Bardot en Saint-Tropez - Maman Brigitte Rum

Last week I watched the product presentation of ‘Maman Brigitte’, a blended rum by (R)asta Morris, the independent bottling brand of Bert Bruyneel. We also got some cocktail suggestions by Noa Van Ongevalle, leading lady of cocktailbar The Pharmacy in Knokke. 

Maman Brigitte is a blend of 8yo Barbados rum, 5yo Dominican rum and 3yo Jamaican rum.

The Foursquare Barbados rum really puts its mark on the flavour profile of this blend. I don’t taste a very typical sweet rum flavour. The first dominant aroma is against all expectations citrus. This opens lots of opportunities for a nice fruity summer cocktail. The Dominican rum adds herbal and spicy notes. The Jamaican rum adds ‘funkiness’ due to the high amount of esters*. (Esters are natural compounds that are created through chemical reactions during the fermentation process when yeast mixes with molasse)

The character “Maman Brigitte” is a Goddess in the Voodoo legends of Haiti. She was the wife of Baron Samedi. She’s a goddess of life, death, justice, motherhood, fertility, cemeteries, crosses, gravestones, women, souls of deceased relatives, obscenities and passion. But of course there have been lots of famous Brigitte’s throughout history, so I picked my own choice for this delicious summer cocktail. I made one of these for my wife and when I asked her the next day what she wanted to drink, she replied “The same as yesterday”. 

P.S. During the online masterclass, Noa mixed up a tasty Zombie cocktail with 50 ml Maman Brigitte, 30 ml lime juice and 20 ml homemade falernum syrup. 

Bardot en Saint-Tropez

Ingredients
45 ml Maman Brigitte Blended rum
30 ml Triple Sec
40 ml Pineapple Juice
30 ml Lime juice

Method
Add all ingredients to a shaker with lots of ice. Shake for 10 seconds, double strain in a Martini glass. Add a cocktail cherry. 

Disclaimer : All pictures and texts are copyrighted by Geert Conard and Esito Management & Communications unless stated otherwise in the article. While some items might have been gifted by the producer or distributor, these are in no way paid promotions or recommendations.

Graham's Port & Tonic

It’s springtime and we’re counting down the weeks to summer. Pubs and bars will also soon be allowed to re-open. Bring on those refreshing, fruity summer drinks. 

Gin & Tonic is still one of the most popular drinks, but maybe gin isn’t 100% your thing? 
Would you rather have a similar refreshing drink which has much more fruity flavors? 
Why not try a Port & Tonic.

Port & Tonic

Ingredients
50 ml Graham’s Blend Nr. 5 White Port
100 ml Indian tonic

Method
Add the port to a longdrink or coppa glass with lots of ice. Top with tonic and give it just one good stir. Garnish with a half slice of dehydrated grapefruit.

More
If you want some more flavors, try adding some fresh mint and lime to the glass. 

Disclaimer : All pictures and texts are copyrighted by Geert Conard and Esito Management & Communications unless stated otherwise in the article. While some items might have been gifted by the producer or distributor, these are in no way paid promotions or recommendations.

Marama Origins Indonesia Rum

Some bottles sound so mysterious, I really need to taste them pure to experience the taste and aroma to the fullest. On the bottle of this Marama Origins Indonesia it says “Spirit drink, made with spiced rum, distilled in Indonesia”. Let’s be honest, this is not your average bottle of rum. 

I would probably just call it a “spiced rum”, made from Indonesian sugar cane and distilled in a continuous column still. The taste is also pretty different from your usual rum, because they use plants and fruits that are typical for Indonesia. Vanilla and Galanga root are the primary botanicals. 

Presented in a beautiful bottle we see a dark amber colored rum with aromas of spices and ginger, next to fruity notes of dried fruits like plums and raisins. In the mouth it’s a pretty sweet rum, with a refreshing citrus touch.  

I enjoyed a glass of this spirit, pure with a big block of ice. Next, I also tried a very simple sour with 25 ml of lemon and 10 ml of simple syrup. This would pair pretty good with a nice piece of dark chocolate.

The result was very different from any other rum (or Daiquiri) I’ve tasted before, but certainly tasty. If you want to taste a very different kind of rum, you might give this a shot 😉 

Disclaimer : All pictures and texts are copyrighted by Geert Conard and Esito Management & Communications unless stated otherwise in the article. While some items might have been gifted by the producer or distributor, these are in no way paid promotions or recommendations.

