Sunday, September 14, 2008

A tale of two cocktails.

So this MxMo post is going to offer up two things.

My current favourite of he classics has been the Sangaree which I've been playing around with variations consists of any base spirit plus lemon, sugar and water. According to Imbibe a Sangaree is a cocktail consisting of a wine, a spoonful of sugar and water. I was described this drink containing lemon as well and want that considered into the mix. My favourite drink of this summer is a cooler which is basically an Applejack Sangaree.

Served in a tall collins glass:
1.5 oz. Applejack
Juice of half a lemon
.5 oz. simple syrup
Top with water.

Wiki says...

Applejack is a strong alcoholic beverage produced from apples, originating from the American colonial period. It is made by concentrating hard cider, either by the traditional method of freeze distillation, or by true evaporative distillation. The term "applejack" derives from "jacking", a term for freeze distillation.
Known as "Jersey Lightning", applejack's long history in New Jersey includes once being used as currency to pay road construction crews during the colonial period.
Around 1760, George Washington discovered this unique beverage, asked for and received the Laird family recipe and soon introduced Applejack to the Virginia Colony.[1]
From the fermented juice, with an alcohol content of less than ten percent, the concentrated result contains thirty to forty percent alcohol, is slightly sweet, and usually tastes and smells of apples. Freeze distilling concentrates all of the alcohol by-products of fermentation including ethanol, methanol and fusel alcohols. Distillation by evaporation can separate these as they have different boiling points. Due to the relatively higher cost and lower yield of alcohol produced from fruit fermentation, commercially produced applejack may be composed of apple brandy diluted with grain spirits until the drink reaches the desired alcohol content.
The oldest distillery in America is Scobeyville, New Jersey's Laird & Co.,[2] a producer of applejack (This is the same Laird family from which George Washington received his recipe). The "Apple Jack" that Laird & Company produces is an apple brandy, produced by distillation by evaporation and blended with neutral spirits.

Applejack is honestly one of my favourite spirits and I'm curious if one of my Applejack recipes is known under another name. If you can find my Newjack known under another name i'll give you a night of drinking on me.

The Newjack
3.5 parts Applejack
.5 part Maraschino Liquor
2-3 dashes Peychaud's bitters

2 comments:

Stevi Deter said...

Bryan and I were discussing the term applejack the other day. He says where he grew up (near Louisville), applejack is the same as apple cider.

Considering that apparently Americans and Canadians went to the trouble of creating confusion by calling a certain category of apple juice "apple cider" so that we have to distinguish between cider and hard cider...dammit, why does the language have to be so complicated?

KL said...

Blame the Canadiens.