Quinine, tonic water, simple syrup and bitters

Hi all!

As promised, here is a recipe for simple syrup. Many basic drinks, such as an Old Fashioned and a Tom Collins use simple syrup as a sweetener. Some people also use it to make ginger ale or even homemade cola. It's essentially a basic beverage sweetener. You can also use it to candy fruit.

Here's the recipe:

Bring 2 cups of plain cold tap water to a boil. Stir in 2 cups of plain granulated sugar. Turn the heat to low and stir constantly until the sugar dissolves completely. To test if the sugar is completely dissolved, use a metal spoon to scoop up a small bit of the syrup. Tilt it over the pan and watch carefully. You shouldn't be able to see any crystals in the liquid. At this point you can add flavorings; add about a tablespoon of any liquid extract. You can also stir in 1 tablespoon corn syrup to help ensure the syrup stays smooth. Let the syrup cool to room temperature, then pour into a clean glass jar and store in the refrigerator.

Now, a few words about bitters.

Basic Angostura bitters, you find them everywhere. Named for the town of Angostura, Venezuela. Doesn't actually contain any Angostura bark--was used as a digestive. to aid digestion. An apertif. Used in a Pink Gin, a popular British concoction in which a glass is "pinked" with bitters and then gin is added.

Also used in an LLB--Lemon, Lime, and Bitters. Very popular in Australia as a traditional drink after a round of golf, but hardly heard of in the United States.

In Great Britain, a pitcher of lemonade and bitters is called a "Campbell".

The LLB and the Campbell are "mocktails"--non-alcoholic drinks that serve the traditional purpose of alcoholic ones. Examples of mocktails are virgin drinks, Shirley Temples, and an Arnold Palmer (iced tea and lemonade). These are non alcoholic drinks that have traditions around them.

To the left: Peychaud's bitters. Mostly found in drinks in the American South, and specifically, New Orleans, where it forms the basis of a Sazerac cocktail. A Sazerac is made with Sazerac rye whiskey, and you prep the glass with an absinthe mixture. It's a complex drink to make well, but, I am told, one well worth the travel to NOLA for.













Old style-bottles of Quinine water, Canada Dry brand, circa around 1968. Quinine was originally valued for its medicinal properties, although too much of it can make you quite ill. But a splash in your gin never hurt anything. Quinine water was replaced by tonic water, which is essentially the same thing except there's more water and less quinine.

Quinine was originally used to prevent malaria and incidentally, glows under an ultraviolet light as it is UV sensitive.









Modern Canada Dry tonic water. You can mix with gin or vodka, neat or on the rocks. Less quinine than quinine water, and usually flavored with extract rather than raw quinine.

If you really want to get European and artsy about your tonic water, these guys, Q Tonic, make a great tonic water.






So that's bitters, Quinine, simple syrup, and tonic water. I didn't have room for the other thing I promised--grenadine. I'll get to it tomorrow. Did you know you can make your own grenadine if you really want to? And the Shirley Temple is not the only mocktail that uses it. For instance, the Afterglow and the Canadian Pride both use grenadine and are nonalcoholic. Check us out tomorrow for details and recipes. See ya!

Bloody Marys for a British Royal Wedding...

The British Royal Wedding starts at 4 AM. Some of us need an eye opener to be up at that ungodly hour. Therefore, in the truest British tradition, here are a couple of recipes for Bloody Marys. These are both recipes for a pitcher of mix.

One is very simple; one is much more complex. Of course, if you want something *really* simple, V8 will do in a pinch, OR we sell excellent Mrs. T's premade mix at the store.

But if you want to try to make them yourself, try these recipes. Again, remember that both recipes are for a pitcher.

SIMPLE BLOODY MARY RECIPE:

8 oz Smirnoff Vodka
24 oz tomato juice
16 dashes red hot sauce
16 dashes green hot sauce
8 dashes Worcestershire sauce
4 oz lemon juice
8 pinches salt
8 pinches pepper
8 stalks celery

Add Smirnoff Vodka, tomato juice, red hot sauce, green hot sauce, worchester sauce, lemon juice, pinch of salt, pinch of pepper.

COMPLEX BLOODY MARY RECIPE:

1 (46 oz.) can tomato juice
1/2 c. beef bouillon
3 oz. (6 tbsp.) fresh lime juice
1/4 c. Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp. coarse salt
1 tsp. coarsely ground pepper
1 tsp. celery salt
1 tsp. dill weed
1/2 to 1 tsp. hot pepper sauce
1 tsp. creamy horseradish
Ice cubes
1 qt. vodka

Cucumber slices, celery stalks, and lime wedges (garnish)

Bloody Marys are of uncertain origin but are of course named for Queen Mary I, queen regnant of England. Click the link to find out why she was called "Bloody Mary".

Hopefully the Royal Wedding will go well; Kate Middleton will make an excellent Princess and perhaps eventually be Queen--she's got her head together. William, of course, is William, his father's son. Harry is Harry; his fondest hope is that he'll become an uncle to a nephew and can finally freely hang out with his military buddies.

Cheers to the lot of them!

Hi! Well, it looks like Spring is finally here in Bradley. Take a look at our Bradley Liquors Twitter Page or our Bradley Liquors Facebook Page for some great spring drink recipes--everything from a Cricket to a traditional Mint Juleps to more exotic drinks like a Mai Tai, a Sex on The Beach, a Rotten Apple, and an Appletini. Check 'em out!

Today, as promised, I'm going to show you a few beer glasses--glassware for serving beer.

