In the pink: Cava Kir Royal

May 30, 2012 by Beth Shepherd

I’ve been celebrating a lot lately: new parenthood, my daughter’s first birthday, my first Mother’s Day, the arrival of summer and sunshine, the start of my neighborhood farmers market…well, let’s just say there have been all sorts of excuses reasons for celebrating. And, in my book, celebrations call for a bit of bubbly.

I love champagne, prosecco and cava and usually prefer them straight up. But it just so happens that I have a bottle of cassis liqueur from Finger Lakes Distilling, a fantastic distillery in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York, not far from where I grew up. Big Papa and I visited there a couple years ago and brought home the cassis along with some truly amazing gin. The cassis has been sitting on the shelf, begging for attention.

Enter the Kir, Kir is a popular French cocktail made with crème de cassis (black current) liqueur, traditionally topped with white wine. In France, Kir is usually enjoyed as an aperitif before a meal.

Kir was coined in French cafes in the middle of the 19th century and was further popularized by Felix Kir after World War II. The then mayor of Dijon in Burgundy, France, he served the drink often to promote some of his region’s products (wine and cassis liqueur). The name Kir has been associated with the drink ever since.

Putting the “royal” into Kir is where the bubbly comes in. Kir Royal is typically made with champagne, but cava—a dry bubbly made in Spain–is just as delicious and more wallet-friendly.

Recipes vary, with the proportion of crème de cassis ranging from 1/10 to 1/3 of the cocktail. The more crème de cassis you add, the sweeter your drink. Some recipes (or bartenders) will use blackberry liqueur or peach. You could tweak this to include just about any sweet fruity liqueur that floats your boat.

Drinking Kir feels elegant, sophisticated and…well, celebratory. And that, dear readers, is a very good feeling.

Cava Kir

You’ll need:

Champagne flutes or red wine glasses (my preference because they let more air in)
Cava, champagne or a dry prosecco (I used Dibon Brut Reserve Cava…delicious)
Crème de cassis liqueur

How to:

Fill your glass 2/3 to the top with chilled cava. Measure a shot of crème de cassis liqueur. Pour slowly until your drink is a deep rose color (or a softer blush, if you prefer a tad less sweetness).

Raise your glass, offer a toast and quaff your Kir.

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Say cheese

June 1, 2011 by Beth Shepherd

One of my fondest food memories growing up in upstate New York is the cheese. And my favorite cheeses, even as a child, were those with a good kick. Place a sliver of sharp, aged cheddar on top of a slice of crisp Empire apple, and I’m transported to snack heaven. I like my cheese assertive, sharp enough to make my lips tingle.

Whenever I go back to visit, I try to bring home a bite from my past: cheese. During our recent trip to visit family, Big Papa and I took a side excursion to the Ithaca and the Finger Lakes. The Finger Lakes, like much of upstate New York, is home to a lot of cows, cows who provide delicious milk that’s ideal for making delicious cheese.

Bier Meck was the cheese we carried back across the country with us. It’s a gouda-styled farmstead cheese soaked in brine made from Ithaca Beer Company’s Gorges Smoked Porter Ale and then aged for at least 60 days. Bier Meck is one the cheeses made by Finger Lakes Farmstead Cheese. They make raw milk cheese from their family-owned Holstein cows in tiny Mecklenburg, New York. In fact the ‘Meck’ in Beir Meck refers to Mecklenburg, which is a located about twelve miles west of Ithaca.

All Finger Lakes Farmstead cheeses are made from raw milk that is free of growth hormones or antibiotics. Their cows are always in pasture, in season and during the winter they dine on winter forage grown on the farm. The cheeses are called “farmstead” because they are made from the milk of one farm only.

Just as Memorial Day weekend was getting started, our replacement bottle of Seneca Drums gin arrived. I mixed up a couple of gin and tonics for me and Big Papa before taking the cheese out of the fridge.

Maggie, our cat and cheese aficionada, was beside herself with ecstasy before I even got the package of cheese open. Her eyes opened wide, and her head bobbed and weaved as I sliced it up to put on crackers.

I can’t imagine a finer pairing. The creamy-in-the-mouth cheese had a touch of smoke and nut-like flavor which perfectly balanced the fresh juniper and herbal notes in the Seneca Drums gin. Let’s just say that the cheese didn’t last long.

