Let's go Dutch!
In the previous newsletter I promised to take a break from COVID vaccines and get back to cocktail writing, and today I’m following through with a focus on my second-favorite underappreciated northern European spirit, genever. My appetite for the spirit was whetted by David Wondrich’s 2007 book Imbibe!, which made the case for its essential role in cocktails from the formative era of American drinks. Finding a bottle of the stuff in 2007 was another matter. Real genever had all but disappeared from the US market. Wondrich’s suggestion, which he acknowledged was insufficient, was to blend dry gin, Irish whiskey, and a touch of sugar to create a pale simulacrum.
About two years later, having moved from DC to Portland, the Lucas Bols company began reintroducing genever to the US and fortuitously hosted their Portland launch event at the bar where I was working. One thing led to another, and not long after that I ended up working for Bols, a very fun job that had me sampling genever cocktails all over the the country and traveling to Holland to experience the spirit at the source. Although I left Bols years ago, I still love genever and have been following its slow but steady rise from total obscurity in the United States.
For my latest piece at Inside Hook, I wrote up an introduction to genever that explains why it’s not just an archaic style of gin, introduces a wider variety of the brands now available here, and offers a handful of cocktail recipes to try it in (including my Transatlantic Mai Tai, which swaps the typical blend of rums for a mix of genever and rye).
A virtual class on beer cocktails
I’ve been slow to embrace virtual events, but after guiding a few private aquavit tastings on Zoom in the past couple months that turned out to be a lot of fun, I’ve come around to them. In a couple weeks I’ll be joining the Museum of Distilled Spirits for a class on the topic of my first book, making cocktails with beer. I’ll be covering the history of mixing with beer, teaching a few drinks that you can follow along with at home, and demonstrating how to use a red hot poker to make a old school Flip while hopefully not setting my apartment on fire. Attendance is limited and tickets for the March 23 event are $29, but as a thank you for reading my newsletter you can get $10 off with code “MIXING”.
Social distancing
To drink (later): Since I may not get another newsletter out before St. Patrick’s Day, here’s a link to my piece from earlier in the year on how to hack your Irish Coffee. I was also very pleasantly surprised this month by Two Stacks “Dram in a Can,” an Irish whiskey that comes in adorable little 100 ml cans. I was skeptical, expecting the producers to invest more in the packaging format than in the whiskey itself, but it’s honestly quite good. At 43% abv and with a blend that includes a hint of peated malt, I’d happily take it over many bottled blends. My Inside Hook colleague Kirk Miller wrote it up here.
To drink (now): A kopstootje, of course! Since this newsletter is about genever and beer, we might as well pair the two. Translated as “little headbutt,” the kopstootje is simply a small glass of genever paired with a beer. The story behind the name is that Dutch drinkers would demand that their genever glasses be filled all the way to the brim, getting so full that they would have to lean their heads down to the table slurp the first sip directly off the top to avoid spilling. The maltiness of genever is a natural match for beer, and if you get a barrel aged genever the experience is closer to the more typically American boilermaker served with whiskey.
Which beer to drink with your genever? A crisp pilsner would be the typical choice, but if you happen to live in Portland you have another great option. Back in 2011, Upright Brewing released their first batch of Kopstootje, a farmhouse ale brewed with some of the same botanicals used in Bols genever. They’ve continued to make it an annual release, albeit with a tweaked recipe. Today it’s made with allspice, aniseed,
angelica root, juniper berries, cloves, bitter orange, and ginger, and aged for two years in vermouth barrels before bottling. It’s a fantastic beer and Alex Ganum from Upright says he still has a few cases left of the 2020 release. If you can make it to the brewery, it’s worth picking up!
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