Thursday 24 February 2011

A little about me and my blog.

My name is Mackenzie Wheeler.  I am 20 years, 2 months and 2 days old.  Generally, as far as drinking goes people my age only concern them selfs with drinking as many Jager-bombs and shots of Grey Goose in one night as possible.  I how ever was lucky enough to mistake a 2oz shot glass for a 1oz shot glass early enough in my drinking career to realize that drinking 4 "double" screwdrivers in one night was not as fun as it is made out to be.  It wasn't until February, two months after my 19th birthday that I had my first Martini.  By Martini I mean equal parts vodka, sour apple liqueur, melon liqueur and pineapple juice served in a 10oz cocktail glass.  As embarrassing as it is to admit, this is what got me into the world of mixology and bartending.  I christened my mother's cocktail shaker with those four exact ingredients the following weekend.  I began expanding my home bar with more colorfully-artificial fruity liqueurs (and a few spirits).  And where else could you learn more about cocktails then a DVD from costco!  As unexpected as finding a good DVD about mixology at costco is, it happened.  Australian bartender Sebastian Reaburn went over drinks such as The Old Fashioned, Aviation, Negroni and dozens of other classics.  My interests slowly converted to classics cocktails over time and by September I had discovered that right in my own town of Victoria B.C. there was a festival celebrating them.  Art of the cocktail, a three day festival full of workshops, a bartending competition and most importantly lots of great cocktails. As far as influences goes, Art of the Cocktail and all the people I met at the festival where the most influential part of my cocktail creation career.



Not to scare off any potential future readers of my blog I will "get to the point".  This blog will serve as a way to express my passion for spirits and cocktails as well as help others share my love for imbibing.
I will update my blog weekly with recipes, links, tips and videos.  To Celebrate my first blog post I will share a drink recipe of my own. (any drinks that I didn't not invent will be credited to their respected creators)

Fire Side Sour
- 1.25 oz  VS Cognac
- 0.5 oz Benedictine
- 0.25 oz Ginger Liqueur*
- 1 oz Fresh squeezed Lemon Juice
- 0.5 oz Honey Cinnamon Syrup **
- 1 Egg White

- Add all ingredients excluding egg white to one half of your shaker
- Add egg white to other half of shaker(just incase you break the yoke you don't ruin the entire drink)
- Add the spring from your strainer into shaker(this acts as a whisk and gets that egg white really foamy)
- Shake without ice(again, this just helps get the egg white foamy)
- Shake with ice
- Double strain into pre-chilled rocks glass***


*I used "Giffard's Ginger of the Indies"

**To make honey cinnamon syrup simply put 1 cup honey, 1 cup water and 4 cinnamon sticks into a pot over low heat until mixture has formed a consistent syrup

*** Strain using your standard cocktail strainer(or more specifically named, Hawthorn strainer) and a tea strainer to get out any bits of ice and other unwanted nasties to make for a silkier textured drink.  95% of the time I won't add any ice to a drink with egg white. I find it gets in the way of the texture of the drink.


Note: Im going to be doing some blog posts about technique like dry-shaking, double straining etc. in the near future but until then I am going to assume there are people reading this that are just getting into cocktails and know very little on the subject.