Smily Happy Faces at our May Meeting!

All our LUPEC Ladies turned out in
grand Kentucky Derby style for our May meeting featuring All things Southern...

Featured drinks included the Mint Julep (of course) and a most yummy Scarlett O'Hara - a lime-tart pink concoction much like a bourbon margarita!

Ah... May's Mint Julep

I just returned from Atlanta... doing a little research on all things Southern for our May meeting (well, actually at a Junior League conference...but same thing, philosophically speaking). It was a bit more Georgia "gin & tonic-by-the-hotel-pool" rather than the leisurely Kentucky "juleps-on-the-porch" experience... though I was thrilled to share some fried green tomatoes and pecan little nibblies. Still missing a little the summer-sweet memory of a julep though! But that is what our May LUPEC meeting is for!

Might be just a little story, but tale goes that the Julep came about as a morning refresher in the agricultural regions of the South... guess a little bit of mint tea and some bourbon in the morning makes you right ready for farming at 4am. This cocktail truly gained in popularity after Churchill Downs named it the official cocktail in 1938, serving the icy beverage in the traditional silver cups for 75 cents a glass. It has been the traditional libation of the Kentucky Derby ever since.

When you make this drink at home, it must must must be served in a traditional silver derby cup! Metal just makes it all the more frosty! If your silver collection is still in grandma's hands, you might get away with using those small crayola-colored metal cups we all remember from the 50s, 60s and 70s... but not in front of company. Some beautiful (and affordable) cups at the Silver Gallery: http://tinyurl.com/cs6t7t

Some folks think the traditional julep is a bit sweet and long for citrus to cut the sugar. Being a lover of all things lemon & lime, I can accept this untraditional twist (shhhhhh). Here is a wonderful (eek!) Martha Stewart recipe found at http://www.yumsugar.com/3098805 :

THE LEMON MINT JULEP

Ingredients

17 lemons
3 1/2 cups sugar
32 sprigs mint
Crushed ice
3 cups Kentucky bourbon

Directions

1. Squeeze 16 of the lemons, reserving the rinds and juice.
2. In a large saucepan, combine 3 cups of the sugar and 3 cups water, stirring until dissolved. Add the lemon rinds*, and cook over medium heat until the liquid becomes syrupy, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat, and let stand until room temperature.
3. Remove, and discard lemon rinds. Stir in the lemon juice, about 4 cups.
4. Spread remaining 1/2 cup sugar on a small plate. Cut the remaining lemon into quarters.
5. Rub the wedges along the rims of 16 mint-julep cups or tall glasses, and invert the glasses in the sugar to create a sugared rim.
6. Crush a few mint leaves into the bottom of each glass with a muddler or the back of a wooden spoon.
7. Fill each glass with ice, and pour 1/2 cup of lemon syrup in each glass. Top off with about 1 1/2 ounces of bourbon per glass. Garnish each glass with a fresh sprig of mint.

Makes 16.

EXTRA GOODIES

Going to be on a Kentucky road trip? Follow the bourbon trail for a little history and taste testing: http://www.cocktailtimes.com/distillery/kytrail/

For armchair travelers, here's a great little book on all things Mint Julep: "The Kentucky Mint Julep" by Colonel Joe Nickell available at http://www.horse-races.net/library/review-040803.htm

May 6 - Our Monthly Cocktail Confab !!!!

The May meeting of LUPEC (Ladies United for the Preservation of Historic Cocktails) is upon us!

This month, we will sip one over for all things Southern, in celebration of the Kentucky Derby. Come slur that drawl and sample a Mint Julep or Rhett Butler. Who says Bourbon is only for gentlemen? IF things get rowdy, one of our Founders will calm things down with a recitation from "Princess Margaret will Never be a Kappa Kappa Gamma: A Southern Belle Primer."

BIG HATS encouraged!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Join us anytime between 7:30 and 9:30pm at Brix Bistro and Wine Bar right off the rotary (um...square... or, rather, nightmarish construction zone) in downtown Pittsfield.

All the Better to Hostess With

Not much of a secret if you were to look into my drawers but...I just love a good little unnecessary kitchen gadget! I have a cabinet dedicated to those tiny print instruction guides that tell how you at which exact angle to hold the one-handed apple peeler and how to shave lime rinds into three dimensional portraits. Now that I think about it, most of my non-essentials involve some type of fruit in some new position.

