Craft Beer Concoctions Test Kitchen: Cachaca

To start, you might be asking, "What's Cachaca?" A few weeks ago we wouldn't have known the answer and one of us would have had to consult Google to find out. Now we know that it is the oldest distilled spirit in South America and made from sugar cane. Sugar cane was cultivated on the continent's coast for the purpose of being harvested and shipped to Portugal back in the day. The plant's inclination to grow like a weed also meant it was a ready raw ingredient to ferment.

How we came to be interested in it was by meeting local Cachaca distributor Bob Nathanson of 3G Spirits. A cousin-of-sorts to rum from the standpoint that rum can be made from sugar cane (although most is distilled from molasses), Cachaca's flavor profile is wide-ranging. For the purposes of the our Test Kitchen we utilized four varieties of the spirit. Three came from Famosinha (via 3G Spirits), two of which were cask aged, and one from Avua. To become more familiar with their flavor profiles before we started the mixology, we sampled each on its own, an experience that was a further education of our palates.

In general we have found that our most successful craft beer cocktails have skewed fruity (but not overly sweet) and summery. This spirit from South America seemed well suited to our crafting and the following are three of our best creations.

I Love You Like a Mango
- Avua Silver Cachaca
- Founders Mas Agave
- Mango juice
- Lime marmalade syrup
- Fresh lime wedge & lemon wheel for garnish

We counted ourselves lucky to find a bottle of Founders Mas Agave on the shelves of Hollywood Beverage as this is both a delicious beer and one that we found to work well in many, many cocktails. Here it is complimented by delicate sweetness from the mango juice and lime marmalade syrup and boosted by the Cachaca.

White Oak Holiday 
- Oak-aged Famoshinha Cachaca
- The Bruery Orxata
- Walnut bitters
- The Barreled Bee honey
- Cinnamon
- Orange peel garnish

This lightly sweet cocktail uses a horchata-inspired beer from The Brewery and one of the two cask-aged Cachacas. By some mixology magic the ingredients combined to become an adults-only orange creamsicle.

Jalapeno Invader
- Famoshinha Cherry Cask Cachaca
- Great Notion Pineapple Juice Invader IPA
- Spicy pineapple syrup
- Tajin dusted pineapple slice
- Candied jalapeno slice

Using the spicy-sweet pairing of pineapple and jalapeno as the basis for this beer cocktail, the Cachaca added a slightly woody backbone and complimentary flavor to the other ingredients. For those that haven't used tajin, it is a chili/lime seasoning from Mexico that has vast applications, including use on fruit, vegetables, cocktail glass rims, etc.

Huge thanks to Bob and wife, Sarah for joining us at this Test Kitchen. They are a wealth of knowledge about Cachaca and generous sharers of the product. Also thanks to our small, but faithful group of Test Kitchen guinea pigs that continue to join us on our adventure. 

Jam Session - Craft Beer Concoction's Latest Test Kitchen

Have you ever read a recipe or had a craving for a cocktail that involves muddling summer fresh berries in the dead of winter? Even though you know you can probably find the correct ingredients in the produce or freezer section of your local grocery store you also know it won't be the same. So you tuck that recipe away until those luscious, local berries return.

That was the train of thought behind our idea to use jams and jellies in place of fresh fruit in the latest Craft Beer Concoctions Test Kitchen. A stunning variety of jams/jellies are commercially available but we managed to limit ourselves to a handful and supplemented those by whipping up a few in our own kitchen. Here are a few of our favorite concoctions using jam.

"I'd Pay For That"
We admit that not all the cocktails we create are great so when one of our tasting panel sipped this one, we had to name it after the words that came out of his mouth, "I'd pay for that!" A fairly simple combination of five ingredients, we'll be making plenty of these in the future.
- Bak's Bison Grass Vodka
- Great Notion Pineapple Juice Invader (hazy IPA with Galaxy hops and fresh pineapple)
- Rose City Pepperheads Rage 'N Red jalapeno jam
- Kroger pink grapefruit seltzer water
- Candied poppy seed rim
- Lime garnish

"Lara's Strawberry Witch"
All of us at this Test Kitchen were familiar with those wrapped candies often found at Grandma's house, the hard strawberry candy in the twisted-top foil wrapper printed to look like a strawberry. We bet you know what we're talking about, too, and if you like those you'll like this cocktail. Named for the liqueur Lara brought, this cocktail has its sweetness balanced by citrus.
- Homemade strawberry liqueur*
- Great Notion Strawberry Taffy (milkshake IPA with strawberries and vanilla beans)
- Homemade strawberry jam
- Lemon juice

