kill vehicle

So I went to San Francisco last week for a conference, and happened to be staying at a hotel close to John Walker & Co. I figured I’d stop in and see if they had any Crème de Violette, because I can’t get any locally thanks to the PLCB. I’d picked up a bottle at a little corner liquor store the day before, but wanted to get another one for PeterB since he’d tried and failed to order us a few bottles through the PLCB’s terrible SLO program a while ago.

Turns out I left with a bottle of Rothman & Winter Crème de Violette, a bottle of Peychaud’s bitters, a bottle of Regan’s orange bitters, and two bottles of Compass Box whisky that, uh, fell into my arms.

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I’ve been meaning to post about this for a while, but finally getting around to making the homemade grenadine mentioned at Tea Leaves jogged my memory and reminded me to mention it.

There’s a bar near my house called Kelly’s that we go to sometimes, especially after work. It’s a little hole-in-the-wall place that happens to have surprisingly good food and cocktails. Notably, they actually know how to mix real cocktails instead of just looking at you dumbfounded if you order anything more complicated than a rum and coke. For example, they’re about the only place I’ve found in town that can make a decent Sidecar.

During one post-work happy hour, they had little drink cards at the tables from LUPEC, ’Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails’. Laura ordered a Firefly from it, loved it, and I’ve been pressed into service making them ever since.

It’s a simple drink, but quite tasty:

• 1 1/2 oz vodka
• 2 oz grapefruit juice
• 1 tsp of grenadine

Shake it up with ice, and strain into a rocks glass with crushed ice.

I tend to make them as spritzers, topped with some club soda.

They’re good with fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice and the Stirrings pomegranate grenadine, but absolutely great with homemade grenadine.

For the grenadine, I basically followed Pete’s recipe, but cooked it to 225 degrees instead of 230 so it wasn’t quite as sweet.

Mmm.

Work’s stressful these days. Liquor helps. Specifically, pretentious antique liquor.

I picked up a vintage cocktail book last year and have steadily been drinking my way through it. Highly recommended.

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I make a lot of cocoa. I don’t make much hot chocolate — cocoa is cheap and easy to drink a lot of, and hot chocolate is thick and a bit too rich. Usually.

I’ve been making il Bicerin recently, though, and it’s essentially hot chocolate topped with an espresso con panna. It’s delicious, and it got me thinking about hot chocolate a bit more. The process of making it is fun — I like whisking the chocolate together with the milk and watching the texture and consistency change. Plus, it smells great.

With that in mind, I figured I’d try to merge the cocoa I usually make with the chocolate base for the bicerin and experiment a bit. I’m pretty happy with the results:

Hot Chocolate

• 5 oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped into small bits
• 1 pint milk
• 2/3 cup heavy cream
• 3 oz Kahlua
• freshly grated cinnamon
• freshly grated nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• a pinch of salt
• black pepper

Combine the chocolate with the spices and vanilla in a small saucepan. You want something with fairly high sides, since the mixture will foam up under heat.

(I haven’t listed any amounts for the spices for two reasons. First, it’s all to taste, and second, I didn’t measure them. I used about 15 grates of cassia stick on a microplane grater for the cinnamon, about five grates of whole nutmeg, and about five grinds of black pepper, but your mileage may vary. The chocolate flavor is very strong, though, so you’ll need to put in a lot of spices to overpower it and make the drink unpleasant.)

Add 1 1/2 cups of milk to the pan and place over medium-high heat, whisking frequently until it starts to boil. Keep a close eye on the mixture — it can boil over very very quickly and leave you with a burned mess on your stove.

While the chocolate is heating, whip 1/3 cup of the cream to serve as the topping. You can add sugar, but I like the contrast of the unsweetened cream with the super-sweet chocolate. The cream should be spreadable but not rock-hard; lumps of cream are less attractive than a nice smooth layer.

When the chocolate starts bubbling, whisk constantly for about two minutes. The mixture can boil over very easily, so you may want to lower the heat a bit once it reaches a full boil. After two minutes, remove the mixture from heat and let it stop boiling.

Add the Kahlua, the remaining milk, and the remaining cream. Whisk until smooth, returning the mixture to the heat briefly if you’d like it warmer.

Serve in a nice comforting mug, topped with an even layer of whipped cream.

This morning, a friend mentioned il bicerin, a Piedmontese coffee and chocolate drink. It’s been mentioned in the NBC Olympic coverage, and the commentators seem to think it’s delicious.

There’s an article by David Lebovitz about it with a picture that definitely looked delicious, so I figured I’d try it. I chopped up a few ounces of dark chocolate, melted it in a cup of milk, boiled it down while whisking, brewed a few shots of espresso, whipped some cream, and mixed it all together in a few rocks glasses (I, er, don’t actually have good glass cappuccino cups, which I really ought to fix).

Turns out it’s just as delicious as it looks, and about as close to mainlining chocolate, sugar, and caffeine as you’re ever likely to get.

Do yourself a favor and try it immediately.