Taowolf51
Well-Known Member
I'll start first with limoncello. A very strong italian after dinner drink. I'm in the process of making some. It's an easy recipe and the store-bought stuff can't compare (both in strength and in flavor). Unfortunately it takes some time to make.
The recipe (simply stated) is place grain alcohol (I'm using Everclear 190) and the zest of a bunch of lemons (I'm using 12) into a mason jar. Let it sit for a few months (I'll be doing it for maybe 4-5), add sugar syrup and filter out all the non-liquid parts. Right now it's in the "sit for a few months" stage. At the moment, I'm thinking I may dilute it a little bit with vodka, but I'm not sure. I'll see how it is when I'm finished. I'll also be reducing the amount of sugar, as I thought my last batch was a bit sweet.
Now onto wine. Philadelphia is a very strange city; it is one of the craft beer meccas of the US, but the tax rate on beer is horrid. I can buy beer for half the price in New Jersey. So at the moment, I'm sticking to wine as my non-liquor drink. Philadelphia does not *nearly* tax wine or liquor as much as they do beer. It may be a few bucks extra for a bottle of nice rum, but nothing too bad. I wouldn't say drinking wine instead of beer is much of an issue for me since I actually like wine (white).
My current go-to wine is this Gewurztraminer:
http://www.ste-michelle.com/wines/columbiaValley/release/268
Now onto my favorite part, liquor, more specifically rum. Rum is my go-to liquor (then comes gin, then tequila), and I've found some nice ones recently. I like rum for a few reasons, first being that it's fairly inexpensive, even for the really good stuff. For the price of a fairly cheap scotch, midrange tequila, or midrange gin I can pick up one of the highest rated rums ever made (Ron Zacapa Centenario). A midrange rum would be easily half that.
The first new rum I ran into is Oronoco, a white rum from Brazil:
I'm not really too much of a fan of white rum. However, I'd say this is the best rum for cocktails that I've ever had. It's simple, sweet, unoffensive, and great in a quality soda (like Virgils or Fentimans).
The second is the rum I mentioned above, Ron Zacapa Centenario:
This rum is *very* different. The process they take to make it is very long and complicated, but essentially, it made a rum that won quite a number of awards, and I've heard that it may be banned from most rum competitions for being "unfair competition". Do I like it? It's...different. I'm not experienced enough to really take advantage of it, and I'd compare it more to a scotch than a rum. It's immensely complex, and turns me into contemplation mode (sometimes at times when I don't want to be). It isn't exactly what I'm looking for in a primary rum, but I could see me using it for specific drinks (including one I'm working on at the moment which I'll detail later). But if I drink it more as a scotch and less as a rum, I could see myself really liking it, especially since it's about half the price of a decent scotch.
As for that recipe, I've got a little something I'm thinking of. It's not finalized, I'm waiting for a day I'm not really doing anything before I go into experimentation. But so far, my idea for it is:
Chilled espresso (favorably from a stovetop machine)
Evaporated milk
Ron Zacapa rum (for complexity; I want the drink to be maybe 1/3 rum)
a pinch of sugar and maybe a bit of whole milk
Shaken, neat in a lowball.
I think I want to call it the Cuban Cigar, since it matches a number of flavors that can be found in cigars.
At the moment, I'm actually having some Oronoco with a Fentimans Cherry Tree Cola. A fantastic pair!
So what kind of drinks have you guys tried lately? Any rum fans? Anything I should try? Anyone else enjoy a limoncello after dinner?
