Promotion
Use code DAD23 for 20% off + Free shipping on $45+ Shop Now!
Drink Like a Woman
Shake. Stir. Conquer. Repeat.
Contributors
Formats and Prices
Price
$9.99Price
$12.99 CADFormat
Format:
- ebook $9.99 $12.99 CAD
- Hardcover $16.00 $21.00 CAD
This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around November 15, 2016. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.
Also available from:
Excerpt
Bewitched
Double, double, toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
—THE WITCHES OF SHAKESPEARE’S MACBETH
While we can’t say that Macbeth is exactly the hero of Shakespeare’s play, we do know the witches are the anti-heroines. They’re scorned by the men of Scotland and they don’t care—they glory in their powers of prophecy and their freedom from male control.
In a modern cocktail, it’s the muddle, muddle that can cause toil and trouble. While you can pretty much muddle the heck out of fruit, you can easily ruin a drink if you muddle herbs with a heavy hand. So here’s a variation of a CUCUMBER SOUTHSIDE, a great drink with which to practice your muddle.
BEWITCHED
1½ ounces Hendrick’s gin
¾ ounce fresh lemon juice
¾ ounce simple syrup (see recipe on page 201)
3 cucumber wheels
5 to 8 mint leaves
Glass: Martini or coupe
Garnish: cucumber wheel
Chill a Martini or coupe glass. Add all the ingredients to a shaker. Gently muddle—that is, press down with your muddle and twist 3 to 4 times to express the oils of the mint and the juice of the cucumbers. Add ice, and shake hard for 30 to 60 seconds. Strain into the chilled glass and garnish with a cucumber wheel.
For yet another variation on the Southside, use basil instead of mint.
Start the Revolution
Women with alcohol played a crucial role in the American Revolution. Women used alcohol to treat infections and diseases—and also served up drinks in taverns. One famous Williamsburg, Virginia, tavern owner, JANE VOBE (1765–1786), offered free food and booze to soldiers throughout the Revolution.
The most legendary woman-and-drink story is of NANCY MORGAN HART (1735–1830), a Georgia woman who dressed as a man to spy on British soldiers. When six soldiers—presumably either Tories or British enlisted men—came to her farm demanding food, she didn’t just serve them dinner; she also poured her homemade corn whiskey and ensured they became inebriated. Then she removed their rifles, killed one, and wounded another.
This winning combination of whiskey and hard cider sparkles in flavor—to which we add just a kick of cinnamon syrup and bitters to give it a warm complexity. Angostura bitters work well in this recipe, but so do a variety of other bitters, including Bar Keep Baked Apple, Bittercube Blackstrap, Fee Brothers Molasses, and Fee Brothers Old Fashioned bitters. Any of these options will give this drink a nice finishing spark.
START THE REVOLUTION
¾ ounce American whiskey, preferably bourbon
¼ ounce Tuaca
¼ ounce quick cinnamon simple syrup or cinnamon simple syrup (see recipes on page 203 and 204)
1 dash Angostura bitters
3 ounces dry sparkling hard cider
Glass: 8-ounce rocks or highball
Garnish: large apple quarter, about 1 inch thick, dipped in lemon juice (to keep it from oxidizing)
Fill a rocks glass with ice. Fill a cocktail shaker with ice. Pour in the whiskey, Tuaca, cinnamon syrup, and bitters. Shake for 30 seconds. Strain the whiskey mixture into the prepared glass. Then “float” 3 ounces hard cider on top: to do this, slowly pour the cider over an inverted teaspoon (with the round side up); this technique creates an upper layer of cider. Then, to garnish, cut halfway through the apple quarter and wedge it onto the rim of the rocks glass.
How the Cocktail (Maybe) Got Its Name
Creating a new country wasn’t the Revolutionary War’s only subversive result. Another revolution happened behind the bar—when an American woman (might have) created the first cocktail. Though the cocktail’s exact origins remain steeped in lore, one highly plausible inventor was Catharine Hustler. A tavern owner and sutler (a merchant who outfitted troops with booze), Hustler reportedly mixed up a gin concoction for soldiers during the war. Her outsized personality captivated James Fenimore Cooper, who immortalized her as tavern-keep Elizabeth “Betty” Flanagan in The Spy: A Tale of Neutral Ground. Today, a cocktail festival in Lewiston, New York, honors her.