And, thus...of course, we come back to cocktails because no where are there more cute little doo-hickies than in the mixology world.

The relatively warm days remind me that there really can be good fruit cocktails - which always require some sort of charming cutting, shaving or peeling device. Oh, no... ewww...forgive me. Let me clarify "Fruit Cocktail." Not the canned type with the peely tops - rather, shall I say, cocktails with fruit ingredients. Now, understand... the elegant Ladies & classy Broads of LUPEC do NOT endorse, or really even understand, those sickeningly sweet, bottled-cough-syrup-and-metallic-pineapple-juice, "I am stuck on an Island back in the 80s" offerings. We do, however, welcome a refreshingly classic cocktail with a real piece of Nature's Bounty (i.e. you can see the peel, it does not contain FD&C Red No. 3 or the word "Lite" and it did not come in a can).

We will be celebrating some of these spring and summer delights at our upcoming meetings and on this blog. In the meantime, here are some great tools to stock up on before the High Season.

FIRST AND FOREMOST

Check out this fabulous video demonstration of which cocktail tools you need to stock a bar! Cocktailer, Robert Hess, demonstrates by making a limey Caipirinha: www.videoclix.tv/watch?v=maapmsky4081

Here's one with Robert on "garnishes": http://www.videoclix.tv/watch?v=09oll3nm604

COMPLETELY NECESSARY

A beautiful and effective muddler is so necessary for that yummy minted-fruit concoction. For only a few dollars, you can by-pass the cracking unfinished piece and pick up a polished, hardwood alcohol-proof muddler. This site has some elegantly carved pieces: www.mistermojito.com/muddler-hammer.php

Don't scrap your knuckles trying to cull the finest of zest from your citrus. Buy a high-quality Microplace zester instead: http://tinyurl.com/c842ha


TOTALLY FRIVOLOUS

Sip your vodka straight from the lemon itself or enjoy your brandy wrapped in a pear with the "Shot Carver": www.coolstuffexpress.com/ShotCarver.html

In case you are by the pool without electric power and you just want to froth up your cocktail a bit, carry this solar-powered Frother: www.blisstree.com/articles/solait-100-solar-milk-frother-71

Little Bit on This Month's Cocktails - The Morning Glory & White Lady

We will have two springtime featured cocktails at out April 15 meeting: the White Lady & the Morning Glory Daisy. Check out this link from cocktail blog "The Cocktail Chronicles" for a bit of history on the MGD (no - not Miller Genuine Draft - that would be the Old Boy's Club up the street): http://www.cocktailchronicles.com/2007/09/17/mxmo-xix-mornin-glory

And here's bit on the White Lady, perfected in Harry's Bar in Paris in 1928: Cocktails that Shook the World at http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20050219/ai_n9769314

More to come...

Next Meeting - Wednesday, April 15 "White Lady & the Morning Glory Daisy"

Join us for our first ever meeting of the ladies of LUPEC of the Berkshires!

Wednesday, April 15, 2009 @ 7:30pm
Brix Wine Bar
40 West Street, Pittsfield MA

We will "Celebrate a Century of Spring" with two fresh and intoxicating cocktails pulled straight from that dusty ol' Classic Cocktails handbook: the White Lady and the Morning Glory Daisy.

The generous folks at Brix will be making these specially for us LUPEC ladies!! (Remember - Brix is not THAT generous! Bring cash or credit cards.) Special LUPEC-only themed appetizers available too!

We will tipple as they did at the turn of the century, with daisies in our hair, in our spring whites or in other ladylike attire (however ironic). Dressing with the theme is most appreciated and non-compliance may require you purchase the creator of this FB group (me) a drink.

Since this is our first meeting, we will also take a moment to fill everyone in on all the secret rites, grandiose plans and general nonsense of LUPEC of the Berkshires.

Hooray! The Berkshires have our very own LUPEC!

Welcome - dearest Femcompatriots of the endangered cocktail!

We announce (in the most happygolightly sort of way) the formation of LUPEC (Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails) of the Berkshires. LUPEC is a national grassroots organization dedicated to preserving our feminist cultural heritage of a good cocktail paired with a most subversive conversation.

Catch us for retro themed cocktails each month at Brix Wine Bar... a fabulous little bistro at 40 West St in Pittsfield.