Slippery Tipples E-Book

Joseph Piercy

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Seitenzahl: 200

Beschreibung

From European favourites such as Mastichato Chios, which saved 2,000 Greeks from a bloody massacre at the hands of vengeful Turks, to legendary drinks such as Amarula, invented by African elephants; from classic cocktail ingredients like Midori, the bright green Japanese melon drink launched at the wrap party for Saturday Night Fever at Studio 54, to student stalwart Jägermeister, dreamt up by a confidant of Herman Göring and hugely popular among senior Nazis, Slippery Tipples tells the stories behind the word's most extraordinary drinks. Alongside a country-by-country guide to murky and mysterious booze and dozens of cocktail recipes is a series of easy to follow recipes for making your own liqueurs and spirits. If you would like to concoct your own fruit brandies or make a drop of traditional full-strength Pimms then this is the book for you. Joseph Piercy was born in Brighton. After spending far too long at university studying Russian Literature and Creative Writing, Joseph embarked upon a journey which took him to various parts of the world in an honest attempt to avoid anything faintly resembling a proper job. He has enjoyed an occasional drink or two along the road.

Leseprobe

For Joanna and Polly

First published 2010

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2013

All rights reserved

© Joseph Piercy, 2010, 2013

Illustrations on pp. 31, 46, 50, 90, 101, 170 © Aubrey C. Smith

The right of Joseph Piercy to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUB ISBN 978 0 7524 9685 6

Original typesetting by The History Press

CONTENTS

Foreword

Austria

The Balkans

Brazil

The Caribbean

Chile

China

Czech Republic

Estonia

Finland

France

Germany

Greece

Hungary

India

Israel

Italy

Japan

Lithuania

Mongolia

The Netherlands

Norway

South Africa

Spain

United Kingdom

United States

Appendix: Recipes

FOREWORD

Slippery Tipples first started to ferment some years ago in a restaurant in Barcelona. The Catalan capital has a burgeoning reputation as a place of culinary excellence and innovation. New restaurants and designer tapas bars spring up every month and keeping abreast with the latest food fashions is an exhausting, expensive and near-impossible pursuit. The queue to get a seat at the city’s hottest table fluctuates on a daily basis and it is easy to be seduced by the hype only to be disappointed by the substance.

As a result of this, one of my favourite places to eat in Barcelona is an unpretentious family-run restaurant in the Born area of the city called Passadis del Pep. A discouraging doorway next to a cash point machine leads into a gloomy corridor with a narrow staircase at the end. The staircase leads down to a large, brightly-lit dining hall, tastefully decorated with abstract paintings adorning the pale walls. However, the feature that caught my eye the first time I dined there was not the decor, pleasant and welcoming though it was, but a large stone inlet lining the back of the room. There, gleaming in the ambient light, was an extraordinary display of hundreds of liqueur and spirit bottles in a myriad of shapes and colours. Assuming it to be the owner’s private collection put there for decorative purposes, I sat down and was treated to a parade of courses of excellent locally-caught seafood.

But the reason for this treasure trove of bottles became apparent at the end of the meal. The waiter served coffee and then marched to the back of the room, quickly surveyed the collection and plucked out half a dozen bottles which he brought to the table with shot glasses and invited me to try at my leisure. The contrast between the different drinks was marked and inspiring: sweet fruit liqueurs, herbal digestives and fortified wines, all from different parts of the globe. It transpired that this was a tradition at Passadis del Pep and one which was repeated on every subsequent visit, although I have never been offered the same bottle twice.

It was the experience of dining at Passadis del Pep that first fired my interest in unusual drinks, and on future trips abroad I made it a habit to seek out and sample the local ‘hooch’. City breaks to Budapest and Prague yielded the two heavyweights of Eastern Europe, Unicum and Becherovka. My honeymoon on the Amalfi coast in Italy naturally included a visit to a local limoncello factory. A stag weekend in Amsterdam was not spent trawling round the red light district and coffee shops, as might be expected on such unseemly occasions, but on a pilgrimage to the Lucas Bols Genever Museum. Friends and family assisted on my quest and would endeavour to bring back samples from their travels: fearsome Feni from India, sickly sweet Sabra from Israel and a bright blue bottle of ‘Hip Hop’ Hpnotiq from New York. A chance conversation in the pub led Paul James to raid his father’s drinks cabinet for some prizes. The former mayor of Harlow Town, Alex James had been amassing an exquisite and alarming collection of ‘Slippery Tipples’. I was duly furnished with some samples of beautifully aged Kruskovac and something mysterious which was, frankly, barely fit for human consumption.

