The Spirits #27: The Short Rib

~ Jalapeños ~ Death & Co ~ Mm Food ~ A Sad Indictment of Our Species ~ Four-Day Weeks ~

~ THE SHORT RIB ~

60ml jalapeño-infused tequila (see below)
20ml lime juice
20ml agave syrup (sugar or honey syrup)
5ml pomegranate molasses

Put it in the shaker, all of it. Add lots of ice. Shake it up. Until you can’t feel your fingertips. Now strain the liquid through a fine mesh into a cold, cold cocktail glass as in the picture. The original recipe says “no garnish” but I say a chilli looks nice.

Some Short Rib pointers:

1) Jalapeño-infused tequila can be made fairly quickly! Slice up a fresh green jalapeño and leave it to rest - seeds, stalk and all - in ooh, 250ml tequila blanco. According to the recipe that I followed, it should only take about 20 minutes for the heat and flavour to infect the tequila. However, in practise, I actually found that a couple of hours were required. Chillies can vary a LOT. HOWEVER:

2) If you can’t be bothered with an infusion, I reckon you could just muddle a few slices of fresh jalapeño with some tequila, and then shake the cocktail as above.

3) True fact: the spiciest part of a chilli is the bit nearest the stalk. The other end is usually fairly tame. The jalapeño has a particular savoury bite but other green chillies would do just fine, I guess. If you are particularly averse to heat, maybe try a green pepper infusion? Or just omit.

4) I should really learn the keyboard shortcut for “ñ”.

…Do I ever need a drink. Jesus! And some MUSIC… hoo-eee. And no I don’t mind if you eat the whole plate.

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You will find instructions for making sugar syrup, grenadine, ice, etc here and my 10 RULES FOR MAKING COCKTAILS here. I have also assembled some bottle recommendations for a cabinet here - and this here is the full archive of weekly specials. Please share with anyone you think might like - and feel free to tag me with your creations on Instagram or Twitter!

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THE Short Rib was invented by the American bartender Phil Ward of the celebrated New York cocktail bar Death & Co in the East Village. I’ve been there! Once. On our last proper trip to New York, way back in the Before-Time of 2014, Johanna and I left our then nine-month-old baby with a babysitter we had literally just met and spent an evening sat up there at the bar trying to forget that we’d just done that. Which was easy to do, as it turned out. Death & Co is a place that you walk in and have an immediate feeling of so this is how it should be done. It’s not huge but it feels like it’s on a different scale, one of those well-oiled machines where everyone sets about their business with a New York directness that feels so thrilling to a roundabout Londoner. Arrogant in a good way. A place that demands you too raise your game, be equal to the scene. If you’re not in the right frame of mind that can leave you feeling pretty lousy. But that night, we left feeling a million dollars. A million dollars plus tax, plus tip.

But Death & Co has lingered that bit longer than other bars in other towns as I happened to get a copy of their extremely comprehensive book - and it’s probably the drinks book I’ve turned to most often since, a definitive document of the late-00s-cocktail revival. I nearly said “modern cocktail revival”, but it increasingly feels like it belongs to a particular era. Death & Co was opened by Ravi DeRossi and David Kaplan in 2007, an era of gentrification wars and ironic moustaches and maybe non-ironic moustaches too; an era when people wrote essays like “What Was the Hipster?” as opposed to Here’s Why You’re a Problem; an era when it was a novel thing for bar owners to just let bartenders to come up with their own drinks. Death & Co’s bartenders - notably Joaquín Simó, Jessica Gonzalez and Phil Ward - duly came up with dozens that are considered modern classics (the Naked & Famous, the Conference, the Flor de Jerez…). Plus hundreds more which are just nice things to drink.

It does occasionally read like a parody: ingredients like ‘tarragon and agave nectar gastrique’ and ‘bonal gentiane-quina’. And unlike other classic cocktail books of the modern era (for example the seminal The Spirits by Richard Godwin) it specifies which particular brand of spirit you should use in each cocktail. So: the Death & Co Aviation is made with Plymouth gin, whereas the house Negroni is made with Tanqueray. It is, of course, exceedingly rare that I can follow a recipe to the letter. The high-seriousness of the endeavour is kind of funny. However, it is full of interesting ideas - bourbon and figs, French vermouth and watermelon, pineapple and sage… - and if I want to know how to make a gastrique… or what a gastrique is… well, it’s usually where I’ll turn.

