-J., staff mixologist
The Addison Recorder turns two this year and to celebrate, the staff and their spouses gathered at Travis and Andrew’s pad in Wrigleyville where we had a little cocktail party. What better way to celebrate a milestone than with friends, drinks, cake, and cheese?
Alex and -J. did such a good job picking the 16 teams to make it past the Group Stage, we brought them back to predict the Round of 16.
(That said, “good” is a relative term here, as they each picked 10 of 16. If a 62.5% success rate is good, these guys are solid.)
To the picks!
-J.: Every team in these first two games is from CONMEBOL, which means we’re guaranteed to have a South American team in the semi-finals. As the home team, it’s really difficult to pick against Brazil. They’re getting favorable calls from the refs, they’re one of the best teams in the world, and Neymar is scary-good. Chile had a great group stage, but couldn’t beat strong Dutch team. Chile also has yet to beat Brazil in the last 18 months, and I don’t see it happening here. Can you find a reason to pick against Brazil here, Alex?
Alex: Sadly, I cannot. I really liked watching Chile spank their old colonial masters out of the tournament last week. They looked young, aggressive, and confident; who could ask for anything more from a South American side? Well, you could ask for a history of complete dominance and a stupefying home-field advantage. Brazil hasn’t lost a competitive match within its borders since the 70’s. The 70’s! They will win here.
[Read more…]
Group G. The most important group. The Group of Death, Part II (Electric Boogaloo).
Within this group is Team USA, and thus the most important cocktail selections will be within this group. The United States (and those other teams’ countries) offers up a plethora of liquor options and a storied drink-mixing history. But for me, there choice is clear. This group’s cocktails will be built with a booze our Founding Fathers distilled and drank: brandy. Glorious brandy.
Now, as a child of Wisconsin, my heritage dictates that I am an expert on things like supper clubs and brandy. Even if I did move out of state prior to being able to legally drink brandy at a supper club, it matters not — distillate derived from fruit is in my blood. Literally, as I’ve just tested the recipes listed below.
Behold: the supper club. (I think this was actually Albright’s Tavern back when I was a kid…)
Brandy isn’t a new ingredient in this series; slivovitz, pisco, and some aguardiente would fall under the classification of brandy or eau de vie.
Or “schnapps.” It’s a word derived from German, and tends to be a generic term for a strong distilled liquor. One of the more common spirits in Germany associated with this term is kirschwasser (or just kirsch) — an unaged cherry eau de vie. It’s not uncommon to see it referred to as “dry cherry brandy” here in the States, to distinguish it from flavored liqueurs that are sometimes called fruit “brandy.” [Read more…]
I originally planned to write about Clayton Kershaw, the modern Age of the Pitcher, and its inevitable downfall this week. I’ve been asked (several) questions about my thoughts on the Tommy John epidemic that seems to have overtaken baseball this year, and had a semi-coherent 1500-word column in mind.
That can wait a little bit.
Today, news broke that a Native American group was planning to file a federal lawsuit for $9 billion against the Cleveland Indians with regards to their name and their mascot, Chief Wahoo. The suit will be asking for the stated sum based upon “a hundred years of disparity, racism, exploitation and profiteering.” Robert Roche, a Chiricahua Apache and director of the American Indian Education Center, further stated that “it’s [the name/mascot] been offensive since day one. We are not mascots. My children are not mascots. We are people.”
Welcome to Group F, the group of Argentina.
Messi greets you with hugs!
Okay, there are three other teams that are fighting to be the group’s runner-up, but none of them have Lionel Messi. Argentina’s fortunes rise and fall with their star player, and we start with a cocktail as potent as Messi’s left foot. In fact, you’ll find that all the cocktails in this group are made with uniquely bold spirits, so you may want to strap in for this trio.
I was initially tempted to do another highball as part of this series, as Fernet & Cola is pretty much the national drink of Argentina (or so the Internet and its targeted ads tell me). But then I ran across a recipe from Imbibe that used Fernet Branca with Scotch. There has been a dearth of whisk(e)y cocktails in this series, so I jumped at this one.
