Welcome back to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I am Pat, I do spirit stuff here at Binny's, joined remotely today by Roger. Hey, how's it going folks? I do beer, also cocktail enthusiast. Fruit king, et cetera. Yep, man of many interests. Yes, a man of many fruits. Chris is here too. Yeah, I'm Chris, I do wine, and I occasionally make a cocktail. You are a cocktail fan, that is for sure. Alicia is here too. What's up, Alicia? Hey, good to be here. Yeah, Alicia and wine. Always down to participate in a cocktail podcast. Okay, so cocktail podcast. In better times, we'd be having parties and having people over. If you're a guest of Roger's, they just expect you to make cocktails for them all the time. Yep. If you're a guest at my house, you're barely allowed in the door. But normally, we'd be making cool punches and batch cocktails for crowds, and now we're kind of realigning that to focus ourselves and our significant other, and maybe mom and dad or something. That's it. I don't want to really promote unsafe gatherings, and we're in a bit of a tough time with that right now. But when you're making larger cocktails like that, we'll call them batch cocktails, I guess. It's not just for a party crowd. It can be just an easy way for you to not have to get up five times during the course of, it's a wonderful life to make yourself a fresh cocktail, right? Yeah. I can't even see through the tears to make a cocktail. If I'm watching that movie, I just bawling, Jimmy. It's true. I'm not exaggerating. It's a tear-jerker, that's for sure. It's an easier way to make things, and sometimes you have to. There isn't a recipe that I know for hot buttered rum, for example, that makes one glass of hot buttered rum. The same thing with eggnog, I suppose. If you're not making your own eggnog, and you're just pouring something out of the gallon from the grocery store and spiking it with some brandy or some bourbon, yeah, fine. But if you're making eggnog from scratch, it doesn't make just four ounces of eggnog, right? I think Brophy is actually the perfect example of getting him to mix a cocktail like twisting someone's arm. So even if he's just making a cocktail for himself and his lovely wife, if he batches it up, then instead of having to make four cocktails, let's say, boom, he just does it all at once. Maybe Mrs. Brophy would actually get a cocktail every once in a while. Yeah, maybe. My first thought was this is like, how can I be as lazy as possible with this? So I thought, easy, just empty a milk jug and put an entire bottle of vermouth, an entire bottle of gin, and an entire bottle of Campari in it, and I'll have Negroni's for roughly like two days. Yeah. But that's not particularly festive though. Yeah. Come on. It's trying times right now. Homie needs his Negroni's. In a plastic milk jug? Yeah. With a twirly straw, I'm just going to sit in my backyard next to a campfire, slowly sipping Negroni out of a plastic milk jug through a twisty straw. The level of class is just off the charts right now, Pat. The level of fun is off the charts. If you do end up doing that, maybe you should send it directly to Stanley Tucci. What do you think it is? Milk jug in it on your lawn and a lawn chair. Picking a fight with Tucci part 2. I still bet my plastic jug Negroni will be better than his crap. The other reason you might want to consider a batch cocktail is because you may just be Zooming with your family for the upcoming holidays. We've all not only been on Zoom too much, but have been sitting through very long family calls. When you sit down to get your Zoom going, it's best to have multiple cocktails at the ready. If your family is anything like mine, a Zoom call requires minimum three or four cocktails. Yes. To help dull the pain of knowing a family like mine, and also to get you through the length of time that that Zoom call is going to last. To take that idea maybe one step further, you could arrange to have a little Zoom cocktail party, kind of like we do for these episodes. Set out a recipe, and everybody can make their own version, and maybe do spins on it, and you can vote on whose is the best or whose looks the most interesting. There's lots of things you can do. Yeah, there's a lot of fun ways to do that. Sometimes I will whip up a batch of cocktails and keep it in my freezer if it's a very strong cocktail. So like in the past, I've made say like a pint of aviations and I don't even shake it or stir it. I just put a single ice cube in it, and then put it in the freezer, and it gets ultra cold and the ice cube melts and gives you that level of dilution that you might get from stirring or shaking. And then you can take it right out of the freezer and pour it into your glass and you're ready to go, and you have multiple at the ready. I mean, it's maybe a lazy man's solution to this, but you could do it in a batch and then shake them individually. But I think this works out really well. Yeah, I think that sounds like a pretty cool cocktail hack, so to speak. Yeah. Depending on what kind of cocktail you make, and we'll get to this, the one I'm making today, I think is definitely something where you could batch it up, and even if it's only you and one other person, you can keep it in the fridge and drink it over a couple days. And since there isn't any juice in it or anything, that won't really react as much to oxidation, you don't necessarily have to drink it all in one sitting, or use it all in one day. Well, if you put it in Tupperware and properly burp your Tupperware, it shouldn't oxidize