What had started as a hobby, a distraction when travelling or on holiday, was rapidly becoming an obsession. Gradually my interest shifted from a desire to simply taste these weird and wonderful drinks towards exploring and understanding their historical origins and the cultures that they derived from. It was at this point that Slippery Tipples began to take shape. Although there were plenty of brightly illustrated guides to spirits and liqueurs available, few seem to explore the historical context and development of the drinks they featured in any depth.

In the course of researching and compiling this guide I developed a theory about the history of modern civilisation. I discovered fascinating areas of history that I had hitherto been entirely ignorant of and realised that in a strange way, I was able to place certain drinks on a timeline against key moments in history. From the golden age of the Tang Dynasty in ancient China and the tragic tale of the concubine Yang Yuhuan, to the Hispanic colonisation of South America, on through the era of the Renaissance to the Ottoman Empire, the spice trade and Industrial Revolution and up to the Second World War; all these key moments in history have a drink attached to them. It may seem trivial to view history through the prism of peculiar alcoholic drinks but at the very least it is a captivating coincidence.

So what, in essence, is a Slippery Tipple and what attributes provide the criteria for inclusion in this guide? Overall there is bias towards fruit- and herb-based liqueurs over spirits (although grain alcohol provides a base for many of the drinks). Many traditional artisanal liqueurs derive from pastoral peasant culture and used ingredients that were easy to forage for and readily to hand. Another key element in what is largely a miscellaneous approach was to select entries that had an interesting historical or cultural background. Lastly, there was some consideration given to how the different entries fared when mixed with other drinks in cocktails or used in food recipes.

One key factor of a Slippery Tipple is that it often tastes much better in situ. Either by dint of getting a little carried away on holiday or falling foul of the charms of local tradesmen skilled at selling to gullible tourists, somehow that delicious local hooch you sampled from the barman you befriended that summer is never quite the same when it is rolled out at a drinks party the following Christmas. The cocktail recipes and culinary suggestions are in the hope that if your ardour for the nectar you have brought back from your travels has waned, it doesn’t necessarily have to gather dust in the drinks cabinet or be consigned to the sink.

Slippery Tipples, then, is designed to have two purposes: firstly, to provide both the casual imbiber and liqueur and spirits enthusiast with background knowledge of the ingredients, production techniques and history of some of the world’s most unusual drinks; secondly, to offer a subjective account of what to expect from certain drinks from around the world through some light-hearted tasting notes, serving suggestions and general observations of what they may be good for other than getting very drunk.

An appendix has been added to provide recipe information on how to make several approximations/versions of some of the drinks featured and some others that are easy, cheap and fun to produce. The cocktail recipes are derived from a variety of sources; where possible I have tried to credit the creator or mixologist responsible but generally this information is very much in the public domain and many so-called classic cocktail recipes have evolved and changed as drinking habits and fashions have come and gone. The measurements in cocktails are vital in order to maximise the balance of flavours and I have chosen to use 2.5cl as equivalent to one shot. A decent stainless steel cocktail shaker is worth investing in, preferably one with a built-in strainer and a lid that doubles as a measure (medicinal plastic measures are available free from most chemists). Other cocktail accessories such as muddles and stirrers can be improvised with common kitchen utensils. I’m not convinced that there is any need to buy specific cocktail paraphernalia, and I think that double-ended ‘Boston style’ shakers are for the would-be Tom Cruises of this world.

Time for the dull but necessary word about drinking responsibly. Over half of the drinks featured in this guide weigh in at over 25 per cent ABV. Some of the cocktails exacerbate their potency when mixed with other liqueurs and spirits and, at risk of appearing a hypocrite, I urge some caution here. Mix these drinks with some moderation and care; some of them have terrifying hangover potential which will severely impair your enjoyment of them after the fact.

I would like to thank the following people for their help, advice and assistance with compiling this guide: Mathew Clayton for his faith and support; Sarah Hale for her input and advice; Gemma Cheney for suggesting the idea in the first place; Giles Coghlin; three times World Mixology Champion Francois Van Iffer; Anthony Page for his kind encouragement; Stuart Small and the regulars at The Newmarket Arms, Brighton; Kal Elhajoui for his additional research; Paul and Alex James; Aubrey C. Smith for his extraordinary drawings; M.S. Lucas; Robin Harries and The History Press for backing the project and my family and friends for putting up with me boring them senseless with long-winded, drink related anecdotes and facts.