"Butterscotch Lemon Drop"
One can find a version of a lemon drop on nearly any cocktail menu. Ours combines a straight forward vodka, a shandy beer and lemon curd, dolled up in a fancy crystal wedding flute (thank goodness those glasses are finally getting put to use!).
- Eastside Distilling Portland Potato Vodka
- Coalition Brewing Harvest Shandy (CBD lemon shandy with Goschie Farms hops)
- Bonne Maman lemon curd
- Lemon slice garnish

All in all, this was one of our most successful test kitchens and we'll certainly be looking to our pantry/fridge in the future when we want to whip up a cocktail with a fruity component. If you haven't tried it yourself, we challenge you to grab whatever jam you have on hand and mix one up.

*If you've been inspired and want to make your own fruit liqueur, check this out for directions. Perhaps that's what you'll be handing out over the holidays to lucky folks.

Beer Cocktails: Gin Edition

"I love Gin
Ginny Ginny Gin
mmmmm Gin
I love Gin"
- Ron Burgundy, Anchorman

We agree with Ron that Gin is a lovely thing. It is also one of the staples of any liquor cabinet or cocktail list and the varieties range from subtle to highly botanical. For infusions, like the ones we made for this Craft Beer Concoctions Test Kitchen, we chose subtle New Amsterdam to allow the flavor we were infusing to take center stage. 

Here are our most successful concoctions, ones that we'll likely be refining in the future.

Gin & Jam
Laurelwood Lost in Happy Mountain Saison
Lavender infused Gin
Rhubarb lemonade
Marionberry jam
The beer is a collaboration between Laurelwood Brewing and Happy Mountain Kombucha and caught our eye while we were shopping for beer for this installment of the Test Kitchen. Not something we'd normally pick up to drink on its own, the subtle flavors of the beer were accentuated by the infused Gin, the lemonade added a touch of tartness and the jam gave it just the right amount of sweetness, leading us to comment, "that just goes down easy."

Arnold Gin & Juice Bomb
Matchless Brewing Juice Bomb Units
Hendrick's Gin
Rhubarb lemonade
Pearl Soda Company Blue Mountain Sunshine bitters
This alcoholic take on an Arnold Palmer gets its lemonade flavor components from both the Matchless Brewing hazy IPA and the lemonade while the Pearl bitters contributed a tea-like quality that gave the cocktail added depth.

Rosemary's Baby Mama
Wild Ride Tarty to the Party Sugar Plum
Lavender infused Gin
Rosemary sprig
A simple cocktail, the fruity sourness of the beer (yet another in Wild Ride's great Tarty to the Party series), the floral-boosted gin and a savory balance contributed by the rosemary played remarkably well with one another.

Peachy Gin Fizz
Tieton Cider Works Bourbon Barrel Peach Cider
Rolling River Gin
Luxardo Marschino Liqueur
Torani Amaretto syrup
Egg white
Lemon
Pearl Soda Company Blue Mountain Sunshine Bitters
Our first try at this cocktail was sans the egg white and while it doesn't contribute any flavor to the sour and sweet flavor profile, it did give the cocktail the missing body component. Besides a frothy top makes for an eye pleasing drink.

Mas Nap
Founders Brewing Mas Agave Gose
Prairie Artisan Ales Lil Nap 
Ginger infused Gin
Luxardo Maraschino Liquor
Squeeze of lime
Gose style beers are usually low on the ABV meter, however this version from Founders went well out of the typical ballpark clocking in at a robust 10%. Instead, Lil Nap, a blackberry and lime sour, filled the low ABV slot while being highly flavorful. Looking at the other components of this cocktail one might think there is a little too much going on but thankfully we were able to find the right ratios to create a cohesive, summery, pre-nap cocktail.

The Crooked Cucumber
Crooked Stave Sour Rose
Cucumber infused Gin
Marionberry jam
Inspired by the refreshing flavor of cucumber water, we infused Gin with cucumbers and here, paired it with the effervescent and slightly fruity wild ale from Crooked Stave. The jam added a touch more sweetness and helped amplify the pink color from the beer for a cocktail worthy of a fluted glass.

Tea Cream Shandy (aka Sweet Creams Are Made of These)
Great Notion Brewing Orange Creamsicle IPA
Jasmine tea infused Gin
Sparkling water
The Bitter Housewife orange bitters
Orange squeeze
Equal parts of orange and tea flavors keep this lower ABV cocktail light in flavor, light enough that we decided it should be served in a pint glass. If it makes the cut to be refined we may look at getting some shaved ice to serve it with for a playful cocktail.

