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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The organic kitchen has entered the bar & your mama's margarita morphs into a modern sensation, December 13, 2009
This review is from: Organic, Shaken and Stirred: Hip Highballs, Modern Martinis, and Other Totally Green Cocktails (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
Step One: Where to find the organic liquors: If you wanna go green and your liquor store does not want you to: As some reviews note that they aren't familiar with a few of the organic brands listed, it should be noted that all brand names and even suggestions of where to track 'em down are in the foreward for the book under the section: "Everything you need to know to build a green bar." But, as the author notes, these are suggestions. If you want to use what you have on hand and go organic part of the time, the recipes are solid enough in taste and preparation that you'll still enjoy the recipes until your order for, say, Vodka 14 arrives from its organic distillary...BUT, that said, ask your local liquor store first. We found our liquor store was happy to order us some organic Vodka as well as tequila, and that another one slightly further from us already stocked them both. So even if you are in an area with little access to organic liquors, with the internet or a friendly request, you may have the same luck as us trying out some great recipes. Where to find any other organic ingredients listed? Read the notes on every recipe and the author will tell you...such as with one recipe that suggests tamarind concentrate (for a very exotic drink) tells us to find it at an Indian food specialty store, an all-natural grocery store, or on the internet. But there are plenty of recipes with nothing exotic so don't let the unique ones scare you off--they just add interest to the book and help you create one-of-a-kind mixers you'd never see otherwise on days you feel like dabbling in a new taste.
Why It Matters: While taste, in my opinion, is greater with organic liquors, the cost follows suit. But anyone going organic knows that this is the norm. Reason being that without synthetic insecticides, and artificial ingredients to maintain freshness longer than is natural, farmers and manufacturers are going to lose more of their crop/ingredients used in distributing their organic product-- whether food or alcohol. Giving new meaning to the phrase "drinking responsibly", an organic cocktail drinker may choose to do so do avoid insecticides and harmful sprays shown to be detrimental to their bodies and the environment, to support sustainable farming and/or to encourage enviromentally repsponsible packaging. But, in the end, taste is what one remembers in the first sip so regardless of your motive...that is key. And in my opinion, the author pulls through...
Choose Your Mood: Feeling Fresh & Zesty? Lush & Fruity? Clean & Classic? Wanna Play in the Garden or Invite Friends Over for Punch in a Pitcher? There is a section for each. You choose and pick a recipe to suit your taste.
Fresh & Zesty was my favorite section. Formerly a lover of mimosas, I enjoyed the author's suggestion to utilize grapefruit juice instead so as not to smother the taste of the champagne--and to utilize the grapefruit juice's acidity and more refined sweetness in combination with tequila and elderflower liquor to create a phenomenal new brunch sensation.
"Coming in Hot" is a favorite new drink, but, as a Texan, its sweet and hot taste is particularly pleasing to my Tex/Mex palette. It combines strawberries, a small zip of jalapeno chilis, agave nectar, lemon juice and tequila to take your mama's margarita into a modern sensation.
The saffron margarita is a new taste sensation as well, combining tequila, contreau, lime juice, mango puree made from mango chunks, agave nectar, and saffron threads for an orange/red sweet and tart margarita.
Of course, organic suggestions of all of the above ingredients are noted.
Lest it be assumed all drinks are as exotic as the above, know that the book also has recipes for still unique, but not quite so exotic: prickly pear mojito, organic agave margarita, lavender lemon drop, Harvey Wallbanger version 2.0, all natural bellini, etc.
Few recipes are "old school" recipes with simply new organic ingredients. Most have a gourmet twist so that even if you decide to use non-organic ingredients to save money on occasion, you won't be scrimping on discovering new tastes within your mixology.
Kentucky Christmas is a great suggestion for cocktails prior to Christmas or Thanksgiving dinner for the adult household...or even a holiday party. You muddle organic cranberries then simply add cranberry juice and bourbon. We have also made this with frozen cranberries and it's crisp and fresh enough for summer parties on the porch and festive enough for winter celebrations--but could not be any easier to prepare.
The recipes aren't hard to do and are unique enough that they are actually fun to try...the taste combos are wonderfully paired in my opinion.
Look: As the other reviewers noted, this is just a gorgeous book with beautifully done full-color photos and color throughout the book, including divider pages and fonts. Even if you left this on a coffee table, it would serve well. Heck, the photos are so well done that you almost wanna tear em out and frame em! (this is coming from an artist. But I think anyone would notice this aspect of the book.) The beauty of the book helps make it a good gift for your organically inclined family member or neighbor, I think it would be safe to say...Well, so long as they drink.
Negatives: It's rare that anyone would have their bar well-stocked enough to simply open this book and begin creating scores of recipes. To truly go organic in every recipe, you will need to do some bar stocking. If you don't want to order anything off the internet then it's best, in order to create many recipes, that you have an all-natural grocery nearby such as Whole Foods or Central Market, in order to create some of the more exotic recipes that may call for organic ingredients such as organic lemon juice. But, with such shopping trips, you'll be able to take old school cocktails like "spiked lemonade" to new-age ones such as "spiked blueberry-thyme lemonade". And the tastes are unique and worth it to us--and living in Austin made the ingredients easy for us to locate. However, there were some recipes that were also seasonal due to the ingredients, so this should be kept in mind as well. Organic drinking is no different than eating...it takes extra effort but only the reader can decide if this is worth it or if they have the stores near them to allow them to access organic ingredients to make the book worth it. If not, however, they are still sure to find some unique new takes on classic faves.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I'm a Believer!: Alcoholic Mouth and Eye Candy From the Most Unlikely Source, December 10, 2009
This review is from: Organic, Shaken and Stirred: Hip Highballs, Modern Martinis, and Other Totally Green Cocktails (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
I'll be the first to admit that I shun almost all things considered environmentally friendly/organic, or "green," since most products from the green-industrial-complex, while allegedly saving the world, do not hold any enduring value when it comes to quality. Hybrid cars have as high a safety rating as carry-on luggage and organic foods usually induce a gag reflex typically reserved for Everclear Vodka and motor oil. In short, the pushers of so-called "green" products have hardly convinced me to give up any of my polar bear killing essentials that make Al Gore's stocks drop a point of two.
