B-52

B-52

If you look closely, you can see the blue fire.

Merry Christmas everyone! I'm back with my wife from Germany, where we spent Christmas with my sister, my brother and his family. It was a good holiday, no, it was an amazing holiday for us. Now that the celebrations are "over", it's time to start a the upcoming New Year's with a blazing shooter! I introduce you to the well-known B-52!

• 1/3 shot Kahluá (coffee liqueur)
• 1/3 shot Baileys (cream liqueur)
• 1/3 shot Gran Marnier (triple sec)
• (matches and fire safety)

Layer the ingredients as mentioned (coffee, cream, triple sec) and optionally light the shooter on fire. You can either use a short straw or just blow out the fire and then shoot!

Regrettably, this cocktail...has really more hype than flavor. I...just couldn't get much out of this! It's a pretty shooter nonetheless and if you're feel like blazing up a few drinks, consider this OR the Kiki.

Hot Toddy

HOT TODDY

Our episodes of warm drinks continues! Now with a Hot Toddy! This is a very versatile drink, easily modified to suit one's needs. This recipe I pulled off from Liquor.com, but adjusted it to my taste. Hot Toddies are excellent winter drinks and with a little tweaking you can make one helluva drink. What you need is:

• 4 to 6 cloves
• a lemon twist
• 0.75 cl lemon juice
• 2 tea spoons of demerara (or brown) sugar
• hot water
• 5 cl aged rum

Now you can easily use whiskey, cognac or any spirit you find best to your taste. The "original" recipe called for a 12yo single malt but instead I used an aged rum from Venezuela, which ended up being superb!

First pour boiling water in your mug and let it stand (for the mug to warm up nicely). While it sits, cut a lemon twist and stick your cloves through it. Now pour out your water and add new boiling water into your mug. Add your sugar, stir to dissolve, your lemon twist, stir once again and thirdly your lemon juice. Finally add your choice of spirit and stir for the final time.

You'll end up with one good Hot Toddy. You're welcome :)

The cognac brand tasting, part I

THE COGNAC BRAND TASTING

PART I

random picture from the interwubs

Greetings again. This post I consider an "intro" to something that will happen perhaps (hopefully) during February, 2014. It's the continuum to my previous tastings (I've grown so fond of these!), namely the vodka blind tasting and the herbal liqueur blind tasting. It's the cognac (known brand) tasting.

What this means is that instead of doing the usual blind tasting like I did before (no bottles shown, one person at a time and so forth), I'll invite a small group friends over to my place, we'll taste four different cognacs and people actually see what they're tasting. Moreover, I'll find out some known facts/information from the brands being tasted so we can later discuss them. I will act as the master of ceremonies and also make something small to nibble on (I've been thinking of chocolate truffles among others since we're dealing with cognacs here) and finally I'll make one cognac based cocktail to each guest. We'll take notes (like before) and of course I'll compile them to everyone to see later on.

As the cherry on top of the cake I have ~20 cognac glasses I got from my work place (they are not in use there anymore) so after the tasting each guest can have a set of four of these glasses to take home with them! It's a total win-win situation!

So in our first tasting we had herbal liqueurs (albeit just a tiny sample). In the second tasting we had vodkas. Now we're dealing with cognacs. Taking a sneak&peek at my bar cabinet I noticed the my VSOP collection consists of:

• Baron Otard
• Courvoisier
• Hennessy
• Meukow
• Rémy Martin

Out of these five I can only choose four...which end up in the tasting (to be honest, which one will be left out would be more correctly said), that is still left to see.

Personally, I don't have too many expectations how this'll turn out think this'll turn out amazing and astonishing and marvelous in every aspect known to man! Really, it might be a challenging tasting since different cognacs might taste all the same to us (?). Then again, maybe they don't. But what I do know that it'll be an awesome evening with friends, food&drinks and a jolly good time; that's what matters.

BB Cocoa

BB COCOA

On the 3rd day of vacation my bar cabinet brought to me...A BB Cocoa! Continuing our successful line of warm drinks, here's another cocktail that I remembered from the list of drinks at our bar. The "BB" stands for "Brandy&Butterscotch". At the bar we use the traditional Jaloviina, alas I did not have it so I had to trust in my other "brandy-pals":

• 2 cl brandy
• 2 cl butterscotch liqueur
• hot cocoa
• (fresh cream float)

The hot cocoa I prepared just like I did with the Minttukaakao, but now I used only 1.5 dl (a tad more than ½ a cup) milk and only 1 teaspoon of sugar.