too much. Yeah. In fact, I made eggnog today for this, but I made it two days ago. And I, in fact, put it in Tupperware and burped it properly. And then I kind of finished it off properly this morning with some final additions. And I actually find that aging your eggnog with the booze in it really rounds out the flavor. You know, sometimes if you add booze to your eggnog in the moment, it gets so intensely boozy because people like a lot of booze in it. And it doesn't seem to kind of incorporate in the moment. But I put a bunch of brandy in this two days ago, and it's so mellow and round right now. It's unbelievable. I would highly recommend it. So I was going to ask that Chris, if I know anyone who has experimented with aged eggnog, I would guess it would be you. But Alton Brown is famous for this. And there's people out there who make eggnog and age it in their refrigerator for a year before drinking it, which sounds scary because you're like, wow, raw eggs. You know what we should do? Not eat them for a year and then try to eat them and not die. But because it's about 20% alcohol, it actually is more sterile than eggnog that you would even just buy from the grocery store. Yeah, it's the fruitcake of drinks. Yeah. Supposedly, it gives a very mellow, like you said, round character to this eggnog. It's supposed to be really excellent. And apparently, the challenge is not drinking at all and actually having the patience to let it sit in the back of the fridge. It really does. And I've never even come close to that long, but a week is not a stranger to me. It just really mellows out and comes together in a way that just dumping some bourbon or brandy in it in the moment, it just never will replicate it. The other thing is, you know, if you're worried about salmonella and you're using raw eggs that aren't pasteurized, I think studies have shown that maybe two weeks in the presence of that much booze will pretty much kill any salmonella present. But even if you do it like I did for two days, it's not necessarily going to have time to clean that up. But I did, in fact, make a 100 percent safe version today, and I'll tell you how I did it eventually. Oh, cool. Curious to hear about that. Anybody in particular want to go first here? We kind of transitioned into eggnog there. Okay. Well, why don't I just dive in? I was looking into something for another podcast, and I pulled out this Waldorf Historia book that was originally published in the 30s. It's got a bunch of eggnog recipes in it, but it also happened to contain a handwritten eggnog recipe that I made like 20 years ago when I got this book. I had no idea where it was, and then there it was. So I followed it. It has no directions, but it has my proportions. And so this is what I do. And it's kind of a long process, but you can handle it. If you've ever made custard in your kitchen, there's some very simple culinary techniques. And also I make a meringue. And so, especially an Italian meringue, which is a certain kind that makes it safe to eat. So- I make meringue all the time. Yeah. What method do you use? You don't- Never made meringue before. I believed you for a hot minute. So, lay out the steps simply. Okay. This is actually quite simple. So the recipe, as I wrote down probably in the mid-90s, is for a dozen eggs. So this is a batch, obviously. Six cups of whole milk or half and half, cup and a half of sugar, two tablespoons of vanilla, nutmeg to taste, a cup of heavy cream and brandy, or your liquor of choice. You can go bourbon, rum. All these are pretty traditional. Rich brown spirits work well. How much of the said rich brown spirit? A whole bottle? Yeah. In this case, for this amount, yes, a whole bottle. Okay. So that's exactly right. A bottle of booze and a dozen eggs. That's your goal. Staples around the house. That's awesome. I'm going to make this. Sounds like a weekly quota to me. Yeah. The first thing you have to do is separate your eggs, because you want your egg yolks and your whites separate. And you're going to take your egg yolks, put them in a bowl. And what I did was I saved my egg whites in the refrigerator for a couple days to finish it off today. So, 12 egg yolks, and then a cup of sugar whisked in. And you want to whisk it in until the yolks start to get pale and a little fluffy. If you've made a cake or something, you might be familiar with this process. Then what you want to do is heat your milk or half and half, basically up to a boil. And here's where the kind of culinary tricks come in. You have to temper your hot milk into your egg yolks. If you don't do this, you're going to end up scrambling your eggs, and you don't want chunky eggnog. You want it smooth and rich and creamy. So the tempering process is literally just once you get up to a boil, you can turn your flame off and start ladling hot milk into your egg yolks while whisking vigorously. This will slowly bring the temperature of your egg yolks up and begin to cook them into a custard rather than scrambled eggs. So ladle after label, whisk, whisk, whisk. Now, could you do this in like an electric stand mixer with a whisking arm, and just let it go to town and just slowly pour it in? True enough. I am kind of old fashioned. I, of course, have a nice kitchen. Shocking. You know, I use a hand whisk and ladle it in. And then you can, once you do about half the milk, you can incorporate it all back into the milk. And depending on what temperature you reach, you might have to restart your flame. But if you have an instant read thermometer, you want to hit at least 