Bramble Ale

The holiday season can sure be a busy one! Both Joe and myself found our respective selves preoccupied beyond the point of making a blog post feasible!

With great effort, however, we brought our "Holiday Hiatus" to a conclusion and have returned with many a great recipe lined up for your reading and drinking pleasure!

Our first offering for "Twenty-Eleven," (its way cooler to call it "twenty-eleven" I am told!) is The Bramble Ale. Enjoy!

The Recipe:

into a cocktail shaker full of ice add:

- A 4 count of Bombay Gin,

- A 2 Count of Cointreau,

- A 2 count of current "bar-star" Ribena Blackcurrant,

- The juice squozen freshly from 1/2 of a large lemon,

- Shake to living daylights outta that thing,

- Strain over fresh ice,

- Top with soda,

- Garnish with a slice of lemon and maybe a maraschino cherry.

Joe's notes: The Bramble Ale is our variation on the classic English cocktail, The Bramble. As creme de mure (blackberry liqueur) is not so readily available on these shores, I have chosen to go with Ribena.

Now I know what you are saying. Ribena is blackcurrant, not blackberry and it also contains no alcohol. But I believe that the addition of cointreau not only makes up for the lack of alcohol in Ribena it also adds a very nice flavor combination.

Those of you that are regular readers of this blog probably realize by now that the H.Q.of TGDitWTW, (The Passage Lounge ) is a hang out for many ex-pats, both British and Irish. We spend many an evening reminiscing of the days when we happily ate fried offal in damp kitchens, or lay awake dying of the heat, sharing the bed with numerous siblings in an un-air conditioned bedroom.

The cure for a sore throat was to have an aspirin, a pair of your fathers (worn) socks wrapped around your neck and a cup of warm Ribena.

A story about Blackcurrants and other things:

When I was a boy, my friend Jeremy and I scrummed the blackcurrant foliage hanging over the wall of the local convent.

Inevitably, a nun was going to appear. She did in the form of sister Bernadette. Mouths and pockets stuffed with blackcurrants we awaited the tirade of anger and accusations. "Boy's," she said, "If you want some blackcurrants why don't you just knock on our garden gate?"

Being boys we said nothing. "Follow me." We followed her through the doors of the convent. Polished wood and stone met our eyes, the smell of boiled cabbage and lilac powder awoke our prepubescent terror. The nuns, silent but surprisingly young, smiled and waved us through. We arrived at a garden with the biggest and most heavily laden blackcurrant bushes I have ever seen to this day." Take what you want, but return tomorrow and help is in the garden".

Jeremy never went back (I think he became a lawyer.)

I went back the following week. I spent a summer drinking tea in fine china cups and eating very small sandwiches with the crusts cut off. They never actualy needed my help with the garden, but rather extended their love to one very small and insignificant boy.

Ribena, nuns in a bottle.

Chris's Notes: It was a frosty, windswept evening when I made it to the Passage Lounge that night. Senior Research Assistant, Kerry, was already seated at our usual seats with guest researcher, Sharon Mc.

They greeted me as they shuddered with the blast of wind that followed me in.

I told Joe that I was in the mood for something with gin in it. As I explained that gin always reminded me of winter, Kerry reminded me that "always" was only for about a year or so, since we had been blogging.

Whatever. It is a good cold weather spirit and what I wanted. So there!

Joe grinned as he bustled about his "other" job responsibilities and explained that he had a nice gin drink already in mind. A variation of a classic cocktail from back home, England-way, calledThe Bramble.

The gin and the orange of the Cointreau created a flavor almost bordering on the grapefruit spectrum, but the sweetness of the Ribena, Joe's current booze-muse, (or "mooze!") and the tangy sour of the lemon bring the tastes to all interested tastebuds.

The sparkle of the soda, (another deviation from the original Bramble, and the reason for the "ale" in the name, akin to "ginger ale,") send a wake-up call to the palate that really drives this baby home!

So, Cheers, and Happy New Year!

Chris

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This week's video goes WAY back to 1945. An appropriately named little number by Spike Jones: "Cocktails for Two."

Cheers - C:

Red Witch

To the locals here in Salem, the month of October means traffic, tourists and Haunted Happenings. In fact, last week's Greatest Drink in the World... This Week was preempted for the Haunted Happenings Grand Parade!

So this week, to make up for that, (and to coat-tail Salem's notoriety for the Hallowe'en season,) we present a really different and delicious offering that was universally embraced by everyone who tried it, "The Red Witch."

The Recipe:

Into a tall glass of ice, add:

- A 3-count of Absynthe,

- A generous sploosh of Ribena Blackcurrant,

- Top off with hard cider,

- Garnish with a wedge of orange, (or, even better, a slice of apple!)

Kerry's Notes: I have to just start off by saying how much I loved that drink. I am now a big fan of cider thanks to Joe. I may even be so bold as to say I like it better than beer. Shocking! I know. But it just tastes like fall and has a sweet finish to every sip.

