Category Archives: Cocktail Recipes

Handy-Dandy drink recipes of drinks that we’ve made on our show or some of our other favorite drinks that we’ve created or some awesome drinks from our adventures out & about.

Home Distillation – Woodinville Age Your Own Whiskey Finale

Posted on 03/27/2012 by | 1 Comment

Several months ago I bought the Woodinville Age Your Own Whiskey Kit. And when I say several months, I mean July of 2011, it’s almost April of 2012… The kit instructions specify to let it age at least 3 months, MAYBE 6. Well, I tripled that. Mainly because of laziness and because other bottles came into the house and kept me distracted.


Now, when I finally poured the ages whiskey back into the original bottle(s), I expected the Angels to take their fair share. What I didn’t expect is for them to be so greedy! These Angels are apparently as big of whiskey fans as I am, I BARELY filled 1 of the 2 750ML bottles that I poured into the barrel! Now, because the barrel is so small, the aging process is sped up greatly but so is the evaporation and the soakage into the wood.


Since I bottled it a couple of days ago and have yet to taste it myself, I’ll go ahead and live-blog the experience. I know you’re all so thrilled, at least I’m not live-tweeting it. That’s for next time…

On first nose, I pick up a very fruity note with a very herbal back. The body is smooth and then BAM! it hits you with some heat, if I had forgotten that this is “Barreling Strength” and proofed at 110, I would remember now! It’s smooth though, very smooth. Very robust on the finish with a strong herbal lingering taste. Surprisingly though, after a couple minutes from your last sip, it leaves a sweet taste and makes me want another drink, don’t mind if…. I do… ahhh…!

I guess I’m a pushover though, it could be terrible and I’d still drink it, well not really, I do have some standards. But this is really good, delicious even! I’m a blatant Bourbon lover and the fact that I got to age it myself, make the experience that much better. Definitely, next time, I will be tasting it once every week for 3 MONTHS instead of 9. You could even say that I made a booze baby in that amount of time.

That’s enough from me, the proud father of a beautiful bottle of bourbon, signing off.

- Brad

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How to make: Benton’s Old Fashioned

Posted on 12/23/2011 by | 1 Comment

Alrighty, now that you’ve made your Bacon Infused Bourbon, let’s take that and mix up a Benton’s Old Fashioned.

The Benton’s Old Fashioned has made a lot of headlines on the And A Beard We Go Podcast. On episode 202, I told my story about venturing to a bar that I’ve wanted to go to for a few years now called “PDT” or Please Don’t Tell. I asked the bartender that I’m a bourbon drinker and asked what she liked to make, because, if a bartender likes to make a certain drink, they’re probably pretty good at it…

The Benton’s Old Fashioned is different than your normal Old Fashioned in more ways than the Bacon Bourbon. Let’s just get into the good stuff, let’s make one.

What THEY do:

Crack 4 cubes and drop into a glass or shaker
Fill the rest with whole cubes
1/4 ounce of Grade B maple syrup
2 dashes of Angostura Bitters
Pour 2 ounces in the Bacon Infused Bourbon, they use Four Roses Yellow Labeled Bourbon
Stir a couple times and let sit to let chill
Put 1 large ice cube in a pre-chilled glass
Strain in the cocktail
Wipe the rim of glass with an orange twist and drop in the glass

What we did:

Cracked ice and dropped in a chilled pint glass, filled rest with whole cubes
Poured in more than 2 ounces of Bacon Infused Wild Turkey
Poured in less than 1/4 ounces of Grade A Mrs. Butterworth Maple Syrup
Dashed twice with Angostura Bitters
Stirred it a few times and strained into a chilled glass
Twisted in some orange and wiped it on the rim

Like all of our drinks, when you make them for the first time, you’re going to want to try different amounts of each ingredient to meet your specific tastes. It’s a fantastic cocktail, the orange twist on the rim really tricks your senses before you actually get down to the booze and the intense bacon taste.

Please, if you’ve made this or have had one made for you, comment on the blog and let us know what you did the same or differently and what you thought of it!

Enjoy!

- Brad

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How to make: Bacon Infused Bourbon

Posted on 12/23/2011 by | 2 Comments

At long last, I got off my ass and finally got this post put together!

I owe you all a How to and a Recipe, This one is both! How to make a Benton’s Old Fashioned, with Bacon Infused Bourbon. Yes, those two words are INDEED in the same sentence!

First up, you’ve got to infuse that bourbon, it’s actually super easy.

What you’ll need:

- A pack of bacon, the smokier, the better.
- A Fifth of bourbon
- A funnel & cheesecloth
- A bowl

Step 1: Cook up enough bacon to render 1/3 Cup of grease.
Step 2: Pour the bourbon into the bowl.
Step 3: Follow by the 1/3 Cup of grease.

Step 4: Leave sitting for about 30 minutes then put into the freezer for another hour or two. The grease will group together and can easily be spooned out.
Step 5: Put the cheesecloth in the funnel and the funnel in the bottle.
Step 6: Pour the concoction back into the bottle through the cheesecloth, this will strain any extra chunks and grittiness.

You may notice that not all of your booze will return to the bottle, you’ll be about a neck short. I would like to kin this to the “Angels Share” that you would get when aging White Dog bourbon in your White Oak Barrel.

