Abelha Cachaça UK

Introducing our new line of apparel, the 2010 official Abelha Dog Bees Moon shirt. They’re a totally limited run of less than 80 shirts, featuring artwork by Olivia Skalkos (pictured above)

These shirts are available to buy in store at Benny’s Bar & Gallery in Brick Lane E2, or here online.

A tribute to one of my favourite London cocktail bars, the Lonsdale. A real industry hangout with an excellent cocktail menu, this is from the “Bartender’s Favourites” pages.

Their menu is here on Scribd, here is the extract:

TEQUILA SAZERAC
Chill a rocks glass and leave it on the side. In a mixing glass packed with ice cubes, pour 10ml of agave nectar, four dashes of Peychaud Bitters and 50ml of 1800 Añejo Tequila. Stir gently until perfect dilution and temperature. Drop the crushed ice off the rock glass and coat it with absinthe by spinning it up in the air and scream: TEQUILA SAZERAC! Pour the mix into the glass and garnish it with a lime twist. Enjoy.

Great drink, I actually prefer it with a blanco tequila and a good dose of lime twist to fight the anise.

I was back at my mum’s house the other day, and for some reason suddenly had a childhood urge/flashback for chrysanthemum tea (my mum is from Singapore). For those who haven’t had it, chrysanthemum tea is a light, floral, dandelion-esque tea with notes of honey and jasmine. You just stick the whole flower heads into boiling water. So when I saw the title of this MxMo, I knew what I was going to use.

Sometimes MxMo is fuelled by an urge to use the intellect, sometimes a drive to dig into the past, and sometimes a need to burn off exccess creative energy. This time though, it was simply a need to have the coldest possible dry martini I could make in the kitchen.

Infusing using chrysanthemum flowers took a couple of goes. The optimum I found was about 10 flowers to 100ml gin for 4 hours. Any more and you start to get bitterness, any less and the chrysanthemum is drowned out by the other botanicals.

So with that out the way, I just went ahead and made a dry martini using Noilly Prat.

Chrysanthemum Martini

Notes

I really really enjoyed it. The chrysanthymum tastes like a very fine natural add on to the existing floral notes from the gin, and I am pretty sure chrysanthymum would make a fine botanical ingredient to a gin. Goes nicely with Noilly Prat which adds good mid-tones to the drink.

Incidentally, I am currently involved in making a perfume fragrance (amateurishly) and have been getting to grips with top middle and bottom notes - the molecular mixology enthusiasts will be no doubt familiar with all this - wikipedia:

• Top notes: The scents that are perceived immediately on application of a perfume. Top notes consist of small, light molecules that evaporate quickly. They form a person’s initial impression of a perfume and thus are very important in the selling of a perfume. Also called the head notes.
• Middle notes: The scent of a perfume that emerges just prior to when the top notes dissipate. The middle note compounds form the “heart” or main body of a perfume and act to mask the often unpleasant initial impression of base notes, which become more pleasant with time. They are also called the “heart notes”.
• Base notes: The scent of a perfume that appears close to the departure of the middle notes. The base and middle notes together are the main theme of a perfume. Base notes bring depth and solidity to a perfume. Compounds of this class of scents are typically rich and “deep” and are usually not perceived until 30 minutes after application.

image: wikipedia

Hosted by Cocktail Virgin Slut

Nice recipe from our friend Joe who runs the excellent organic/botanical bar/restaurant, Saf.

Abelha featured in an article in Drinks International. By Jaq Bayles.

Currently sat in the bar at Abelha HQ, probably the world’s only bottle of sloe cachaça. I made it last November from wild sloes picked from Hackney and elsewhere inside the M25, London.

How:

• Pick sloes, from the blackthorn tree/bush thing.
• People say you should wait until after first frost, but if you live in the city like me, they will all be gone by them. So do what you can, perhaps freeze them in the freezer overnight.
• Wash and stab the sloes with a pin.
• Fill the bottle about 1/3 full of sloes, add about 8 teaspoons of fine white sugar, then add cachaça.
• Let it sit somewhere near a door for 2-3 months. Everyone that passes the bottle should give it a lucky shake.