Joseph PiercyBrighton, 2010

AUSTRIA

Altvater/Monopolowa Vodka

DESCRIPTION: Sweet, herb-based liqueur originally produced for medicinal purposes

BACKGROUND: In 1810, Leopold Maximillian Baczewski inherited a small, family-run distillery in Wybranówka, a small suburb of the city of Lwów. (A Polish city since 1349, Lwów had been annexed by the Austrian Empire in 1772 and was incorporated into Ukraine by the USSR in 1939. Its Polish origins notwithstanding, Monopolowa is now manufactured in Austria and it is here that it remains most popular.) Sensing that in order for the business to flourish it needed to be closer to the industrial heart of Lwów, Baczekowski moved the factory into the centre of the city and set about revolutionising the vodka and liqueur distilling business. The main innovation Baczewski introduced was to switch production from the traditional alembic copper stills and embrace Aeneas Coffey’s recently invented columnar still, or Coffey, patented in Dublin in 1831.

The advantage of the Coffey was that it allowed the often laborious three-step distillation process to be combined into a one-step method by using three separate interconnected chamber columns. The Coffey produced base alcohol of a much smoother quality containing approximately 90 per cent ABV. It was also considerably safer, as the dangers of producing a base containing poisonous methyl content were greatly reduced. The liqueurs produced proved very popular, not only locally but across the Austrian Empire, so much so that the company was awarded the mark of the Imperial Eagle, a trademark that they were permitted to use on their bottles to distinguish their products as ‘Purveyor to Royal and Imperial Court’. The company’s most successful product was their double-distilled Monopolowa Vodka, a drink so ubiquitous locally that Baczewski became a separate byword for vodka, suggesting that so superior was its quality that to refer to it merely as vodka was an insult.

The company continued to expand throughout the nineteenth century with branches of the distillery opening in other cities, most notably in Zuckmantal, Silensia under the ownership of Baczewski’s brother-in-law Paul Gessler. The Gessler company specialised in the production of a local restorative bitters which they named Altvater. The origins of the recipe for Altvater ‘cordial’ (medicinal dosage was recommended at three parts Altvater to two parts hot water) are unknown, but its dubious status as a health drink was attested to by many physicians during its heyday. In 1886 Professor Richard Godeffoy, chairman of the influential Imperial and Royal Chemical Laboratory in Vienna, produced a famous paper attesting to the many benefits of Altvater to alleviate discomfort from a myriad of ailments ranging from rheumatoid arthritis to syphilis.

Josef Antoni ‘Adam’ Baczewski took over the reins of the parent company in the 1870s. A graduate of Lwów University of Technology and an expert in distillation processes, Josef Adam continued the company’s aggressive expansion programme. Josef Adam is also regarded as one of the first businessmen to deploy modern marketing techniques to further develop brand awareness, for example, producing limited edition crystal carafes for export markets, printing flyers and leaflets and designing press advertisments. Amongst the many creative stunts Josef Adam implemented was the Baczewski Pavillion, a giant glass carafe-shaped display stand at the Lwów International Trade Fair of 1894.

After over a hundred years of unparalleled success in which the names Baczewski and Gessler had become bywords for spirits and liqueurs of unrivalled excellence, the two arms of the company suffered a dramatic fall from grace during the Second World War. The Lwów headquarters were bombed by the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Lwów in 1939. In the immediate aftermath of the war, the remains were razed to the ground by the Soviet authorities who built a paper mill on the site. Other branches throughout Eastern Europe were either shut down or nationalised and the famous Baczewski brand name ceased to exist.

In Vienna, the Gessler factory suffered a similar fate with its factory ransacked by the advancing Soviet army and production brought to a standstill. Salvation eventually arrived in the form of Paul Gessler’s grandson Eduard, who doggedly rebuilt the business and acquired the J.A Baczewski trademark in the combined Altvater Gessler- J.A. Baczewski corporation and reintroduced the revered Monopolowa vodka. The company continues to be overseen by the Gessler and Baczewski families to this day and remains one of Austria’s most iconic brands.

TASTING NOTES: As with most central or eastern European herb liqueurs, Altvater is best served ice-cold and downed quickly as a shot. The keynotes are of nutmeg, with a cinnamon blast that provides a pleasing sweetness and a slightly marshmallow-like aftertaste. It is not recommended that you follow Professor Richard Godeffoy’s medical advice and dilute it with hot water. This has the effect of unleashing an acrid aroma and as the mixture cools (and given the drink’s golden hue) it becomes difficult to escape the unnerving feeling that one is imbibing a urine sample.