And Miss Maggie? What a lucky kitten: a cat-sized piece of cheese was just the right accompaniment for a bite of catnip, snipped fresh off the plant on the back deck. She lay in the sunshine, purring. We sat on the bench next to her sipping and noshing, all three of us in an upstate New York state of mind, even though we were 3,000 miles away in Seattle.

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Jumpin’ Juniper: Seneca Drums Gin bails out mid-flight

May 18, 2011 by Beth Shepherd

I saw the look in Big Papa’s eyes first: disappointment, disbelief. Then I saw the box. One side was caved in like a t-boned car. Liquid seeped through the cardboard as Big Papa cradled the box from underneath. The box looked like the underarm of a sweaty t-shirt. Not a good look.

We were at Sea-Tac, Seattle’s airport, having just returned from our east coast trip. I was waiting for our luggage to come out the shoot at the baggage carousel, while Big Papa trundled off to the special baggage counter to pick up our special cargo: booze.

During our two day stay in Ithaca, we took a side trip to Cayuga and Seneca Lakes to do a bit of wine tasting. And, lucky us, we stumbled onto Finger Lakes Distilling while we were at it. In our box, were ten bottles of wine, one bottle of gin and a bottle of bourbon soaked pickles. From the looks of things, at least one of the twelve didn’t survive the journey.

In our six years as a couple we’ve gone on a number of wine tasting excursions, and have brought home a number of boxes, all intact. This was the first time we’d ever lost a passenger.

Returning home, Big Papa grabbed a kitchen knife, cut open the box. He opened the flaps and peered inside. The moment of truth: ten wine bottles safe and sound. Gin bottle smashed and pickle bottle in pieces.

All I can say is I pity the poor soul whose luggage flew 3,000 miles across country next to our box. By now they’re home, pondering why their polo shirts smell like a bar and their cashmere sweater smells like a deli.

“I was really looking forward to a gin and tonic,” said Big Papa somberly.

“Me too. Why did it have to be the gin? That amazing gin.” I pined.

Truth be told Big Papa and I aren’t big hard liquor drinkers. Weekdays he’s a beer man all the way. On weekends we drink wine. But every now and then, particularly on a sunny summer day, there’s really no substitute for a refreshing gin and tonic.

This gin was a really, really good gin. In the Pacific Northwest, you can’t throw a cell phone these days without hitting a small craft distillery and most of them have gin. Hand-crafted gin (and other spirits) are popping up in Portland like dandelions in spring: Aviation, 12 Bridges, Cricket Club. Heck, there’s even a distillery five blocks from our house. Oola is slated to open any day. And I’ll bet they have gin.

The gin in our box—well, the gin that was in our box was Seneca Drums Gin from Finger Lakes Distilling in Hector, N.Y. Hector is a tiny town with less than 5,000 people, and some really good gin. In fact Seneca Drums Gin won the ‘Best New York Spirit’ award in 2010.

Seneca Drums is a London-style dry gin, distilled from local Seneca Lake grapes and blended with 11 botanicals, all from the Finger Lakes region except for the juniper which (ironically) is from the Pacific Northwest. It’s a pretty zippy gin with a bit of a kick and lovely herbal notes of citrus, cucumber, clove and anise.

A shot of Seneca Drums gin, a pour of groovy new ‘Q’ tonic water, and a squeeze of fresh lime was exactly what Big Papa and I yearned for after a long, emotionally-laden week away and a six hour flight home. It was just the ticket. Except that it wasn’t.

We both stared into that box. Then, as Big Papa cleaned up the mess of broken glass, I sat down at my computer and wrote an email to Finger Lakes Distillery with the details of the sorry end to our bottle of their finest.

The next day I heard from Brian McKenzie, one of the two McKenzie men (not related) who founded Finger Lakes Distillery. A bottle of Seneca Drums was on its way. Oh happy day!

Thanks and a shout out to Brian. I’m counting the days until our gin arrives. And just in time, as the weather forecast for Seattle, is finally trending toward sunshine. G&T here we come!

I’ll stick with gin. Champagne is just ginger ale that knows somebody.
~M*A*S*H Hawkeye, “Ceasefire,” 1973

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