which I expected to pull out of a photograph of the bottle, but since the camera and laptop were both burgled...]
  • 1623 – Philip Massinger’s Duke of Milan first [literary] use of Genever
  • 1827 – continuous still invented – per Philip, by Robert Stein, not by Angus Coffey
  • 1860 – first continuous still operating in the Netherlands
  • 1862 – [something's missing here:] Wondrich’s important quote on genever 5/6 to 1 relative to gin [Is this the thing about how Jerry Thomas's recipes actually work with genever? Too little context, because they launched into what describes different classes of genever]
  • Rules of genever:
    1. Terms
      • Oude (old) genever – aged or unaged whiskey with botanicals; taste shows that; softer, lower-proof (35%)
      • Jonge (young) genever is vodka with a hint of malt
      • The similarity of genever to gin is a myth; distilling with a Dutch King in England starts with lots of sugar (like genever), the process gets refined, ends up as grain neutral spirits
      • Timo: “Kettle One is about equivalent to jonge jenever”… but KO jenever is $11 (and better than the vodka) rather than $35; better as in better flavor profile
      • Jonge starts with Coluire [spelling? Hell, intelligible?] in the 1920s because of a shortage of grain post-war
      • Timo [I think]: “You can’t sell vodka in Holland.”
    2. Made in one of:
      • Holland
      • Belgium
      • Nord or Pas-de-Calais
      • Nordheim-Westfalen, DE
      • Niedersachsen, DE
    3. Must contain juniper, but it does not have to be a discernible flavor (gin, per ATF, must smell of juniper)
    4. content:
      • jonge genever is
        • 15% malt wine (whiskey)
        • 70° proof
        • max 10 grams sugar/L
      • oude genever
        • min. 15% malt wine
        • max. 70° proof
        • max 20 grams sugar/L
        • if aged, min. 1 year, in a max 700 L barrel
  • Willem Kieft
    • founded American whiskey by 1644 – first distiller in US
    • he was the “utter bastard” (Philip, of course) running the US GWC
    • recalled because of how much he abused the settlers
    • … but he gave us Pennsylvania rye
    • succeeded by Peter Stouson (sp?)
  • 1637 – Pieter Blower invented rum in Barbados, also under GWC
  • Simon Schama’s Embarrassment of Riches covers all this very Dutch ___ India Co business.
  • a history of brandy (remember, from brandewijn):
    • 1585 – fall of Antwerp
    • 1604 – 50% of distillers in Charente (now Cognac) were Dutch
    • 19 May 1972 on VOC
    • [... and I got distracted by a tasting...]
  • 1724 – bitter, herb-infused genever (roughly “equivalent to MD20/20″)
  • New developments:
    • yonge genever -> Ketel One vodka
    • old genever -> Bols 1830
  • [My notes here on, just half a Moleskine page, are a mess of spirit types and brand names; I'll go through Philip's slide show and fill this in when I can figure out what I was trying to keep up with.]

Inline in my notes, but separated here, are some of the spirits we tasted (that Philip will be glad to remind you that you can’t get in the US) and were not lost to the loss of the camera:

  • Els la Vera – 4-5 grams of sugar/L, from Maastricht Lindbergh; similar to absinthe, malt cane(?); botanicals grow only in volcanic soil (replicated by Bols)
  • hand-grated mandarin orange-infused Old Schiedam Mandayner(sp?)
  • Dutch wine, Apostelhoeve (first written proof of which is 871)
  • Rutte (aged) Paradyswijn

As with all of Philip’s presentations, this one is available on slideshare.net.

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TotC2009 notes: New Orleans Pharmacists

9
Jul/090

(Event link.)

A history course about the evolution, if not the creation, of the cocktail in early New Orleans, led by Phil Greene, Ted Haigh, Lorin Gaudin, and Jay Hendrickson.

Phil, with some history about pharmacists, bitters, and Peychaud:

  • America’s first licensed pharmacist was Louis Dufillo, granted a license by the Cabildo at 628 Toluse in 1803, moved to 514 Chartres in 1814.
  • (photographs of various early bitters bottles, more at the Museum of the American Cocktail)
  • Hostetters bitters were a popular brand early on
  • Peychaud (Phil’s ancestor) credited with creating the cocktail – bitters, brandy, sugar, and water in a coquetier (an egg cup)… (gr: although opinions differ on whether he was first and on whether that’s the etymology of the word)
  • Peychaud came to NOLA during the insurrection in Saint-Domingue, while his sister went to Paris
  • Stoughton’s bitters was already in common use, but we haven’t any idea as to its recipe now
  • Peychaud’s opened a pharmacy with his sister (who he tracked down in France and had brought to NOLA) ~ 1838 at 437 Rue Royale (now the antique gun, sword, and coin shop)
  • Peychaud ran many competative advertisements, referencing his bitters’ use in the Sazerac Bar
  • 6 May 1806: newspaper article in the Columbian making fun of a lost election uses the word “cocktail”
  • Peychaud’s obituary on 30 July 1883 states that he was 80 years old at death, making it rather unlikely that his egg cup was the source of the name
  • Phil presents a Sazerac (spinning the glass to wash it with absinthe… while wearing a rain poncho to avoid staining his suit):
    • chill 2 rocks glasses
    • In the first:
      • 1 splash simple syrup (gr: or a raw sugar cube)
      • 2 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
      • mix these, fill the glass with ice
      • add 2 oz Sazerac rye (or, traditionally, brandy or cognac)
      • stir
    • In the other:
      • 1 teaspoon Herbsaint (gr: or absinthe)
      • spin the glass in the air
    • strain glass 1 into glass 2
    • garnish with lemon rind

Ted, with some history of the cocktail’s content and references in the press:

