The Pimm's Cup

Pimm's No. 1 is a liqueur from Great Britian. It's gin-based, with lots of fruit and herb flavors up in the mix, and at 25 percent alcohol it's roughly half as boozy as say, vodka or tequila. If you did not need the above explanation you are probably a snooty mixologist type, since most people I meet have never heard of this stuff. Or you're British. Pimm's No. 1 is the essential ingredient in a cocktail called the Pimm's Cup, which is to Wimbledon what the mint julep is to the Kentucky Derby.

One night at the Black Lab, being the cocktail adventurer that I am, I ordered a Pimm's cup. It was dark brown, came in a pint glass with cucumber spear, and tasted like...well, it tasted like Pepsi. Really, guys? All that fuss about a drink that tastes like Pepsi?

So I decided to make my own. Comprised of:
2 oz. Pimm's No. 1 Liqueur
2 oz fresh-squeezed lemon juice
1 oz sugar syrup
Ginger Ale *
2 strawberries, hulled and quartered
2 cucumber slices (I got an especially twisted one from the farmers market)
2 slices green apple **
2 sprigs of mint (harvested from the back porch!)

* The Brits make their Pimm's cups with some kind of sparkling lemonade that isn't available in the states, so we have to get creative.
** I know all this fruit is starting to seem like overkill, but it's to bring out all the great fruit flavors in the Pimm's. Trust me.  

Combine all the ingredients except the ginger ale in a cocktail shaker full of ice. Shake until a frost forms on the shaker. (You don't want to shake this one too long, since the idea is for the fruit flavors to be fairly subtle.) Pour the whole thing (ice and all) into a pint glass, and top with a bit of ginger ale.

The verdict: First of all, so, so pretty. Nice and tea-colored, with all that lovely fruit floating around. I didn't know whether to drink it or photograph it. (So I did both.) As for taste: refreshing, summery, a bit unexpected, like a lemonade that's all grown up. (Cucumber definitely comes through - but in a good way, I promise.) Oh, and tastes nothing at all like Pepsi. Sorry, Black Lab.

 

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Kendra, here's what to do with that pesky rum

I am always happy to help a friend. And when I hear that a friend has copious amounts of alcohol and is unsure what to do with it...well, that's like a cocktail emergency. And I am like a cocktail superhero. With great power, as they say, comes great responsiblity.

Okay, this is a bit facetious. But for reals - Kendra, sojurning in the exotic land they call Germany, found herself with a surfeit of Bacardi Gold Rum. Did I have any suggestions? Well, it has been a while since my latest rum drink, but your bartender always relishes a challenge. Kendra told me she and the hubby had been making Rum n' Cokes with the confounding rum, but they tasted like medicine. Well, propitiously, I had just acquired a copy of Imbibe magazine, the one with the article about the 25 most influential cocktails of the last century. Right there, on the first page, was the Cuba Libre. I thought a Cuba Libre was the same thing as a Rum n' Coke. Not so fast!, said Imbibe magazine. The different between a Rum n' Coke is and a Cuba Libre is that a Cuba Libre has lime juice in it - and that is a big difference indeed (went the magazine). Also propitiously, I happened to have a bottle of Bacardi Gold, bequeathed to me by a certain generous friend upon her move to St. Louis. So I pulled out the Bacardi and made myself a real Cuba Libre.

Cuba Libre(with thanks to Imbibe magazine and Jonathan Philips.)
4-5 oz Coca-Cola
2 oz Bacardi Gold Rum
juice and peels of half a lime

Squeeze the lime and then drop it into the glass. (Not sure if this is official Cuba Libre protocol, but it looked pretty in the Moscow Mule so we're going with it.) Fill the glass with ice, and add the rum and coke. Garnish with a couple of lime wedges.

Verdict: The lime definitely adds a little something. I may never be satisfied with a plain old rum n' coke ever again. (Alicia tried it (right before we went for a run, which is a great time for a cocktail), and she liked it too. I'm not sure I can trust myself anymore, since I liked the Hemingway reviver.)

But I wasn't going to stop with just a dressed-up Rum n' Coke. To prove myself a master of my craft, I needed to come up with something a little more exotic. My second attempt involved pineapple juice, rum, and ginger ale. It was terrible. It is not recorded here. It tasted, as Kendra said of the original rum n' cokes, like medicine. My third cocktail was much better.

The thought process for cocktail #3 was as follows:
1. Isn't that a bag of frozen blueberries in the freezer?
2. Wasn't there some drink with blueberries and rum on the menu at the Anvil not too long ago?
3. Lori makes those drinks, the Scarlet Jos, with mixed berries and SoCo and sweet n' sour and club soda. So we know that frozen berries + booze + sweet n' sour + fizzy = Good.
4. Brown sugar + gold rum has been a winner in the past. Let's try that.
5. Ginger is one of those things (like champagne, or lemon) that inexplicably mixes well with everything. So let's get some of that up in there (because I am unemployed and I have all the time in the world and club soda is for wussies and we're gonna go CRAZY).

With all this going on, it wasn't too long until:

The Blueberry Gin Rum-yThawed (or fresh) blueberries*
2 oz Bacardi Gold rum (or any old rum)
.75 oz fresh-squeezed lemon juice
1 tbsp brown sugar
Ginger ale (or Ginger beer, if you're feeling adventurous.)
crushed ice

*If you have fresh blueberries, they will work just as well as the frozen ones. The advantage of frozen blueberries is this: 1. You can get them any time of year, and 2. They are cheap. And they keep practically forever. (Maybe you are lucky enough to have some delicious Texas blueberries that you had the prescence of mind to freeze. If so, bully for you. I will have some, too, as soon as my blueberry bushes outgrow their blueberry-adolescence.) But what do you do with the frozen blueberries? Frozen blueberries are cold and hard and un-muddlable. Here is what you do: fill a glass with hot water from the tap. Place the frozen blueberries in the glass. Give the blueberries a couple minutes and then strain out the water. Ta-da! Cocktail-ready.

Cover the bottom of an old fashioned glass with the thawed blueberries. (If you're using a taller glass with a smaller bottom, make a double layer.) Add the sugar and lemon juice and muddle (or smoosh with the back of a spoon). You want to muddle just enough to melt the sugar and break the skins of the blueberries - the idea is to get the flavor of the blueberries to infuse into the drink, but not to mash them into a pulp. After muddling, fill the glass with crushed ice, add the rum, and stir. Top with the ginger ale (or beer) and add more crushed ice, if desired.

Verdict: I did done good. It's sweet, with a little bit of spice from the ginger and a little bit of kick from the rum. Using ginger beer instead of ginger ale will make this a different drink entirely - not as sweet, with more pronounced spiciness from the ginger. It's a more complex and somewhat less accessible cocktail, so of course it's my favorite, since I like things that are complicated. But who are we kidding? They're both delicious. Do try this at home. 

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