At Canon, Jamie’s bar in Seattle, WA, they take pride in the sours they create each and every night. Like many cocktails served at Canon, sours are made with 2:1, rich simple syrup. As Jamie has professed in passed episodes, rich simple syrup provides not only sweetness but a great mouth feel without diluting the drink as much as a typical 1:1 simple syrup might. In the Chamomile Sour, Scotch is infused with the plentiful, calming herb to create a truly delightful, rich, yet light take on the classic sour style cocktail.
Almost two years ago now, Jamie extolled the virtues of the Golden Ratio. As a formula for creating new cocktails, the Golden Ratio is 1.5 oz spirit : .75 oz aperitif : .25 oz liqueur. This combination almost always results in a delicious cocktail. If not, it can serve as the base for iteration. Get experimenting!
Summer is here! Savour the heat by quenching your thirst with a fortified Sangria Blanc. Nothing could be simpler than grabbing a pitcher, your favorite seasonal fruit, a nice white wine, gin and a tasty liqueur and mixing it up for your friends.
Carbonating and bottling cocktails is a great way to batch cocktails for your bar or for fun at home. Using great ingredients, like Martin Miller’s Gin and adding bubbles also makes any cocktail a more refreshing drinking experience.
An abundance of fruit and produce presents itself in the summer and thus it is the perfect season for making a shrub. Made simply by combining fruit based syrup (think of simple syrup made with fruit juice instead of water) and vinegar, shrubs are a great way of imparting sweet fruit flavors and delicious acidity to a cocktail. In this case, Jamie utilizes a rhubarb shrub that combines beautifully with a citrus forward gin like Martin Miller’s.
The swizzle, a style of cocktail utilizing crushed ice, typically made with rum and given a good mixing with a swizzle stick, is a perfect drink for the approaching Summer. In this swizzle, Jamie utilizes Edinburgh Gin, a new gin on the market. With wonderful floral tones and resounding pine notes, it is the perfect gin for the Evergreen Swizzle.
The winner of the Martin Miller’s Gin ‘Trade Up’ competition is the Strega Sour from Junior Ryan of Clyde Common in Portland, OR. Junior found the Strega Sour in the Playboy Host and Bar Book and traded it up using Martin Miller’s Gin and the addition of egg white and house-made honey and earl grey syrup. To see Junior making his traded up Strega Sour, check out this link: Junior Ryan Strega Sour.
Jamie brings back the “golden ratio” and discusses proper technique when opening a corked bottle of wine or vermouth. The resulting cocktail, Kentucky Medicine, will surely cure what ails you this Winter season.
The Pumpkin King was inspired by the great seasonal pumpkin ales that pop up this time of year. Jamie uses Pumking Imperial Pumpkin Ale from Southern Tier Brewing Co. to create a beer liqueur which he uses as the foundation for the cocktail. With its soft yet rich flavor, Pigs Nose Scotch Whisky is the perfect compliment to the deep spice of the hand made beer liqueur.
There are ingredients sitting in your back bar that you just don’t like. Maybe it is just because you haven’t taken the time to get to know them. The WTF cocktail is a cocktail made with some of those ingredients Jamie took the time to experiment with.
Created by the former Milk & Honey bartender Enzo Errico, the Redhook Cocktail has become a modern day classic. Using Headlong White Dog Whiskey from Woodinville Whiskey Co., Jamie concocts a variation on the Redhook he calls the Whitehook. Barrel aged for almost three months, Jamie prefers to drink and serve the resulting liqueur straight without dilution.
Bitters have been an ingredient in cocktails since the birth of the art form. Some would say that a cocktail is not truly a cocktail without bitters. Even so, it is rare to find a cocktail that utilizes more than a dash or two. Not so with the Aromatic Collins. A lover of bitters, Jamie Boudreau uses an entire ounce of Angostura Bitters in this creation.
You have seen Jamie concoct Blue Blazer style drinks before. Here is a new twist that is perfect for the cold weather ahead, the Green Blazer.
In 2011, Jamie joined Liquid Kitchen host, Kathy Casey and Portfolio Ambassador for William Grant and Sons, Charlotte Voisey for a unique and entertaining seminar during the recent Manhattan Cocktail Classic. This seminar, sponsored by Hudson Whiskey, Hendrick’s Gin and Milagro Tequila, led attendees through the thought process that these three mixologists go through when creating a cocktail. In this episode, they tackle how to make a Margarita three different ways. You can watch Kathy make her variation, the Black and Blue Cadillac Margarita with Grand Marnier Foam, here. Join Small Screen, William Grant & Sons and Charlotte Voisey during Manhattan Cocktail Classic 2013
In 2011, Jamie joined Liquid Kitchen host, Kathy Casey and Portfolio Ambassador for William Grant and Sons, Charlotte Voisey for a unique and entertaining seminar during Manhattan Cocktail Classic. This seminar, sponsored by Hudson Whiskey, Hendrick’s Gin and Milagro Tequila, led attendees through the thought process that these three mixologists go through when creating a cocktail. In this episode, they tackle the French 75 Cocktail. You can watch Kathy make her variation, the Citrus 75, here. Join Small Screen, William Grant & Sons and Charlotte Voisey during Manhattan Cocktail Classic 2013
In 2011, Jamie joined Liquid Kitchen host, Kathy Casey and Portfolio Ambassador for William Grant and Sons, Charlotte Voisey for a unique and entertaining seminar during the recent Manhattan Cocktail Classic. This seminar, sponsored by Hudson Whiskey, Hendrick’s Gin and Milagro Tequila, led attendees through the thought process that these three mixologists go through when creating a cocktail. In this episode, they tackle the Old Fashioned Cocktail. You can watch Jamie make his variation, the Machine Head, here. Join Small Screen, William Grant & Sons and Charlotte Voisey during Manhattan Cocktail Classic 2013
The Margarita is traditionally made with little variation. Those who like it simple, keep to three ingredients: simple syrup, lime juice and tequila. Delicious! Jamie Boudreau steps it up a notch with help from a kit assembled by Cointreau (watch Jamie make Cointreau pearls here) whose purpose is to streamline the production of flavored pearls and, in this case, what Jamie calls “ravioli”. This deconstructed Margarita pairs the typical trifecta of ingredients above with a spoonful of encapsulated Cointreau for a flavorful and unique imbibing experience.
In an earlier episode of The Cocktail Spirit with Robert Hess, guest Jamie Boudreau demonstrated how to make flavorful spheres of caviar or pearls out of gelatin. Since then, Cointreau has put together an amazing kit using state of the art tools, ingredients and technique. They were kind enough to send a kit to Jamie so he could work his magic. As Jamie demonstrates, the addition of gold flakes to the pearls created with the Cointreau system add elegance to a simple glass of champagne.
Spring has sprung and it is time to discover light and refreshing cocktails to be sipped in the sunshine. Most often used as a garnish, celery is often overlooked as an ingredient. Its vegetal aroma and flavor is off-putting to some but combined with a touch of acid and a bit of sweetness, then spread evenly with vodka, it creates a backbone of flavor that is at once robust and refreshing.
Thyme has many uses, the most obvious being culinary. Because of its antiseptic qualities, in ancient times, it was used as an embalming agent. No doubt the aromatics aided in suppressing odors related to the decomposition of the body. Here, Jamie uses thyme strictly as an aromatic. Although, it may help preserve your liver!