160 to get those eggs, salmonella free and to have your eggs start to stiffen up into a custard consistency. So quick question, if you're doing this and you have accidentally scrambled or started to scramble the eggs, is there a recovery process or you just, you should just start over and- Well, it depends on how badly you've messed up. If you put too much hot milk in it once, it'll do that. But even if you're very careful, you can sometimes have little bits of eggs and all you need is a handy strainer to clean that up. I wouldn't start over unless it's quite bad. If it's just a few little- Unless your eggs are really chunky. Yeah. I strain mine, but I didn't require it. Nothing was left in the strainer. Once you've done that, you'll want to add some freshly grated nutmeg to taste. I mean, I'm not going to tell you how much I like a lot, as everybody knows. And this is where you would add your vanilla. You don't want to add your vanilla when your milk is really hot, because it's a very volatile and aromatic and you don't want it to disappear. You want it to stay in there. At that point, you can refrigerate this concoction along with your brandy or whatever spirit you're making and let it mellow for however long you want. And when it comes time to serve the day to serve, you're going to take your egg whites and here's the other trick. Now, you don't... I used to make this without making this Italian meringue, but you know, you've cooked the egg whites already or the egg yolks already. So you might as well make the whole thing safe, right? So the process of making Italian meringue is also quite simple, but requires a little bit of... you need to pay a little attention. So you've all made a simple syrup, so all you're really going to do is start to make a two to one simple syrup. In this case, I put one cup of sugar into the egg yolks and thus into the eggnog. Now you're going to take the remaining half cup of sugar, put it in a saucepan, add a quarter cup of water, and bring it to a boil, just like you're making simple syrup. The difference here is going to be, you're going to take the temperature much higher than you would have to to make a simple syrup. You want the sugar, and if you've made candy, fudge, any number of things that require sugar cookery, you may be familiar with this. You want to bring the sugar up to what's called the softball stage, which is around 240, so you need a candy thermometer. So, boil it until you hit 240, and in the meantime, whisk your egg whites into soft peaks, and once you've hit 240, slowly drizzle your simple syrup into the egg whites, and continue beating, and it will become very silky and glossy, and you will have Italian meringue. And the action of this super-heated sugar syrup will also kill the salmonella. By the time this recipe is done, my kids are going to be old enough to drink. Yeah, it takes a long time to explain, but it's actually pretty fast. I mean, I made this Italian meringue in a matter of minutes. The syrup was ready by the time the egg whites were done whipping. And then the last thing I do is I take the cream, the heavy cream, and also whip that. And obviously, you then fold both of these things into the eggnog. And you end up with something that looks like this. So this, you can see here, there's a division here. Up here, it's all froth. This is the egg white and the whipped cream. This is more the base of the eggnog. It's very dense and rich and fluffy. And I haven't topped this with nutmeg yet. So for your viewing pleasure, I have my beautiful nutmeg. If I can figure out how to show it to you. There it is. I'm going to hit it. He's microplaning nutmeg over his cocktail right now. So the top kind of inch and a half of Chris' glass was this kind of frothy white part that, yeah, is that heavy cream and the egg white. And the rest was a little bit darker in color. Oh, that looks beautiful, Chris. I think you can see the nutmeg on top. You can see the stratification of the eggnog. And now I'm going to drink some. Don't get it on your mustache. Wow. I mean, that's really phenomenal. It's so good. It's so rich, so creamy. Let me show you what, this is what my mouth did. I don't know if you can see this. Oh, wow. Yeah, it looks like ice cream. Yeah, I took it like almost like a chunk out of the froth, and it's holding its form. It's really- Would you say this is definitively your favorite thousand calorie plus cocktail? Oh, without a doubt. It is very, very rich, but the flavors are so incredible, and I can't stress enough that kind of curing of the eggs with the alcohol, it just makes so much difference. Yeah, very important. What would happen if you just poured some of that into a container and put it in the freezer? Would you basically have like a gelato ice cream kind of consistency? Yeah, you would. So here's a thought. Making eggnog this way is essentially like making a French style ice cream with a custard base. So if you've ever made ice cream, some ice creams, it's pretty straightforward, cream, milk, sugar. But for custard base, you cook eggs with sugar just like this. And so you could put this into an ice cream freezer. Now, the only problem you might run into with this much booze, it might not freeze properly. It won't freeze. Yeah. But it might. It's hard to say. You'd have to give it a try. But you can certainly take it without the booze and make an eggnog ice cream and it would be straight up ready to go. It'd be delicious. So what's the standard size serving of eggnog? Well, if you can see from what I hear. Are you familiar with