With each Test Kitchen we're learning more about the basic components we'd want to have in our beer cocktail kit. Some things are nice to have and fun to play with while some are quickly becoming essential. 

Thanks again for sticking with us as we explore beer-related pursuits. If we've inspired you to venture out on some of your own, or have suggestions for the future, leave us a comment.

Beer Cocktails: Tequila Edition

Our first three forays into creating beer cocktails found us testing our hand with whiskey, vodka and rum. This time around we went for a slightly more challenging spirit - tequila. While not our spirit of choice in general we have enjoyed some professionally made tequila-based cocktails. Gathering up some traditional cocktail recipes to use as our basis of inspiration we met up at Gateway Brewing with an assortment of fruit juices and other mix-ins, bitters, rimming ingredients and a few other select beers to round out our tequila cocktail-making bar. 

Joel and Karen Sheley, owners of Gateway, not only fully opened their brewery up to us but also their inviting and perfect-for-entertaining back yard on what turned out to be a gorgeous early May evening. That full access allowed us to sample and select from Gateway Pilsner, Exit 7 IPA, Wood Hill Stout, Jet Coffee Stout, Ventura Red Ale and Mahogany Dark Lager to match with the Reposado (oak aged) and Silver tequilas. Here are the best of this session's creations.

Gateway Mule
- Reposado tequila
- Gateway Ventura Red Ale
- Cock'n Bull ginger beer
- Jalapeno simple syrup
- Lime juice

As fans of the ginger beer based "mule" we couldn't resist creating our own version, using the Ventura to provide a more complex backbone.

Spicy Pineapple Margarita
- Silver tequila
- Gateway Pilsner
- Pineapple juice
- Jalapeno simple syrup
- Lemon wedge
- Salt rim

We are not fans of the overly sugary versions of a margarita that one might find at a national chain restaurant and in making our beer cocktail version we opted for just a splash of fruit juice.

Nice & Easy
- Silver tequila
- Baerlic Nice & Easy
- Triple Sec
- Salt rim

Just like the Baerlic gose we used for this beer cocktail, the name seemed fitting for this easy to drink cocktail.

Night Falls
- Silver tequila
- Homemade Kahlua
- Prairie Artisan Bomb (imperial stout aged on espresso beans, chocolate, vanilla beans and ancho chile peppers)

Transitioning from a sunny day of patio drinking to gathering around a fire, this three ingredient cocktail was inspired by the flavors of Mexican hot chocolate.

Muffin Maiden
- Great Notion Blueberry Muffin
- Silver tequila
- Limeade
- Lemon sugar rim
- Lime wedge

Great Notion Brewing's beers can be polarizing - either you like them or you don't. We happen to appreciate their unique contribution to the Portland beer scene and found that one of their beers made a very nice contribution to our cocktail creating.

Huge thanks go out to our hosts, Joel and Karen, along with our merry band of taste testers! 

Follow our adventures in picture form on our newly created Instagram account just for our cocktails, Craft Beer Concoctions.

Beer Cocktails: Rum Edition

For our second installment of beer cocktails we chose the general category of rum to work with, leaving ourselves plenty of options by having light rum, dark rum, spiced rum and even Malibu coconut rum (which likely conjures up very specific memories for anyone). With such a wide array of liquor flavor profiles the beers we opted not to limit ourselves to a beer style and selected ones were equally wide ranging. Like any experiment there were some great ones and some “work in progress” (to be revisited and refined in the future) ones, the former of which are below.

Fell into a Pile of Leaves

- Whaler’s Rare Reserve Dark Rum

- Reuben’s Autumn Harvest Imperial Pumpkin Ale

- club soda

- coconut sugar

- candied jalapeno simple syrup

- white sugar rim

- candied jalapeno and roasted delicata squash garnish

Dry and mild with a distinctive “fall” taste. The pumpkin ale is one of the better ones we’ve had, providing a full aroma, yet restrained in the level of pumpkin pie spices found in the flavor with a well balanced body. In the candid words of Lee, “Ah, shit, that’s divine!”

Spicy Jungle Rum-tini

- Whaler’s Rare Reserve Dark Rum

- Evil Twin You’re in the Jungle

- Natian Cease & Desist stout (2018)

- cacao juice

- coconut sugar rim

One of the later creations from this session, a time when we were venturing further afiled, we used two beers in this cocktail - the stout to provide both body for the cocktail and as a balance to the heat of the Evil Twin, a habanero peppers-containing beer. Much deeper and darker than the previous cocktail using the same rum, it tastes like what comes after fall - the holidays.