Not a Daiquiri

In earlier recipes I have already made connections between cachaça from Brazil and rum from the Caribbean. Cachaça and rum have similar roots, but the result in the bottle is pretty different. Somehow I really love the combination of the typical warm sweetness of rum and the more ‘grassy’ notes of cachaça. Another spirit which also has that ‘grassiness’ is Tequila. Let’s try a sour with a mix of Tequila and rum. To keep a link with Brazil, I’m using Weber Rum, produced by one of the better cachaça distillers. The result is something in between a Daiquiri and a Caipirinha 😉 

Not a Daiquiri

Ingredients
25 ml Sierra Antiguo Plata (100% Blue Agave)
25 ml Señor Weber Rum Blanco
25 ml Fresh Lime juice
10 ml Simple Syrup

Method
Add all ingredients to a shaker with lots of ice. Shake for 15 minutes and strain in a tumbler with fresh ice. Garnish with a dehydrated orange wheel. 

Disclaimer : All pictures and texts are copyrighted by Geert Conard and Esito Management & Communications unless stated otherwise in the article. While some items might have been gifted by the producer or distributor, these are in no way paid promotions or recommendations.

Costa Sour - Duingin

This week I got a nice introduction to the gin-range headed by Duingin. Today I’ll focus on the leading bottle of the range, which is Duingin itself. This distilled gin is a real terroir product based on a maceration of Sea Buckthorn (in dutch: Duindoorn). These bright coloured berries grow in the dunes at the Belgian/Netherlands coast and have a very specific coastal flavor. I’ve seen lots of them at the Zwin Nature Parc between Knokke (B) and Cadzand (NL). 

On the nose this gin has the refreshing smell of Sea Buckthorn and Juniper berries. The very typical sweet-sour taste of the berries is well balanced in the mouth and is supported by a complex mix of herbs and spices. Primary botanicals are Sea Buckthorn and Lavender. 

Perfect serve: 5 cl Duingin, 15cl neutral Indian tonic and a slice of lime. 

When I read the story of this gin, I immediately wanted to mix it with Hierbas de las Dunas, the herbal liqueur produced by Michelin star chef Syrco Bakker. This Ibiza-style liqueur has a salty-sweet flavour and is made with the same Sea Buckthorn as one of the primary botanicals. The Duingin range also has 3 other gins (Ginger, Ginius and Oxygin). We’ll return with a couple of those later on. 

Costa Sour

Ingredients
40 ml Duingin
30 ml Hierbas de las Dunas
30 ml Lime juice
10 ml Simple Syrup
1 eggwhite

Method
Add all ingredients to a shaker without ice. Shake hard to create some foam. Add ice and shake gently for 10 more seconds. Double strain in a pre-chilled coupe or cognac glass. No garnish needed. 

Disclaimer : All pictures and texts are copyrighted by Geert Conard and Esito Management & Communications unless stated otherwise in the article. While some items might have been gifted by the producer or distributor, these are in no way paid promotions or recommendations.

 

Crazy Monkey by @sommthing.RAD

From the very start of my blogging adventures I always had a very clear mission in mind. It was January 2016 and more and more people were enjoying Gin & Tonics at home multiple times a week. I wanted to convince them to buy a few more bottles and experiment with easy but tasty homemade cocktails. This means I often have to ‘undress’ recipes which are too difficult, suggest different preparation methods or find alternatives for hard-to-find bottles etc. 

A while back I got a message from Amanda Greenbaum. She’s a mixologist, sommelier and winemaker from Malibu (California) with more or less the same mission. She published a nice cocktail book with easy recipes and wanted me to have a look at it. On the first page she’s already very cheeky with her statement : “This book is for all of the suckers who paid twenty dollars for a cocktail last night you could’ve made at home. It’s okay, we’ve all been there”

You can order the book from her website, it’s packed with tasty recipes. I selected this easy, but soooooo very tasty cocktail… 

Crazy Monkey

Ingredients
60 ml Dark Rum (I selected a nice bottle of El Ron Prohibido Solera 12)
15 ml Giffard Banane du Brésil  
30 ml Kahlua coffee liqueur

Method
I mixed everything together in a mixing glass with lots of ice. Strained it into a small tumbler with a nice block of clear ice. Garnish is optional, I used some tiny flowers to make it a bit more Instagrammable 😉 .

Disclaimer: All pictures and texts are copyrighted by Geert Conard and Esito Management & Communications unless stated otherwise in the article. While some items might have been gifted by the producer or distributor, these are in no way paid promotions or recommendations.

