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To introduce itself to the Foodies community, Santa Fe Spirits is hosting a get-together at its distillery. It’ll be a chance for folks to tour the distillery, taste the different spirits they produce, and purchase discounted bottles of whatever they like.
As part of the event, I was asked to create some seasonal(-ish) cocktails that feature their spirits. (So, yes, you get to taste these spirits in different styles of cocktails.) So I did a little thinking and selected or created these cocktails. I ended up using five of their spirits in different ways. I tended to go with cocktails that were tasty and easy to make.
The Tart Jack Rose is a variant of the Jack Rose, one of America’s oldest cocktails, created in 1905. It features their apple brandy. The Dying Bastard is a highball refresher that’s tart and spicy, and features their unaged whiskey and their gin. I also came up with the Santa Fe Sour. Sours are my favorite category of cocktails because they balance tart and sweet flavors and this one features their Atapiño liqueur, and their Single Malt whiskey. You’ll have to let us know which of these cocktails goes best with the mini Cuban sandwiches that Robert will be providing. I hope you can come out, say hello to everyone, and take some bottles home with you to try your own experiments.
Event Info & Links
Friday, October 28
5 pm – 7 pm
Santa Fe Spirits Distillery
7505 Mallard Way, Santa Fe, NM 87507
Click here for the Facebook Promo with event details.
RSVP with the full number of guests here on our contact page.
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You are invited to tour Santa Fe Spirits Distillery and taste their spirits! Meet and greet with fellow SF Foodies members and meet SF Foodies mixologist Matt Mathai who has created seasonal cocktails with Santa Fe Spirits!
Ingredients (not counting spirits)
- grenadine
- lime juice, lemon juice, (optionally orange juice)
- simple syrup (1:1)
- egg white
- Angostura bitters
- ginger beer
- (optional: maraschino cherries)
Tart Jack Rose-Santa Fe Spirits Apple Brandy
- Tart Jack Rose
- 2 oz Apple brandy
- 0.75 oz grenadine
- 0.5 oz lemon juice
- 0.5 oz lime juice
- Shake over ice, and serve up in a coupe or cocktail glass. No garnish
The original Jack Rose cocktail was created by Frank J. May, New Jersey, in 1905. This variant was created at the James Beard-winning NoMad Bar in 2017
The base spirit is an apple brandy called applejack. Originally, it was made by freezing cider and removing the ice. This would concentrate the remaining juice, which would then be fermented and distilled, a technique known as “jacking.”
Applejack is often said to be America’s first spirit. It was introduced in 1698 by William Laird, a Scottish immigrant living in colonial New Jersey. His great-grandson, Robert, established the Laird & Company distillery in 1780. George Washington reportedly reached out to Robert Laird personally in order to request his recipe and instructions on how to distill applejack himself.
The spirit’s presidential credentials don’t stop there. Abraham Lincoln, America’s first and only licensed bartender-in-chief, served applejack in the tavern he owned before he sought office. (Lincoln charged 12½¢ per pint.) Franklin D. Roosevelt preferred his Manhattans made with apple brandy rather than whiskey, and Lyndon B. Johnson once gifted a case to Alexei Kosygin, a high-ranking Soviet statesman, at the height of the Cold War.
The most likely explanation of the name is that it is a simple portmanteau — it is made with applejack and is rose-colored from the grenadine.
Dying Bastard-Santa Fe Spirits Whiskey & Gin
- 1 oz Silver Coyote whiskey
- 1 oz Wheeler’s gin
- 4 oz ginger beer (spicy)
- 1 oz lime juice
- Garnish: lime wheel
- Shake whiskey, gin, and lime juice over ice. Add ginger beer and tumble 2-3 times. Strain over crushed ice into a highball glass. Garnish with a lime wheel.
Joe Scialom, Marco Polo Club, Manhattan, 1959.
This is the less-famous ‘Bastard’ cocktail. The original, the Suffering Bastard, was created in by Joe in Egypt during World War II. The intent was to make a drink for allied troops looking for a hangover cure.