Madame Magnate
MADAME CLICQUOT (1777–1866) had been married only six years when her husband died, leaving her to run the family business: Champagne. Her exceptional talent with wine was soon revealed, and she worked with her cellar master to develop a new technique of riddling, or twisting, the bottles upside down to remove the yeast.
Her title veuve—“widow”—lives on in Veuve Clicquot luxury Champagne.
Naturally, the best cocktail to honor Madame is the classic CHAMPAGNE COCKTAIL.
MADAME MAGNATE
4 ounces Champagne
1 sugar cube
3 to 4 dashes Angostura bitters
Glass: Champagne flute
Garnish: lemon twist
Chill a Champagne glass. Once it’s chilled, drop in a sugar cube. Add 3 to 4 dashes bitters. Top with Champagne, and garnish with a lemon twist.
note
Some versions of this cocktail include 1 ounce of cognac, added to the glass before adding the Champagne.
Jane Austen’s Zombie!
JANE AUSTEN (1775–1817) remains one of the most celebrated writers of all time. Modern authors love to pay homage to her, using her timeless novels as blueprints for modern storytelling. Her work has inspired countless revisionist tales, and her influence can be found in genres including science fiction, fantasy, political thrillers, and, of course, the killing of zombies.
Just like a zombie, Jane Austen will live forever. But the actual ZOMBIE drink might just wipe you out. With nearly five ounces of booze, it’s about two-and-a-half drinks’ worth of alcohol—but because it’s so fruity, it doesn’t taste like you’re drinking much. Which is why several tiki bars set limits on the number of Zombies patrons can purchase.
JANE AUSTEN’S ZOMBIE!
1½ ounces El Dorado white rum
1½ ounces Myers’s dark rum
1 ounce Lemon Hart 151 rum
½ ounce John D. Taylor’s Velvet Falernum
½ ounce fresh grapefruit juice
2 ounces pineapple juice
¾ ounce fresh lime juice (or the juice of about half a fresh lime; save the squeezed lime, which can be used for the optional 151 fire garnish)
½ ounce cinnamon simple syrup (see recipe on page 203)
2 teaspoons grenadine (see recipe on page 206)
6 drops absinthe, preferably St. George
2 dashes Angostura bitters
Glass: tiki or poco grande
Garnish: pineapple and 1 to 2 cherries
Fill a tall tiki or poco grande glass with crushed ice. Fill a shaker with ice. Add all the ingredients and shake for 30 to 60 seconds. Strain into the prepared glass. Garnish with a slice of pineapple and a cherry or two.
For added flair, place the squeezed lime on top, fill with 1 teaspoon of 151-proof rum, and then set it on fire with a lighter or match.
note
Velvet Falernum is a Caribbean spiced liqueur made with rum and a spice-infused sugarcane syrup.
Brontë’s Brew
Charlotte (Jane Eyre), Emily (Wuthering Heights), and Anne Brontë (Agnes Grey) published some of the greatest Victorian novels—feminist classics still celebrated generations later for their spirited heroines and their fervent discontent with patriarchal expectations of women.
Raised mostly by their aunt Elizabeth after their mother died, the Brontë sisters lived in a small parsonage where their father was pastor, and they often amused themselves by inventing and writing about fantastical worlds. The three sisters first tried their hand at poetry, which they self-published to no success whatsoever. Then they turned their pens toward novels, and their legacies were launched.
Emily, Anne, and their ne’er-do-well brother, Bramwell, all died in quick succession in 1848 and 1849, perhaps from tuberculosis. Charlotte continued writing, and she even married, but her marriage was cut short—in 1853 she died, pregnant, at the age of thirty-eight.
Their lives may have been tragically brief, but the Brontë sisters’ words—and this recipe—will live on forever, inspiring the outspoken and adventurous Victorians in all of us.
Barring the Door to Women
Throughout the nineteenth century in America, bars, saloons, and taverns lived up to the title of “seedy.” Spittoons with stray flecks of tobacco juice riddled the counters, and piss troughs lined the floors. Booze was almost completely unregulated, so it could be distilled by anyone with a basin in need of a quick buck—in other words, it could have been foul. Given how filthily men behaved in these establishments, they often used that behavior as justification for discrimination, banning women from being anywhere near saloons “for the protection of the delicate sex”—even if those women were trying to track down, say, their negligent husbands.
