Tonight, we tackled the first small-format drink in the book: the fix. This is a sweet drink; think punch by the glass. After tracking down some of the harder-to-find spirits, I got supplies together and ready to go before my guests arrived. Tonight, I had with me The Doctor, The Diva, Token, and Curlz. you'll hear more about all of them as we go.
Prep
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| Equipment and Glassware |
Equipment was pretty simple for this drink: a citrus juicer, barspoon, small measuring cup are the items in front. Behind that, the coffee mugs are for spitting, then the small bar glasses for serving the drinks themselves, then wine glasses for spirit tasting, and a pitcher for plain water in the back. Many thanks to the kind folks at
The Boston Shaker for advice and time spent with me that afternoon!
Boston natives: I can't recommend this store highly enough. Friendly, knowledgeable staff, and a really cool bitters tasting area. And for the out-of-towners, they have a great online marketplace and I'm sure would be happy to answer any questions you might have by phone or email.
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| Garnishes |
The rest was for garnish. The pineapple was leftover from making pineapple syrup, and along with the citrus and berries, were the "idiomatic" choices. The crackers were as palette cleansers between drinks, and the watermelon was just there because it's delicious.
Tasting
We started by tasting the component ingredients on their own, moving from simplest to complex and then into the sweeter items. I'll have a guide to tasting up soon with more information on how exactly we went about this. First up was the rum, by Barbancourt, which was of Hatian provenance, aged 8 years in oak, and 43% ABV. Everyone noticed the scent of vanilla and molasses, and most could smell the oak. It was a light tasting and uncomplex rum, and also light in color. Curlz and The Diva noted that it tasted "hot," and that the alcohol dominated the mouthfeel, and Token swore he smelled coffee, which I didn't get at all. Next time I'll print up a few spirit tasting wheels to help us be more descriptive and specific.
From rum, we moved to a Salignac VS Cognac. Another relatively straightforward spirit, aged in oak as one would expect. Darker in color than the rum, we got dried stone fruit, fig, and a lot of alcohol in the nose. Everyone agreed alcohol dominated the tasting as well, but some picked up on brighter notes like citrus and cinnamon.
We were all looking forward to the genever-style (or "Hollands") gin, and we came at it with different expectations and levels of experience. It's not a spirit used commonly in many bars, and for those unfamiliar with the style, it's really a sort of proto-gin that shares some key elements with whiskey. It's really nothing at all like contemporary dry London gins, other than that both are colorless. This was the most complex of the spirits we tasted--we selected an offering from
Anchor Distilling (the same company that also makes Anchor steam beer), a spirit they called Genevieve. It clocks in at 47.3% ABV, the strongest of the spirits we tasted.
This one certainly elicited strong feedback from our assembled group: some big fans and definitely some haters. After smelling and sipping, I decided that the best descriptor for the scent of this liquor is "fruitcake". A combination of dried fruit (cherries, apricots, even mango), with spice (cinnamon, anise, juniper). Another strong element in the nose was a yeasty, malty character that reminded me instantly of the smell of
wort. The combination of these elements prompted Curlz to suggest snickerdoodle cookies, and I can definitely see where that comes from. Tastes were largely in line with what we smelled, with comments like, "peppery finish," or "spicy, chile pepper". It didn't taste herbaceous to me at all. I'm looking forward to comparing it to other genever style gin offerings in coming tastings!
Next up, a classic: Knob Creek Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey, an excellent mixing whiskey. This spirit had the darkest color of those we tasted. The nose was really soft and nice: honey, apple, vanilla, sandalwood, and brown sugar all came through. There were mild, nicely structured tannins on tasting, with a nice gentle heat very different from the brandy. Other tasting comments were things like "smoky," "sweet tea," and "cocoa." The combination of the tannins and the smoke make me think a little bit of oolong tea.
The last spirit on the list was Curacao, which Wondrich refers to in the book as "curaçoa". It took some hunting to find the real deal--the company that originally developed the stuff is still making it.
Curacao of Curacao, it's called, and I opted for the classic orange color over blue for aesthetic reasons. The spirit has an interesting history (they only started making it blue when tiki bars entered the scene in the 1930s), and I was hoping that by tracking down the original, I might not end up with an HFCS + grain spirit + artificial flavoring bit of nasty. The copy on the website conjured dramatic images of islanders with a closely-guarded secret recipe made from lots of exciting spices and native citrus fruit. We held our collective breath...
Unfortunately, we were all a little disappointed. It certainly was a nice bright orange color, but things started going downhill as soon as we smelled it. Curlz said it instantly reminded her of baby aspirin, and I thought right away of Tang. Other comments included "floral," and, unfortunately, "artificial" showed up for more than one of us. It tasted very sweet, noticeably fake, and two of us said "cloying." In the end, our consensus was that we'd just pay the $7 for some Hiram Walker when in need of a little curacao.
