Customer Appreciation Post — Hot Daiquiri

An Instagram pic of a drink I made tonight:

  

Whiskey In The Sun

Nothing like a little whiskey to start the week!

Happy Monday, people!

  

Fernet-Branca Bar Mats

These came in while I was away on vacation:

 

Happy Birthday, Lauren Bacall

Today is Lauren Bacall’s birthday and I wasn’t expecting to find a cocktail named after the actress, but then I stumbled across this gem posted by a WordPress site called Wine Cocktails.

  
We’ve got a nice rose at the bar where I work, so I’ll definitely be trying this out later tonight.

Maybe if I get time I’ll search online later to see if there’s a Dark Passage cocktail. 

  
From what I can tell from Wine Mixology’s post, this cocktail is an original drink that two of their contributors came up with earlier this year — and I hope they don’t mind if I re-post their recipe. But for anyone reading here On this blog bout this drink for the first time, please click over and check out the original post!

From Wine Mixology:

This cocktail is a play on three classics with its own distinctive twist. One classic is obviously Lauren Bacall herself – the sultry actress of the Golden Ages of motion pictures. This cocktail also puts a twist on the classical gin and tonic as well as the “Greyhound” with its splash of grapefruit. It is very refreshing without being too heavy in body. 

INGREDIENTS

• 2 oz Pol Clement Rose Sec (French Sparkling Rose Wine)
• ½ oz Uncle Val’s Botanical Gin
• ½ oz Triple Sec
• 2 oz Organic Pink Grapefruit juice
• ½ oz Honey Syrup (1/2cup honey; ½ cup boiling water, stir)
• Top glass off with Tonic
• Grapefruit and basil for garnish

PREPARATION

Fill a Collins glass with ice and add in the rose, gin, triple sec, grapefruit juice and honey syrup, and then top the remaining room left in the glass with tonic water. Garnish with grapefruit and basil.

Still Thirsty For More?

—Got a minute-and-a-half!? Here’s a cute, quick video on how to make the Lauren Bacall.

Update:

I’ll be updating this post later tonight after I take a picture of my Lauren Bacal drink I’ll be making.

Happy Birthday, Fay Wray!

Fay Wray was one of cinema’s first “Scream Queens” and today is her birthday.

She was born Vina Fay Wray on Sept. 15 in 1907.

Not familiar with the actress? Well, read on… Because she’s got more than 100 acting credits to her name — including one gargantuan role for which she’ll always be known.

Fay Wray was born in Alberta Canada and in her life she amassed upward of 100 acting credits to her name.

She acted through 1980, and in the 50s she appeared on television shows such as Perry Mason and Alfred Hitchcock Presents, but she’ll forever be know for a role she played in 1933 — as the female lead in King Kong:

  
Google search the name “Fay Wray and add the word “cocktail” and the first hit you’ll find will be this article on the website Punch.

It only makes sense that someone would have given this Old Hollywood actress her own cocktail, and that it would be related to her role in King Kong — or at least, I assume that’s why this drink has a banana flavor component.

The following recipe was created by Brooklyn-based bartender Matthew Bellanger.

About This Cocktail

The Fay Wray is a banana-flavored tiki drink made with rum and cognac.

Ingredients

• 3/4 ounce gold rum (preferably Barbancourt 4 Star Rum)
• 3/4 ounce cognac (preferably Dudugnon)
• 3/4 ounce banana liqueur, Giffard Banane du Bresil
• 3/4 ounce lime juice
• 1/4 ounce rhum agricole, Rhum Clément
• 1/4 ounce demerara syrup (2:1, sugar:water)
• 1 small lime wedge

Preparation
Shake all ingredients over a small amount of crushed ice — including a lime wedge. Squeeze the lime wedge in with the other ingredients and drop it in the shaker. Pour all the ingredients, without straining, into a rocks glass and add more crushed ice. Garnish with a dried banana slice and a mint bouquet.

Further Reading:

— Do bananas belong in cocktails? The Savory wrote this article about that question.

Saying Goodbye To The Beach

I got to Atlantic Beach last Sunday afternoon and immediately cracked a Presidente. 

It’s been a long and busy but enjoyable week. I left Saturday and got back home around 3 a.m. Sunday morning. 

Some of the beverages I consumed:
•Plantation rum
•Hoppyum IPA
•Sisters of the Moon IPA
•Scrimshaw Pilsner
•Fernet-Branca at Arendell Room
•Evan Williams
•Basil Hayden

Arendell Room

Destination Cocktail:
Arendell Room’s Craft Drinks

The Arendell Room in Morehead City was just a short few minutes from the place where I stayed this past week in Pine Knoll Shores.

I’m glad I found the Arendell Room because, from what I can tell, they serve the best cocktails in the region.

 

Now, I don’t write that as hyperbole or to diminish what other bars in the area do, but it just seems apparent from what the Arendell Room puts forward — which is that their cocktails come first.

In fact, that phrase is a part of the bar’s tagline — “Cocktails first, questions later.”

And I’m not going to lie, seeing that phrase really enticed me to get out to this bar at least once during my trip. I found the bar while searching the area with my Yelp app, and only after I’d switched my search from “restaurants” to “cocktails.” I don’t know if the bar serves food or not, but I’m glad I changed what I was searching in the app otherwise this place might never have made my radar.

I was a part of a group of five on Wednesday night and we arrived at Arendell Room after having already had dinner and drinks somewhere else. The five of us grabbed the corner seats at the bar, which was particularly nice because the corner seats afforded us a nice view of Arendell Room’s bourbon selection. I’d been drinking Basil Hayden elsewhere and one of the others in my party stuck with bourbon on ice. Another had a glass of white wine and a third had a split of champagne while my wife got a very nice non-alcoholic drink — made with mint and watermelon and something carbonated to give it bubbles. It was really quite tasty.

