Cocktails of the week - Rolls Royce and Bacardi Cocktail II

We had a couple of new cocktails last night. I've had a hard time finding inspiration for our cocktails the past couple of weeks. Not sure why; perhaps I haven't had a "hook" to use. I often start with a particular ingredient (say, orange bitters or Chambord or even lemon juice) and try to find something interesting from there, but I haven't even had that for an inspiration. Luckily, with my new collection of cocktail books, I have plenty of places to turn for new recipes.

The first one is from one of my new books, this one by David Biggs called, plainly enough, Classic Cocktails. It is almost as high quality as my previously mentioned book, New Classic Cocktails - heavy glossy paper, beautiful pictures, fold over leafs on both the front and the back covers to keep your page. It's a little bit smaller than NCC, measuring about 7 1/2" by 4 1/2" but still a very nice book. Biggs does a nice thing with the recipes - he just does them in "parts" and lets you figure out exactly how to measure it out. That way, it doesn't matter where you are, just get the ratios right.

Rolls Royce

• 1 part cognac (Hennessy Cognac)
• 1 part Cointreau
• 1 part orange juice

Do the usual - get some crushed ice, pour the ingredients over it, shake well, strain into a chilled cocktail glass. I think Cointreau has to be just about my favorite mixer. In my all time favorite movie, Casablanca, several of the patrons at Rick's order Cointreau straight up, but I'm not sure I'm brave enough for that - a little too sweet, I'd think. But it adds the perfect touch to many of my own classic cocktails, like the Sidecar and the Evan. Unfortunately, I didn't have any oranges to squeeze, so we used Tropicana orange juice, which is at least "Not From Concentrate". But still, this cocktail lacked anything memorable. It went down just fine, but probably nothing we'll go back to.

Then we followed it up with another one from my NCC book, which is fast becoming my favorite cocktail book. This time, it was the twist on the classic Bacardi Cocktail:

Bacardi Cocktail II

• 1 1/2 parts Bacardi 8
• 1 part apple juice
• 2 tsps. Chambord
• 1 tsp. simple syrup

Bacardi 8 is 8 year old rum, and a very fine rum indeed. Chambord is a good raspberry liqueur, and together it made a very nice cocktail. I later tried the Bacardi 8 in my old standby, a Rum and Coke, but found it to be too sweet, something I've discovered is true with many premium rums. I prefer plain ol' Bacardi white or Capt. Morgan Spiced Rum in my R&C.

I still haven't gotten around to making my own simple syrup, which is a very simple concoction of sugar and water. I think it is because I haven't purchased and sterilized a nice bottle to store it in. I have found a cool looking source to buy some simple syrup - Stirrings, by Nantucket Offshore, makes rimmers, mixers and simple syrup. I received an email from them, telling me about some local places that purport to sell their stuff, so I'm going to have to check them out.

After managing to get through two more levels of Serious Sam II, we watched episode 4 from Season three of The Sopranos. Lots of domestic problems in this one!

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