the size big gulp and double gulp? Well, you know, traditionally at a party, like I make this for my family during the holidays most of the time. And what you would normally do is have a classic punch set with a big bowl and then little handled mugs. So, you know, moderate size. Like five ounces. Four ounces, okay. Yeah. I mean, this is probably, you can see by the shape of this glass that the actual liquid part is not that much. A lot of this is taken up by this frothy foam, which I wouldn't eliminate for the world. So this serving is probably about about four ounces of liquid, but lots of foam. Now you mentioned you used brandy in this. What did you use? I used Martel VSOP Cognac. But you can use any brand you like. Like I said, in the American regime, rum was very, very typical in colonial times as it was for almost anything on the East Coast. And bourbon is, of course, very popular in eggnog. We sell some pre-made bourbon-based eggnogs, of course. We also sell an eggnog that has bourbon, brandy, rum, and blended whiskey in it as well. Made actually with fresh cream. And it's a cheap one. It's called Mrs. O'Leary's, and it's actually really good. Yeah, you can mix your booze too. You don't, you're not obliged to stick to one thing. You know, what I think might be good in here, here's some like variation ideas. A nice Olaroso sherry would give this some nuttiness. I would recommend that in conjunction with the brandy. But I also think like something like a liqueur, like a coffee liqueur or frangelico or something like that could give you a whole different spin. And as you know, eggnog flavor pops up everywhere. You know, they're eggnog coffee creamers. So why not make a coffee eggnog? In fact, do you want to know what it's like? Yes, I do. I'll just hit this with a little Mr. Black. You could use Kahlua, of course, if you want or whatever. But the Mr. Black is much, there you go. It's a much drier coffee liqueur than Kahlua is. And this is already such a sweet drink. I don't know that you need that extra sweetness. Now you can see there's a, now it's starting to look really beautiful. That's pretty. Yeah. So now I've got a layer of liquid eggnog, a strata of Mr. Black coffee liqueur, and then the foam sitting on top of it. It's like a giant, creamy Puss Cafe. Yes. And another esoteric moment, if you want to start layering liqueurs based on their specific gravities, we can talk all about Puss Cafe. Man, that's good. Okay. So my new drink is a coffee eggnog. I can attest that I do really enjoy mixing different types of liquor in it. I typically, if I'm in a spiking eggnog, I'll use both brandy, usually either Cognac or Spanish brandy, and a dark rum, like a dark jamaican rum, or like a Barbadian rum. Yeah. Over the years, I've made eggnog with just about every brown spirit you can imagine. So whatever your pleasure is. But Mr. Black is the new edition. This is the Black Tie edition. It's quite simply the best coffee liqueur around. So it should make for a pretty excellent coffee eggnog. I wish you guys could try this. I have a whole bowl of it and it is so good. It's ridiculous. Do you think you're going to be able to keep some of it for a month or two and see how it ages? I could do that. Yeah. And then make a fresh batch and do a side by side for us? Why not? I'm game for anything. I wish the listeners could see your face right now because he does look like he's like gone to heaven, and is laying in a cloud of eggnog. This is literally the definition of holiday cheer. I'm diving into the season early. Yeah, that's a pretty excellent cocktail. This is a perfect example, I think, too, of since a lot of us are stuck at home these days, and we have a little extra time on your hands. If you're ever going to try something like this, that yes, especially when he's narrating it, it sounds a little more involved, but this is the time to experiment to do it. Pre-made eggnog is not going anywhere, so why not give this a go? It's so much better. You've never had a better time to start churning your own butter. Yeah. Hey, I do that. Making your own butter is very easy and it's delicious. You strike me as a pro-churner, yes. So after you've enjoyed two or three glasses of Chris's eggnog and you need to go on a diet, I have a batch cocktail for you called Kill Devil Punch. And I'm actually typically not a kind of a punch person, but I absolutely love this drink, and very, very simple to make. So just start with 12 sugar cubes, throw that in a pitcher with 15 raspberries and three ounces of club soda. Just muddle that down so everything's broken up. And then to that, you simply add six ounces of rum, which I've chosen Appleton Estate, three ounces of lime juice, three ounces of pineapple juice. That's it. You're stirring that together. You can keep that in the fridge as kind of your concentrate. And then when you're ready to serve it, pour that over a large cube of ice, either in a punch bowl or if you want to serve it by the glass, you strain it, of course, ahead of time. And then you'll dilute it with about three ounces, or in my case, I did a little more than that, of sparkling wine. You can use champagne if you'd like. I have chosen Rotarer State sparkling wine from Anderson Valley. A little more reasonable, but still brings some great complexity to the drink. It's absolutely fantastic. It's very festive. You're garnishing it with raspberries. So it's this kind of, like this deep pink, borderline red color. It's a very festive looking drink. Yeah, it's gorgeous. And it has all of the brightness that of