From the bartender’s corner: Boulevardier
From the bartender’s corner – Moscow Mule
From the bartender’s corner – Alaska cocktail
From the bartender’s corner – Sweet Revenge’s Strawberry Cure
From the bartender’s corner – Achar Mule (2)
After the disaster yesterday, I tried to follow the recipe with a different achar today (this time it was a chili achar). With equally disastrous results. That Instagram post was either by somebody who is a neophyte in cocktails or I am simply not getting it.
The oil makes it very uncomfortable to sip. Achar, in general, is exceedingly strong on the nose and the palate. Cocktails are best when they have gentle but firm expressions on your olfactory senses and taste buds.
I am dropping the concept of cocktails made from achar here.
From the bartender’s corner – Achar Mule (1)
DJ sent me this recipe from an Instagram post. It basically has some Indian achar, vodka and ginger beer.
I used Bedekar’s garlic achar with mixed results. Sharmila did not like it at all. I thought it was just okay. The biggest challenge is the oil in the achar that floats to the top. The initial sips are very oily to the lips. (you can see the red oil floating in the picture)
Tomorrow, I will try with a different achar and see if that makes a difference.
Funny sign at the bar near the gate of Roatan airport
Mixologist par excellence
We had sat down for dinner and ordered our wine when I noticed something interesting nearby. It looked like a mixologist’s set up. With a smoking gun.
Walked up there and soon met with the mixologist himself – Kenneth Salas Marin. He took me thru his special for the day. He had a Negroni that he had aged for a month. And before serving, he smokes it. The interesting part is instead of smoking it with wood – like hickory, maple, cherry etc, he burns candied dry fruit !!! Never seen this before.
The drink had a perfect length and palate!!
As we kept talking, I found out that Kenneth is from Guanacaste in Costa Rica. Literally from next door to the JW Mariott we stay in. Turns out he was the FB manager there.
I went back to my blog to a trip and showed him a picture of Sharmila and myself with our friends Sunil and Ananya at Nau Bar in that hotel in 2013. Kenneth immediately recognized the bartender who was serving us drinks!!
Talk about a small world!
From the bartender’s corner – Kairi Panha Caipirinha
This is a personal concoction. Hence the difficult to pronounce name. Well, this has two parts.
The first is “Kairi Panha” – also known as “Aam Panna“. “Aam Panna” is a juice made of raw mangoes with some cumin seeds, rock salt, sugar and mint leaves added to it. This is a very refreshing and popular drink during the tropical summers of India.
Added 2 parts of that to one part of Cachaca. This is the most popular distilled spirit in Brazil made from fermented sugarcane. It is also the base alcohol for Brazil’s national drink – Caipirinha.
And to that I added some “bhaja masala” made by Sharmila. This is cumin seeds, coriander seeds, fennel seeds and then a bit of cardamom – dry roasted and then grounded to powder.
That was a perfect pick me up for the evening.