How to Use Texas Whiskey and Bourbon in Cocktails

Texas Whiskey is known for its bold character due to its intense aging environment. Some might struggle with how to use these spirits in cocktails so here is a little history that can help guide us.

For those who only know Texas through the movies, it is easy to imagine the state pre-prohibition to be a huge expanse of brushy grazing land dotted with cattle, and a few cowboys who fiercely value their independence. While there have been and are areas where this is true, Texas also had large cosmopolitan cities well respected for their contribution to cocktail culture. In the 19th Century, several travelers recoded their experiences and observations while traveling through Texas and remarked on the array of grog shops, taverns, saloons, and ornate hotel lounges available for drinking. With that in mind, here are two drinks, one simple and one more sophisticated, that could work with Texas whiskey both then and now.

Texas Grog

One of the advantages of the intense Texas climate is that you can get a more mature tasting whiskey with less aging time than a similar whiskey from Kentucky, Tennessee, or Indiana. For most young whiskey it is best mixed with colas or sodas to mask its youth but young Texas whiskeys can work both as sippers or in cocktails. Inspired by the 19th Century Texas grog shops, I came up with a light and refreshing drink that pairs great with Texas bourbon.

• 2oz bourbon (Treaty Oak’s Ghost Hill Texas Bourbon, or Blackland Bourbon work well)

• 2oz water

• ½oz fresh orange juice (fresh not bottled OJ is key)

• ½oz simple syrup

• 2 dashes Angostura Bitters

Shake all the ingredients with ice and strain into a double Old-Fashioned glass with fresh ice.

The Improved (Texas) Whiskey Cocktail

In the 1830s Huston, was no backwater town, so while Texans are known for being hard working and free spirited, they are certainly not barbarians. One could have walked into a fancy hotel bar and found an array of spirits such as cognac, gin, rums from Jamaica and Cuba, and whiskeys from Tennessee, Kentucky, Maryland, Ireland, and Scotland. In addition, wines such as claret, port, madeira, hock, burgundy, sherry, and champagne were available from several merchants in the city. Given this wide variety of regional and imported beverages an Improved Whiskey Cocktail would have been great option for a m1ore sophisticated drink.

• 1 sugar cube (1tsp white sugar or ¼oz simple syrup)

• 1 bar spoon (¼oz) maraschino liqueur

• 1 dash Angostura Bitters

• 1 dash Peychaud’s Bitters

• 1 dash absinthe

• 2oz bourbon (Balcones’s Texas Pot Still Bourbon or Garison Brothers Texas Small Batch Bourbon will work well)

• 2in lemon peel for garnish

In an Old-Fashioned glass, add the sugar, maraschino, bitters, absinthe, and muddle them for about 30 seconds (if using simple syrup skip the muddling). Add the bourbon and a large ice cube and stir again until chilled. Twist or pinch the lemon peel over the glass to express the oils, then drop it into the drink.

Recipe for Homemade Nocino

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Results from DIY Spirit Aroma Kit

It worked!

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Some time ago I looked at using an aroma kit to help improve my ability to pick out and identify aromas in the spirits that I drink. You can buy an aroma kit but those tend to start around $150 and go up to $450, which is a bit steep for me. And, given the fact that some of the customer reviews are less than stellar, I decided to try and make my own kit. I ended up making 13 bottles with common gin botanicals all for less than $30!

After letting the botanicals to macerate for a month of so, the aromas were still clear but I did notice one issue. While I only filled the bottles 2/3 with botanicals, some of the more fibrous botanical like cardamon, anise seeds, and licorice root absorbed a lot of the vodka and swelled to completely fill the bottle where as more woody botanicals like cinnamon and star anise stayed the same size. So if you make your own aroma kit, make note of which botanicals might be more absorbent than others.

Besides this absorbency issue, the aroma samples worked well. From time to time I would sit down with the bottles, unscrew the lid, and smell the aroma moving the opening back and forth between each nostril.

Being able to pick out and describe aromas in spirits has a lot to do with memory. Our eyes or ears take in information from specific wave lengths of light or sound and those are interpreted by our brains as colors and pitch. But with smell, little particles of the things we eat, drink, or inhale, touch receptors that extend from the olfactory bulb in our brain and we interpret that information based on our memory. It is believed that this link between smell and memory helps humans to avoid eating spoiled food or drinking contaminated water. And, this smell memory may have helped our hunter-gatherer ancestors to remember high calorie foods like fruits that are higher in natural sugar and vitamins.

In my experience, interpreting aromas exists on three levels.

1. Is the aroma good or bad?

2. Is the aroma familiar or unfamiliar?

3. Can I describe or name the aroma with a word or words?

I believe using my kit did help me move some of the aromas from the second level of, is it familiar to the third level of, it is familiar and I my brain remembers the name of that smell. If you are interested in improving your smell memory, making and occasionally using a spirits aroma kit will help.

How to Make Kummel at Home

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Kummel, also spelled Kümmel, is a botanical liqueur flavored primarily by distilling caraway and then sweetened. But, as it turns out, you do not need a still to make a fairly simple and delicious version of kummel at home.

Back in March when states began issuing stay at home orders I decided it was time to start making some liqueurs. I started simple with limoncello and pompelmocello (grapefruit), but I decided I wanted to try something a little more of a challenging. That’s when kummel came to mind.