(For those who want Fernet & Cola, it is: a shot of Fernet Branca into a Collins glass, add a few ices cubes, fill with cola to taste. Highballs are rather easy drinks.)
Like the England/Italy combination in Group D, I’ve been looking forward to France/Switzerland in this group. That’s because these two countries are closely tied with the scandalous spirit of absinthe.
This also means I have an excuse to include a gratuitous image of L’Absinthe by Degas:
Boom. ART.
I used a tiny dash absinthe in a previous group’s cocktail, but here it’ll take the center stage. France is popularly associated with this spirit, as its artists and celebrities brought it prominence in 19th- and 20th-century Paris. But the creation of absinthe goes back to 18th-century Switzerland, and Swiss politicians are trying to prevent other countries from using the term “absinthe.”
This is actually why I enjoyed the French drubbing of the Swiss team last week. I imagine that a soccer victory has somehow invalidated their silly politics.
The Downtown Sound series on Monday evenings in Millennium Park gives lovers of rock music the chance to hear some of the newest and most innovative sounds, with an old-school veteran or two thrown in for good measure. I have already been privileged to be there for when She & Him and Iron & Wine played outstanding shows, but this past week saw me experience what may have been the best performance to take place there in five years of concert going: Richard Thompson.
I have been looking forward to Group D ever since I envisioned this series, because it offered some of the most interesting possibilities for cocktails.
The cocktail selection hasn’t been static, either. As this group has played its matches in the World Cup, I’ve changed one of the cocktails based on the way its team has played. That team is Costa Rica, who have laughed at this so-called “group of death.” To be sure, it still is such; it is Costa Rica who is that Death.
Along those lines, I started to think about something celebratory for Los Ticos, something that also hearkened to their status as a harbinger of woe unto all other Group D teams. This brought me to sparkling wine, and champagne cocktails like the infamous Death in the Afternoon. Riffing off a couple such cocktails — the Old Cuban from Jeffrey Morganthaler, and the classic French 75 — we have a balanced, herbal drink that will surprise you after a couple games:
1½ oz – Zhumir aguardiente (or rum)
¾ oz – simple syrup
½ oz – fresh lime juice
barspoon of absinthe
2 dashes of Bolivar bitters (or Angostura)
dry sparkling wine
Combine everything except the sparkling wine in a shaker. Add ice, shake until chilled, and pour into a champagne flute.* Top with sparkling wine, and garnish with and orange curl.
*Champagne flutes have different volumes; adjust proportions accordingly.
Another World Cup group, another chance to talk history. There will be many things fizzy, bitter, sweet, and smoky, but first we have history! Woo-hoo!
This cocktail discussion starts in South America, in the region that would come to be known as Gran Colombia (modern-day Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, and parts of neighboring countries). In the early 19th century, the people of Gran Colombia revolted against the Spanish crown. One man who emerged from this war of independence was Simón Bolívar, a military and political leader whose legacy in South America would grow to the level of George Washington’s in the USA.
Within Bolívar’s army was a German born-doctor, who created a medicinal tonic from local Gran Colombia ingredients. As the army pushed into modern-day Venezuela, this doctor created his first batch of tonic in the city of Angostura. Even though the city’s name changed, and the operation moved to Trinidad, this medicinal alcohol retains the name — Angostura bitters.
One of the reasons I enjoy international competitions like World Cup is the opportunity to lace both humor & drink-mixing with history:
This is Spain's worst defeat since 1588.
— God (@TheTweetOfGod) June 13, 2014
He’s referencing the defeat at the Spanish Armada at the hands of English (and Dutch) naval forces. Naturally. This little tete-a-tete was a part of the broad, bloody epic of the Eighty Years’ War, a continent-spanning conflict that was ostensibly about Protestant Netherlands revolting against Catholic Spain.
If you look closely, you’ll see a Van Persie launching cannonballs with his head.
What better way to celebrate the Netherlands dispensing a revenge-fueled soccer beatdown against highly-favored Spain than with a cocktail? If we’re going to build a drink that pays homage to these two belligerents, it’s only fitting that we build it around their nationalistic alcohols: genever and sherry.