GOOD FOR: Monopolowa is a must for anybody who harbours any pretensions of being a vodka fancier. Altvater has a very attractive-looking bottle that at the very least makes the casual observer think one takes the constitution of one’s drinks cabinet seriously.

TRIVIA: After the destruction of the Lwów factory in 1945 and the subsequent dissolution of production, Monopolowa became highly sought after by spirits connoisseurs around the world. Vintage bottles dating back to before the war were still being sold at auction up until the early 1980s, fetching thousands of pounds for early-ninteenth-century carafes. The popularity of Monopolowa is credited to the traditional use of potato peelings as the base fermentation crop as opposed to grain bases which are used by most other modern vodkas.

The loss of Monopolowa vodka was deeply felt by the Polish people during the Soviet era. The drink became something of a cause célèbre, with prominent cultural figures such as the dissident poet and playwright Marian Hemar penning odes to its demise. Hemar wrote several comic polka-style tangos in tribute to the wonders of drinking Monopolowa which he performed during his weekly programmes on Radio Free Europe during the 1950s. Hemar eventually settled in Surrey and his remains are buried in a churchyard in Dorking.

COCKTAIL RECIPES

Holy Roman Emperor

4cl Altvater

2cl Campari

15cl tonic water

squeeze of lemon

slices of lemon and lime

ice cubes

Named after Francis II, the last of the Holy Roman Emperors and the only Doppelkaiser (Emperor of both Austria and Germany simultaneously). Discounting, of course, the claims of a certain Herr Hitler.

Blend the Altvater and Campari in a cocktail shaker (it is advisable to chill the Altvater thoroughly beforehand), pour over ice and top up with tonic, stir, and add a squeeze of lemon and garnish.

Black-Shirted Nazi

4cl Altvater or Jägermeister

15cl Mountain Dew Pitch Black Soda

This offensively-titled cocktail is, at the time of writing, nearly impossible to make as its distinctive black colour depends on the availability of the mixer. Mountain Dew Pitch Black Soda was a limited edition ‘energy drink’ produced by a subsidiary of Pepsi Cola Incorporated between 2004 and 2005. Various other versions of Mountain Dew are still available but the Pitch Black has been temporarily discontinued. This has led to various internet campaigns and petitions to have it reissued. Pepsi bowed to consumer pressure in 2007 by releasing a limited edition Pitch Black 2, a sour version of the original which proved unpopular with fans of the drink. Bizarrely, Pitch Black’s main selling points were that it was made with ‘real sugar’ and had a very high caffeine content. The cocktail, if indeed it can be called that, is pretty revolting. Imagine, if you can, drinking carbonated, sugar-sweetened squid ink.

THE BALKANS

Kruskovac

DESCRIPTION: Pear-based fruit liqueur popular in the Balkans.

BACKGROUND: Kruskovac hails from the ancient province of Dalmatia on the Adriatic coast, which was initially absorbed into the former state of Yugoslavia but now finds itself spread across Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina and small areas of Montenegro. Dalmatian cuisine is a strange hybrid of traditional Mediterranean influences from Italy (pastas and risottos) and Spain (cured hams and fresh fish) with the more robust meat stews of Eastern Europe. At the heart of Dalmatian cooking, though, is an obsessive attention to locally sourced ingredients and the Dalmatian pear, which grows in abundance along the Adriatic coast, is held in particular affection by this cultured, if sadly dispossessed people.

Kruskovac is made from a carefully selected distillate of Dalmatian pears and then lovingly matured in oak casks. It has been produced by local farmers in the area for centuries and varies from other pear-based liqueurs on account of its beautiful golden yellow hue. Highly prized by liqueur connoisseurs, kruskovac is fiendishly difficult to get hold of in the UK although the Maraska Company produce an un-aged variety with a milder alcohol content (25 per cent ABV).

TASTING NOTES: One of the drinks of the gods, kruskovac has mild, sweet undertones of vanilla and almonds with a smooth flowery finish. It is one of those drinks that one could easily polish off a bottle of without really noticing. Dangerously quaffable served ice cold in tall glasses with crushed ice and a garnish of fresh torn mint leaves.