There were several drinks on the menu which caught my eye — as well as a quirky set of “house rules,” but having already been drinking elsewhere I knew I’d probably only be having just one drink at this bar. With that in mind, I went with the custom drink option listed on the cocktail menu and I let the bartender make me something of his choice.

When going the custom route, the menu suggested telling the bartender what types of liquors and drinks you normally like — so I mentioned bourbon and amaro and specifics like Aperol and Fernet.

What I got was a Boulevardier, a bourbon drink that’s sort of like a Negroni. I saw the bartender pour Buffalo Trace, which was nice, but I wish I would’ve seen what vermouth he used. The drink was phenomenal — velvety and sweet with a strong orange flavor plus that dry, bitter Canpari finish.

 

The photos above are my own, but this one from the bar’s website shows a little more of the Arendell Room:

  

Pappy Van Winkle At Circa 81

I didn’t get this bartender’s name, but she posed with her restaurant’s bottle of Pappy Van Winkle for me:

 

On Thursday my family and I dined at Circa 81 in Morehead City.

The restaurant does tapas plates and calls itself a “Cocktaileria” — which is the first time I’d ever heard of such a thing.

The food was good. I had the chorizo black bean soup, a beet salad with chicken and also a shaved prime rib dish served on crostini with a lite horseradish flavor.

That quick recap doesn’t do the food any real justice, so I’ll post photos and copy from the menu below:

 

Chorizo black bean soup

 
   

And I also had this salad, which had a lot of interesting flavors going on:

Bibb lettuce with beets, chevre, sunflower kernels, radish, pear and a cinnamon pear balsamic vinaigrette.

 

Circa 81’s “Bibb Salad.”

 
Overall, I really enjoyed my evening here. Since my family and I were on vacation, we’d sort of been snacking all day — and as a result, we weren’t really looking for full, heavy entrees. The tapas-style focus of this restaurant was sort of perfect for us in that regard. We shared a number of different small plates and several of us got cups of soup and then there was also two different styles of homemade cheesecake which we had for dessert.

Oh, and I had a Basil Hayden neat, a Scrimshaw Pilsner and a B&B for dessert.

If I’m ever hear again on vacation (which I intend to be next summer, this place will be the third in my Top 3 to return to — the others being Arendell Room and Amos Mosquito’s).

Last but not least, the Pappy Van Winkle 23 year was $70 for a 2 oz pour.

  

Morning Beer — Foothills Brewing’s Hoppyum IPA

Beer on the beach. Is there anything better?

  

Amos Mosquito’s

Destination Cocktail:
Amos Mosquito’s Beach Drinks

On Tuesday night I got the chance to eat and drink at Amos Mosquito’s in Atlantic Beach, North Carolina.

It’s after Labor Day, but the parking lot of the place was still starting to fill up at 4:45 p.m. — which is when we happened to be driving past.

I didn’t get a picture of the exterior of the place, but I did take this photo of my souvenir coozie after dinner when I was back in my hotel pool:

  

My only regret from dinner was not being hungry enough to order more. My wife and I split a seafood plate and I had two house cocktails plus a Pilsner that was on tap (I think maybe it was Scrimshaw).

We didn’t get a chance to eat or drink at the restaurant last July when we were first here, but made up for that fact last night. It was definitely a high-priority for us this trip — and proved to be well worth the effort. The restaurant has a reputation for filling up fast and staying busy throughout service each night, which is a testament to both the quality of their food and the unique “rustic” atmosphere.
The mosquito theme of the place is pretty intense — with all sorts of mosquito-related posters and wall-hangings decorating all corners of the place. And their attention to detail extends to the bathrooms where there are framed photos of outhouses above the urinals and a soundtrack of swamp noises plays on a loop.
I felt bad for our waitress, a really nice woman named Junior who had to deal with us and our million questions right at 5 o’clock. She was friendly, funny and professional as we grilled her about everything from the ingredients in their different housemate breads to the coconut flavoring in their tiki drinks.
As I mentioned already, I had two of their house cocktails and a pilsner.

I started with their Painkiller:

 

I also had their Bourbon Beach Cooler, which I didn’t enjoy as much as my first drink but was still alright overall. I’d ordered it because I saw the Wild Turkey listed, and I think that that’s all I’d really wanted — not the grapefruit or agave. Looking back I should’ve just asked to have had the bourbon with ginger beer, but that’s on me.

The list below is a small selection of some of the  drinks listed on their cocktail menu:

Malibu Pina Colada
Malibu coconut rum blended with coconut and pineapple.

Amos Mojito
Bacardi rum muddled with fresh mint, sugar and lime juice, served over ice—light and refreshing.

Bourbon Beach Cooler
A refreshing bourbon cocktail with a pronounced citrus presence. Wild Turkey 81 bourbon, fresh grapefruit juice, St. Germain elderflower liquor, fresh lime juice, organic agave nectar and a splash of soda on the rocks.

Painkiller
Gosling’s Black Seal rum, creme of coconut & pineapple and orange juices shaken with ice and garnished with nutmeg.

Mai Tai
Bacardi Silver rum, Malibu coconut rum, apricot brandy, banana liqueur, orange & pineapple juices and grenadine shaken with ice and served in a tall glass.

Dark & Stormy
Gosling’s Black Seal rum mixed with Barritt’s ginger beer over ice.

And here’s another shot of the coozie I got: