Autumn on 44th Street


Autumn on 44th Street Cocktail with Autumn Colors - original watercolor by The Cocktail Artist
This is a cocktail that we came up with a couple of years ago. It's ingredients, color and the flaming orange rind all evoke the fall season (but feel free to have it any time of the year). We developed this drink while playing around with variations on the Manhattan. We decided to see how Nocio (walnut liqueur) would work in place of the sweet vermouth typically used in a Manhattan. 

 Nocio is a dark brown liqueur that is traditional to the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. It's made from unripe green walnuts. The site Life in Abruzzo has a great post about the magical qualities of nocio and includes a recipe if you want to make your own at home.  The traditional version is a bit complicated and requires barefoot virgins to collect the walnuts and leave them to dry by the remains of a threshing fire. Well, needless to say, we didn't go to all that trouble. There are a number of good options available in liquor stores. We have used Nut Alpina Nocio as well as a local (District of Columbia) Nocio from Don Ciccio & Figli.

 The bourbon we chose for our cocktail is Bowman Brothers Small Batch Virginia Whiskey, but we have also used a less expensive bourbon when making a barrel-aged version of this cocktail. We are huge fans of barrel-aged cocktails and always have something brewing in our little 1-liter Deep South Barrel. Actually, after using the barrel for about a year we realized that we needed to add another one to our home bar. This way we can have cocktails ready for a party (or to bring to a party). Read more about barrel-aging at the bottom of this post.

 The "cherry on the top" of this cocktail is actually an orange rind - particularly if it's flamed. This is not only fun, but it actually does add to the flavor of the drink. We've included the procedure below - practice a few times to get the technique down. A fire starter is a bit easier than a match to work with and doesn't leave any sulfur odor lingering in your cocktail.

 We've included a few of the Cocktail Artist's autumn-themed watercolor paintings to set the mood for this drink. The color of the cocktail inspired some paintings done in sepia tones. Now all we need is a fire in the outdoor fireplace, a nice plate of appetizers and a cocktail.

 Cheers!


Autumn on 44th Street

2 oz. Bourbon (Bowman Brothers Small Batch Virginia Whiskey)
3/4 oz. Blanc vermouth (Dolin)
3/4 oz. Nocio (walnut liqueur)
1 dash cardamom bitters
1 dash orange bitters
1 dash black walnut bitters

Shake ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice, strain into a gimlet glass, and garnish with a flamed orange rind (see below for instructions on flaming the orange rind).

Note: one of us prefers it "up" in a gimlet glass and the other likes it on the rocks..... you can't go wrong either way.

In the Shadow of Lincoln - original watercolor by The Cocktail Artist

Flaming an Orange Rind

This is not only a great way to impress your friends, but it does add something to the taste of the drink.  Here's the technique:
- With a vegetable peeler cut a piece of orange rind about 1 1/2 inches long.
- Toast the skin side of the rind with a flame.
- Squeeze the rind (over the drink) releasing the oils to create a flame.
- Drop the rind into the drink!

Toasting the orange peel

The flame!

Barrel Aging 

Since perfecting the recipe, we have started making it by the batch and aging it in our mini oak barrel.  This makes an incredible cocktail (if we do say so ourselves).  We purchased the barrel on a whim at the Minnesota State Fair a couple of years ago, but you can get one online from Deep South Barrels

We have also used the barrel (with success) to age Manhattans.  After aging the cocktails for at least 6 weeks, we transfer the batch to a bottle and keep it refrigerated.  To serve a cocktail just transfer one drink's worth to a cocktail shaker with ice - shake and serve with the orange rind.