And that’s it! You now have Bacon Infused Bourbon. I used Wild Turkey, I did this because it was just before Thanksgiving. The next time I do this, I would prefer to use a milder/smoother bourbon, like an Old Grandad or Maker’s Mark. Wild Turkey is very strong and I feel like it overpowers the initial bacon taste.

Now take that new Bacon Booze and let’s make a Benton’s Old Fashioned from PDT (Please Don’t Tell) in New York.

- Brad

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An Illustrated Guide to Cocktails

Posted on 11/13/2011 by | Leave a comment

My wife will every once in a while send me video clips, websites or pictures that have to do with beards or booze, of which I thank her.

This one I thought was particularly cool, An Illustrated Guide to Cocktails. She found this on one of her favorite blogs Design Sponge. The ladies at Design Sponge ran across this through the Etsy page of the Artist/Publisher Elizabeth Graeber.



“An Illustrated Guide to Cocktails, by Orr Shtuhl and Elizabeth Graeber, tells the tales of the heyday of cocktails, from the origin of the margarita to the grandeur of the first celebrity bartender with some modern twists. Along the way, this fun, handheld guide is dabbled with beautiful illustrations and, of course, recipes.”

I don’t need fancy pictures to tell me to enjoy a cocktail, but they don’t hurt!
Check out the full details of the book at Etsy and take a peek at Elizabeth Graeber’s website.

- Brad

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How to Make: Hot Toddy

Posted on 11/12/2011 by | Leave a comment

On Episode 2 season 2 of the And A Beard We Go Podcast, Hoover fixed up a cold weather, warm belly drink classic, the Hot Toddy.

This Hot Toddy was pretty traditional, the only variance we did was instead of using Honey, Hoover used Agave Nectar.

Like most of our drinks, theres really no correct proportion, at least to us. You’ll need a couple of ingredients though.

You’ll need:

A tempered glass – A glass heated with hot water until the whole glass is warm, pour out the water
Your favorite whiskey
Hot water
Angostura Bitters
Sliced lemons
Cloves
Cinnamon sticks
Honey or Agave Nectar

1 – Temper your glass
2 – Pour in a “shot” of whiskey
3 – Blast a couple shots for Bitters
4 – Slice a lemon and poke 3-5 cloves into the lemon cells
5 – squirt some honey or Agave Nectar into the glass, not too much though…
6 – a quick squirt of lemon juice
7 – drop in a cinnamon stick
8 – fill the rest of your glass with hot water
9 – stir, drink & repeat

Enjoy!

- Brad

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How to Make: Washington Apple

Posted on 10/09/2011 by | 1 Comment

In Episode 14 (S2/E1) of the Podcast, Hoover made a variation of one of our favorite shots, a Washington Apple.

Washington Apples typically are made like this:

Fill a tin 1/3 with Ice

1 shot of Crown Royal
1 shot of Apple Pucker
1/2 a shot of Triple Sec
2 oz of Cranberry Juice
a dash of Lemon Lime Soda

Now this, done correctly, is actually a fantastic shot. If you get it and it’s Nuclear Green, it may just be a sickly sweet “girly shot”. But done like this, it’s super refreshing, has a good amount of booze (whiskey to boot) and it’s a nice break from your stiff drinks that I assume you’re all consuming.

But Hoover decided to try a variation on this and because we needed more than just shots during our Podcast, he created a fantastic Cocktail version of the Washington Apple.

This is what he did:

2 shots of Crown Royal
1 shot of Triple Sec
2 oz of Cranberry Juice
(so far, pretty similar)
2 oz of Apple Cider (we used Martinelli’s Sparkling Apple Cider)
a dash of Lemon Juice

Shake in tin.
Pour into glass.
Drink.
Repeat.

And that’s just what we did!


If you made this drink for yourself and/or others let us know what you think!

Thanks!

- Brad

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Edgefield Distillery – Hogshead Whiskey

Posted on 07/11/2011 by | Leave a comment

I’m going to go ahead and start by saying, this is hands-down, my all-time favorite whiskey.

6 years ago, this October, my wife and I got engaged McMenamen’s Edgefield, then 1 year later, we tied the knot at the same place. So this place already carries a lot of history for me. But this place is incredible, the entire place used to be a poor-farm, they’ve turned it into a hotel/brewery/winery/distillery/spa/golf course/six bars/two restaurants/concert venue. It’s tucked away off the freeway in Troutdale, OR.

But one of the most impressive things about this place is actually the products they produce, their wines are fantastic, their beers are delicious, but their spirits are phenomenal! They make a pear brandy that tastes like taking a bite out of an actual pear, they produce a delicious gin from the local juniper berries, but above all else, closest to my heart is their Hogshead Whiskey.

Let me go ahead and quote Jim Murray, of The Whiskey Bible: “…this little distillery has very much come of age. This is fabulous malt that makes no attempt to confuse complexity with no-holds-barred enormity. Big, ballsy and just about flawless…”

Pretty much sums it up.

It’s got a kick but just before you can feel it, it mellows out and hits you with a wave of spice. It’s something that I make sure that whether I go up to Oregon or someone comes down from there to visit my wife and I, I make DAMNED SURE that a bottle of Hogshead makes it’s way into my hands.

Unfortunately, they don’t ship it. You can’t get it on-line. You have to have someone go there and send it back to you or, as I would recommend, go there your damned self, enjoy the area and buy a bottle yourself.

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