Temperance Tuesday: Year of the Ram

Good afternoon and welcome to another Temperance Tuesday!

I've got a brand new drink to share with you today, in honor of the Chinese New Year! It is the year of the ram (or sheep or goat), which just so happens to be my sign in the Chinese Zodiac. This drink plays off of flavors traditionally seen in Chinese cooking. Ginger, star anise, and Chinese celery. Added to this is Mr. Lee's Ancient Chinese Secret Bitters, with notes of ginger, ginseng, and sichuan peppercorn. The result is a refreshing herbal tonic, with the complexity and character of a traditional Chinese apothecary. This drink also has a green, almost grassy quality; sure to please any rams you know.

YEAR OF THE RAM
3 oz Pok Pok Som Chinese Celery Drinking Vinegar
1 oz Morris Kitchen Ginger Syrup
1 dash (6-8 drops) Addition Star Anise Cocktail Spice
2 dashes (12-16 drops) Mr. Lee’s Ancient Chinese Secret Bitters
Soda water

Fill a pint glass with ice, and add the Chinese Celery Drinking Vinegar and Ginger Syrup. Fill with soda water. Top with Star Anise Cocktail Spice & Ancient Chinese Secret Bitters. Makes one 16 ounce drink.

Now a bit about the ingredients:
Pok Pok is a James Beard award winning Thai restaurant in Portland, OR, that has produced a line of what they call Pok Pok Som: drinking vinegar. Pok Pok Som is like a shrub, but with a much higher proportion of vinegar to sugar. Therefore, in a cocktail, it acts more as a souring agent and less as a sweetener. We carry four fairly exotic flavors of Pok Pok Som here in the bar shop: tamarind, turmeric, Thai basil, and Chinese celery.

Morris Kitchen produces high quality cocktail syrups out of Brooklyn, NY. Their ginger syrup is spicy and sweet, like liquefied fresh ginger.

Addition was founded in the hope of making savory, spicy, and traditionally culinary flavors accessible to the bartender. Based out of Seattle, Washington, their extensive line of tinctures ranges in flavor from jalapeno, to cumin, to rosemary. Unlike a bitters, these tinctures contain no bittering agent. So they provide nothing but the clean flavor of what's on the bottle. This also makes them very useful in cooking, as they truly are liquid spices.

Mr. Lee's Ancient Chinese Secret bitters are produced by Dashfire, a tiny craft bitters company out of St. Paul, Minnesota. Their founder, Lee Egbert, spent a year and a half living in China, and traveling extensively throughout Southeast Asia. These bitters are inspired by his experiences in the east, and the rich flavors seen in their culinary traditions.

Well that's all for this week! Until next time...
Your ever humble, sheepish mixologist,
Aaron Lahey