Santa’s Dirty Little Secret

- Havana Club Puerto Rican Rum (añjeo blanco)

- Natian Cease & Desist stout (2018)

- homemade Kahlua

- heavy cream

This fairly straightforward cocktail was loosely based on the flavors of a White Russian and it was pleasing to find that each of the ingredients we choose stood up to the others. Cascading and combing over our palate, the multiple layers of flavor change with each sip. We think Santa would be quite pleased to find this “dirty milk” in place of the standard glass of white alongside his cookies. Speaking of cookies, we happened to have some coffee crunch cookies, a take on chocolate chip cookies, on hand that provided yet another layer of flavor. If you’re good little boys and girls we might share our recipe for these crunchy, coffee-forward delights.

You Put the Lime in the Coconut

- Malibu Coconut Rum

- Crooked Stave Sour Rose

- club soda

- cranberry juice

- sugar rim

- lime garnish

Just the aroma out of the freshly cracked bottle of Malibu made us want to find a beach, slather on some back-in-the-day tanning oil and relax. Instead we put our heads to work, coming up with a combination of sour/tart beer and cranberry juice to offset the overwhelming coconut profile of the rum, taking this from a 20-something drink to that a 35+ crowd wouldn’t be embarrassed to drink. The use of club soda boosted the carbonation provided by the beer for a cocktail that screams “lawn chair STAT and keep my glass filled!” regardless of the time of year.

Dark & Stormy Natian

- The Kraken Black Spiced Rum

- Natian Cease & Desist stout (2018)

- Cock'n Bull ginger beer

Once again taking inspiration from a traditional cocktail, this time a Dark & Stormy, we put a beer spin onto it, betting the stout would compliment the “dark” characteristics of the rum in this sipper. Keeping the cocktail from being overly dark was the ginger provided by the Cock'n Bull and the next time we make this we'll expand on that with a candied ginger garnish.

With two editions of beer cocktails behind us (here's the first one in case you missed it), we're looking forward to continuing to use our creative juices to bridge the gap between a pint of beer and a cocktail.

Beer Cocktails: Oktoberfest & Vodka Edition

This year we've been getting more exposure to liquor and the experiences have opened our eyes and palates. We're not afraid to admit that the hard stuff has been intimitating, probably not too dissimilar to when we started drinking craft beer. What is actually good? What is worth the cost? What do we enjoy?

One of our partners on this exploration has been Annebelle, who has a great palate, a taste for cocktails and an eye for presentation. We came up with the idea to try our hand at making beer cocktails, getting together on a monthly basis to test out various combinations of a designated liquor and a style of beer each time. And while having more cooks in the kitchen isn't the best of plans, having another set of taste buds for our experimenting seemed prudent. Insert Lee who has a wealth of experience with tipples - being a mead maker, brewer and distiller - and is just as adventurous as we are.

Since fall is here it felt fitting to use Oktoberfests for the beer style and being our first go around, we chose one of the easier liquors to mix - vodka. What we came up with were a handful of cocktails, that may be subject to a bit more refining in the future, but we quite enjoyed and felt were worth sharing.

Fest-bier-tini
- Occidental Festbier
- Olde York Farm micro batch ramp vodka from Hudson, NY
- pickle brine
- lemon juice
- togarishi, salt, sugar, cayenne rim
- lemon slice and pickle garnish
All of the splashiness of a cocktail visually, this creation used a special vodka Lee hand carried back from a trip out east and a house-made version of togarishi in the rimming mixture. Reminiscent of a Bloody Mary in flavor without the heaviness from tomato juice.

Red Oktobier
- StormBreaker Stomtoberfest
- Belvedere vodka
- Apeol
- orange bitters
- lime garnish
Light and bright were the first words that came to mind upon trying this negroni-inspired beer cocktail. Using Apeol, similar to Campari but with a lower ABV, and beer made for a less bracing cocktail and the bitters filled in for Vermouth. 

Hipster Beerlini
- StormBreaker Stormtoberfest
- New Deal vodka
- peach juice
- peach slice garnish
A bellini can be a simple cocktail, just sparkling wine and peach juice or schnapps, and it's that simplistic take that we used to create our cocktail. Drawing on the beer for the carbonation sparkling wine would contribute we balanced the sweetness of the juice with just enough vodka to keep it feeling cocktail-ish. Using a perfectly ripe peach slice as garnish conjured up the aroma of being in the orchard at the height of harvest. 