In some bars, however, women were allowed to enter—they just couldn’t walk through the front doors. So, like servants denied the manor’s front entrance, they used side doors, kept separate from the main action. In Wisconsin, historical Germanic taverns still boast these side entrances, which opened into small rooms that were known as ladies’ parlors. Some had privacy screens to prevent women and their children from being morally corrupted by the goings-on in the main taverns. Others set up women’s businesses in back, where women could shop for dresses while their hubbies drank. Women, of course, did drink in these backrooms, and some of them even smoked cigars, too. Men usually entered only if they were hawking wares or delivering booze to the ladies.
BRONTË’S BREW
1 ounce Absolut Elyx vodka
¾ ounce Pedro Ximénez sherry
1 ounce fresh lemon juice
¾ ounce Monin strawberry syrup
1 thyme sprig
Glass: copper cobbler
Garnish: mint sprig and berries, preferably strawberries
Fill a copper cobbler with ice. Fill a cocktail shaker with ice. Add all the ingredients and shake for 10 to 15 seconds. Strain the drink into the prepared copper cobbler. Garnish with a mint sprig and fresh berries.
Nellie Bly-Tai
Nellie Bly—or, rather, ELIZABETH COCHRAN (1864–1922)—was a spirited soul. She was a journalist in a time when there were hardly any women journalists, and even the other women who were reporters wrote only for the women’s pages. But not Nellie—in her first gig for the New York World, she went undercover to expose the ill treatment of women at an insane asylum. She also famously toured the world in less than eighty days. But her very first foray into newspapers was writing a fiery rebuttal to a sexist essay that described working women as “a monstrosity,” saying women were better suited to domestic duties in the home. Her passionate words earned her the job that launched her career, and we are all the better for it.
Nellie Bly has inspired women to study journalism and become writers. MAI TAIS have inspired women to enjoy cocktails. The two together make an unbeatable drink.
NELLIE BLY-TAI
1 ounce El Dorado white rum
1 ounce Myers’s dark rum
1 ounce fresh lime juice
½ ounce orange curaçao
¼ ounce orgeat (see recipe on page 213)
¼ ounce simple syrup (see recipe on page 201)
Glass: tiki or poco grande
Garnish: mint sprig
Fill a tiki or poco grande glass with ice. Fill a shaker with ice. Add all the ingredients. Shake for 30 to 60 seconds, then strain into the prepared glass. Garnish with a mint sprig.
note
For an extra burst of aroma, lightly rub the mint sprig between your hands before placing it in the drink.
Tubmantini
A hard-working woman willing to risk death for freedom. An Underground Railroad conductor who led countless slaves out of the South. A spy for the Union Army who became the first woman to ever lead an army raid—and she didn’t lose a single soldier.
HARRIET TUBMAN (1822–1913) was all of this and more. As she told a suffrage convention in 1896, “I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can’t say—I never ran my train off the track, and I never lost a passenger.”
Author Glennette Tilley Turner, who wrote the children’s book An Apple for Harriet Tubman, had the chance to talk with Harriet’s grandniece, who related a story about apples. When Harriet was a girl, she was not allowed to eat apples—she was even once whipped by an overseer for eating one. But once she was free and had purchased her own home, one of the first things she planted was an apple tree—and she shared her apples with everyone who came to visit.
So a recipe to honor Harriet has to include the apple. This refreshing vodka drink uses an “apple shrub”: a vinegar-sugar-fruit concoction that was once used to preserve fruit as well as to flavor drinks.
TUBMANTINI
2 ounces citrus vodka, like Sol
½ ounce honey liqueur, such as Krupnik (optional)
¾ ounce fresh apple cider
½ ounce apple shrub (recipe follows)
Glass: Martini
Garnish: apple slice
Chill a Martini glass. Fill a shaker with ice. Add all the ingredients to the shaker and shake for 30 to 60 seconds. Strain into the chilled Martini glass, then garnish with a fresh slice of apple.
note
If you prefer, you can leave out the honey liqueur. The Tubmantini without the honey liqueur has a slightly different yet still quite delicious taste.
APPLE SHRUB
Genre:
- On Sale
- Nov 15, 2016
- Page Count
- 160 pages
- Publisher
- Seal Press
- ISBN-13
- 9781580056298
Newsletter Signup
By clicking ‘Sign Up,’ I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Hachette Book Group’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Use