one hundred cocktails

drinking with a purpose

The Fogcutter

22 Feb 2012

Ugh. I’ve never purchased sweet and sour mix. I never again intend to purchase sweet and sour mix. For some reason Ted Haigh re-enforces the need to get sweet and sour mix for this cocktail, and so I followed his advice. The ingredients are, as a result, mildly embarrassing.

Fogcutter ingredients

On the upside, I got to use my Kirsch that’s in a pear-shaped decanter. That’s perhaps not particularly appropriate, but nobody got me a cherry-shaped decanter for Christmas and I got two pear-shaped decanters. So things went pear-shaped and now I have pear brandy and kirsch in a pear-shaped decanter. It’s confusing.

Seriously, sour mix, what the hell. The first ingredient of note is high fructose corn syrup. I seriously object to this shit, but it’s requested by name. I felt dirty buying it.

Whatever. I also had to use a blender and then float kirsch on top of a blended drink, and I’m pretty much useless at floating spirits, especially when it comes to floating high-proof spirits on top of relatively watery beverages. Jerks.

The Fogcutter

This is the first blended cocktail in the book, and I hope it’s the last. The finished product is watery and tastes of, well, kirsch. Once the kirsch is consumed or mixed into the slush, the cocktail becomes a watered down mess that’s a little nutty, little acidic, little sweet, and a little interesting.

A cocktail that’s a little interesting is not that interesting to me. On the upside, the next cocktail is the early version of the same, which is far more interesting. On the downside, Haigh for some reason felt it necessary to include this one. As a contrast I guess? But why bother. Again, seminality and anthropology are not valid reasons to celebrate a cocktail for me. Maybe I’m doing it wrong.