course the raspberries bring, but that kind of sweet spice and tropical fruit from the rum really kind of round out the drink, and I think add a lot of layers of complexity to it. So I am a big fan and will continue to go back. So yeah, that's Kill Devil Punch. I think you can take that same kind of punch concept. You know, a lot of punch recipes you're going to find online are going to be topped off with sparkling wine of some kind, and normally it's the last thing you add to the punch bowl before your party. But you can enjoy punch without having to make a big punch bowl of it for a party. You know, but like you mentioned by yourself, you've essentially created a concentrate here in advance that then just gets a spike of some ice and some sparkling wine, and that slowly dilutes it down into a pretty enjoyable sipping cocktail, you know. And when you make that base for it with the fruit and the juices and stuff, and the rum, you know, that's going to stay fine in your fridge for probably a couple of weeks, I would think. Yeah, the fruit juices wouldn't necessarily last that long. But over time, you know, that's going to start to change its flavor. You can always, too, if you want, mix a few of the ingredients and omit citrus until like the day of that you want to serve something. But yeah, I mean, you're definitely right that there's endless ways that you can essentially riff on that type of recipe. I'm a big fan of, if I batch cocktails, it's almost always tropical stuff, which you've heard me talk plenty about tiki drinks, so I'm not doing that today. But one of the things that you can do is kind of incorporate little small like hints of liqueurs. So peach brandy is kind of famous or peach liqueur in these types of punches. There's a punch called fish house punch that's named after a fishing club in Pennsylvania, of all places. The fish house punch, huh? Yes. It's a great punch, not unlike the one that you made. I mean, it doesn't have sparkling wine in it, but you can play around with different kinds of citrus fruit. But yes, inherently, punch options are literally almost endless, and you can also incorporate sweet spices, which fit in with the holiday season then too. I think that's a great idea, and actually, I would recommend trying that with this one to add this deeper, warmer spice to the drink for these holiday times. Does it matter if... So I used fresh lime juice, but then I used pineapple juice from the shelf. Does it matter in terms of the stabilization? Will it last longer in the fridge if I hadn't used fresh? I mean, obviously, that would be inferior in terms of taste, but have they stabilized that so it would last? Yeah. I mean, in both cases, I don't think you would necessarily get sick or anything. It would just be an issue of the quality of the drink. Yeah. The color might dull a little bit and brown a little bit with some oxygen. I will say just as wearing my wine hat, this is the perfect time to utilize all of the half bottles that we sell, or even the small 187 mLs because to open a full bottle of sparkling, to just top off your punch if it's just you and someone else, I Yeah. If you're making these festive punches with just you and a significant other, it doesn't make sense to open a whole bottle of sparkling wine unless you're really hitting it hard. The other thing that works really, plays really well with all these ingredients is to incorporate ginger beer. Ginger works well with sweet spices, with these dark rums and whatnot, and it's going to give you some fizz. If you don't have any sparkling wine on hand or you're looking to do something a little more interesting with your ginger beer besides making the traditional mule drinks, try adding a little bit of it into some of these tropical drinks into punches. Yeah, and ginger is of course a traditional holiday spice. So I think that's a great idea. Well, I love the Kill Devil Punch. Everyone make it at home. Yeah, that sounds really good. Love the fact that in this year where people may not be making these giant batches, this idea of a concentrate, and go out and buy yourself a case of 187s, and you can just do them one at a time, but have them totally ready to go. Such a good idea. Do you know what it takes its name from? Kill Devil? I do not. So that's an old, very old term for rum, especially in the Caribbean. So the joke being that it's so strong that it kill even the devil. Well, my glass is almost gone, so I'll report back. Are you trying to tell us something about your true nature? Not at all, Chris. I mean, you seem angelic to me, but you never know. Roger, what do you have for us? Okay, so I'm gonna talk about a pretty, I think pretty obscure cocktail that many of you have probably never heard of, but it's one that I really enjoy. It has kind of an interesting name. It's called Remember the main, and the implication here is that the second half of the statement is To Hell with spain. I was gonna say, this is some kind of naval reference. Yeah, this is a perfect cocktail for Roger because it's all about the sinking of the main in Cuba and one of the justifications of the Spanish-American War. Although, sorry, Roger, I don't want to step on your toes. No, that's fine. No, exactly. It actually takes its name to kind of a reference to that event of the sinking of the main that took place in... The main was sunk in 1898, but Cuba's had such a tumultuous history with so many different uprisings. And this drink actually came about during the overthrow and fall of the Machado regime in 1933. So essentially, there were