Wednesday, September 28, 2011

"Cocktails"

Reprinted with permission*

On school nights we are wine drinkers. Typically red with dinner.

We drink it casually, have our favorites, and don't usually take it too seriously. Cocktails, however, are different. Cocktails are serious business. Serious fun, that is. And modern. And egg friendly!



Egg friendly?

Yes. Two things:

First - the name. It's a COCKtail, of course! But why? According to Wikipedia, there are several claims about the origin of the term cocktail, "many of which are fanciful and almost none of which are supported by documentary evidence."

Not satisfied, we tracked down several semi-plausible explanations for the term, our favorite of which is that at some point it was customary to put a feather, presumably from a cock's tail, in the drink to serve both as decoration and to signal to teetotalers that the drink contained alcohol. We actually keep a jar of tail feathers sitting atop the bar, but have not yet been brave enough to stick one into our lemon-drop martinis.

The second modern, egg-friendly thing to know about cocktails? There is a whole new batch of drinks being whipped up by creative bartenders (or "mixologists"...) who have rediscovered a classic cocktail ingredient: raw egg! It is used to add texture, and to thicken the drink. How beautiful is that? If you are at all familiar with the KCRW radio show "Good Food" (and if you are not you should be!!), there was an excellent piece on this recently.... you can find it here [please see original blog post for that link, it's a the bottom of this post]. There is also a bit on the show about eating placentas, but please feel free to skip that part.

Allow us to share a cocktail recipe from that show, via Derek Brown & kcrw.com.

Bottoms up!



Pisco Sour
1 egg white
2 1/2 oz Pisco Capel
1/2 oz simple syrup
3/4 oz fresh lemon juice
Angostura Bitters

In cocktail shaker filled with ice, combine egg white, Pisco, simple syrup, and lemon juice. Cover, shake vigorously for 15 seconds, and strain into six-ounce cocktail glass. Top with a few drops of bitters.
(From Epicurious)

*Original article
http://modernegg.blogspot.com/2010/11/cocktails.html

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