In Praise of the Shandy/Radler/Alster

Now that summer is REALLY upon us, it’s time to look at what’s available in the beer world to drink that quenches thirst and cools as much as it lends a little buzz. This is the perfect time of year for pilseners, wheat beers, kölsch, etc, but there is also an easy-to-make and even easier to enjoy beer “cocktail” called the Shandy.

Originally, the Shandy was a combination of beer and ginger beer or ginger ale, but there are variations using lemon soda or lemonade that are really good, too. The radler is a popular variation of this in Germany, consisting of beer and lemon soda. I use yard beer and cans of sugar-free lemonade (technically, an alster). Carbonated lemonade would work well, too, and I suppose some of the flavored lemonade drinks would be nice, as well, assuming there are no flavors to clash (which is why I use a beer like Miller Lite, which has no flavor to begin with). There are other variations using a little grenadine in the mix, or Angostura bitters. I haven’t tried either of these yet, but the Angostura bitters addition sounds great!

With a little experimentation with ginger beers, let me tell you that the key to this recipe is the quality of your ginger beer. Some of them are really sweet, which I didn’t like, so for me, the trick is finding a good, dry ginger beer to use. I haven’t tried ginger ale yet.

I ended up with some friend’s cans of Miller Lite in my cooler a couple weekends back, and not liking to drink that beer at all, but having a few cans of lemonade on hand, I made a couple “shandies” and I liked them just fine! There is no magic to the recipe. I simply open a can of each and pour 1:1, but tip the lemonade more if you want more lemonade or use a heavier pour on the beer if you want more beer. It ain’t rocket science!

Any of the yard beers will work great for these drinks, and it’s a good way to turn a barely palatable product into something actually enjoyable. I wouldn’t take a Bell’s Oberon, for example, and make a radler out of it, although I’ll bet it would taste good. I can hardly imagine any beers outside of the pilsener/yard beer spectrum being good, but experimentation is always available to you. There are plenty of great pilsners on the market today, that aren’t yard beers, and again, I’d hate to dilute a beer like Prima Pils with lemonade, so for me these drinks are usually only resorted to when I don’t have something better to drink.

I would avoid the pre-mixed shandies, like Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy. They are really diluted with way too much soda/lemonade relative to the beer.

Let me know if you have a favorite recipe.

Bacardi Torched Cherry Rum & Jazzoo

I believe this is my first liquor review for The Liquid Diet blog, but it’s worth mentioning. As some of you readers may know, I volunteer as a bartender every year at Jazzoo, the amazingly fun and worthwhile fundraiser for the Kansas City Zoo. One of the biggest sponsors of this event is Major Brands, a distributor of premium alcohol in the Kansas City area. For the past couple years, Major Brands has been rolling out new liquors at Jazzoo, and one of the biggies this year is definitely going to be Bacardi Tocrhed Cherry Rum. We got to sample this, and more, at our bartenders’ meeting hosted by the very gracious Boulevard Brewing (another major sponsor) a couple days ago, along with Effen Black Cherry Vodka and Three Olives Rangtang Vodka.

At Jazzoo, some of the bars will be making Effen Black Cherry Limeades, which are sure to be a hit. The one I had was pretty yummy. I had a Rangtang and soda, too, which didn’t do anything for me. Tasted like cheap orange vodka and soda, but maybe there is more there with some additional experimentation (oh, and the vodka is Fiesta-ware, nuclear orange in color).

But, for me, the best liquor Major Brands supplied us with is the Bacardi Torched Cherry. A simple rum and Coke made with this stuff is just like a Cherry Coke out of the fountain, with maybe a little less sweetness and a little more complexity to the flavors. An adult Cherry Coke, if you will. My girlfriend and I both looked at each other and said, “We’ll be needing a bottle of this for the pool this year…”

I’m generally not much of a sweet drink fan, but I do like rum and Cokes, although I rarely drink them. I really like the popular twist on rum and Coke, which is a Cuba Libre, basically a rum and Coke with a twist of lime. But, then again, sometimes I don’t want a complex drink, or something that requires time and effort to make. This Torched Cherry fits the bill. At 35%ABV, you do have to be careful with it, though.

Bacardi rolled this rum out a couple months ago, and it’s a rum infused with Barbados Cherry and Torch Aloe. Barbados cherry is a large shrub that grows up to 20′ in height and width, and is native to the Caribbean region and northern South America. It commonly grows in yards in the Bahamas and Bermuda (I think I’ll need to take a trip down there for fact-checking purposes).

In the 1940′s, the popularity of the plant took off because the fruit was found to be very high in ascorbic acid (Vitamin C complex). Commercial farms started cultivated and using it as a food soon after, even though in its native region the Barbados cherry had long been eaten.

Torch aloe is a type of aloe plant that produces a lot of nectar. I have no idea how it is used in this liquor, and I really don’t have the palate to “find it” when I drink the rum, but it’s in there. See you at Jazzoo!