I'll start off with a traditional beer mug (very popular in Wisconsin, North Dakota, and other places where people of Slavic extraction are known to congregate) . It's pretty simple; good for nursing a beer over time or for "double fisting" on a hard night It has room for about a pint of beer and a thick, foamy head. The gold standard of beer glassware.










This is a nice, elaborate German beer stein. Those crazy Germans!

We have beer steins in America, but as Dave Barry, the noted humorist noted, "The difference between a beer stein in America and a beer stein in Germany is the difference between feeling pleasantly mellow and dancing naked on the roof of a moving truck."

A beer stein (sometimes called a tankard) usually has a top, actuated with the thumb by an attached lever. Steins are often elaborate and can be quite large--as many as 15 liters. This would be a multi-person stein; they pass them around at drinking festivals and for challenges.

This is a glass used for serving wheat beer--curved, open at the top so you can get a good whiff of the scent of the beer, and you really have to bury your nose in the head.

Wheat beer in German is called "Weitzen". So we get from that "Hefeweitzen" ("yeast beer"--a top fermented bear), ""Kristallweitzen" ("clear beer"--wheat beer clarified with lemon juice), and "Weitzenbock" (wheat beer made in the German "bock" style).




So those are a few different types of beer glass. There are also pilsner glasses and variations on these, but these are the basics.

Next up: recipes for simple syrup, the difference between Angostura bitters, Peychaud's bitters, and orange bitters, what Grenadine syrup is made of, and how to make your own Bloody Mary Mix-a simple recipe and complex, spicy recipe. Tune in next time!

Hi everyone! Happy Easter and Happy Passover! I hope everybody has a great Easter (or had a great Passover). Spring is the best time; it brightens everybody's mood. The sun comes out and it gets warmer. The days get easier.

I wanted to talk in this post about some basic types of glassware that you might want to have in a home bar. These are just some of the basics; I'll go a little further with this topic tomorrow.


This obviously is an ordinary, long stemmed wineglass. Generally suitable for any red or white wine--good for a fairly simple table at Easter or Thanksgiving. Not ostentatious, not overdone, just very basic, simple, and classy. You can't really go wrong with serving any kind of wine in this glass; it's the basic element.





This is called a rocks glass--it's really a half-tumbler. It's called a rocks glass because it's what's used for drinks with ice--in drinking parlance, "rocks". It's also called an "Old Fashioned" glass, because the Old Fashioned and all its many varieties go in it. This glass is the *opposite* of a highball glass. A highball glass is twice the size of this glass and is used for highballs--usually two liquors, mixed quickly, served neat, and drunk quickly. This glass is for sipping--Scotch on the rocks, vodka and ginger, and so on.





This glass is your classic Brandy Snifter. Big on the bottom and sort of bowl shaped. You pour brandy, cognac, or Armagnac into a glass like this--your Remy Martin, Hennessey, Cardinal Mendoza. The glass is meant to be gripped with the stem between your fingers and the bowl resting in your palm so your body heat warms the brandy--giving it a good "nose"--a gentle, almost cologne like odor that should please the senses and warm the heart.





Two champagne flutes, and very nice ones at that. For drinking bubbly, proposing to your girlfriend, celebrating a college graduation, toasting a success or the camaraderie of friends. Champagne flutes are the civilized way to drink champagne--chilled, always. There are some who put mimosas--champagne and orange juice--in these glasses and serve them at brunch, and there are some who recoil in horror at the idea of mixing good champagne with orange juice. If you want an eye opener with your morning/lunch meal, wherefore the orange juice? Drink champagne! Why be silly?


In any case, those are some basic glasses you might have in your home to serve liquor and wine. Tomorrow, we'll look at possible ways you might serve beer. Did you know some beers are meant to be served warm? Oatmeal porter! Guinness Stout! Tune in tomorrow...

Intro and Basic Barware (Bar Tools, Glasses, and Accoutrements)

Hi everybody! This is the blog for Bradley Liquors, Bradley Beach, New Jersey, on the Jersey Shore. I'll be your host, David Berlin. We're going to include short instructional posts on drinks, bartending, beers, and spirits, happenings at local bars and pubs, local bands, artists, and events,and more. We even hope to have video up in the next couple of months.

The first thing I'd like to get into is an explanation of some basic barware:



This is a standard cocktail shaker: jigger on top serves as a cover, strainer built in to to the top that seals the shaker. Pour the ingredients in, cover with the top and the jigger, and shake. Pour out through the strainer. Works well BUT the tops are notoriously hard to seal; more than one amateur bartender has ended up with Mai Tais all over his shirt. Not good.






This is called a Boston Shaker--more expensive, more professional, solves the liquor spillage problem. Basically, a Boston Shaker has three parts: the sleeve, the glass inside, and a separate strainer. To use, you take the glass inside out, pour the ingredients into the steel part, cover with the glass part (like in the photograph) to make a good seal and shake. Harder to use, and more complex, but solves the problem of the top seal IF you know how to use it. The strainer in this model is a separate strainer piece that fits over the top.


The main difference between the two shakers, aside from the design differences and the differences in the way they are used is that the strainer is built into the top of the ordinary cocktail shaker and it is a separate piece on the Boston Shaker. There are other types of shakers--the Parisian Shaker, a hybrid of these two, comes to mind, but these are what you'll usually encounter. Essentially, one is intended for home use and one is for professionals and is more expensive.

If you really want to get into mixology and home barware, a vintage shaker makes a nice addition to any home bar. There are all kinds going begging at flea markets and antique shops that sell Americana. Serve your martinis with retro, Mad Men cool!

Up next: glassware