all these people held up at a famous hotel there, and it's like war torn in the atmosphere, and everybody just kind of stuck there. So it was kind of a rallying call to remember the initial involvement of the Americans back then. But just yet another reference to the never-ending fight for freedom down in Cuba. But what's kind of interesting is that it's a drink that came about, it has these ties to Cuba, but it's actually the very kind of old school cocktail culture. If you look at the parts, it's going to remind you a little bit of a Sazerac, a little bit of a Manhattan. And depending on how you make it, I feel it even has a little bit of an old-fashioned feel to it as well. The last time that I actually thought about this drink, it actually has kind of an interesting Chicago connection too in a way. There's another little obscure fact for you. I was having a cocktail at the Hotel Allegro, which was recently renamed that. It's essentially a very famous hotel that's been in Chicago for over 100 years. And I was sitting at their bar, which had been recently redone to make look like Art Deco and everything. And there was a drink on their menu called Remember the Bismarck. And I started laughing like, hmm, that's not how I assumed this is a reference to remember the main, but kind of a different feel like remember the Bismarck. But the reason that they called it that was that that hotel used to be called the Bismarck. So it's kind of a play off of that. Yeah, literally. Yeah, pretty much. Sadly, the Wurtz family actually owned it for about 50 years and it kind of fell into hard times and that closed for a few years since been totally redone and has a nice cocktail bar in there. So anyway, when I started to look at versions of this, the first time that you're going to see this recipe in print was in Charles H. Bakers Jr.'s The Gentleman's Companion, which was like a drink manual. It was a drink manual that was printed in 1939. I came across this actually in a book of Bourbon by, I always enjoy talking about Gary Regan, and he's one of my favorite kind of mixologist, but he's also really into whiskey and he has a book on Bourbon, which I think is unfortunately out of print right now. But I still have my literally cocktail stained version here. This is where I learned about this cocktail. And there's a quote in here that I wanted to read you guys that I think you get a kick out of. This is from the book, Charles H. Baker Jr.'s Gentleman's Companion. This is what he had to say about whiskey. And I think it's pretty appropriate for our times now in general. So he says, Taken sanely and in moderation, whiskey is beneficial, aids digestion, helps throw off colds, migraines, and influences. Used improperly, the effect is just as bad as suffering too much many starchy foods, taking no exercise, or disliking our neighbor. The Ten Commandments of Whiskey. Right. So, when you look at this cocktail, typically it's made with rye whiskey, but Gary substituted in bourbon, which I like. Typically, I either make it with bourbon or I do it as a mixture of bourbon and rye. So, if you were to make like a single version of this, you're looking proportionally at about an ounce and a half to two ounces of whiskey, three quarters of an ounce of vermouth, and some bitters, which is essentially just a Manhattan. But then, what makes this cocktail unique is that it incorporates absinthe, which gives you kind of that Sazerac feel, and then it also incorporates cherry brandy. When you're using cherry brandy, I would argue that there's really only two that you want to spend your money and time with. Are you going to recommend Dubochet cherry brandy? That I am not. Maybe for the red number five in it, because that's good. Yeah. again, this is one of those things where don't substitute this. You need to get one of these two really high quality products. The one I would suggest is cherry hearing, which is the liqueur that I've talked about before. It's the key ingredient in a Singapore sling. It's a quality cherry brandy, which also has an herbaceous component to it, which is pretty interesting. That's what I would recommend using. This stuff is such a cool cocktail ingredient to have on hand. You can try putting it in just all sorts of different drinks that you enjoy, a lot of whiskey based cocktails. When you think about it, just like how you garnish a ton of drinks with a cherry, putting a tiny bit of this cherry liqueur and things is, I bet you'll really enjoy. Especially if you're used to buying Luxardo cherries, and you know how delicious the syrup is that they come in. I mean, that's basically how I justify buying those every once in a while, is I look at that syrup as a cocktail ingredient in and of itself. Absolutely. Yeah. So speaking of that, the other option, if you don't want to try cherry hearing, or you want to try something different, Luxardo makes a cherry brandy called Sangue Morlaco, which is a reference to an Italian poet. It means Morlaco blood. And it's basically made with those famous Morasca cherries, which are a type of sour Morello cherry. So again, it's not going to have the herbaceous component, but it's a really quality aged cherry brandy that's actually made from fermented cherries. It's dosed up with neutral brandy as well. But so use one of those. You're looking at maybe a small amount of that. I usually use a little more because I like it so much. But again, we're talking small amounts here, like a quarter ounce. Absinthe can be either to taste. Typically, absinthe in cocktails, a tiny bit goes a