  • Originally a cocktail was:
    1. Consumed in the morning (not “just”, but “also”).
    2. (Just about anything that) included bitters.
  • At the time, adding bitters to liquor was as shocking as adding Pepto-Bismal to beer would be today: anyone who’d do that was a reprobate.
  • Practice probably from the British brandy & bitters, used to warm up in a clammy climate
  • Those “snake oil salesmen” in old westerns and histories were essentially selling (something like) bitters, whiskey adulterated with various elements, but some were poisonous.
  • This resulted in the Pure Food & Drug Act.
  • Everyone began to believe that bitters, as medicine, was a scam, cocktails became the only legitimate use.
  • By the 1830s, newspaper journalists, “a bunch of alcoholics” (Ted’s words), were writing positively about cocktails.
  • Ted has six bitters recipes from the era and is happy to share. (I’ve emailed him, I’ll repost here if/when I hear back. One of the TalesBlog people was there and suggested she’d post the recipes, but maybe she didn’t connect with Ted.)
  • There were three references to cocktails [in newspapers, I think] in the early 1800s, all are insults: how do we know that they’re an accurate representation of society’s view?
  • Someone (missed the name) published a genus of cocktails (I definitely missed some of these):
    • gum ticklers:
      • glass of gin
      • dram of bitters
      • …
    • flem cutters
      • mint julep
      • [illegible -- yes, in my own notes, shut up]
      • …
    • gall breakers:
      • grog
      • flip
      • samson (stewed rum & cider)
      • toddy
      • bishop
      • doctor
      • cocktail: rum & honey
  • Stemming from that last listing of a cocktail including rum and honey, Ted presents a cocktail he’d previously called the Hogarth, but is renaming the Croswell [gr: I think that's the name of the editor of Balance and Columbian Repository who defined the cocktail as the oft-quoted "stimulating liquor composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters", but I'm not positive] including just rum, honey… and bitters of course.
  • [I can't figure out whether this was an aside at the time or me jumping forward and back in my notes to fill in gaps, but:] At the time, acid phosphates in a solution were thought to be good for the brain. They were used for cocktails, but that stuff doesn’t exist any longer. Ostensibly, they made a drink dry “like a good Barolo”.
  • Jamaica ginger (”Jake”), intended as an anti-spasmodic medication, was used in cocktails as well.
  • During Prohibition, one company produced a tainted, lousy Jake, damaged the nervous system, “Jake leg”.
  • Note that most bathtub distillates were more like rum than like gin.
  • Instead of separating out the tails, as professional distillers do, moonshiners just used the whole distilling output (heart & tails), and then add as much as a whole bottle of Jake to cover the taste.
  • Now then, the Croswell:
    • 2 pts Van Ousten Batavia Arack
    • 2 pts Clement VSOP Agricole
    • 2 pts “Rhum [M?]agrido” (spelling?) – Ted says that this can be replicated decently with 1 pt Angostura 1919 Rum and 1 pt 10 Cane Rum.
    • 1 dash Angostura bitters
    • 1 dash Fee’s Barrel-Aged Bitters
    • 2 tspns honey syrup

Lorin Gaudin, mostly covering the impact of the Ursilines sisters on pharmacy:

  • Pharmacy laws first came from New Orleans.
  • The first (non-licensed) pharmacist was a sister from the Ursilines convent who practiced herbal healing – Sister Frances Xavier (year?)
  • Ostensibly Sister FX published a list of herbs she used and their applications, but if the convent still has it, they aren’t sharing.
  • Two local chefs, Scott Boswell and [missed it...] tend the garden now in the convent now, which contains mostly parsley, chervil, etcetera (which it likely also had then)
  • Picayune Creole Cookbook, 1901, includes a list of palliative herbs: time, sage, rosemary, mint, dandelion
  • The convent’s still there at Governor Nichols & Ursilines, old[est?] building in New Orleans, with a 267-year-old stairwell; it survived the fire of 1787.
  • Another product of the pharmacists of the time (who Lorin notes tended to call themselves “druggists”, rather than “pharmacists”) developed was nectar syrup [cf, Orgeat, Falernum]
  • A modern example: CoolBrew

Jay, presenting a history of Herbsaint:

  • J. Marion Legendre created Herbsaint after absinthe was banned in 1912 at the drug store his father had started at 124 Bourbon St.
  • During WWI, Legendre had a drink similar to absinthe.
  • During Prohibition, Legendre’s drug store had the US’s highest volume license to distribute “prescription acohol”.
  • In December 1933, he launched Legendre Absinthe, with distilling license number 48 (because he was completely ready to roll, having been doing this throughout Prohibition)
  • An early competitor was Jung & Wulff; both they and Legendre advertising absinthe
  • “Modern Pernod–nasty stuff, I can’t tolerate it, …”
  • FACA stopped Legendre and Jung & Wulff from manufacturing their absinthes (which weren’t, really, but the name was scary)
  • Legendre simply changed the name to Herbsaint; Herbe Sainte is the French/Creole name for wormwood (literally “sacred herb”)
  • Note from Lorin: the Ursilines also referred to all of their herbs as sacred.
  • Herbsaint trademarked on 1 March 1934
  • The early advertising for Herbsaint stands out, includes pictures of the bottle, and assures the public that it’s not that horrible absinthe stuff. Advertising created by William B. Wisdom and included very complex graphics for ads of the time.
  • Legendre had Tulane analyze his product to validate that it wasn’t poison.
  • Also sold “Old New Orleans” (in the style of Peychaud’s) and orange bitters [slides with photos of the bottles; not sure whether this slide show's up online -- anybody?]
  • … and also premixed bottled cocktails
  • and “minis”, to sample the product
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