Easy Greasy Bacon Old Fashioned

Any butcher will tell you fat holds most of the flavour in any meat. That’s the reason why fat-marbled Wagyu steaks are so delicious and why you really should have a nice layer of fat on any piece of roast. Adding fat to spirits is something which is not that uncommon in bars, it’s called “fat-washing the spirit” and it can be done with several spirits such as whisky, Bourbon, rum, … 

Today I’m talking about one of the most popular ‘fatty’ cocktails: The Bacon Old Fashioned. I’ll explain in short how it’s done in the bars, but I’ll also give you a quick and easy method to shake one up at home. 

In the bars the name is really not that accurate, because they will only use the liquid fat of the bacon to mix with Bourbon. Make sure to use greasy belly bacon to get enough liquid fat. Mix the fat and Bourbon in a jar and have it rest for a day to make sure the spirit absorbs all the delicious flavors (shake regularly). Next day refrigerate (or freeze) the mix, which will make the fat become solid again and it will split from the spirit. Get rid of the fat and pour the whiskey through a coffee filter to get your ready-to-use Bacon flavored whiskey. 

For measurements, I would suggest maximum 60 ml of liquid fat on a complete bottle of whiskey. 

So yes, it’s not that easy and it’s only rewarding if you make a batch of it. But I also have a pretty easy way of adding bacon taste to your whiskey(-cocktail). 

Easy Greasy Bacon Old Fashioned

Ingredients
60 ml Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey
10 ml Honey Syrup (or Maple Syrup)
3 dashes Angostura aromatic bitters
1 strip of grilled greasy bacon

Method
Cut your grilled strip of bacon in half lengthwise. Put the prettiest half aside for garnish, cut up the other half in small cubes. Add these to a shaker with ice, also add the whisky, honey syrup and bitters. Shake for 15 seconds. Fine strain in a tumbler with fresh ice. Notice the beautiful color. Garnish with the bacon strip. 

Disclaimer : All pictures and texts are copyrighted by Geert Conard and Esito Management & Communications unless stated otherwise in the article. While some items might have been gifted by the producer or distributor, these are in no way paid promotions or recommendations.

Bruichladdich Black Art 1994 Ed 08-1 - A tasting with Nick Baeyens

Nick Baeyens is a Brand Ambassador for PHD (Progressive Hebridean Distillers), the makers of Bruichladdich, Port Charlotte, Octomore and the fantastic The Botanist Gin. Each time Nick invites us to a tasting, I know I’m up for something special. In the past we already deconstructed bottlings, tasted individual casks, shared a pot of mussels or went on a foraging walk at the Belgian/Dutch coastal border. This guy is a brand ambassador, bartender, forager, teacher, DJ,… that will always drag you into a new adventure. This week he invited me to a virtual tasting of a very exclusive bottling: Bruichladdich Black Art 1994 Edition 08.1 - 26 years.

“Decades have passed since this unpeated spirit ran from the stills in the ethereal, Victorian stillhouse. The stillmen who were present in 1994 would have no concept of its destiny; that it would eventually become the eighth iteration of the notorious Bruichladdich Black Art. This spirit would take many weaving journeys within our loch-side warehouses. Each cask it met has been identified and nurtured over time under the tenureship of the Head Distiller. All with one ultimate purpose in mind. Few responsibilities are as daunting as the composition of this cuvee. Lesser distillers would be unwilling to release their finest casks completely unaccounted for, totally in secret”. 

And of course Nick made this tasting – again – something to remember. 

Together with a pair of  whisky-samples, we received an intriguing treasure-chest filled with Black Art stuff... a deck of Tarot cards, candles, sage, wood, a ring and a silver necklace with a jewel. He invited Sofie Joan Wouters aka ‘Esmeralda’ to interrupt the webinar and take us on a journey for a very personal seance. 

A few more credits: 
The silver jewel we received was one of 15 unique designs, created for this occasion by Anaïs de Keyzer. The deck of Tarot cards was designed and illustrated by Lisa Sterle.

A big 'Thank You' to Nick for – again – a very adventurous tasting. And by the way, I really loved this whisky. Very unusual and with a slightly sweeter taste-profile for Bruichladdich, but totally the style of whisky I like to sip. 

Disclaimer : All pictures and texts are copyrighted by Geert Conard and Esito Management & Communications unless stated otherwise in the article. While some items might have been gifted by the producer or distributor, these are in no way paid promotions or recommendations.