Author: Thirsty South

Dedicated to all things drinking well in the South.
Posted on

Defending the $13 Cocktail

The folks at Liquor.com just released a great little video (the first of many in a series called “Behind the Drink”), filmed at San Francisco’s Bourbon & Branch, a fine place for a classic cocktail. The gist of it is – there is much to be appreciated when you enter a bar where the staff is truly dedicated to making excellent cocktails. It starts with the people, their time and effort in crafting something wonderful. Then there are the ingredients, the housemade syrups and bitters, the infused spirits, the freshly squeezed juices, and the presence of an array of spirits to be combined in endless concoctions. There’s the ice, no ordinary ice, but ice chosen for how it will interact with the drink, how it will hold its form and temperature, how it will make you, the drinker, feel. Overkill? No more than a restaurant choosing the right plates, the right ingredients, preparing every detail perfectly to deliver a fine dish. A well made cocktail is a thing to simply enjoy, but recognizing the effort behind it amplifies the appreciation.

To see a list of our favorite cocktail bars here in Atlanta, please visit the Thirsty Guide. A fine cocktail here tends to be a few dollars less than in San Francisco, all the more reason to go out for a drink!

Enjoy:

Behind the Drink: The $13 Cocktail from Liquor.com on Vimeo.

Posted on

Java and Spice with Sea Island Rum

Our recent visit to Firefly Distillery in Wadmalaw, South Carolina, was a great experience, and also provided a chance to taste the Sea Island rum that Jim Irvin is crafting there. They have three varieties – the Carolina Gold, the Spice, and the Java, which is a coffee and spice infused bomb of a rum.

The donkey-driven sugarcane press from Guatemala
Rum aging in Buffalo Trace bourbon barrels

All of these rums start with Southern sugarcane, sourced from John’s Island near the distillery as well as Louisiana and Florida. There’s a cranky old sugarcane press out in the yard that they found in Guatemela, which, with the help of a donkey, presses out the sugarcane. Distilled in small batches, the rum then sees some time in used bourbon barrels from Buffalo Trace, up to three years or so. The high quality sugarcane and the bourbon barrel aging come together to create a distinctive product, and Irvin’s experiments with infusing all-natural flavors and spices into these rums takes it up a notch or two in the “wow” category. They currently have distribution around South Carolina,  and at the distillery itself of course, but are expanding now to Georgia and hopefully beyond. Here’s a taste of what you can expect if you can get your hands on some of the Sea Island Rum.

Sea Island Spice Rum
70 Proof
Approx. $22 Retail
Tasting Date: August 5, 2011 (and prior)

A clear pale straw gold in the glass, with a nice viscosity that clings to the glass. Notes of butterscotch and vanilla jump out on the nose, a hint of nutmeg and baking spice lingering behind, like a warm, buttery cinnamon roll. On the palate, the spice and sweetness of the sugarcane are incredibly well balanced, this is not an overly assertive spiced rum, more like a spiced banana bread with an almost creamy (well, cream ale) presence. Warm lingering finish, a touch of heat that manages to hold the sweet and sharp notes in harmony. The folks at Firefly recommend trying it with an assertive ginger beer or ginger ale like South Carolina’s Blenheim for a spin on the Dark and Stormy, but it works great straight as well.

Excellent* – a great marriage of rum quality and balanced spice, a true treat if you’ve only tried Captain Morgan’s.

*******************************

Sea Island Java Rhum
70 Proof
Approx. $22 Retail
Tasting Date: August 5, 2011 (and prior)

Dark walnut brown in the glass, nearly impenetrable.  Huge coffee and deep dark chocolate brownie nose (yet again, that bourbon barrel-aged sugarcane rum makes baked good comparisons come naturally), tart dark cherry notes underneath that massive coffee and chocolate, burnt brown sugar as well. Incredibly full when it hits your tongue, warm and deep, obviously coffee driven, but the dark chocolate brownie presence rushes to the front, then subsides under a chewy bite of a finish, which alternates back and forth between coffee, chocolate, dark but bright cherry notes, and the miraculously long lingering pleasantly sweet burn of the rum.

Excellent* – dessert in a glass, an amazing dessert at that, and will blow away comparisons to Kahlua (try it in any cocktail recipe that calls for Kahlua and see what you think).

*******************************

* Thirsty South Rating Scale:
Wow – among the very best: knock-your-socks-off, profound, complex liquid gold!
Excellent – exceptional in quality and character, worth seeking out, highly recommended
Good Stuff – solid expression of its type/varietal, enjoyable and recommended
Fair – fairly standard or exhibiting obvious though minor flaws
Avoid – move away folks, nothing to see here, a trainwreck

Posted on

Monday Night Brewing Goin Crazy

Cheers to Atlanta’s own Monday Night Brewing for rolling out their first big time batches of Eye Patch Ale and Drafty Kilt Scotch Ale NEXT WEEK. These guys have been building up to this day for a while now, chronicling the process for public consumption, and you can be among the first to taste these new beers from the keg. Hop City (a Thirsty South favorite) will kick it off on August 8 with growler fills at 5:30PM. Leon’s Full Service in Decatur (another Thirsty South favorite) jumps in the following night, August 9, behind the bar at 6pm. Best wishes to Monday Night Brewing as they take another step towards beer greatness. Check their website for other launch events, or follow them on Twitter.