How to make a caipirinha cocktail from Abelha Cachaca on Vimeo.

Here is a video I made ages ago after being inspired by stop-motion videos on YouTube.  One ‘beef’ with it is elegantly pointed out by a viewer from New York – why use a measure?! Although we’re not massively concerned with how caipirinhas are made (as long as the drinker enjoys) another beef might be the horizontal cutting of the limes - but you try controlling a sharp knife with the mind alone and see if you can cut them any other way. Happy New Year!

We recently did some sampling at Whole Foods supermarket in Kensington, London (the range of stuff there never ceases to amaze me, along with how good looking some of the shoppers are), where as well as doing caipirinhas we had a big pot of hot mulled Abelha Gold 3 year old on the stove. This proved to be a real winner on a cold winters day, with people coming back for more and more.

Mulled cachaça is popular in Brasil, where it’s called a Quentão (big hot thing) and served in the colder months. As with any old folk tradition there’s no one ‘right’ recipe - there exist regional variations, and like feijoada (traditonal Brasilian black bean pork stew) only your own granny makes the best one.

Here’s what we did:

• 1 bottle Abelha Organic Cachaça Gold (3 year old)
• Zest half an orange into the pot (make sure the oils from the skin spray onto the liquid)
• Juice of an orange (can use more to taste)
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• Teaspoon of cloves
• a piece of finely chopped fresh ginger.
• about 8 teaspoons of fine light brown sugar

There different things you can do like caramelise the sugar first for a richer flavour, but we were hungover and I wanted a drink as quickly as possible. So we went for the time honoured method of putting everything in the pot and heating it. You only really need to mull it for a short amount of time (10-15 mins max) as because it’s strong alcohol it picks up flavours very quickly from the ingredients.

If you’re making more, don’t leave old cloves in there - if you mull them for too long, they start to give a bitter flavour.

Serve in little cups. Remember that even though it’s very drinkable it’s still a very strong spirit, about 3 times the potency of mulled wine. Enjoy!

50ml Abelha Cachaca Gold (3 year old), into an ice filled highball. Top up with Ting (Jamaican Grapefruit Soda).

In terms of a basic cachaca + mixer drink, I don’t think you can get much better than this. The fruityness of the 3 year really shines through the Ting. It’s a difficult one to describe, but it just really works. From the most unlikely Jamaican/Brasilian ambassador, Will Foster of Casita Bar, London.

Link to Casita Facebook Page

The Wednesday Night Drink
After a long absence, due to festivals, trade shows and the like, we are back with the Wednesday Night Drink. We’re off to West London, to drink in one of London’s truly fine bars, Montgomery Place. It’s a little bit too nice a bar to play Buckaroo in, but Hal will take on all-comers in the new Sport of Cachaça Backgammon. We will buy a few rounds for the early birds so get down as soon as you can.

The Wednesday Night Drink - Facebook event link
Wednesday 21st October - 6:30pm onwards
Montgomery Place
31 Kensington Park Road | Notting Hill | W11 2EU

Rumfest
The biggest rum exhibition for both trade and the general public. There are tons of tastings, seminars and cocktail mixing sessions and you can even buy bottles there. We’ll be around on the Sunday!

Rumfest - Link to website and tickets
24th and 25th October 12pm til 7pm
The Lawrence Hall, The Royal Horticultural Halls, Grey Coat Street, Victoria, London SW1P 1PE

Barrio North’s 2nd Birthday Weekender
Our mate Ferdie’s bar is going off all weekend too, we’ll be there on the Friday, serving caipirinhas onto the street with the now famous Abelha Beach Bar Cart thing. The NextMen are playing - I hadn’t actually heard of them until I saw them at the Sandsifter in Cornwall, and it was the best DJ set I’d heard all year.

Blowing Up the Barrio - event Friday 23rd October
Facebook page
Barrio North, 45 Essex Rd, London, N1