Optional
Whiskey Sour
- 2 oz Colkegan Single Malt whiskey
- 1 oz lemon juice
- 0.5 oz orange juice
- 0.5 oz simple syrup
- 0.5 oz egg white
- 2 dash orange bitters
- Garnish: Lemon peel, maraschino cherry
Dry shake, then shake with ice. Strain over a large ice cube in a rocks glass. Garnish w/ orange peel and maraschino cherry
This version, notable for the addition of orange juice, was created in Manhattan in 2008 by Dan Sabo. This is far and away my favorite version of the drink.
Santa Fe Sour-Santa Fe Spirits Atapiño Liqueur & Whiskey
- 1.5 oz Atapiño liqueur
- 0.5 oz Colkegan Single Malt whiskey
- 1 oz lemon juice
- 0.75 oz simple syrup
- 0.5 oz egg white
- 1 dash Angostura bitters
- Garnish: lemon peel
Dry shake, then shake w/ ice. Strain up into a coupe/cocktail glass. Garnish w/ lemon peel
The original sour cocktail – using any of the spirits available, was first written down in the 1862 book The Bartender’s Guide by Jerry Thomas even though the basic recipe was known for over a century prior. It was popularized after English sailors realized they could add lemon or lime to their booze to help prevent scurvy. The egg white was actually added later to make for a creamy, frothy element to the cocktail.
About Matt Mathai
My Santa Fe street cred: almost zero, but I do love it here. My wife and I retired to Santa Fein 2019 after buying our house here in 2012. We lived in Annapolis, MD for many years and had long careers. Mine was in technology – airline communications, healthcare, and online training delivery.
- From childhood, I’ve traveled (and eaten) all over the world, and when these pandemic restrictions ease, my wife and I will begin traveling again.
- I have done sports photography professionally for about 15 years, mostly soccer and rugby. I’ve covered league and national team matches in both sports, for both men’s and women’s teams. Whenever I stop doing that, I want to get better at landscape and travel photography. Santa Fe is perfect for that.
- I used to be a musician – a guitar player and singer. I quit graduate school to play in a band, which really didn’t go over very well with my parents. One day I’ll get back to it, just for myself.
- I spend way too much time and attention on my dog, Luna, but it keeps me engaged and has gotten me fit.
- And now, I love cocktails. After a long (30+ year) period of avoiding alcohol completely – don’t ask – I’ve jumped back into the deep end of the pool.
- I’m an enthusiast – I picked this hobby when the lockdowns started in March 2020. My goal was to be able to reliably produce 10 drinks I’d be proud to serve to my friends. (Now all I need is 10 friends.) The more I learn, the more there seems to be to learn. I’ve made over 400 different cocktails since I began, and have easily twice that many I have yet to try.
- I’m unendingly curious about how ingredients work together and why classic drinks became, and remained, classics. I’ve joined several cocktail-oriented groups on Facebook, followed bartending channels on YouTube, and bought cocktail books. I’ve been given advice by professional bartenders and other enthusiasts. I’ve learned a lot from all of them. I’ve even invented a few cocktails myself!
- I’m not an expert. I know that the drinks I make reflect my palate and my biases, so I’m always eager to try new stuff. Everyone has different tastes and when you make drinks you should feel free to adjust recipes as you see fit. Your own palate is the best guide.
- I’m not a snob. I don’t always head for the most expensive end of the liquor shelves to find my ingredients. (This might be another way of saying I’m cheap)
- I will write about drinks I have made and liked, and I hope that complements the mission of the Santa Fe Foodies group. I will provide a recipe for every drink so you can try it for yourself. Wherever possible, I will give credit to the creator of the drink along with some history about its creation. Many of these drinks have interesting names and origin stories. If there’s interest in my continuing, I will try to cover cocktails that use different base spirits or that fit into different cocktail genres.
- I really encourage anyone with an interest in the topic to give me feedback. Tell me what I’m doing wrong, where I can improve, what other spirits to try, etc. I know there are professional bartenders in this forum and several others who have done this for WAY longer than I have. Please contribute.
- Note: I have no pretensions about being a craft cocktail mixologist or whatever the current designation is. Because of that, I will make very few drinks that require esoteric ingredients that don’t have a decent shelf life and that aren’t used in multiple cocktails, tasty though they might be. I’ll try to stick to widely-available ingredients.
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