Posted on

The Best Miller High Life I’ve Ever Had

First off, I must admit, I detest most mass produced American beer. I’d rather go thirsty than drink a Budweiser or Miller Lite. But sometimes, the forces of the universe come together in a way that can make even a crappy bottle of beer taste like liquid gold from heaven. On this particular night, in this particular place, my bottle of Miller High Life rivaled the finest champagne. What!? How? Why? The reasons are many. But let me set the scene…

The place – Earnestine & Hazel’s Bar in Memphis, Tennessee. It was HOT out, and hot in the bar, as well. Memphis heat in the summertime somehow feels exponentially hotter than it should due to some insane screwup in the Lord’s system for maintaining a proper humidity level in the atmosphere. Sweat is a constant companion. All attempts to escape it are futile. Earnestine & Hazel’s probably has some form of air conditioning, I’m not sure. I do know that the warren of decrepit rooms upstairs is kept company by a single floor fan in the hallway, a floor fan that feels great if you’re one foot away from it, but is maddeningly ineffective at any other distance. Does it sound like a crappy place to be? It’s not. It’s a run down mess of an amazing place, seeped in soul, awash in memories, sweating out years of alcohol and dancing and music and ghosts and sex (Disclaimer: the building is a former brothel, no sex took place at the establishment on this particular night, at least none that I’m aware of).

This particular night was a Sunday night, which is jazz night at Earnestine & Hazel’s. The scene is straight out of a Treme episode (if Treme were set in Memphis rather than New Orleans), musicians hanging out loosely at the bar and at tables around the small area set aside for the band, alternately drinking beers and standing up for effortlessly enthusiastic solos. The band was on, coming together in waves, improvising, coming back to the melody, darting off again. They added to the heat in the air, the sticky humidity.

So we’ve got a hot Memphis night, a hot old dive of a bar, a hot jazz jam, and… oh, yeah, the main accompaniment to that Miller High Life – a hot “Soul Burger.” There is no menu at Earnestine & Hazel’s, unless you consider that taped-on sign above the flat top grill to be a menu. The Soul Burger does indeed have soul, thin patties pounded down, chopped onions and pickles, mustard, a crisped bun, all crunched together into a moment of burger righteousness. So now the setting is complete. Hot night in Memphis, hot dive bar, hot music, hot burger – the conditions are right to elevate just about any beer to savior-status. While Earnestine & Hazel’s is light on air conditioning, their beer fridge works very, very well. So this particular beer, an ice cold Miller High Life, “the champagne of beers” (of course!), was given every benefit in life, every opportunity to make his momma proud, and he delivered. This was the Miller High Life to beat all Miller High Lifes. Liquid gold from heaven, with a side of soul.

(Speaking of soul, check out my post on seeking soul in the Memphis dining scene, over at Creative Loafing’s Omnivore blog)

Posted on

What the heck is water ice?

Water and ice are two things that go very well with drinking in the South. Water to keep you hydrated, to bring out the flavor in a particularly strong bourbon or whiskey, to create… well… ice. And ice to cool things down, from sweet tea to cocktails to a bottle of wine to a bucket of beer. The term “water ice” sounds so absurd, so idiotic, that it must be either a mean trick created by Northerners or one of the many expressions for snow used by the Eskimo. Well, it turns out that it WAS created by Northerners, but it’s no mean trick. The origins of the term are murky, but it seems to be centered around Philadelphia, where the term “water ice” is basically another name for “Italian ice.”

Rita’s, which started in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, over twenty five years ago, used to be called Rita’s Water Ice. They now use the more generic “Italian ice” description, or simply “ice,” for what they make, as they roll out franchises across the South (including 12! locations in Georgia) and come across folks like me who are likely to think they’re nuts for calling something “water ice.”

In Memphis recently, I came across a water ice truck, an offshoot of a retail shop there called Parker’s Water Ice. I actually like the fact that they still call it “water ice” – and are willing to risk confused faces and angry Southern stares. Their water ice was great, as was their “gelati” – a term which Rita’s and Parker’s use to refer to a combo of soft serve ice cream (or custard) and water ice. Confused yet? Good.

No matter what you call it, water ice is delicious (if made well, with good ingredients, as both Rita’s and Parker’s do). And it should catch on in the South like sweet tea has all over the rest of the country – like wildfire.

A pineapple and cherry gelati at Parker's Water Ice truck