With this in mind when I saw "Organic, Shaken and Stirred" on my Amazon Vine Club list as one of the books I could choose I chuckled to myself thinking, "oh, THIS will be good," and selected the book. I was, at the very least, super skeptical at the notion that someone could try to concoct an organic cocktail that didn't require a post-drink stomach pump. To me, an organic alcoholic cocktail is an oxymoron since alcohol is actually bad for your health as opposed to the claims by Whole Foods that organic foods are better for you.
HOWEVER, once I received the book in the mail and began reading I was surprised at what I discovered.
First thing I noticed were the aesthetically pleasing pictures of the drinks themselves. The drinks actually looked pleasing such as, of all things, the elderflower fizz (p. 124-125). Seriously, who would ever thought a plant made famous by a French taunt in Monty Python's Holy Grail (or from the same sambucus plant) would make a decent cocktail?! Alas, I digress. The scrumptious looking photos were the first thing to hook me in the book, but what really ensnared me were the ingredients used (beyond elderflowers). The recipes called for ingredients that just spelled out delicious and mouth-watering. I can recall reading the ingredients aloud in the breakroom while on my lunch and I noticed how I had a crowd gathering around me anxiously awaiting to hear how the hell you can mix strawberries and jalapeno chiles in the same mixtures ("Coming in Hot!" p. 42-43).
We were all so enthralled by the pleasing pictures and the promising ingredients that a few of us went out, got a bunch of the ingredients, and prepared a bunch of the included cocktails last night. We attempted the Green Tea Mojito (p. 117-118) and the Watermelon Cooler (p. 150-151) and were VERY pleased with the results. We were shocked that something organic and alcohol actually turned out well. We've already decided that next Wednesday we're gonna try some other ones as well, we just have to vote on the choices first.
I still cannot believe that I'm saying this, but the organic drinks actually taste better than most bar/club cocktails I've had in the past whether it was here in frigid North Dakota or during my younger years clubbing in Seattle.
Now, the only issue I know that prospective readers are asking, "where on Terra's green earth (no pun intended) do I get the ingredients?" Author Paul Abercrombie was decent enough to give shout-outs to certain health food websites or chains, but for those of us that do not live on the West Coast or in a moderate-sized college town, certain local organic stores do not exist and most people do not feel the need to spend $15 per drink. I'll admit that we managed to secure some organic alcohol by our resident health nut (again, what a contradiction), but we couldn't locate several other ingredients or we were not willing to spend $10 for a bottle of non-concentrate strawberry juice. However, this isn't too much of a problem since you can make non-organic variations of the enclosed mixtures w/o sacrificing taste. Sure, it kinda defeats the purpose of having an organic drink, but the concoctions are unique and delicious enough to justify owning the book regardless.
And even if you do not go organic, the recipes are general enough that you can use them as a base formula to make your own unique cocktails. Looking at the Purple Basil Gimlet (p. 107), a gin drink, we came up with our own mixture involving Minute Maid lemon soda and agave nectar that turned out amazing. You can easily expand upon the enclosed recipes if you use your culinary imagination a little.
Now, one of the finer points of Abercrombie's book is that he enclosed a glossary of terms and a shopping list of mixing supplies such as a muddle cup. This is helpful as other cocktail books do not tell you what the terms mean, necessitating you do the academically unthinkable and go research the term on wikipedia. Kudos to Abercrombie for including that.
So, in all, Abercrmbie's book is well beyond what I expected it to be. It actually motivated me to go out and spend money on agave nectar and even make a trip to the local grocery store to get some organic components such as mint leaves and fruit juice. This book has turned me into a believer although I'm still trying to convince others that the mixtures are real. Even the people at the local organic mart didn't believe me. Heh, at the aforementioned grocery store I was buying lemon and lime juice, more mint leaves, tonic, sparkling water, and grapes (they were on sale), when the cashier looked at what I was buying, gave me a weird looked and asked if I was a biochemist.
Overall, a solid 95%. -5% for some ingredients being next to impossible to find without spending a lot of money on.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very Helpful to Those Making Drinks and Who Want Organic, December 2, 2009
This review is from: Organic, Shaken and Stirred: Hip Highballs, Modern Martinis, and Other Totally Green Cocktails (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
In the beginning chapter of the book, we are given the names and locations of companies who make organic vodka,gin,rum,tequila, bourbon,etc. Some of these companies only sell in limited places, but you can find them online. Many of these companies are in the United States, in places like California, Vermont, Wyoming. I like buying USA made and found this to be very helpful.
In keeping with the organic theme, one very interesting chapter is called From the Garden. There are many fruits including citrus and also pineapple,and kiwi to name a few. Not every fruit can be grown in your garden, of course.
The photos of the drinks are beautiful and glossy and refreshing just to look at.
The book gives suggestions on bartending instruments like muddlers and glasses to serve in as well as ice.
Spices added to some of the drink mixes include basil, whole vanilla bean, garlic, cilantro, ginger, sage and thyme.
There are many interesting hints and suggestions, such as using aloe vera (which is usually a topical remedy) as a sweetener instead of sugar or honey or bottled sauces. Aloe vera, he points out, helps blood pressure, circulation and immunity when drank.
I found this book very interesting and appealing and am very pleased with it.
If making mixed drink is your thing and you are an organic person, you should really read this book.
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