The cocktail and our 1-liter barrel


Autumn Leaf - original watercolor by The Cocktail Artist


Maple Leaf on 44th Street - original watercolor by The Cocktail Artist



Popular posts from this blog

The Last Call

Image
This post is a week late, but this blog is our hobby (not our real job) so we’re not going to worry about it. Anyhow, we came up with this drink for Mardi Gras as the “last call” before the beginning of Lent – a time when some of us stop drinking for 40 days (we’ll let you know how that works out). The name “Last Call” also references the classic “Last Word” cocktail. The Last Word is really a perfect cocktail. It’s equal parts of four ingredients (gin, Green Chartreuse, Maraschino Liqueur, and lime) and a superb balance of tart, herbal, and sweet. It’s one of our fallback cocktails – one that we mix up when we can’t make up our mind about what we want to drink.  Another classic that we regularly enjoy is the Aviation Cocktail. The Aviation is another gin cocktail and is one of the few that uses Crème de Violette – a sweet, floral liqueur that is typically a deep purple hue. It takes mixing quite a few Aviations to go through a bottle of Crème de Violette, so it’s probably
Read more

Lemon Bergamot Gimlet

Image
In case you don’t know us personally, or haven’t read the bio on our blog , you may not realize the “The Cocktail Artist” is really a partnership between two architects (who also happen to be married to each other). One of us comes up with the recipes, does the photography, and writes the blog posts – the other one creates all of the original artwork and offers opinions on the cocktail recipes. Being architects, we sometimes let our design-sense get the better of us – meaning we have been known to purchase a bottle of booze because we like the design of the bottle.  Occasionally this backfires, but rest assured (with some creative mixology or a bit of barrel-aging) we have always been able to make use of the contents of those impulse-buy bottles. Right now, two of the most attractive bottles in our liquor cabinet contain Italian spirits – Malfy Gin Con Limone and Italicus . Italy has always been a design trendsetter, so it’s not surprising that these bottles stand out (they ev
Read more

Amalfi Martini

Image
Darn! Why didn’t we buy those airline tickets to Italy when they were cheap? It would be so nice to be lounging in a beautiful Italian seaside town right now.  The Amalfi region, on Italy's west coast, is known for it's production of lemon liqueur and fine writing and art paper - sounds like the perfect place for us! Oh well, maybe it would be better to be there during the off season. Italy is probably packed with American tourists right now. Let's  just pull out the watercolor paints and the cocktail shaker and bring a bit of la dolce vita  to our patio. Our Amalfi Martini (naturally) features limoncello. It's a fairly low-alcohol liqueur, so we boost the proof of this cocktail by adding our vodka of choice - District Made Vodka by One Eight Distilling. If you are using a vodka that doesn't have much flavor on it's own (which, honestly, is most vodka) you may want to add a couple dashes of citrus bitters to this recipe. This just wouldn't be an Ita
Read more

Cherry Capital Old Fashioned

Image
Cherry Capital Old Fashioned - original watercolor painting by The Cocktail Artist If you've read some of our previous posts (such as the Up North Raspberry and Rye or the Grand Mariner Cocktail) you know that we're fans of the bourbon and rye produced by The Traverse City Whiskey Co . Traverse City, Michigan is known as the "Cherry Capital" for being the area with the largest production of tart cherries in the United States. In Traverse City, you will find wonderful freshwater beaches, lots of summer tourists, and (of course) cherries! You can attend the Cherry Festival in July, go to the Cherryland Mall, and fly into Cherry Capital airport. So the folks at Traverse City Whiskey (naturally) produce an American Cherry Edition of their bourbon. Here in the Nation's Capital we were lucky enough to find this cherry bourbon at our local liquor store. It's a nice bourbon for sipping neat, but during #OldFashionedOctober we also tried it in an Old Fashioned and
Read more

The Chesapeake Bay Cocktail

Image
The Chesapeake Bay is well known for it's seafood - particularly crabs. It's a summer ritual in Maryland to enjoy a bucket of steamed Chesapeake Bay crabs  caked  with Old Bay Seasoning. Old Bay has been produced in Maryland by McCormick & Company since 1939. It's a spice blend with a very distinct flavor - which includes paprika, pepper and celery salt. Old Bay no longer seems limited to crabs and it has been showing up in some new and interesting places, in mayonnaise, beer, and in chocolate, among others.  We decided to get on board this Old Bay renaissance and give it a try in a cocktail, and we were pretty pleased with the results. Our Chesapeake Bay cocktail uses rye whiskey and aquavit. We have tried it with several ryes, and particularly like how Catoctin Creek Roundstone Rye works with the other ingredients. This rye is produced in Virginia, not that far from the Chesapeake, so in addition to giving the cocktail the right flavor, it seems like a good
Read more