Cocktails of the Week - Brandy Crusta and Great Barrier Reef

More great findings for my liquor cabinet! I finally found a good Curaçao, replenshed my Maraschino liqueur, got some fresh Meyer Lemons, and a new hand blender. So I had to mix up a couple of cocktails using these.

Brandy Crusta

• 2oz brandy (I used Hennessy Cognac - yeah, I know, what a plebeian!)
• 1/2 oz orange Curaçao
• 1/2 oz Maraschino liqueur
• 1oz lemon juice
• 3 dashes Angostura bitters

Moisten the rim of the cocktail glass with the lemon and dip into a rimmer, like superfine (caster) sugar or any of the fine Stirrings rimmers. Mix the brandy, Curaçao, Maraschino liqueur, lemon juice and bitters in a shaker filled with crushed ice. Strain into the cocktail glass and decorate with a lemon rind.

I was able to use lots of cool new discoveries and gifts in this classic cocktail! I've been on a quest to find a good Curaçao. As I've mentioned before, most available Curaçaos (usually of the blue variety) are pretty horrid tasting. Generic label artificial everything, they make pretty much anything undrinkable. The blue Curaçao is an important weapon in the cocktail mixers arsenal, as it gives drinks a unique color, but if I couldn't find one that didn't taste like chemically hopped-up sugar water, I wasn't going to use it any more. But a web quest uncovered a real version made in Curaçao called, of all things, Curaçao of Curaçao. Many more clicks later, I found the distributor, and found the one local retailer. My first trip to Marty's Liquors didn't turn up any Curaçao, but questioning the manager led me to their Newton store, where I was able to snatch up bottles of their blue and orange (same flavor, different color) Curaçaos.

And what a difference they make! Both of them taste like a stronger Cointreau, with a very pleasant orange aroma and a sharp, sweet orange taste. No artificial aftertaste at all. A "blind" side by side tasting against the Arrow brand was no contest. Even your nose could tell you, as the Curaçao of Curaçao smelled like an orange, while the Arrow smelled like chemical sugar water. I am so very happy to have found this! Check the distributor's web site, Preiss Imports, for a retail outlet near you - it'll be worth the effort and money, trust me!

I also got to use my freshly delivered Meyer Lemons! Yup, my folks tracked down a supplier (Melissa's) and I received a nice big box of Meyer Lemons the other day! And they are as good as advertised. I especially like how easy they are to juice - very plump and soft. The juice is still more lemon than orange, but I like it alot and am looking forward to using them in many of my upcoming cocktails.

And I finally bought a fresh bottle of Maraschino liqueur. I know what you picture when initially reading the name - some sort of red, syrupy production akin to grenadine syrup. But no, it is a colorless liqueur from Italy, made using Maraschino cherries, which are not normally red. In fact, you wouldn't want to know how these red dollops of sweetness are made (it involves soaking in brine and other yucky sounding steps). Maraschino liqueur is very interesting tasting, and an important ingredient in a real Daiquiri. Unfortunately, it is hard to get a top brand here in the States. Like sake, the locals keep the good stuff for themselves, so you have to make due with the brand in the twine called Luxardo, which isn't too bad, I guess.

Great Barrier Reef

• 2 oz gin
• 1 oz Cointreau
• dash bitters
• dash blue Curaçao
• 2 scoops vanilla ice cream

Combine ice, gin, Cointreau, bitters, blue Curaçao and ice cream in a blender; blend well and pour into a nice tall glass.

I was looking for a slightly offbeat blue Curaçao recipe and I found this one in one of my Christmas present cocktail books. In this case, it is a good looking magazine-style cocktail recipe book called Fantastic Cocktails & Mixed Drinks. A nice collection of recipes, with pictures for every drink. It's easy to find blue Curaçao drinks - just flip through the pages and look for a blue drink! In this case, the blue color is muted, unlike some of the more popular blue ones, like a Blue Lagoon, where the blue Curaçao contributes virtually all the color. As an extra added bonus, I got to use another birthday gift, my hefty stainless steel Cuisinart Smart Stick hand blender. After some struggles with the tightly packed ice, it finally started churning things up, and it made a very smooth, great tasting cocktail shake.

After cocktails and playing Serious Sam 2, we watched the first episode of the short lived UPN series, Nowhere Man. I'm not sure how I came across this series - surfing around and read a review on it, and it sounded interesting, so I ordered up the first DVD from Netflix, which contains the first 3 episodes. The story of a man who is erased from society's memory for mysterious reasons, it was interesting enough to keep us watching for the next couple of episodes anyway.

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