Saveur: The New Comfort Food (33 page)
Read Saveur: The New Comfort Food Online
Authors: James Oseland
They don’t serve beer. They don’t serve wine. For weeks at a time, they don’t serve anything at all—whenever they feel like getting sand between their toes, they close up shop. The owners of the Tiki-Ti in the L.A. neighborhood of Los Feliz are textbook examples of how not to succeed in the bar business; nevertheless, for over 49 years the Buhen family has been slinging Singapore Slings and Missionary’s Downfalls for a fanatical following. My first visit was in 1979. I’d previously dismissed tropical cocktails as slushy umbrella drinks, but the Tiki-Ti’s came with an impressive pedigree: many of them were invented at the country’s first tiki bar, Don the Beachcomber (opened in the mid-1930s), where Ray Buhen, a native of the Philippines, was one of the original bartenders. The Beachcomber attracted a Hollywood crowd and kick-started the midcentury Polynesian craze. Ray Buhen spent the golden age of tiki honing his craft behind some 60 different bars. In 1961, Ray; his wife, Geraldine; and son Michael (pictured) opened a place of their own. Ray died in 1999, but his spirit lives on at the Tiki-Ti.
—Jeff Berry
This drink is a holdover from the colonial period in America, when the harsh edges of old-style rums were softened with the addition of warm butter, dark sugar, and spices. Made with the mellower aged rums available today, it is a smooth, rich, and soothing potion.
1½ cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
¼ tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
¼ tsp. ground cinnamon
¼ tsp. ground cloves Kosher salt, to taste
3 cups aged rum
Serves 16
1. In a large bowl, beat together butter and sugar with a hand mixer set on medium speed until smooth, 1–2 minutes. Add nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, and a pinch of salt and beat again to combine. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and chill mixture until ready to use.
2. To make 1 hot buttered rum, place 2 heaping tbsp. of the chilled butter mixture in an 8-oz. mug along with 1½ oz. rum and fill with boiling water. Stir to melt and mix ingredients; serve immediately.
Rum has always had a good-time reputation in the United States. Midcentury tiki lounges popularized the sugar-cane distillate in whimsical cocktails served in scorpion bowls, ceramic coconuts, and hollowed-out pineapples. Even so, rum is a spirit worth taking seriously. Aged varieties can be savored straight, offering a palette of citrus, vanilla, butterscotch, caramel, and stone fruit. Some of the finest examples are produced on the French Caribbean island of Martinique, the only source of rum with its own Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée, the certification created by the French government for quality agricultural products. The parameters for rhum agricole are steadfast: it must be made from sugarcane juice; have a relatively low proof; and when aged, it must be stored for three to 15 years in charred-oak barrels (like the ones pictured). Until the nineteenth century, sugarcane planters in Martinique distilled rum from molasses, a byproduct of sugar production. But when competition from sugar beets depressed demand for sugarcane, planters discovered that a distillate could be made from pure cane juice at a lower proof than molasses-based rum’s, allowing the pleasing flavors of the cane to shine through. Capitalizing on this new method, 150 distilleries flourished on Martinique in the nineteenth century. Today, only eight survive, but producers like Clément and Neissen make some of the finest rums in the world.
—Wayne Curtis
Glühwein
Warming cinnamon thoroughly suffuses this mulled wine; the German name for it, in fact, translates literally as “glow wine.” Especially popular at Christmastime, glühwein is plenty potent on its own, though aficionados have been known to ask for it mit schuss, spiked with a shot of rum. Pictured, a Christmas eve dinner in the Berlin home of Werner Blanck, at which generous portions of glühwein were consumed.
1 750-ml bottle medium-bodied red wine, such as zweigelt
½ cup sugar
8 whole cloves
4 lemon wedges
4 4-inch sticks cinnamon
Serves 4
Bring ingredients to a boil, stirring occasionally, in a 4-qt. saucepan and remove from heat. Discard cloves. Ladle wine into 4 glasses and garnish each with 1 of the cinnamon sticks and 1 lemon wedge. Serve hot.