We also tasted the "rich simple syrup," a 2:1 by weight syrup made from turbinado sugar rather than the usual highly-refined white sugar you might use for most cooking and baking. Everyone liked the additional complexity from the residual molasses. I infused some of this syrup with pineapple overnight, and the result was nice: noticeable but not overwhelming fruit flavor, with the welcome addition of some acid. Next time I make syrup, I'll include some
gum arabic to increase the viscosity of the the syrup and add some body to the end product mixed drink. We'll see whether it makes a difference in side-by-side testing to come.
Mixing
The drinks themselves weren't terribly complicated to mix. I added all the ingredients to a pint glass, stirred, and poured over a small bar glass 2/3 full with crushed ice. After another good stir, I topped with the fruit garnish and served. Voilà!
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| Ain't she purdy? |
A note on ice: Wondrich specifies "shaved" ice for this drink, so I used the crushed ice that came out of my freezer automagically. The disadvantage of using this kind of poor-man's crushed ice is that the pieces are of different size, and the very small pieces melt rapidly and dilute the drink. A more dedicated enthusiast may want to crush or shave their own ice by hand.
I mixed two variations on each of the primary four spirits: one with pineapple simple instead of plain simple, and a second with a little bit of curacao. We tasted all three drinks based on the same primary spirit alongside one another before deploying our Garnish Fishing Spoons to make sure none of the fruit went to waste, then moving to the next spirit. We moved from simplest to most complex spirit in the same order as above in the spirit tasting, but in the future, I'd swap the order of the last two and put the genever last.
The tasters' opinions varied widely, and as you might expect, each of us gravitated toward the drink mixed with the primary spirit we like best.
Rum
The consensus here was that this was a nice simple punch. The curacao was not well received, but some of us liked the extra acid from the pineapple simple. Most of us liked the balance of the "plain version" (that is, with regular non-pineapple simple and no curacao), and the other ingredients lent some needed interest and complexity to the simple character of the spirit. None of us thought the rum version was the standout of the evening.
Brandy
We all noticed immediately that the "hot" character of the brandy was calmed down remarkably in the mixed drink. And, much to my surprise after the spirit tasting, we all liked the addition of curacao in this drink. Most of us preferred the variations to the "plain" version, which several tasters suggested was a little boring. The Diva's favorite drink of the night was the brandy curacao Fix, and Token's favorite of the night was the brandy Fix with pineapple simple.
Genever
The tasters who weren't fans of the genever on it's own didn't like it much better mixed into a Fix. Those same tasters preferred the version with pineapple simple, as the additional acidity distracted from the flavor of the spirit. Others (including yours truly) preferred the "plain"--in fact, this one was my favorite drink of the night. Avoid curacao here.
Whiskey
This one complemented the tasters' comments on the genever almost perfectly--if you weren't in the Hollands Camp, Kentucky bourbon seemed the way to go. I'm not a hardcore whiskey drinker, so I liked the extra acid from the pineapple simple in the same way others liked that extra element in the genever-based drinks. But even as I'm not a big fan of whiskey, I agree with the majority of tasters and surprised myself by liking this combination quite a bit. The Doctor surprised me a little, having been slightly bearish on the Fix through the evening, when he selected whiskey with curacao as his top choice. He even wrote "Wow!" on the tasting sheet. Curlz's top drink was the plain whiskey Fix.
The Takeaway
While there were no clear standouts that we all agreed on, everyone found a couple of these that they really enjoyed. If you like punches, the Fix might just be a drink to add to your usual lineup. Pick the primary spirit you like best, and give both variations a try.
Each taster did rate each drink on a 1 (worst) - 5 (best) scale, but as I mentioned above, the data are all over the place, with standard variations ranging from 10-50% of the mean across each drink. The top drink of the night was brandy with curacao with a score of 3.9. For the obse--, pardon me, I should say: curious among you, here are the raw data. (My apologies: these data might be prettier if Blogger had a UI editor for tables, but I had to make do with some pretty dubious hand-coded HMTL.)
| The Host | The Diva | The Doctor | Curlz | Token | Mean |
| Whiskey plain | 3 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 5 | 1 | 2.8 |
| Whiskey curacao | 3 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3.4 |
| Whiskey pineapple | 3.5 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 2.9 |
| Genever plain | 4 | 1 | 1.5 | 4.5 | 4 | 3.0 |
| Genever curacao | 1.5 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 1.7 |
| Genever pineapple | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2.5 | 3 | 2.1 |
| Brandy plain | 3 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 2 | 4 | 2.8 |
| Brandy curacao | 3 | 3.5 | 3.5 | 4.5 | 5 | 3.9 |
| Brandy pineapple | 3.5 | 3 | 2.5 | 3 | 5 | 3.4 |
| Rum plain | 2 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 3.4 |
| Rum curacao | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1 | 1 | 1.3 |
| Rum pineapple | 2.5 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 3 | 2.6 |
| Mean | 2.7 | 2.2 | 2.5 | 3.3 | 3.3 | |
So there you go. Don't say I didn't warn you.
Next Episode: The Sour
Each of these same four primary spirits makes an appearance in next episode's drink. There are some interesting variations, including egg, applejack, and red wine. Stay tuned for the skinny on the old-timey version of this classic American drink.