Having prepared my glass with hot water beforehand, I poured the alcohols first, then the cocoa and as usual, a good thick float of fresh cream.

The smell is amazing. The fudge-like aromas invaded my nose and then the brandy's "kick" came in second. A delightful mixture, where all ingredients fit perfectly; brandy, butterscotch and hot chocolate.

A solid alcoholic hot chocolate drink for those "special" occasions!

Minttukaakao

MINTTUKAAKAO

Greetings! Continuing our episodes of "warm drinks", there's one particular I want to bring forth; the Minttukaakao. No, there is no such thing as "Mint Hot Chocolate", no sir! It is and will always be "Minttukaakao". 

This is one of those warm cocktails at least us Finns order in massive amounts. They make this into a thermos, go "skiing" (among other things) and drink this. The Minttukaakao has become, as far as I know, a some sort of ideal. Winter and Minttukaakaos go hand-in-hand  with each other. That said, I wanted to prepare myself one of these. (Gosh I can't remember the last time I've had one)

In order to make a proper Minttukaakao, keep in mind that this is not a light drink. Quite the opposite to be exact! I remember my colleague say one evening that one of the customers asked for a "Minttukaakao without the cream float; I'm on a diet." O tempora, o mores! :D

• 1 teaspoon of cocoa powder (such as Van Houten)
• 1-1½ teaspoons of sugar
• ~2 dl (a tad less than a cup) of whole milk (regular milk is okay too, avoid skimmed/low-fat)
• fresh cream for the float (optional, especially if preparing for a thermos)
• 4 cl Minttu (but any white peppermint schnapps will do)

In a small pan mix the cocoa powder, sugar and milk. Heat it up until almost boiling. In a cup (remember to warm it beforehand) pour in the minttu and add the cocoa. With the help of a spoon float the cream on top.

I must say. It did its job! I believe this is best enjoyed with friends when it's freezing outside...and you guys are inside :)

Monte Cristo Coffee

MONTE CRISTO COFFEE

“Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.”

- Dr. Seuss

Hello again dear readers!

My thoughts of coffee cocktails has been brewing (tee-hee) for a long time now. I've read about them a lot as well as any alcoholic beverage that is enjoyed warm/hot. The promo pictures are so delicious looking I've always wanted to make one myself (here's a good example of one). The only problem I've found with these kind of drinks is that 90% of the time they look exactly the same; it's black/brown and a float of loosely whipped cream on top. Maybe some chocolate sprinkles or powdered cocoa on top. So making a dozen of different flavored coffee cocktails wouldn't make sense per se; I'd have a dozen similar looking pictures. 

So the only thing where I can make an actual difference is

1. Choose a different kind of glass
2. Choose "unorthodox" garnishes (that still apply for the drink overall)

At work we make various warm cocktails. During the holiday season we sell plenty of glögi, both with and without alcohol. Irish coffees and peppermint hot chocolates and all of those are ordered on a rather regular basis as well. Figures since it's cold outside and people like to drink warm drinks (coffee) in Finland, so why not combine both?

Anyhow, one of the more known coffee cocktails is the Monte Cristo coffee. I actually saw a colleague of mine do this in a wine goblet and it really hit me; "Why not?" Having had a rough weekend at work (long hours in consecutive days) I really wanted to do this and see how it goes down as a coffee drink:

• 2.5 cl Kahluá (coffee liqueur)
• 2.5 cl Cointreau (triple sec)
• hot coffee
• loosely whipped cream

First warm up the glass. Pour in the liquors, add the coffee and finally with the help of a spoon gently pour the loosely whipped cream on top to create a float. Serve.

In our bar we use 2:2cl respectively (regulations) and some recipes in the wonderland we call internet call for 3 cl kahluá/1.5 cl cointreau (gran marnier) for a more coffee-tasting experience. Given, that would've probably worked a tad better; although this cocktail tasted great, the orange flavors did overwhelm the coffee aromas a little bit.

Either way, I've really warmed up (tee-hee) for these kind of drinks! Coffee cocktails, I salute you!

The Great Vodka Blind Taste

THE GREAT VODKA BLIND TASTE

Before we really start this off, we all know how in a rather...tipsy-ish state each and every vodka might (or might not) taste alike. We can't really tell a difference between a vodka that has been branded as a premium product (such as Grey Goose or Belvedere) or a vodka that is considered to be a rail-vodka. Well okay, the difference between the best and worst can probably be noted but real differences usually not. This is why I thought of pulling off this blind tasting.

