The Oh Boy!

So, watching too many commercials from Makers Mark for the Cocktail Party,  I bought some Makers Mark. I tried finding a recipe to use it with.  Ended up riffing on the Old Fashioned.

2 oz Makers Mark bourbon
1/2 oz cointreau
muddled orange slice
2-3 dashes angostura bitters

Shake with ice and a splash bit of cold water. Serve. Yum!

Great with chocolate? Srsly?

So, we drove up to Beltramos today, up in Menlo Park. Found a *LOT* of the obscure ingredients we'll be needing for our cocktail venture. We even found Genever Gin! Woot! So now we got to try the Alamagoozlum for real. I made it with Boomsma Jonge Genever Gin, and Appleton Jamaica Rum. It's really really good. I measured very carefully (pulled out my measuring cups for *real* half to 2 ounce measure) and use Fee Brothers Old Fashioned (Angostura) Bitters instead of the usual angostura.

It's a great drink. I wasn't able to put in a lemon twist, so I used a couple drops of lemon bitters.

The surprise though, was when we were having a chocolate truffle for dessert. I grabbed my water to cleanse my palate afterwards, fully expecting to have a sour, bitter nasty taste in my mouth after the chocolate. The Alamagoozlum goes well with chocolate truffles! Who knew? It smooths it out into this rich, mouth-enveloping velvet flavor. I have *no* idea what is doing that. Alex speculates it's the chartreuse - apparently his grandmother only drank chartreuse after after eating chocolate. So, perhaps it's that.

I encourage you to hunt down the genever gin and the jamaica rum and make a real alamagoozlum. It's worht it.