The Irish Don’t Drink Green BeerI was born a McGuire. What’s funny, though, is the fact that I’ve “celebrated” St. Patty’s Day American-style only once. In undergrad, I was roped into going out after an evening class to join the mayhem of green beer and bad behavior on the brick streets of Kent, Ohio. If memory serves me right, I took one sip of that green dye-laden piss, gave it to a very drunk acquaintance in exchange for him not hitting on my friend, and ordered a shot of Bushmill’s on the rocks, which I sipped the remainder of the night. Trust me, I’m a lush, but I absolutely hate shouting over hysterical drunks in a bar so packed with sweaty, smelly bodies that turning around results in brawls and bruises. On St. Patty’s Day, I’d rather keep it classy and stay home. Our newest tradition has been inviting friends over for a dinner of homemade gluten-free Irish soda bread, colcannon with kale and cabbage, and Irish beef brisket. (Before our gluten-free days, Jamie Oliver’s Steak, Guinness, and Cheese Pie was our go-to “Kiss Me, I’m Irish” meal.) And to drink, I usually serve a sipping shot of Irish whiskey—something good, like Redbreast, the grandfather of them all. It’s smooth on the front-end of the first sip, but then Redbreast bites with ginger, which rounds out with honey and a little bit of fruit. Redbreast is my favorite Irish whiskey for sipping, while I prefer Jameson or Bushmill’s for making whiskey-based cocktails.
For our special St. Patty’s episode of Spatula, I scoured the Internet to find a recipe that might convert those not yet fond of whiskey’s wiles. Manhattan’s Milk & Honey recipe for The Black Derby, with its fresh squeezed grapefruit and honey syrup is an ideal cocktail for those new to whiskey. (I tried it with a blood orange, too, which really awakened the whiskey’s floral notes.) The Black Derby is definitely going to be the cocktail I serve before St. Patty’s dinner this year and in years to come.
The Black Derby
Ingredients:
2 oz. Irish whiskey
1 oz. freshly squeezed grapefruit or blood orange juice
½ oz. honey syrup
Preparation:
Begin by making the honey syrup by mixing one part honey with one part warm water until the honey is completely dissolved. Then squeeze your citrus to render juice. (Store-bought juice works just as well but doesn’t taste as fresh.) Fill a cocktail shaker with ice. Combine ingredients in the shaker, shake, and strain over ice into a rocks glass.
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A Gimlet of a Bar
It was a dive bar, located in a basement on some street I’ve forgotten the name of in downtown Boise. The true color of the carpet was undecipherable, and I imagined spilled pitchers of PBR soaking into the floor as if it were soil. The walls were faux wood paneling, the tables, chipped Formica. The chairs were covered in cracked black Naugahyde, and the bar itself was pitted with abuse. What others mistook for quiet desperation, my friends and I took for calm. It was a good place for conversation. There was no loud jukebox, instead, in the corner stood a run-down popcorn machine full of free stale popcorn. We went there because we were broke, drinks were cheap, and it was easy to make a dinner of popcorn and beer.Anything fancy—like the basil-pomegranate-ginger, hand-juiced martinis other bars served and charged $12 for—were out of the question in this simple place. But one evening, the quiet bartender in a flannel shirt set a full martini glass in front of my friend Kelly. The cocktail was pale green, cloudy, the color of some exotic waterfowl’s egg. “What’s that?” I asked. “A gin gimlet.” Kelly knew what I did not: how to squeeze elegance out humble places. “Wanna try?” she asked. Kelly slid the glass across the ancient Formica table. I took a sip. Lime and pine and every shade of green collided on my tongue. “I’ll have what she’s having.”
Gin Gimlet
I prefer gins with bright Juniper berry aromatics like Tanguray. You can use fresh lime juice and simple syrup instead of Rosa’s Lime, but that’s getting a bit too fancy.
2 oz. gin
2 oz. Rosa’s Lime Juice
Splash of soda (optional)
Slice of lime (optional)
Mix gin and lime juice and shake over ice. Strain into martini glass. Top with a splash of soda and garnish with a slice of lime if desired.