And the Short Rib is one of the real keepers: a relatively simple recipe inspired by a rib dish that used to come out of the D&C kitchen, garnished with jalapeños and pomegranate molasses. It makes use of the most common of all Death & Co infusion: chilli-infused tequila Sorry: jalapeño-infused Siembra Azul blanco tequila. But seriously, just use whatever you’ve got. And then make yourself a Spicy Paloma or a Spicy Tommy’s and make 2008-era artisanal bar chatter about the affinity between capsicum and agave.

The use of pomegranate molasses is no less inspired. Not to be confused with grenadine (which is pomegranate syrup), pomegranate molasses is a sticky, tangy, reduction of pomegranates, sugar and a dash of lemon. It’s a staple of Middle Eastern cooking, and it gives a signature tang to Persian stews, Turkish salads, marinades, dressings, dips you name it. A kitchen staple for me and an ingredient that will lend a whole new dimension to your cocktails.

Funnily enough, I found that the original recipe, for all its exactitude, needed a bit of tweaking. My take subs in agave syrup for basic sugar syrup and dials down the overall sweetness while dialling up the pomegranate. I happened to have a kaffir lime leaf from some Thai food I was cooking and this made a nice addition. So too did a pinch of salt. You will find this to be an extremely addictive cocktail. I can’t stop making it.

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PLAYLIST

Food, glorious food! Here are some lip-smacking tunes to chew on while you sip. The Nino Ferrer song is a particular favourite chez nous.

Des cornichons
De la moutarde
Du pain, du beurre
Des p'tits oignons
Des confitures
Et des œufs durs
Des cornichons

Please note: if you follow this playlist it will automatically refresh each week - so make the most of it while you can! You can find a masterlist of all songs featured so far here.

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YES WE CAN’T!!!

How’s your week been? Mine has involved a broken bedroom window, a broken gearbox and a broken boiler - and this has been far from the worst of it 🤪. But there was one fun thing: the Guardian enlisted me to their team of “critics” (ha ha!) alongside the excellent Felicity Cloake, Rhik Samaddar and Fiona Beckett to “test” no fewer than 100 cans of alcohol. What a way to make a living.

Only, I’m afraid I didn’t like my consignment very much. Hardly any of them. The phrase “A sad indictment of our species” might have made it into my copy. I actually used a spitoon in a rare act of Health and Safety.

Why were they so, so bad? Well, most of them fell down in three ways, all of which are easily avoided for the home cocktail maker. The first was, they simply weren’t boozy enough (the worst ones hovered around the 4% ABV mark). The second, is that they were mostly far too sweet (often with the dry chemical taste of artificial sweetner). And the third: the majority of them were trying to be Sour-type cocktails and citrus doesn’t retain its freshness, meaning a citric acid / pectin flavour was dominant, even in some of the fancy ones. The only ones that were any good were the ones that didn’t rely on that freshness - a Negroni and a Bloody Mary were decent - or else those that leaned into their trashiness (the M&S Pina Colada; the Kahlua Espresso Martini). It is a mystery to me why no one has canned the cocktail that would work best in this format: the Americano. I would drink the hell out of that. But please, children. If you are meeting friends outdoors, please bring your own cocktails. Keep the ice in a Thermos and pre-slice your lemons and limes. For heavens sake.

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WHAT I’VE BEEN READING

Actually I wrote this one. The case for the Four-Day Week. Although right now a One-Day-Week feels more like it. (Men’s Health)

How fit can you get from just walking? As a walking-doer and gym-shunner I enjoyed this long-form vindication of my lifestyle. (GQ)

Patti Smith started a Substack! (Patti Smith)

Bristol is not a melting pot. A challenging but rewarding (and extreeeemely Bristol) discussion of the city’s well-meaning but still dividied food scene. (Vittles)

And some listening: the filmmaker Adam Curtis on my favourite political podcast (Talking Politics)

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SHOPPING LIST

Enough with the infusions already! Gin, fresh basil, lemon, sugar, egg white.

🍸 🌿 🍋 🥚