IMBIBE
Versatile vodka can charm with many mixers

By Sean Nakamura

A clean spirit, vodka assumes the role of complementing the bold flavors of the mixers with which it's paired. Even more fun is that just about every vodka cocktail can be referred to by some fanciful name. It would probably be possible to write a book on vodka drinks alone, but let's just take a look at some of the basics.

Many of these drinks were originally paired with gin, but are now more often thought of as vodka cocktails. The vodka rickey is probably the most basic: vodka and club soda topped with a lime wedge. Adding more lime juice and sugar to create a long drink takes you to the vodka collins. Both of these cocktails are bar classics and a must in any bartender's repertoire. The vodka press, short for Presbyterian — vodka, club soda and ginger ale — is another variation of a standard that gets quite a bit of play in the bar.

The moscow mule, combining vodka and ginger beer (or, in a pinch, ginger ale), is another bar standard, inexplicably fashionable with the Japanese tourists. While many of the other sodas can deliciously be paired with vodka, most of these combinations don't have the popular catchy names, and are generally ordered by calling the name of the liquor and mixer, like the vodka and tonic, for example.

The juice drinks are where a lot of the fun starts. Most common, of course, is the screwdriver, a standard blend of vodka and orange juice the name of which comes from the tool its originator allegedly used to stir the cocktail. The bulldog and the greyhound are different names for the same drink, combining vodka and grapefruit juice. A rather interesting but tasty twist is the salty dog, which rims the same drink with salt, creating a complementary meeting of salt and acid.

If you can believe it, there are still some bars that don't carry cranberry juice. Patrons of those saloons caught in a time warp are missing out on the many great vodka cocktails that can be created with this tart-sweet juice. The cape cod, a mouth-watering blend of vodka and cranberry juice, has spawned a whole family of drinks using those two ingredients as its base. The madras, sounding as if it may have been born out of some Indian food fantasy, is a yummy blend of orange and cranberry juices with vodka. A close kin, the sea breeze, replaces the orange juice with grapefruit juice; it is a wonderfully tart concoction perfect for the more sophisticated palate. A tropical twist to this drink gives rise to the bay breeze — pineapple and cranberry juices with vodka.

Speaking of tropical fare, in the islands we have created two simple vodka drinks that may be worth mentioning. The machete is a rather fierce name for a blend of vodka and pineapple juice. Another, though more obscure local creation, is the poi pounder, made from guava juice and vodka.

In the morning, tomato juice drinks are the perfect pick-me-up for the dreaded "morning after" blues, with the bloody mary setting the standard. This drink dates back the 1920s and its name is a reference to the legendary actress Mary Pickford; it is a spiced-up mixture of vodka and tomato juice. Any of a number of ingredients are used to make a fresh bloody mary mixture: Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco sauce, black pepper and sometimes garlic, horseradish or celery salt. One popular variation on the bloody mary is the bloody caesar, which creates an extra dimension to the cocktail with the addition of clam juice. Another member of the bloody mary family is the bloody bull, which adds beef bouillon to the original to create a richer and more heavy textured cocktail.

Liqueurs — sweet and intensely flavored spirits — offer another opportunity for vodka to spread its charm. The black russian is one such cocktail, bringing together vodka and Kahlua (a Mexican coffee-flavored liqueur). A few splashes of milk or cream added to the black russian transforms it into a white russian. Another popular liqueur, Amaretto (an Italian almond flavored liqueur), is combined with vodka to create the godmother, an after-dinner cocktail often drunk as a closer, capping an evening of dining.

Martinis have, for a number of years now, been the rage — possibly because of the chic lines of the classic martini glass. Though the original is always made with gin, it is the vodka martini that has truly been reborn. Simplicity at its finest, the vodka martini is vodka with a dash of dry vermouth, shaken or stirred, then strained. While the traditionalists would cringe at the thought, a lot of the hype created around martinis can be traced to the pseudo-martinis: vodka cocktails served in the classic V-shaped saucer stems, but flavored with liqueurs and mixers.

Easier to drink than the classic martini, which is definitely an acquired taste, it is these faux martinis that are getting more and more calls in the bar. Drinks like the kamikaze (vodka, triple sec and Rose's lime juice) and cosmopolitan (vodka, triple sec and cranberry juice) are once again hip.

Others, such as the lemon drop, a short, sweet vodka lemonade in a sugar-rimmed glass, and the razztini, using the identical ingredients with the addition of Chambord (French raspberry-flavored liqueur), are more recent cocktail choices.

Newer still are the martinis made with contemporary products such as sour apple and sour cherry schnapps. The appletini and cherrytini are extremely popular with the younger crowd.

Finally, a bar tip for those lemon drops or other citrus-flavored cocktails: A great way to get really fresh lemon (or any citrus fruit) flavor in a shaken cocktail is to include a slice of fruit in the mixing cup while shaking. It will bruise the peel of the lemon and release oil into the drink resulting in a intense citrus aroma in the finished drink.

Sean Nakamura can be found behind the bar at Alan Wong's Restaurant.