I present you with a special kind of blog post. You might remember my herbal-liqueur blind tasting from some five months ago, where I tested three different liqueurs with five friends of mine. Inspired about the results back then I wrote (and quote myself)

"All in all, this blind tasting experiment was a great success and I would like to do it again, with different products of course."

And I did. With Vodkas. да! Having learnt from my earlier test regarding the process that was involved in this kind of experiment I do admit that right after my first tester the blind taste "evolved". Meaning, I tweaked/tuned it making it more compatible/reliable for the next testers and so forth. But the basics stayed the same (again quote from my earlier test with modifications written in italics):

I figured out how to maximize the most "realistic" results:

1. The subjects tasted these vodkas by themselves (to minimize the influence of others' opinions) whereas I wrote down whatever they said
2. The subjects never saw any of the bottles used (to minimize the influence and associations of the bottle/label)
3. Only 1-2 cl (roughly ½ fl. oz.) / vodka
4. The order for each product was not random (randomness makes no difference and helped me with the paperwork)
5. The subjects were to review smell (nose) taste and mouthfeel
6. The subjects gave points to each vodka from 0-100 where taste was worth 50% and mouthfeel 50%. Smell has no points value but comments are still written down.

Moreover, instead of five test subjects I had eight and instead of three different products I had six. I also included one joker, which in the end was not count towards the "official" ranking table and one "booze", which itself isn't a vodka per se. More of that later.

Again, this was no competition and the test subjects were told about this. Just like with the earlier blind tasting, there are no winners, no wrongs or rights. Just a fun blind taste to see how (or if at all) different vodkas differ from another.

We do have to keep in mind that albeit this is a qualitative test, there are still many many many factors that all affect it; what a person has/n't eaten before, if a person smokes (does affect sensors) and of course; personal taste. Disregard all that science stuff  and we'll have a proper experiment at hand! :)

THE VODKAS

(from left to right)

1. Stolichnaya vodka (Russia, bottled in Latvia)

2. Finlandia 50% (100 proof) (Finland)

3. Russian Standard (Russia)

4. Koskenkorva Viina (Finland)

5. Smirnoff Vodka (Russia, bottled in the UK)

6. Marskin Ryyppy (Finland)

Two, no, three points here. 

1. Finlandia 50% (100 proof) has a higher alcohol content by volume (compared to e.g. Stolichnaya, which has 38% (76 proof)

2. Koskenkorva Viina is not a vodka per se. It's booze. I still told people we're dealing with vodkas here.

3. Marskin Ryyppy is actually a flavored product. My intentions were to see what people thought of it (when the assumption was "flavorless" vodkas only)

It took me roughly 2½ months to complete this test. Below you can see the points that were given to each vodka! I highlighted the scores that were the highest/lowest from each participant separately for both entries. You can see how I highlighted Marskin Ryyppy yellow; I wrote down the points but they were not included in the final scoring due to it not being a flavorless vodka.

...*drum fill* And the winner is, (was indeed a close battle!) SMIRNOFF VODKA! With only a 8 point (!) difference it beat Stolichnaya!

1. Smirnoff vodka 485

2. Stolichnaya vodka 477

3. Koskenkorva viina 464

4. Russian Standard 445

5. Finlandia 50% 403

(Marskin Ryyppy 590)

What's really surprising that the point-range is only a mere 82 points between the lowest/highest ranking vodka. So overall this was a tough competition! What we can see from the statistics already is that Stolichnaya had the best taste but Smirnoff had clearly the best mouthfeel. Also an interesting point how Finlandia 50% received rather horrible scores from mouthfeel; given it is a way stronger vodka than the rest; people noticed it...and didn't like it.

Many did notice the flavored vodka (a wolf among sheep if you may) and the strong alcohol content from Finlandia. Finally I compiled all of the notes/comments of different vodkas into easily read papers. The comments are not in any specific order; if you read them carefully you might notice similarities in some vodkas from different test subjects.

This has been an amazing experience overall. Just...wow! The amount of raw data (and vodka) I had to deal with was massive but this time I had my shit coordinated (like always :D). Who knows...maybe I'll make another blind taste with...chuckle, different products next time?

A big thanks to everyone participating. If you have any comments/questions regarding this I am more than happy to answer them to the best of my ability.