Happy Birthday, Jean Harlow!

Wikipedia:

Jean Harlow (born Harlean Harlow Carpenter; March 3, 1911 – June 7, 1937) was an American film actress and sex symbol of the 1930s.[1]

After being signed by director Howard Hughes, Harlow’s first major appearance was in Hell’s Angels (1930), followed by a series of critically unsuccessful films, before signing with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1932. Harlow became a leading lady for MGM, starring in a string of hit films including Red Dust (1932), Dinner at Eight (1933), Reckless (1935) and Suzy (1936). Among her frequent co-stars were William Powell, Spencer Tracy and, in six films, Clark Gable.

Harlow’s popularity rivaled and soon surpassed that of her MGM colleagues Joan Crawford and Norma Shearer. She had become one of the biggest movie stars in the world by the late 1930s, often nicknamed the “Blond Bombshell” and the “Platinum Blonde”, and popular for her “Laughing Vamp” movie persona.

She died during the filming of Saratoga in 1937 at the age of 26. The film was completed using doubles and released a little over a month after Harlow’s death. The American Film Institute ranked her as the 22nd greatest female star in Hollywood history.
From The Guardian:

In Victor Fleming’s 1932 jungle melodrama, Red Dust, Harlow’s stranded hooker sidles up to rubber plantation bigwig Clark Gable and asks, “Mind if I get drunk with you?” Something of a party girl off-screen, the Blonde Bombshell was supposedly fond of this martini created in her honour. Best served chilled, with a lemon peel garnish.

The Long Harvest Cocktail

A clear drink with lots of complexity in its flavor:

  
INGREDIENTS

• Smoky scotch rinse
• 3 oz London dry gin
• .5 oz dry vermouth
• 2 drops mushroom tincture
• 2 drops balsamic vinegar
• 2 drops olive oil
• 1 pinch of salt
• 1 cocktail onion
• 1 green olive
• 1 cornichon 

PREPARATION

Chill a cocktail glass and then rinse with the scotch. Stir the gin and dry vermouth over ice and strain into the prepared cocktail glass.

For the mushroom tincture I used Shiitake tincture from Green Heron Growers.

Thank You, Grape Discovery Center

The Lake Erie Grape Discovery Center posted this on their Facebook today:

  
I really had a lot of fun Saturday at this event!

And I was in good company:

  
Thank you to the organizers, to my fellow competitors/friends and to the audience members who came out to support us!

Making My Mom Work The Bar

It’s late Sunday night and I’ve had an incredibly enjoyable and very long, draining weekend — but it was an amazing three days!

•Friday night was Jamestown’s annual holiday parade, which ends at the city hall plaza pretty much right next to the restaurant where I work!

•Saturday was the first-ever local cocktail competition hosted by the Lake Erie Grape Discovery Center.

•Today I helped put on a baby shower for my wife, with some of our co-workers and family in attendance. But I didn’t want any of my restaurant co-workers to have to work the thing… Which had me juggling a lot of the cleaning, hosting, serving and bar duties— so I put my mom to work and this is easily my favorite picture from the weekend:

  

Can’t Wait For Morning

Had quite a few drinks tonight (and did a lot of swimming), but I’ll blog about those libations later.

Time for bed and then coffee in the morning:

 

And they serve wine!

Building On The Prizefighter #1

The Prizefighter #1 is a cocktail that was created by Nick Jarrett.

I’ve written about the drink before, and you can read that post here.

Last night I was serving something to customers that was sort of like the Prizefighter #1, but different in that it had pineapple juice… So I figured I’d give the drink its own post today (and I don’t know if Nick Jarrett has already made this variation, so if someone knows… Leave me a comment).

Ingredients in the Prizefighter #1:
•1 oz. Fernet Branca
•1 oz. Carpano Antica
•3/4 oz. simple syrup
•1/4 oz. lemon juice
•6-8 mint leaves
•3-4 lemon wedges
•Pinch salt

Pineapple Prizefighter

  

And here’s how I made the above drink last night:

•1 oz bourbon
•1/2 oz. Fernet Branca
•1/2 oz. sweet vermouth
•1/2 oz. simple syrup
•1 oz pineapple juice
•1/2 oz. lemon juice
•6-8 mint leaves
•3-4 lemon wedges
•Pinch salt
•Sierra Mist

Preparation:

Now, whereas with the Prizefighter #1 you shake and double-strain and serve up or on the rocks, I was serving this pineapple drink in a Collins glass finished with Sierra Mist.

Prosecco Ice Cream Float

This drink is also dessert. Or rather, this dessert is also a drink.

I stumbled across a list of boozy dessert drinks on Liquor.com the other day and made a note to myself to try this Berries & Prosecco Ice Cream Float:

  

The original post comes from a site called Lonny.com and from the date it looks like the article ran in the magazine at the end of last summer.

Here’s their recipe:

Berry-Prosecco Ice Cream Floats
Serves 4

• 1 bottle (750 ml) of dry Prosecco
• 1 pint vanilla ice cream
• 1 pint of mixed berries (strawberries, blueberries, raspberries)
• 1 tablespoon sugar 

I didn’t have the recipe on hand when I made the drink at work earlier tonight, but playing it by ear worked out pretty well.

I tossed chopped strawberries and blueberries in sugar and then put scoop of vanilla ice cream, topping it with Prosecco and the berries. Easy stuff. And delicious!

  

Modified Midori Sour #2

Earlier in the week I posted about a friend who took a photo of two Midori Sours at the bar where I work.

That photo, and the conversation sparked, spurred me to try and modify the classic Midori Sour. That first post can be read by clicking here.

Everyone I know hates the idea of Midori Sours, and that’s mostly because they’re afraid of two things— getting too much of the liqueur and also having to drink packaged sours mix.

In my first attempt at modifying the drink, I added in Applejack with the Midori and lemon juice.

The addition definitely made for a different and even tasty drink, but it was too different — it didn’t feel like a Midori Sour any longer.

What follows is another attempt at updating the basis Midori Sour:

Modified Midori Sour #2 

 

Ingredients:

•2 oz Midori
•1 oz lemon juice
•1/2 oz Contratto Apertif orange bitter liqueur (or Aperol)

Preparation:

Shake all ingredients over ice ans strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with an orange wedge.

Results:

Again, thus was just an okay drink. It was more like a Midori Sour than my first attempt, but it was too sweet. I think the orange flavor worked nicely, but I need to change the proportions.

Coconut Water Simple Syrup

This is my third coconut post this week.

The others are here and here.

I’ve had less than satisfying results trying to get a useable drink mixer from coconut milk and coconut water.

I have an interest in doing some tropical-style drinks for this weekend, but I don’t want to use the typical store-bought mixers:

  
Not that theses anything wrong with them… They work for what they are, and for a specific sort of taste.

Admittedly, I’m flying in the dark here. I’ve never worked with coconut like this, and that’s part of the reason I wanted to play around with it. And chances are someone had probably already written about this somewhere online, but I did a search and didn’t find any info related specifically to what I’m looking for — which is a less-sweet, more-balanced mixer I can use in tropical-ish drinks which I’ll be shaking (not blending.)

Pics From Negroni Week

The sun was shining so brightly today that I took my Negroni outside:

  

And:

And: