Who’s there?
Orange!
Orange Who?
Orange you glad it’s cocktail hour?!
The bitters finally arrived – in triplicate. Two bottles of orange bitters arrived from the Buffalo Trace Gift shop the day that I heard back from Fee Brothers who informed me that the Uptown Liquor Store and the Downtown Liquor Store both carry their products. Looking ahead, I knew I would need peach bitters, so I checked out the Downtown Liquor Store. Yes indeed, they carried Fee Brothers orange, peach, and mint bitters as well as Fee Foam (which I believe can be used as a substitute for fresh egg white to make certain shaken drinks more foamy.)
As a result, it was time to backtrack in the recipe book and make the Gin Cocktail, which is merely gin with a few dashes of orange bitters. We were still on the bottle of Tanqueray, so I measured it out and dashed in a few bitters. The bitters smelled absolutely exquisite – very orangey, not at all mediciney or saccharine.
Diagnosis: Shudder… literally, Hubby and I would shudder and make a sound kind of like “bleeeaaahhhh,” with every sip. The taste of the gin cocktail highlighted the medicinal qualities of both the gin and the bitters. On the bright side, our sinuses were quite clear all evening.
The other orangey drink we tried was the Gin Blossom. This is a few measures of gin mixed with orange juice. It would be better to use fresh squeezed orange juice, but I got lazy and used Tropicanna instead. According to the book, this drink was popular during prohibition when the home-made “bathtub” gin tasted rank and needed to be covered up with something heavier and sweeter than lemon or lime.
Diagnosis: Tasty. So far this is the first gin drink we’ve tried that could be a “morning drink.” You know, sometimes you need to take the edge off early in the day, like when you are on vacation with the in-laws and their kids or perhaps on a Monday morning if you work in the computer industry. Also, ordering a Gin Blossom at Sunday brunch seems more refined than ordering a Screwdriver.