COOKING NOTE
Mulling is a method of flavoring liquid by heating it with herbs, spices, and other aromatics. Using whole cinnamon sticks, rather than powder, leads to a gentler extraction of the oils, and a softer flavor. Other whole spices, such as cardamom, nutmeg, and mace, will work just as well in this recipe.
In northern Europe, mulled wine announces the arrival of the Christmas season. Vendors at winter markets that pop up throughout the region sell steaming mugs of it, while home cooks brew bubbling pots bound for the holiday table. In fact, though, the festive drink—typically a blend of red wine, citrus fruit, spices, and sugar—predates Christmas by thousands of years. Early civilizations, as far back as 5000 b.c., used heated, spiced wines for many purposes, ranging from the gastronomic to the religious. Romans drank a version called hippocras, named for the Greek doctor Hippocrates, because it was believed to have healing properties. The expansion of the spice trade between Europe and the East in the seventeenth century made the flavors we associate with the drink—such as cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and mace—more readily available, and today, many countries have their own recipe for mulled wine. In Sweden, glögg is scented with cardamom and sometimes fortified with hard liquor; the British make wassail, fragrant with ginger, nutmeg, and other spices. In Germany, it’s glühwein, a comforting concoction heady with cinnamon and holiday cheer.
In London in the early part of the nineteenth century, punch houses were upscale gathering places where the fashionable could relax, and punch itself was a dry, complex drink presented with a fair amount of pomp. This one gracefully combines green tea and champagne with various liquors and three kinds of citrus.
1 cup sugar
1 cup cubed pineapple
2 lemons
2 oranges
1 Seville orange (also called bitter or sour orange)
2 green tea bags (or 2 tsp. green tea leaves)
1 cup brandy, preferably VSOP cognac
¼ cup dark Jamaican rum
¼ cup arrack liquor, preferably Batavia-Arrack van Oosten, or cachaça
2 750-ml bottles brut champagne, chilled Freshly grated nutmeg
Makes 3 quarts
1. In a 1-qt. saucepan, combine ½ cup sugar and ¼ cup water. Stir over high heat until sugar dissolves and transfer to a bowl along with pineapple. Allow to macerate in refrigerator for at least 8 hours to make a pineapple syrup. Strain and reserve; discard solids.
2. Using a peeler, peel lemons, oranges, and Seville orange, taking off as little white pith as possible. Transfer peels to a heavy bowl; reserve fruit. Add remaining sugar; use a muddler or a wooden spoon to vigorously crush sugar and peels together until sugar turns faintly yellow and slushy.
3. In a medium bowl, steep tea in 2 cups of boiling water for 5 minutes. Strain tea over lemon and sugar mixture; stir until sugar dissolves. Juice reserved fruit into tea mixture. Strain through a sieve into another bowl and discard solids. Stir in pineapple syrup, brandy, rum, and arrack. Chill mixture.
4. To serve, combine mixture and champagne in a punch bowl along with a large block of ice. Garnish with nutmeg.
COOKING NOTE
Arrack, a fiery sugarcane-based spirit distilled on the Indonesian island of Java—and not to be confused with the grape-based, anise-flavored Middle Eastern spirit called arak—is an essential ingredient in many classic punch recipes. For years it was unavailable in this country, but a new brand, Batavia-Arrack van Oosten, has recently gone on the market. If your liquor store doesn’t carry it, Brazilian cachaça will supply some of the arrack’s characteristic fire.
