What was all that about, you ask? At this point, the booze will help preserve the yolks in case I don’t get back to them tonight, and I’ve got something that’s essentially the base of either egg nog or sweet sabayon, for which I planned to work out some kind of cocktail.

I had a couple hours on MUNI and BART to spend researching egg cocktails on my phone, but there wasn’t too much that seemed useful. When we got home from dinner, I pulled out my copies of Imbibe and On Food and Cooking and decided that I wanted to chase the sweet sabayon flavor profiles (add fruit instead of dairy) and build on Imbibe’s Golden Fizz.

Looking around at the cabinets, I came up with the following:

• 1.5oz of the above-mentioned egg yolk mixture
• 1.5oz Aqua Perfecta Poire Liqueur
• 0.5oz Germain-Robin Shareholder’s Reserve Alambic Brandy

Shake like hell with ice, then pour over rocks in a stemless champagne glass and top with a splash of Fever-Tree Bitter Lemon.

The result is rich and creamy yet light and refreshing, and not entirely unlike a piña colada, despite the utter lack of anything coconut or pineapple.

Hard shake all ingredients except bitters, strain into two chilled martini glasses. Top each with 5 drops bitters.

(makes 2 cocktails)

Dropped by K&L Wines today after work to pick up some good cheap vodka for my umeshu project and couldn’t stop myself from buying several other bottles of new spirits.

In particular, I noticed that Hangar One has rereleased their Chipotle vodka, and I couldn’t resist bringing a bottle home and testing it out right away. Holy shit is this stuff great.

1oz Espolon Tequila Blanco

0.5oz Hangar One Chipotle vodka

0.5oz Triple Sec (the cheap stuff)

1oz fresh lemon juice (from the backyard tree)

0.5oz agave nectar (trader joes)

3 drops Fee Brothers Aztec Chocolate Bitters

Hard shake everything together with ice while chilling a cocktail glass. Rim the glass with salt (I used some lovely pink flake salt my parents gave me) and strain into the glass.

Hot damn, the grassy, smoky notes of the H1 Chipotle and the tequila balance beautifully with the sour lemon and the sweet chocolate/agave. The perfect drink to celebrate the warming weather, I can see this being a summertime favorite this year. Here’s hoping Hangar One has produced a goodly amount of the Chipotle on this run.

(Named for the smoky, fiery sorceress in A Song of Ice and Fire)

Stir with ice, serve up garnished with Luxardo maraschino cherries.

Smooth, smoky, sweet. Good for reading in the library late at night smoking your corncob pipe in your silk pajamas.

Pour amaro over ice, add tonic, squeeze twist to express oils, drop in glass, serve.

shake vigorously with ice
chill cocktail glass, cut supreme of Mandarin orange, rub rim of glass with skin of orange, drop supreme in glass, fill, serve.