Cocktail: Ogden Donkey

My friend Aimee proposed one evening that we make something called a "Moscow Mule" which is a gingery vodka drink. We made some, and they were pretty good, but we agreed that they were a little sweet and needed more bite.

I set to work. To make the Moscow Mule I had to make ginger syrup which you make by boiling 2 cups of water, one cup of sugar, and about a half cup sliced fresh ginger root. Cook until the liquid reduces by half.

When I decided to increase the bite, I added a few lemon slices to the above.

I strained out the chunks and set aside the ginger-lemon syrup. I put the ginger slices and lemon chunks into a one pint mason jar and filled it with vodka, letting it sit until the next evening.

To make the Ogden Donkey (Aimee's coinage) mix like this:

2 oz gingery lemony vodka from the jar
1/2 oz (1 tbsp) ginger-lemon syrup
2 oz sparkling water
Lemon twist
Serve over one giant ice cube

You can re-infuse more vodka with the chunks in the jar at least 5 times; likewise, I suppose you could do one larger batch all at once. However, since the lemon and ginger slices were also soaked in sugar from the syrup- making, you may want to add additional sugar if you infuse a couple quarts of vodka at once. When I re-infused in the one pint jar, I added about 1/4 cup of sugar to ech batch after the first batch. After you add the sugar, shake it really well. Shake again before use.

You can also add the ginger slices to the cocktails as garnish. The hardiest among you may eat the slices after draining the cocktail.

Are we compensating for something?

Uinta brews mighty beer.

Here's a brief primer on Utah beer. There are a bunch of laws about alcohol in public places: you can't have two glasses of beer in front of you at once...you can't order a pitcher for friends unless your friends are already there...there is something called a club for which you have to have a membership...there is something called a tavern where you can go to get drunk...you can get beer at the bar of a place that serves food but if you want wine you have to sit at a table and actually get food...and so on and so forth...

The rules governing the sale and use of alcohol and the reasons it is done this way in Utah are here: http://abc.utah.gov/index.html

The biggie is the strength of the beer, which, when for sale in the grocery store is limited to 3.2% alcohol by weight (and nobody measures alcohol that way). In the rest of the civilized world, alcohol is measured by volume. 3.2% by weight = 4% by volume. Most competent Utah microbrews seem to be pegged at 4% ABV. Here's a list of some known beers and their ABV.

If you want to get some beer with more legs than you can get at the grocery store, you can go to a state liquor store and get all kinds of great booze at more or less recognizable prices. There are two in the vicinity of Ogden - and I think all the state stores carry about the same inventory. Here's a map to the stores: http://abc.utah.gov/stores/index.html.

What blew me away was that it seems like the local brewers go into overdrive trying to make up for the lower ABV beer in the grocery by upping the octane in their other offerings. Most of the microbews I found have varieties in the grocery store, but they were all well-represented in the liquor store, too. Bottle after bottle I picked up in the liquor store had ABV of 6.9%, 7.3%, 8%, and the Uinta Anniversary Barley Wine Ale (which is a really fragrant hoppy ale) tops out at a whopping 10.4%. I had one last night and it took a little while to recover. I didn't have a second in the same sitting. I downshifted to the tasty and alcoholically pedestrian Wasatch Evolution Ale - a 4% ABV beer that I got in a local grocery store (it's in almost all of them).

There's a lot to be said for the rationale of the Utah State liquor control - which is not alone; 18 states control the sale of alcohol at the wholesale or retail level. My home state of Montana had state liquor stores, too (of course, in Montana, you could buy a bottle of booze from a bar at 1:45AM to take home and finish the job - a notion that always amazed my out-of-state friends; Montana offers wine in grocery stores - which I consider a sine qua non of a civilized world). I really enjoyed my sturdy barley wine ale, but I also like having a really tasty microbrew or two after work at home without ringing the bell too hard - giving the 4% beer a good place in the arsenal (other 4% -ish options are run-of-the-mill commercial brews).

And for anyone still not convinced: I once lived in an actual dry county in Arkansas. Utah beats that by a wide margin. 4% is a lot higher than 0%. And just for the record, you have to buy a case of beer at a time in Pennsylvania, you can't buy beer on election day in Pittsburgh, New York State doesn't sell wine in grocery stores. It weird everywhere - except in Louisiana, where they will sell you a daiquiri at a drive-up window (but they won't put the straw in it...)

Tea for Two

We successfully hooked up with some looseleaf tea at the Fermentation Station. Rather than the usual bulk jars, they get their tea from a woman who used to run a tea shop around the corner until very recently, when it closed. The tea lady pre-packages the bulk loose leaf into smaller portions that sell for $6-$8. It comes in small plastic jars. The price is fair and the selection is good. There are little sample jars on top of the display for smelling.

The interior of the Fermentation Station in Ogden, Utah

The Fermentation Station itself is a gem. It's very well stocked with all manner of brewing equipment, supplies, and information. They have malt, whole grain, hops, yeast - including strains for cider and saki. They offer classes on various kinds of fermenting as well as cheese-making classes. The Fermentation Station is on the revitalized historic 25th Street in Ogden.