Passion of the Beerlini
- StormBreaker Stormtoberfest
- New Deal vodka
- Amoretti passion fruit puree
- La Croix passionfruit
- lime
- muddled red raspberries
Taking the inspiration of a bellini further afield, we switched from peach to passion fruit for the juice component and added to the carbonation with flavored sparkling water. Muddling red raspberries gave it a rich color, with the lime providing a citrus brightness.

Although we had decided to make our concoctions with Oktoberfest beers and vodka after a few attempts with Spaten's beer we agreed whiskey was the way to go with it. Thus the final cocktail to come out of this installment uses a local whiskey and a majority local ingredients.
Go Westward, Spaten
- Spaten Oktoberfest
- House Spirits Westward whiskey
- Raft Botanicals smoked tea vanilla
- orange bitters
- The Barreled Bee whiskey barrel-aged honey rim
- orange peel

Stay tuned for the next installment!

Boilermakers with Bulleit

We've been cheating a bit on beer lately, exploring the wide varieties of whisky/whiskey. For the most part we haven't had them together but we recently played around to see if we could find some pleasant pairings, better known as boilermakers. Armed with boilermaker suggestions from Ninkasi Brewing Company using Bulleit Frontier Whiskey and supplied with a couple of fifths, we were eager to try our own hands at it.

Bulleit Bourbon
Ninkasi selected their flagship Total Domination IPA to pair with this "Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey" and we agree that an IPA (even a hazy IPA) is the way to go with this one. We didn't happen to have any Total Domination on hand however we did have cans of their new-ish Prismatic Juicy IPA that created a far more complex pairing than we anticipated. Another local IPA, this time from Culmination in the form of their Phaedrus, made for a pairing that we'd be happy to enjoy for a significant session. Going further afield, the result of recent beer mail, we appreciated the fruity/juicy hops in Track 7 Brewing's Sukahop New England-style IPA as a compliment to this whiskey. Going even more intensely hoppy we also found Pelican's Beak Breaker DIPA to be a pleasant pairing with its combination of Mosaic, Citra and Centennial hops.

Diverting from hoppy beers were two others that to our surprise were also great pairs with the Bourbon. First up was a very interesting collaboration between Rogue and Brew Dr. Kombucha called Kulture Clash. Labeled as an "imperial blonde ale blended with kombucha tea" the 6.9% beer was a bit sweet on its own with a fruitiness that may have come from the beer or may have come from the kombucha. Either way the fruitiness was enhanced quite pleasantly by the Bourbon.

Going to a truly big beer, we cracked open a bottle of Brewery Ommegang Game of Thrones - Hand of the Queen. Billed as a barleywine with a hefty 11% ABV it drank far lighter and fruitier than any barleywine that has ever passed our lips. Putting the surprise on the beer aside, one half of our tasting panel loved the way it created a smooth, boozy pairing that might be further enhanced with a cigar, a lovely evening and plenty of time to enjoy the trio.

Bulleit 95 Rye
A fan of the aroma of the rye whiskey, the flavor takes a backseat to the Bourbon for us and made us more skeptical about being able to select beers that would make suitable boilermakers. Ninkasi chose their Yours Truly Easy-Drinking Ale, a beer with "a sweetly-toasted malt profile and delicate hop bouquet" to pair and we were happily surprised to find Stickmen's lightly flavored The Bee's Knees a winner. Using Pilsner malt, a sweetly flavored,  lightly colored malt, and floral Tettnanger hops this beer likely works due to similarities to Yours Truly. 

In thinking about other beer styles that might work, we reflected on rye-containing beers we've had in the past. Often the lighter based varieties allowed more of the spiciness of the rye to come out more than we would prefer whereas those with a darker base have tended to taste more balanced and "right" to our palate, even some that leaned malty. While overtly malty beers, like Pelican Sea 'N Red Irish Red Ale don't generally make our hop-loving taste buds sing we happened to have some on hand we figured we should at least give it a try. Indeed, when paired with 95 Rye the beer found redemption in our eyes. Here the maltiness of the beer made a fine companion to the rye of the whiskey.  

Many thanks to the hearty souls who went on this adventure with us. Many thanks to the faithful readers who didn't pass over this post because there was something besides beer in it. We're always open to experiences that expand our minds and palates and hope you enjoy learning along with us.