GOOD FOR: Culinary experimentation. Simply pour over stewed pears for a bright boozy buzz; alternatively, the stewed pears with kruskovac in thick syrup go well in short crust pastry tartlets. It is also delicious brushed over chicken breasts before grilling or to flambé fruit pancakes.

COCKTAIL RECIPES

Traffic Light

An ingenious and near foolproof cocktail that looks mighty impressive.

4cl cherry vodka

4cl kruskovac

4cl Midori

Pour the Midori in first for a green base, then float the kruskovac on top by pouring over the back of a chilled teaspoon. Finally, repeat the floating technique with the cherry vodka and step back and marvel at how clever you are.

Apples ‘n’ Pears

4cl kruskovac

2.5cl apple flavoured vodka

7.5cl sparkling apple juice

ice cubes

Pour ingredients into a tall glass with ice and stir.

Rakia

DESCRIPTION: Balkan fruit-based liqueur traditionally used in a variety of Slavonic social ceremonies: christenings, weddings and funerals.

BACKGROUND: Rakia is the generic term used to describe fruit based, homemade, brandy. In Serbia and Bulgaria, macerated plums and apricots are most commonly used at the optimum point of ripeness and distilled by gentle boiling in large copper pots. The origins of rakia (or rakija) are uncertain. The Slavs began to spread and settle in the Balkans throughout the sixth and seventh centuries. Historical documentation refers to the popularity and production of a honey-based spirit known as medovača and rakia probably developed through experimentation with the use of different seasonal fruits. Dušan’s Code, a kind of Serbian version of the Magna Carta, was presented to and implemented by Tsar Stefan Dušan between 1349 and 1354. Among the mish-mash of early church decrees, common law and ancient Imperial Greek edicts, there is the following passage on the misuse of alcohol which stands as a very early attempt by a state to deal with the seemingly centuries old problem of binge drinking:

If a drunk goes from somewhere and if provokes or cuts one, or bleeds one, and doesn’t kill, to that drunk shall an eye been taken out and a hand cut off. If drunk yells, or takes one’s hat off, or embarrass in some other way, and doesn’t bleed, that drunk shall be beaten, a hundred times with a stick, then thrown into a dungeon, and then taken out of the dungeon, beaten again, and then let go.

Paragraph 166, Dušan’s Code, 1349

By the mid fifteenth century the Ottoman Empire (under the direction of the immodestly titled Suleiman the Magnificent) had captured Belgrade and began importing their own homemade hooch, arak. The name ‘rakia’ derives from a distortion of the word arak, which in Arabic means sweat and relates to the distillation processes involved in producing spirits. The Ottoman Empire, mindful of the Serbian and Bulgarian penchant for artisanal alcohol, introduced a tax on privately owned stills of 12 akçes (the Ottoman currency).

After the Second Serbian Uprising (1813–1817) made Serbia a semi-independent state, the still tax was lifted and this led to the widespread practice of community distilling that is prevalent in the Balkans to this day.

TASTING NOTES: The quality of rakia varies hugely in accordance with such variables as the fruits and flavourings used, the reliability of the distillation equipment and, most notably, the retail price. For purposes of clarity I shall confine these tasting notes to the plum based rakia of Serbia known as Slivovitz (Šljivovica).

Slivovitz (and rakia in general) has a reputation in Western Europe for being ‘Balkan Fire Water’ or ‘Serbo-Rocket Fuel’ and although often the ‘straight off the farm’ varieties can weigh in at over 60 per cent ABV, commercial producers such as Stefan Nemanja prefer a more modest and palatable 35 per cent ABV. Double distilled and aged in oak casks, Stefan Nemanja has a smoothness that counters the high natural sugar content of the plums. A faint undertone of almonds is provided by the use of toasted and ground plum stones in the fermentation process.

GOOD FOR: Adding a little touch of Eastern European kitsch to weddings, funerals or barmitzvahs (several brands of Slivovitz have been certified kosher). Also works well added to the mixture of traditional Jewish honey and almond flat cakes.

TRIVIA: Rakia has a peculiar relationship with death. In Eastern Orthodox Christian burial services in the Balkans the mourners are directed to the gates of the cemetery at the end of the service. Here they are supplied with a piece of soda or rye bread and a small glass of rakia. The ritual requires the eating of the bread, followed by a sip of rakia. It is then traditional to spill a few drops of rakia on the consecrated ground and to chant in Romanian ‘Dumnezeu să-i primească’ (May God receive this for her/him), before finishing the rest of the glass.