Waiter, There's a Walnut in My Drink!

I've just made my third batch of nocino, that motor oil-dark Italian liqueur made from unripe walnuts, green as spring grass, hard as rocks and, when split open, with the nutshell discernable but not yet hardened. Fortunately for Portlanders, there were lots of walnut trees planted for landscaping purposes from the city's founding and well into the 20th century. Which means that in late summer, there are lots of walnuts (un)ripe for the picking.

Unripe green walnuts.

Fortunately for me, I happen to have a neighbor who knows what to do with these beauties. Jim Dixon has been making nocino from the walnuts on the very large tree in his parking strip for a very long time. A few years ago he invited me over to gather nuts and learn to make nocino, a skill I was very anxious to develop. (Read that story and get Jim's recipe here.)

Infusing in alcohol on the patio until fall.

That first batch was spectacular, a rich, dark elixir that smelled and tasted of walnuts and that, six years later, is still some of the best I've ever had, though there's only a thimble-full left. I made another attempt two years ago, but it somehow never came together the same way. I found out why when I made this year's nocino.

After draining off the solids, it was time to add the sugar syrup and, reading the recipe carefully to make sure I got the balance right, I realized that I'd misread the recipe two years ago. D'oh! So I quickly got out that batch, which I hadn't had the heart to throw out, and added in the missing portion of syrup. È eccellente!

Ready to be strained.

Between the two batches I now have around three gallons of liqueur in my cellar, which brings me to the point of this post. I've run across several articles touting the excellent cocktails that can be made with the addition of a touch of nocino, and Dave and I have been diligently working our way through them.

If you've been wanting to try nocino, there are several commercial varieties out there, but I can honestly say that none have measured up to Jim's homemade version, which includes nothing but alcohol and walnuts, eschewing the exotic spices that many add. But please, feel free to experiment with the following cocktails and, if you're so inclined, find a neighbor with a tree and make your own nocino next year!

Nocino Old-Fashioned
Adapted from Imbibe magazine

2 oz. bourbon
3/4 oz. nocino
4 dashes orange bitters
Amarena cherries

Combine ingredients in a mixing glass half full of ice. Stir until chilled. Strain into tumbler with two fresh ice cubes. Garnish with two amarena cherries. Serve.

* * *

Nocino Manhattan

2 oz. Old Overholt rye whiskey
1 oz. nocino
3 dashes Angostura bitters
Amarena cherries

Chill cocktail glasses in freezer. Fill pint glass or small mixing pitcher half full of ice. Add whiskey, nocino and bitters. Stir 30 seconds. Take cocktail glasses out of freezer. Strain liquor into glass. Drop two cherries into each glass. Serve.

Whiskey With An "E"

Whiskey. Whether you spell it with an "e" or not (everyone vs. Scotland and Canada, respectively), it's one of my new favorite things. In the past I've enjoyed a wee dram of Scotch every now and then, but the other whiskeys like bourbon and rye were out of my ken.

Bourbon always reminded me of the cocktails my parents drank with their friends, when my dad would load up the bar with the fine distilled products from Monarch in Hood River (his cheap booze of choice). There was always tonic and orange juice to mix in, for the ladies who didn't really like the taste and those who needed to cut the heat.

I'd toddle into their midst in my jammies, say night-night to the happy crowd and wander to bed, thinking that all those adults I knew from church sure were happier outside of it. Occasionally I'd take a sip from a lipstick-crusted drink that had been abandoned on a side table, wondering why they'd drink something that, to my young palate, tasted like turpentine smelled.

Needless to say, by the time Dave started making cocktails I'd long overcome my aversion to alcohol, and when he became enamored of Manhattans I went along, too. (What a good wife I am!) He's made them with both bourbon and rye, with sweet vermouth and its higher-rent cousin, Carpano Antica.

So when I heard from some local bartenders that the Bulleit company was putting out a small batch rye (above left) to follow on the heels of its popular bourbon, I knew I had to get me some. With a distinct taste of the rye grain, this is great stuff for drinking all by itself. But it also mixes quite nicely in other company, much like the happy Episcopalians of my youth.

Manhattan

2 oz. rye whiskey
1 oz. Carpano Antica or other sweet vermouth
2-3 dashes Angostura bitters
Amarena cherries

Chill cocktail glasses in freezer. Fill pint glass or small mixing pitcher half full of ice. Add whiskey, vermouth and bitters. Stir 30 seconds. Take cocktail glasses out of freezer. Strain liquor into glass. Drop in cherry. Serve.

Taken For Granted

Long-term couples know this one well: You go someplace for dinner, or maybe you're on your way home after an evening with friends, and suddenly your partner in this walk through life says something that absolutely…cracks…you…up. You look over at him (in my case) through your tears and really see him for the first time in ages. That same smile. The same laugh lines (albeit maybe more of them) around the eyes. But he's just reminded you why you fell for him in the first place.

Because he makes you laugh like nobody else ever has who's not a professional comedian. (And who'd want to live with one of them? Yikes.)

It's like that with my brother. I take it for granted that he's a wonderful cook, a terrific bartender and knows his way around a grill. I'm finding out he's a really great dad, too, not that it's a surprise; after all, he gets a lot of coaching from his lovely bride.