The thing about the Red Witch that struck me was the immediate memory of my favorite childhood witch from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Though I was a bit afraid of the dwarfs, too, the Witch Queen was absolutely terrifying since you know in advance she is a murderer. A talented and evil assasin that kills with produce is horrific even by adult standards.

Just as a side note... As Chris will confirm, I was the world's biggest fraidy cat & the "town crier" too. I was a sensitive child, what can I say?

However, I just keep thinking about the main ingredient of hard apple cider in the Red Witch. I feel we have to give it the credit it is due. And if Joe changes this recipe to create one of his "alternate versions," I am nominating a new name for this week's Greatest Drink...
"The Poisoned Apple."

Kerry

Joe's Notes: Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav'n. -Milton

The floodgates of Hell have opened onto the historic streets of Salem, spilling out an assortment of ghouls and monsters.The bars and restaurants are awash with middle-aged Harry Potters and the entire cast of the Twilight series, to name but a few of the costumed revelers.

The Passage floats aloft, remaining a bastion of refinement and taste, as I take my position at the helm of the bar mixing my concoctions for your pleasure.

Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire, burn; and caldron, bubble.

Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg, and howlet's wing,--
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

-W.S.

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After scouring through YouTube for the perfect video for this week, (and dismissing Lady GaGa's "Salem Witch" as just TOO freaky,) I found this: German band, The Rattles from 1970 with their big hit, "The Witch."

Tequlia Red

Joe's in the "Custom Birthday Drinks" biz again this week, and mixing together a delicious new cocktail that is proving to be very popular, and not just for special occasions!

The Recipe:

While chilling a large martini glass, into a cocktail shaker full of ice, add:

- A 3 count of silver tequila

- 2 count of Ribena Blackcurrant cordial

- 1½ count of Grand Marnier,

- ½ fresh lime, squozen and then drop in the shell,

- Shake enthusiastically,

- Strain into a large martini glass,

- Garnish with a wedge of lime.

Original recipe by Joe the Bartender, The Passage Lounge, Salem, MA.

Joe's Notes: One of our regulars at the Passage Lounge is a young Welsh man. His favorite tipple is a Cider and Black. This is hard cider mixed with Ribena (blackcurrant cordial).

Ribena is used in a number of drinks in the UK, and is referred to as "black," as in Cider and Black, Rum and Black, Vodka and Black and so on and so forth.

So after stopping off at the supermarket to buy the Ribena for the Passage, I began to wonder what cocktail I could make with it.

While driving the 30 minutes to work, the rusty cogs in my head started to churn. As I have stated in past blogs, the process of making a drink usually starts with one ingredient and is built from there, in this case it was blackcurrant.

As in cooking, we look at combinations of flavors that we believe will compliment each other. Adding fleshly-squeezed lime to the blackcurrant seemed the logical first step. Thinking along the lines of a fruit salad , I then added the Grand Marnier. So now I had orange, blackcurrant and lime. The next step was to decide what liquor to add.

I mulled on the possibility of rum, but this seemed too obvious and I was worried that the drink would be to sweet. I also considered Cachaca, but felt that it was too close to rum. Looking again at my ingredients, I decided that the blackcurrant was paired with the orange liqueur, so I needed to pair the lime with something. No brainer: Tequila.

Not long after I had arrived at the Passage, Chris came ambling into the bar. "What do you have for us tonight, Joe" He asked in his usual jovial way. I began mixing my latest concoction, handing it to Chris I said "I have never actually made this drink before, it was purely written in my head on the way in." Chris looked a little dubious but poured the drink down his ever thirsty gullet anyway.

"Good one Joe, I really like it. What is it called?" One of the panel of experts, Birthday Boy Mike , said, "How about Tequila Red?"

And so a new drink was born.

Chris's Notes: Joe reminds me of Melville sometimes. Like that author, and in particular his unabridged version of Moby Dick, Joe likes to explore ALL the potential outcomes of a each and every subject before moving on to his next chapter. Instead of whales, and ships, and sailors and whatnot, with Joe, it is liquors and liqueurs that are scrutinized past the limit of most.

For instance, lately, there have been a few more crimson-hued cocktails floating about the bar. One of which was a cider & black, and another was the Rum and Black, and, of course, this week's entry, the Tequila Red, being yet another. It is this Blackcurrant cordial that Joe seemed to be exploring all the avenues of this week.

Well, this week's drink ALSO happens to fall on the birthday of Passage regular, and long-time researcher, Michael B. So Joe decided to mix him up a birthday drink.

Michael is a strong proponent of tequila-based drinks, and was really happy that Joe decided to go in that direction. And of course, Joe's new star, the Ribena Blackcurrant.

The result was a fresh and incredibly flavorful cocktail. The Tequila flavor was pleasantly dominant but tempered nicely with the medley of citrus and berries. And all that vitamin C means it MUST be good for you!

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Almost-not-even-remotely-related video for the week is "Bad Rap" by Joe "King" Carrasco. I couldn't find anything that relates to the drink except it starts off with a guy in a sombrero.

Salud!