Muddling sugar and citrus peel is a technique called for in many classic punch recipes. First, use a vegetable peeler to remove the peel of a lemon or an orange in ¾-inch-wide strips, taking care to avoid the bitter white pith. Next, add the strips to a small, heavy bowl along with the amount of sugar specified in the recipe. Finally, use a muddler—the small, baseball bat–shaped stick used by bartenders—or a pestle or wooden spoon to vigorously crush the sugar and citrus peel together. The abrasive sugar helps rupture the citrus’s cell walls and release the flavorful oils within. You’ll know that’s happened when the sugar takes on the color of the peels and becomes moist, slushy in texture, and intensely fragrant. The result is a concentrated, aromatic base that cuts the astringency of the alcohol in the punch and lends a bright, pleasing taste.
This peppery and refreshing beer cocktail, a particular favorite in Austin, Texas, is also popular throughout Mexico.
1 lime wedge Kosher salt, to taste
1 oz. fresh lime juice
½ tsp. Worcestershire
1
/
8
tsp. freshly ground black pepper5 dashes Tabasco
1 12-oz. bottle or can of Mexican beer, such as Tecate or Pacifico
Makes 1 drink
Rub a lime wedge around the rim of a pint glass and dip the rim in salt. Add lime juice, Worcestershire, pepper, and Tabasco. Fill the glass with ice and beer.
Most historians agree that the Kentucky Club, just across the border from El Paso in Juarez, Mexico, is the birthplace of the margarita. Unlike its sugary frozen cousin, this elegant shaken margarita is more tart than sweet.
1 lime wedge Kosher salt, to taste
1½ oz. silver tequila
¾ oz. freshly squeezed lime juice
½ oz. Cointreau
Makes 1 cocktail
1. Rub a lime wedge around the rim of a chilled margarita glass and dip the rim in salt to coat.
2. In a cocktail shaker, combine tequila, lime juice, Cointreau, and 1 cup crushed ice. Cover and shake vigorously to chill. Strain the drink into the glass.
Red wine and ginger ale make a tasty base for this fruit-filled punch, popular among members of the Junior League of Houston in the 1970s.
¾ cup sugar
1 750-ml bottle fruity red wine, such as pinot noir
¼ cup brandy
¼ cup fresh lemon juice
¼ cup fresh lime juice
¼ cup fresh orange juice
1 cup ginger ale
1 cup fresh pineapple chunks
4 thin slices each of orange, lemon, and lime
1 fresh peach, pitted and sliced
Serves 6–8
Bring sugar and 1 cup water to a boil in a 1-qt. saucepan. Let cool and transfer to a pitcher; add wine, brandy, and citrus juices. Chill. Before serving, add ginger ale, pineapple, citrus slices, and peaches. Stir and serve over ice.
This is the Texan cattleman’s answer to the bloody mary, with beef broth in place of tomato juice and plenty of Tabasco.
6 oz. beef broth
1½ oz. vodka
1 tbsp. fresh lime juice Worcestershire, to taste Tabasco, to taste
Makes 1 cocktail
Combine the broth, vodka, lime juice, Worcestershire, and Tabasco along with a few ice cubes in a tumbler. Stir to combine.
The bartenders at the Gage Hotel in Marathon, Texas, make this fresh-tasting cocktail with cucumber and thyme from the kitchen garden and Texas-made Tito’s vodka.
1 2-inch piece cucumber, thinly sliced crosswise, plus 1 additional slice for garnish
1
/
8
tsp. fresh thyme leaves1½ oz. vodka
½ oz. simple syrup
Makes 1 cocktail
1. In a cocktail shaker, combine the cucumber slices, thyme, and ¼ cup crushed ice.
2. Using a muddler, crush ingredients until slushy. Add more ice, vodka, and simple syrup. Cover, shake vigorously to combine, and pour contents into a glass garnished with a slice of cucumber.
The Chico, an old cantina favorite, gets its ruby color and earthy sweetness from blackberry liqueur.
2 oz. gin or silver tequila
2 oz. blackberry liqueur
1 oz. simple syrup
½ oz. fresh lemon juice Club soda, to taste
Makes 1 cocktail
Fill a highball glass with ice. Add the gin, liqueur, simple syrup, and lemon juice. Top the drink off with club soda. Gently stir to combine.