long way. Some people just do absinthe rinses. Because it's such a pervasive flavor, it's got that famous anise, black licorice type flavor. So I would suggest either something as small as get your teaspoons out, like a half teaspoon, or you could just put literally a dash, like your thumb over the spout. A handy trick with absinthe too is to put it in a little like a finger pump spray bottle, and you can just put a spray of it into the glass. I have one of those at the ready all the time. For a while, it was a big thing to sell. I think we even sold them the little vermouth misters, which to me is absurd because I like a good dose of vermouth in most drinks they call for vermouth. But in the case of absinthe, that's what I use it for. I will usually mix my drink with maybe using a rinse of the glass or a small amount. But then once it's in the glass, I'll judge whether I think the aroma or the flavor with a little sip from a straw is pronounced enough. If it's not, just a one mist over the top will change the whole character of the nose in particular. That's a great idea. Here is one of my biggest tips as far as making batch cocktails, is to get yourself a nice giant mason jar. These are really handy for them. again, it's going to have that screw cap, so you're going to be able to seal it. It's glass if you're concerned about having booze sit in a plastic container. These are just really handy. I've essentially mixed everything together in the recipe except the bitters. For this batch, I'm figuring this is like five cocktails. I used 10 ounces of bourbon, three and three-quarters of vermouth, one and a half ounces of cherry hearing. The absinthe, this is how serious I am about how strong absinthe is. There's only half an ounce of absinthe in this entire jar. When it comes time for you to enjoy this, you have a couple of different options. The biggest question mark with batch cocktails is, how do you account for that dilution that you get when you either stir or shake something with ice? And lots of different mixologists and writers have theorized about this. So Gary Regan, who I'm basing my recipe as a riff on his, in his Joy of Mixology book, he talks about this and him and his wife experimented with it quite a bit. They said that the amount of water you add to the cocktail should be approximately a third of all the other ingredients. So for me, that would be in this, about five ounces of water. So if I just wanted this to taste correct, I would add five ounces of water and that would dilute it down enough. Because if we were to just pour this into the glass as is right now, it would be too strong, too sweet. Like everything would be off. So just keep that in mind. What I would suggest is that right before you're ready to enjoy this, you just stir it with some ice to chill it and dilute it. So that's all I'm going to do is I'm just going to pour off essentially a serving of this. I'm putting it in a shaker, but I'm going to stir it. again, you could shake it. Shaking it would incorporate a little bit of air. It would add a little more water. But this really doesn't need a ton of, just needs to be chilled and mixed a little bit. It's already been mixed a little in the jar. So this cocktail would be the perfect candidate for my freezer method. Make up a batch, put the proper number of ice cubes in it, and seal it up and put it in the freezer. And the ice cubes will help chill it quickly and melt at the same time. And then you get your appropriate dilution and a freezing cold cocktail to pour into your coop. That's a nice looking cocktail, Roger. Yeah. So this, this I really think is a cool drink that is, again, it's adjacent to Manhattan's and then old fashions are two of just the most popular cocktails out there. So it's something that a lot of you probably know and love. If you want to kind of branch out from that a little bit and drink something that's just a little different, but still familiar, I think you should give this, remember the maine, a try. The other thing that you can do at the last minute is put, I almost forgot, is with bitters, much like with citrus, I would suggest just garnishing that right before you enjoy it. Yeah, you want to keep those aromatics on top and intact. Yeah, so this kind of advice translates to many classic cocktails that you can kind of batch in advance, even if you're making it a bit concentrated, because you're going to dilute it down with ice or a little bit of water. Leave the bitters for the end. Like leave the bitters for when you serve it. Like if you're going to make a Manhattan, you can make a Manhattan in advance by just having vermouth and whiskey blended together, maybe, but don't leave the bitters out until you actually serve it up in the glass. Right. I totally see the connections you're making. You've got the whiskey and the absinthe, which calls to mind the Sazerac. That cherry herring brings you into that muddled, cherry, old-fashioned realm. Then of course, it's straight up almost like a Manhattan. If that intersection of drinks appeals to you, this is a really nice one. This sounds fantastic. It's a great drink. again, I really advise too, I don't have any rye on hand right now, but mixing like half doing half rye, half bourbon, that's a cool little slight variant that you can again, employ to your Manhattans, your old fashions. again, rye is the original in these and was the most favored. And why rye is relevant again, is that it mixes so well. But again, softer, rounder, sweeter, if you're using the bourbons, you add the rye in there, you