Since I don’t have a still, I started looking for kummel recipes online that use maceration (soaking botanicals in alcohol) instead. While Google came trough and gave me some results, none of the online recipes were exactly what I was looking for. However, I came across a note about an old French distillers recipe book that included kummel. There was no mention of a title or author so it took awhile to locate but eventually I found the source: Culture de la Vigne: Traitement Pratique des Vins: Vinification - Distillation by Raimond Boireau (1876). The book includes five recipes for kummel (pp 451-453): One with just caraway, one with caraway essence, and three that use caraway with a small amount of other spices. Based on these recipes I decided to make one bottle (750ml) of about 40% ABV kummel that was 30 parts caraway, 2 parts coriander and 1 part fennel.

Recipe for EZ Homemade Kummel

Ingredients

• 310 ml liters of 190 Proof Everclear (95% ABV) = 252.96 g

• 25 g caraway

• 1.69 g coriander

• 0.85 g fennel

• 500 ml water

• 500 ml sugar

If you live in an area where 190 Everclear is not available you can also use 400 ml of 151 Everclear (75.5% ABV), or 600 ml of 100 proof vodka (50% ABV) with the same amount of spices. The maceration won’t be as intense and you will not need as much simple syrup to bring it down to proof.

Directions

• Place a small glass container (a pint size mason jar will work) on your kitchen scale and weight out 252.96 grams of Everclear and put aside.

• Place a small bowl on your kitchen scale and weigh out 25 grams of caraway. Dump the caraway into the alcohol and repeat with the coriander and fennel.

• Once the spices and alcohol are in the same container, seal it up, give it a shake and let sit for 3 days out of direct sunlight. The alcohol will extract flavors and some color out of the spices, and if you want to give it a shake once a day, go for it.

• Combine the sugar and water into a small pot and stir on medium heat until the sugar is completely dissolved into the water. Let cool, pour the syrup into an empty wine/liquor bottle and place it in the refrigerator until needed. This will make more than you need for the kummel but you can save the leftover simple syrup for making cocktails.

• After 3 day filter the spices from the alcohol and pour the infused spirit into a clean 750 ml bottle that has a cap or closure. You can filter the spices with a simple mesh strainer or a coffee filter. Since I have a V60 for making coffee at home I use that. If you use a paper or cloth filter, remember to wet it before hand, or the filter will soak up you alcohol.

• Fill the bottle of infused spirit with about 440 ml of your premade simple syrup, close the bottle and let rest for 1 day in your refrigerator.

Results

Initially the kummel has lots of flavor from the spices, it is very sweet and has some sharpness from the alcohol. However, the longer the kummel sits the more that alcohol smooths out. If you have a sweet tooth, you will like the recipe as is but for me the next time I make it, I will only use 3/4 or half as much sugar.

As for its taste it has a great caraway flavor that reminds me of eating rye bread with a nice lemon zest from the coriander, and a slight fennel kick. Serve it neat direct from the freezer, use it in cocktails like the Old Fashioned (with bourbon or rye), the Silver Bullet or my favorite, a simple Kummel & Soda in a tall glass full of ice.

Rundown of ADI's 2018 Judging of Craft Spirits

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In 2007, when the American Distilling Institute held its first annual spirits competition there were less than 100 craft distilleries in the US and the Judging awarded just 12 medals. Eleven years later the number of craft distillers in the US has grown over 1000% and the number of small and independently owned distilleries are multiplying around the world. ADI’s Judging of Craft Spirits continues to track this growth and the maturing of our industry, receiving 1003 spirits from 16 countries spread across five continents. Of those entered, 9 spirits earned Double Gold Medals, 58 earned Gold Medals, 223 earned Silver Medals and 434 earned Bronze Medals.

The mission of the ADI competition is to promote excellence where it is found and help distillers hone their craft by providing unbiased feedback from our expert judges. With these goals in mind, the Judging runs a blind competition where each entry is evaluated solely on quality of the spirit in the glass.  Seasoned stewards spend 5 days, sorting and flighting spirits by class, category, and sub-categories, taking into consideration factors such as ABV, intensity, and length of maturation, if any. During the two and a half days of our competition, the 10 panels of four judges were asked to evaluate about 50 spirits a day, about half the rate of other competitions. We do this to mitigate against plate fatigue and to give them time to give constructive feedback about each spirit.

Each year the competition offers an interesting insight into the current market of craft spirits. Whiskey remained king in total number of entries comprised mostly of bourbon, rye and malt whiskeys. However, the number of whiskeys finished in a secondary cask from craft distillers has increased substantially. For the second year running, gin replaced vodka as the second largest class overall, with aged gin accounting for almost 20% of all gin entries. And, as may have predicted, brandy is making a significant comeback. In 2018, the number of brandy entries grew by 366% over 2017! A few other small categories, such as honey spirits and spirits made from agave syrup also grew. One of most surprising declines came from Moonshine which shrank by 60% compared to 2017. Of course, it hard to know if the number of moonshines in the market are decreasing though at a minimum it seems like the marketing of some of these are shifting from moonshine to corn whiskey, for those that qualify, and from flavored moonshine to liqueurs.

As always, ADI is grateful to the stewards, judges, and all those who entered who have made the Judging of Craft Spirits the worlds largest spirits competition dedicated to craft spirits. A full list of the 2018 awards can be found here. 

First appeared in Distiller (Summer 2018): 40