Urban Bar: Scotch Mist

As I write this, the northeast is gripped by a spectacular snow storm. Friends’ reports from the snow front include photo safaris of New York City in the snow, from streets and trestles to brownstones and parks. Children and pets who are big enough for it romp in drifts that reach fences and windowsills. Playing in the snow is fun as long as conditions are safe and the snow is pretty, but all too soon that fluffy white blanket will become sooty and runny. Breakup is always sad and a bit treacherous, but that makes the fun, cozy moments of snow days all the more precious.

Coming in from the cold is the very definition of the importance of home. We shuck off wet things on back porch, mud room and vestibule and stamp inside. Even as the exertions of the cold left us energized, we welcome the caress of warmth. Cups of hot chocolate and coffee are circulated, with perhaps a toddy for snow adventurers of tippling age. The indoors activities of snow days are cozy and productive: cooking a big pot of stew to serve with the morning’s freshly baked bread, capturing memories with glue and paper in scrapbooks, mending favorite clothes or making new ones, even taking down the tree. Some of us curl up with a good book or a stack of favorite films, and many of us sit at the window, watching the snow.

From the safe distance of sunny southern California, I recall numerous snow storms during my quarter century in New York City. I took a few of those photo safaris myself, trekking both to the local park, bustling with sledders and their chaperones, and to the streets of the Village, etched in ghostly iron against the white backdrop of snow. Local taverns that could get the doors open found themselves crowded as the day waned, as winter cheer flowed from tap and shaker. I wrote many columns taking in the city’s winter landscape through my writer’s window in Astoria. As the snow falls a continent away, I find that I am misty-eyed for those days and grateful for my new life in equal measure.

Memories come to us through the mists, and what time more than the new year are we prone to them? Winter arrives amidst a cacophony of holidays: Yule, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, Christmas, New Year’s Eve. Some of us even have birthdays in the depths of winter, just to remind us, amid festivities, of the lessons of having survived another year and the responsibilities of being granted a new one. Reflection is as important to the act of planning as is drafting an action plan or acting upon it. Absent reflection, thoughts and plans ping around our minds unshaped, where, often as not, their tendrils reach out to entangle formed thoughts and plans. The act of sitting quietly to think is as important and active a skill and building and playing are, and it is not by accident that all three can be symbolized by a heavy snowfall.

This brings us, amusingly but appropriately enough, to the first Urban Bar of 2014: the Scotch Mist. It may seem odd to equate reason, planning and contemplation with strong drink, but in point of fact, Scotch is one of those libations that, like wine, quiets the mind. Perhaps it’s got something to do with maturity – any January baby will tell you, that is one of our key traits – for Scotch is best with age. Any Scotch drinker will tell you that their preferred pour is the most contemplative of drinks. Perhaps this is because good Scotch appeals to so many senses with the liquid gold of its hue, the peat and smoke of its aroma, the purity of its flavor. Good Scotch wraps itself around our senses and, through smoke and sensation, clarifies our thoughts.

The unique characteristics of Scotch are the reason relatively few cocktails are built with Scotch. These include the Rob Roy, the Smoky Martini and the Blood and Sand. Scotch often performs best alone or with water, soda or ice, and that is where the Scotch Mist comes in, as a drizzle of good scotch -- the older and smokier the better -- settles onto a snowdrift of crushed ice. 

Further to poetic fancies, the Scotch Mist may be a mythical drink. One finds few citable references to it. One of the first – perhaps the first – comes from the movies: Lauren Bacall ordered one in The Big Sleep. That alone ought to quell doubts if any regarding the Scotch Mist’s authenticity -- if it’s good enough for Bogie, Baby and Chandler, there’s nothing for the rest of us to question. But question people do, and while those so inclined continue the discussion over the provenance of the Scotch Mist, even its authenticity, the fact is that the drink does exist nowadays, and some of us would rather drink them than argue about them. In the spirit of smoke and snow, here is the recipe for what is sure to become one of your favorite new cocktails: the Scotch Mist.

Scotch Mist

Premium Single Malt or Malt Scotch Whisky

1 lemon

Crushed ice 

1. Place a drop of vegetable cleaner in your palm. Rub the lemon between your palms. Rinse the lemon under cool water until it feels clean.
2. Dry the lemon with a paper towel. Safely use a citrus reamer or sharp paring knife to excise two long peels of lemon peel.
3. Fill two Old Fashioned glasses halfway with crushed ice. Nestle a lemon peel on the ice in each glass. Add more ice to each glass to fill the glass.
4. Fit the lip of the Scotch bottle with a pouring spout. Gently pour Scotch into each glass, stopping as the level of Scotch reaches just below the top of the ice.
5. Serve immediately. Remove the pouring spout and securely re-cap the Scotch before returning the Scotch to the bar cabinet. 

Notes

Scotch whisky is a malt or grain whisky that, in order to earn the name, has to be made in a manner that is regulated by law. That law includes the Scotch starting as a distillate of malt barley, wheat or rye, which then must be aged in an oaken barrel for a minimum of three years, with both the production and the aging done  in Scotland. Good Scotch is labeled with a number that corresponds to the number of years that the youngest component of the Scotch spent in the barrel. This is known as guaranteed age, and not trifling with it is a commandment of the religion of Scotch. The higher the number, the finer and the costlier the Scotch. In our Urban Bar, the Scotches of choice are Lagavulin 16 and Macallan 18.

Manual ice crushers are a tricky prospect for the home bar: there is no guarantee that they will work well or even at all. The best ways to crush ice for making drinks at home are to utilize a refrigerator-freezer with a crushed ice dispenser, use the blender set to the appropriate setting, provided your blender is strong enough for it, or utilize a simple home ice crusher. For Urban Home Blog’s recommendation for a blender for home use, click here, and for Urban Home Blog's guides to setting up a wet bar and bar ephemera including an ice crusher, click here.