have a little more spice and complexity to it. All right, Brophy, I'm tingling with anticipation here. Oh, I didn't have one to make. I've just been, I've been enjoying a fine glass of Cognac while listening to you guys talk about your batch cocktails. Cause I was thinking about it, and I thought about the Negroni thing. I was like, yeah, milk jug Negroni. And then I was like, well, you know, you could really do that with any classic cocktail. The one that I would have liked to have made, had I prepared it slightly more in advance, would have been hot buttered rum. That's always one of my favorite cocktails that generally gets made in a batch because of, I don't know if it's just the nature of the ingredients or what, but that's also similar where you make the base of it and then you essentially dilute it with Yeah, that's a good one because we didn't touch on anything hot today. And the hot version of eggnog is known as a Tom and Jerry, which is also quite interesting to drink. It's basically hot eggnog, which is where this whole drink started, I believe, based on something called Pocet, which is a middle-age egg and milk mixture that was curdled, which doesn't sound that pleasant to drink, but it was considered restorative or a cure for various diseases. Just like you're reading about the whiskey, Roger. It was so fashionable as a drink and also a medicine that they sold Pocet sets with what looks like a two-handled teapot and glasses. I mean, that's how popular it was that people had Pocet sets in their house to serve it from. So that's all. Yeah. I don't have any spiced rum in my house, so I couldn't have made a hot buttered rum. Looking at it now. You don't need to know. But I suppose you don't need spiced rum, right? No. Not at all. You know what would be great is if you happen to have that liqueur that I always talk about. What is it called again? Oh yeah, allspiced ram. Allspiced ram can quickly turn any rum into a spiced rum. It's true. If I used allspiced ram in regular rum, would I still be adding cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove to my hot buttered rum? I would say at least nutmeg for sure. The cinnamon and clove would be up to you. again, if you didn't make it into a syrup, then it might not incorporate that well. That was batched cocktails. Hopefully, this helps out really. So you don't have to get up less and make less of these things. It's easy to make a cocktail that then can be enjoyed over the course of several days. Or in the case of Chris's eggnog, maybe a year or more. Aged eggnog, who knew? And Alyssa kind of made a punch that really just need to top off with some bubbles and you're good to go. And Roger made that complicated thing and Roger did it up good, but it sounded and looked delicious. What did you make Roger? Remember the maine? Sinking the maine? Remember the maine. But again, like it's so similar to a Manhattan or an old-fashioned. So if you like either of those, you can batch those too and batch your classics and then just finish them and garnish them when you're ready to have a drink. Save yourself a little time. You can think of this year as your trial run for when everything's wonderful and normal next year. You'll have a bunch of batch cocktails in your back pocket. I'm going to have year old eggnog in my fridge that most likely my family will be too big of a wimps to try. You tell them after they drink it. Yeah. Oh, by the way, that eggnog you had was 13 months old. Oh, that'd be great. Definitely. I'll report back in 13 months, guys. You can really freak them out and tell them you started with a base of Chinese thousand-year-old eggs. I like that Chris pointed out it was like the fruitcake cocktails. I have had a properly made fruitcake where you're essentially soak it with brandy, put a cheesecloth around it, soak that with brandy, and you keep kind of remisting it, bringing back the idea of that. But it's essentially a cake that's been sitting in your cupboard for two months. Delicious. Or a year. Yeah. Or some people do it like a whole year. That's true. It's funny how maligned fruitcake is, but if you actually have a good one that's been aged properly. And I like to slice it hyper thin. And if it's got really high quality candied fruits in it, it'll look like a stained glass window. And I'm serious. And it's delicious. It was very poetic of you, Chris. I can't say I've ever had fruitcake, honestly. Yeah. I don't think I have either. Well, there are a lot of bad ones out there. Yeah. You need to really commit to making it. again, this might be the perfect year to do it. What else you got going? You got to age them for you got them. If you want to eat it on Christmas, you got to make it like this weekend. Yeah. Start now. Really? They have to age for at least a month. I had no idea they were age. I just assumed that they were always stale because nobody wanted them. They don't get stale. They just improve. Well, this has been fun, guys. I'm definitely going to make some eggnog this weekend. So right on. Well, so I know my explanation seemed long, but we'll put the recipe up and it'll seem much more straightforward and simple when you read it and follow it. All right, cool. Hey, and if you have any questions about other cocktail ideas, what other strange things Roger is eating or drinking, just send us an email at comments and beans.com. We'll respond. Or if you love St. Elizabeth's Allspice Dram. Yeah, as much as Roger does. Allspice Dram. All right, until next week, I am Pat. I'm Roger. I'm Chris. And I'm Alicia. Keep tasting.