Gin
The Portland Pour
by Tony M
5y ago
Gin is everywhere, from the global brands we all know, to every craft distillery and startup, to products that can hardly be identified as gin except for their story and claim on the label. It's definitely a moment of new found popularity, or rediscovered infatuation, and all the different gins available somehow connect with either community, or place, or history. It's all there, both the good and the bad, in the often sordid history of one of the worlds top cocktail spirits.What is it?Gin is a distilled spirit that derives its predominate flavor from juniper berries, although the inclusion an ..read more
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Hemingway Daiquiri
The Portland Pour
by Tony M
5y ago
There's that name again. Hemingway, the one writer more famous for what he drank than what he wrote, but he drank some interesting things. The Hemingway Daiquiri is one of those things, even if the jury's still out on how to best make it, but that's what makes it special.Hemingway was both a drinker and a traveler, and as he spent time in the Keys and Cuba he fell in love with the Daiquiri. However, he did have particular ideas about how to consume them, and an aversion to sugar. The Hemingway Daiquiri was often served to him as a version known as the Papa Doble, or twice the rum and no sugar ..read more
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Fluffy Ruffles
The Portland Pour
by Tony M
5y ago
There's no shortage of classic cocktails connected to pop culture, and the Fluffy Ruffles is just one among many. It's a simple drink, just rum and vermouth, but there's so much more to it. Seemingly named for the ruffles and pleats around the bottom of a fancy dress, the Fluffy Ruffles was actually named for a 1907 comic strip character of the same name. Then again, maybe it was named for the Broadway play based on the comic.Movie and show producers often name cocktails after the latest production, and it's no different with the Fluffy Ruffles. Probably. We don't really know. What we do know ..read more
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Lucien Gaudin
The Portland Pour
by Tony M
5y ago
There's a million ways a person can write themselves into the history books. You could be a great leader, create great works of art, win a war or start a religion. Or you can have something named for you, like a building, or a rose, or a cocktail. Such is the story of Lucien Gaudin, an Olympic fencing champion from France, who's in the book of medal winners, and remembered because there this cocktail named for him.Gaudin competed during the 1920s, which makes the cocktail easy to pin on the timeline of history. It comes to the US after Prohibition, but was first published in Cocktails de Paris ..read more
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Cosmopolitan Cocktail
The Portland Pour
by Tony M
5y ago
No, not that Cosmo. This Cosmopolitan, sometimes known as the Cosmopolitan Daisy, or Cosmopolitan Cocktail, is a drink from the 1930s. Does it have anything to do with that Cosmo? Likely not. This one is made from gin, lemon, Cointreau and raspberry syrup.We can trace this cocktail back to at least the 1930s, but the jury is still debating whether or not this is older than that. If you study the recipe you'll notice it's a Clover Club with Cointreau and no egg white. The Cosmopolitan is a bit brighter than the Clover Club, but without the egg, it's a different creature indeed.So how did we get ..read more
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Vodka
The Portland Pour
by Tony M
5y ago
Have you ever traveled around from place to place and noticed the water tastes a bit different wherever you are? Not in a chemical way, but in a natural way found in places where the water is free of chlorine or other additives. Some communities even go out of their way to extol the virtues of local water, and it seems almost pointless at first. Water doesn't taste like anything, it's just water. What's different from place to place is the minerals and other natural things in the water that give it flavor. Yes, water is odorless and tasteless, but it does taste of water, and water tastes diffe ..read more
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Blinker
The Portland Pour
by Tony M
5y ago
Here's another one of those classic cocktails that's not super popular, but never really went away. Why? Because it's really weird. Rye, grapefruit and grenadine sound reasonable enough, but in wacky proportions it might be hard to decipher what this drink is about. On the surface it's just another cocktail from another old book of cocktails that delivers all the oddness we find through a 21st century lens, but unlike alot of those old recipes, this old recipe, believe it or not, works as described.First appearing in 1934, as far as we know, in Patrick Gavin Duffy's "The Official Mixer’s Manua ..read more
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Caipirissima
The Portland Pour
by Tony M
5y ago
In 1918 the Spanish flu claimed claimed more victims than all of the First World War. People had to cope with an epidemic, and in the Alentejo region of Portugal a recipe of lemon, garlic, and honey was given to flu patients, a remedy still used today as treatment for the common cold. As is often the case with home remedies, alcohol was added for that extra boost of health. Eventually the recipe evolved into what is now known as a Caipirinha, the garlic and honey being removed, and, thanks to some farmers near Sao Paulo, Brazil, cachaca added. The green lemons, those used in the original recip ..read more
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Jack Rose
The Portland Pour
by Tony M
5y ago
Let's talk in hushed tones and admit something to ourselves in spite of what all the college professors, high school teachers, editors, bosses and mentors will say. In spite of all the academic reading lists, Cliffs Notes, literary compendiums, text books and self absorbed high brow magazines, we know what they also know, but won't admit. Ernest Hemingway's books aren't that good. It doesn't matter because Hemingway himself lived so much larger than life that we read his work almost as a footnote to the not quite Keith Moon level of stories and legend that surrounds him. His work is almost anc ..read more
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Liquor or liqueur? What's the difference?
The Portland Pour
by Tony M
5y ago
Sounds simple, right? Everyone knows what liquor is, and everyone knows what liqueur is, don't they? OK, so it's easy enough, until you get into that gray area where you have to ask, what is it? Liquor or liqueur? Both liquor and liqueur sound alike, and both are distilled products, but the truth is the similarities end there. In general, liqueur is the sweeter of the two, having been flavored and sweetened after the fact, something that is, in most cases, a giveaway that something is a liqueur. So let's take a closer look.Liquor, also known as spirits, are alcoholic beverages distilled from o ..read more
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