Tag Archives: Angostura Bitters

Cocktail Hour: Guest bartender Travis E. Poling serves up the Ginger Scald

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Two versions of the Ginger Scald featured in Scott Lynch's "The Lies of Locke Lamora." The one on the left is made with sherry, the one on the right with Marsala.

Guest bartender Travis E. Poling drinks beer and reads books, and every now and then he writes books about beer. The latest is San Antonio Beer: Alamo City History by the Pint with co-author Jeremy Banas. Poling has been a journalist in the San Antonio area for nearly 30 years and is at work on his third book on beer, researching a historical novel and serving as guest curator for an upcoming museum exhibit on brewing in Texas.

It wasn’t until reading about the upcoming fourth novel in the Gentlemen Bastards cannon that Scott Lynch came to my attention. The premise from this Wisconsin fantasy writer was intriguing, so I shopped my own home library and to great delight found Lynch’s debut novel The Lies of Locke Lamora.

The setting for this 2006 debut fantasy is the city of Camorra, reminiscent of an Italian city-state with the canals of Venice, a ruling Duke and a peerage protected by the Secret Peace from a hierarchal thieving class ruled by the ruthless Capa Barsavi.

We meet Locke Lamora as a newly orphaned thief in training and follow him through his unconventional upbringing in revealing flashbacks in between the ambitious con action of the Gentlemen Bastards gang led by the adult Lamora.

This is a caper tale, with deceptions on multiple levels, and a story of revenge served both with calculating cold and hot abandon. The character of Locke is as likable as he is cunning, making him at ease posing as a brandy merchant from far lands in a long con of the Don Lorenzo and Doña Sofia. His team, through multiple talents and disguises, brings the falsehood to life.

Beginning, middle and end are all satisfying with numerous twists including a threat to the Camorri underworld by the mysterious Grey King, who is picking off the underbosses. And while this novel wraps nicely, there are enough hints throughout to tease future plot lines. There are mentions of an absent female member of the team, who may have been a love interest of Lamora, lands across the sea from Camorra, and the mysteries of the long-gone alien race that built the mostly indestructible bones of the city on which Camorra was built.

It isn’t often that a fantasy novel includes instructions for a cocktail, but since Lynch provided instructions on a Camorri drink sipped while wealthy spectators watched nasty sea beasties tear prisoners apart as punishment and amusement, I thought I’d give this monster a go (with some substitutions, of course. Here is the description in the book:

“Cont? moved adroitly to fill [the Don’s request for a Ginger Scald], selecting a tall crystal wine flute, into which he poured two fingers of purest Camorri ginger oil, the color of scorched cinnamon. To this he added a sizable splash of milky pear brandy, followed by a transparent heavy liquor called ajento, actually a cooking wine flavored with radishes. When this cocktail was mixed, Cont? wrapped a wet towel around the fingers of his left hand and reached for a covered brazier smoldering to the side of the liquor cabinet. He withdrew a slender metal rod, orange-red at the tip, and plunged it into the cocktail; there was an audible hiss and a small puff of spicy steam. Once the rod was stanched, Cont? stirred the drink briskly and precisely three times, then presented it to Locke on a thin, silver plate.”

Here’s my variation on the drink using a French ginger liqueur as the spicy base. To recreate the fictional ajento I tried infusing the wine with radish, but the concoction became a bit sulfurous after a few hours. The muddling imparted a cleaner flavor.

GINGER SCALD

1.5 ounces Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur
1 ounce Laird’s Straight Apple Brandy
0.5 ounces Poire (pear liqueur)
1.5 ounces Sweet Marsala wine
3 dashes Angostura aromatic bitters
1 radish

Pour first three ingredients in a fluted glass. Remove a 1/8-inch slice from the center of the radish and set aside. Chop the rest of the radish and muddle it with the wine (for a different take, use sherry instead of Marsala). Add the bitters to the wine, strain and top off the drink. Stir three times with a heated rod (I used a metal kabob skewer heated on a gas burner). Garnish with the slice of radish on the rim.

 

Cocktail Hour: Smoke Ghost (inspired by Fritz Leiber’s short story of the same name)

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The Smoke Ghost cocktail brings a touch of smoke to the Manhattan.

Although best known for his Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser sword-and-sorcery series, many horror fans get their first exposure to Fritz Leiber via his oft-anthologized short story “Smoke Ghost.”

First appearing in the October 1941 issue of Unknown Worlds, “Smoke Ghost” is noteworthy as one of the first works to shift the ghost tale away from the drafty mansions and castles of 19th Century Gothic fiction. Its title apparition could only manifest amid the filth, violence and alienation of a large, modern city.

On his way home via a commuter train, neurotic businessman Catesby Wran spots an amorphous black shape lurking among the urban rooftops and smokestacks he passes. Soon, the sighting becomes an obsession, and Wran fears the shape — an embodiment of all that is dirty and frightening about the modern world — is pursuing him, attempting to taint him with its grime.

As the story unfolds, Wran finds physical evidence of his haunting, mostly in the form of soot he believes the ghost leaves behind. Although the reader is left wondering whether anything supernatural is actually taking place, we understand how Wran interprets it as the residue of “the frustrated, frightened century in which he lived, the jangled century of hate and heavy industry and Fascist wars.”

The leap is easy to follow because Leiber’s prose taps so perfectly into Wran’s paranoia. The story’s language is not evocative of the bumps and drips of the previous century’s ghost tales but of the hard, gritty prose of noir detective fiction. By emphasizes the setting’s filth and seediness, Leiber taps into his protagonist’s fear of the grim, grimy century in which he finds himself.

The opening page of "Smoke Ghost" as it appeared in Unknown Worlds.

It’s easy to see how “Smoke Ghost” left an imprint on horror works that followed — from Ramsey Campbell to the darker urban fantasy writers. A raft of movies from “Dark City” to “The Machinist” also seem to owe it a heavy debt.

“Smoke Ghost” is a landmark in the evolution of modern horror — and one worthy of raising a glass to. In its honor, this week’s cocktail introduces the element of smoke to one of the most iconic of urban cocktails, the Manhattan.

Smoke Ghost

2 1/2 oz Smoky Whiskey, such as Ranger Creek Rimfire Mesquite Smoked Texas Single Malt Whiskey
3/4 oz Red Sweet Vermouth
1 hefty dash Angostura Bitters
1 Maraschino Cherry

Combine whiskey, vermouth and bitters with a few ice cubes in a mixing glass. Stir gently until the mixture is chilled. Put the cherry in the bottom of a chilled coupe glass and strain the mixed drink into the glass.