It's the same with his wine business, which operated with stunning success in Sellwood for more than ten years. But now that he's moved Vino to it's new location smack dab in the middle of food heaven on SE 28th, it gave me a chance to see it with new eyes. And what did I spy with my little eye the last time I was in but a shop-within-a-shop he's calling Mercato di Vino.

Bruce has always carried a few good vermouths, some salt, maybe the occasional estate olive oil from one of his wine suppliers and the off-and-on can of what we call "crack olives," little anchovy-stuffed green olives from Spain that, and I have proof, are highly addictive. And go perfectly with the perfect gin martini.

The new location has given him room to expand his offerings and he's bringing in the best of the best: not only our vermouth of choice for Manhattans, Carpano di Antica, and the accompanying you'll-never-settle-for-maraschinos-again Toschi amarena cherries. But also his new favorite mixer, Bonal Gentiane-Quina, along with Cocchi Americano, Lillet and a terrific selection of bitters. Plus a dry goods section overflowing with imported polenta, tomatoes, Spanish tuna, arborio, salts and olive oil.

All this in my brother's wine shop…I gotta look around more often. Imagine what he's hiding on his wine shelves!

Details: Vino, 137 SE 28th Ave. 503-235-8545.

The Boulevardier

You gotta love a place like Bar Avignon, and people like owners Randy Goodman and Nancy Hunt, whose tag line is "Drinking is fun!" No equivocating, no apologies, just a simple statement of fact. Because we're all adults here and we know about drinking responsibly and behaving like civilized human beings.

And I am in complete accord with them concerning the agreeable, possibly even medicinal, properties of the consumption of moderate quantities of alcohol. One beverage in particular, the Manhattan, has been added to our house cocktail list. It's primary ingredient, bourbon, was on my "I gotta have more of that" list, with its caramel color and smell and smooth, honey-like feel going down. So when our neighbor made a batch one night, substituting an insidiously addictive amarena cherry for the usual maraschino, I was hooked.

Then Dave, in perusing "Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails"by Ted Haigh, ran across a recipe for the Boulevardier, which had itself first appeared in print in 1927's classic "Barflies and Cocktails"by Harry McElhone. Basically, as I see it, a Manhattan with Campari or, as Haigh says, a Negroni with bourbon, Haigh writes "it was the signature drink of Erskine Gwynne, expatriate writer, socialite, and nephew of railroad tycoon Alfred Vanderbuilt." It was from Gwynne, according to Haigh, that the cocktail likely got it's name, which translates roughly as "man about town."

The Boulevardier

From "Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails"by Ted Haigh

1 1/2 oz. bourbon
1 oz. Campari
1 oz. sweet vermouth (Haigh recommends trying Carpano Antica)

Stir long and well with ice in a mixing glass and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a cherry. (We highly recommend Italian amarena cherries, available at many specialty food stores.)

Lovely Libation, but Perfect?

The lights were low, the seats cozy. A black-and-white clad waiter came to the table and her question always threw me into an existential panic.

"Would you like a cocktail?"

My mind would go blank. I'd feel dizzy. Cocktail? Um…

Wine and beer, no problem. I could order with the best of them. But a cocktail? It was terra incognita. All the bottles in my parents' liquor cabinet would swirl around in my brain, out of focus. If I was lucky I'd remember gin and tonic. If the waiter was kind and saw my panic, she'd suggest a few choices. Or whomever I was with make a suggestion or, better yet, would order for me.

Even when I got a little more familiar with the territory, there were moments. Again, the waiter with the questions. "Martini, yes ma'am. Up? Dry? Shaken? Stirred? Olives?" Another panic, a smile frozen on my face. "Uhhh…"

But now, well, now it's another story. I quiz the waiter on the gins available, look disappointed if they don't have Plymouth or aren't familiar with the proper recipe for a Negroni. Oh, and could you ask the bartender not to pulverize the mint in the mojito, just bruise it gently? Thanks.

Though there are areas I'm not familiar with. Recently I've been expanding the repertoire to include Manhattans, which always remind me of the drinks my father made, the ones requiring not much beyond ice and maybe a spoon to stir them with.

Last night, Dave, who's always scouting for drinks to add to the list, suggested a sidecar. He'd read a piece by Eric Asimov in the Times extolling it as the perfect cocktail. Made with bourbon or brandy and lemon juice, it has the appearance of unfiltered apple cider when served in a martini glass but has that classic cocktail taste, at once bright and warming.

Asimov describes it as refreshing and "good any time of the year, but especially in the warmer weather." Until those temps get here, I'm thinking we may need to do a test of several recipes to determine our favorite. Here's Asimov's version to tide us all over.

More Perfect Bourbon Sidecar for Two

4 shots bourbon (he advises a sweeter style like Maker’s Mark)
2 shots Cointreau
Juice of 1 lemon (or Meyer lemon) to equal two shots

Fill a cocktail shaker with ice. Add ingredients and shake. (Asimov says he tries to count to 100 but will stop short if the shaker gets too cold.) Strain into two glasses and serve.