Like cocktail enthusiasts do, Dan and I jumped off the couch on a Tuesday night to hit up our local Total Wine. Dan was already two cocktails in when I was willing to put on shoes. I hadn’t even finished my first drink. I don’t even remember what we were going for. As we enter the store, Dan grabs a cart. You know it’s serious when it’s more than you can carry.

We headed to Aisle 3: Brandys, Gins, and Amaros & Apertifs. YES! My Empress 1908 is in stock. We also pick up the Hendricks’s Neptuna small batch. Then I say I’m looking for a good “house gin.” I don’t want to waste the butterfly-pea-infused gin on just an everyday cocktail. I’m working my way through a large bottle of Vulcan, and I’m “meh” about it. I got tired of Boodles, and 3Howls was kind of gross. We pick Aviation. Then we pick up a bottle of brandy thinking we were out. We actually needed cognac. 

Then I’m like we need the flurnlnrunrlum stuff. I can’t pronounce it right. Dan assumes I mean Fernet. No… I pull up the Falernum video from Liber & Co. THIS! FA LAIR NUM. Off to Aisle 6: Cordial &, Tequila. A bottle of John D. Taylor’s Velvet Falernum is added to the cart. I add some butterscotch schnapps to the cart (for a boozy desert recipe I saw) and we head home. 

Dan wants to try the Neptuna. I make gimlets. These are delightful. Dan is ready for more. I’m done–it’s a Tuesday. I have to go into the office on Wednesday. But I do want to try the Falernum. I pour a half ounce into a shot glass for a sip. 

OK y’all–MIND BLOWN!!! It’s warm, spicy, clovey, and delicate? How is something like this no heavy and syrupy? 11% ABV, that’s how. OK so now does this remind me of Licor 43 and it’s baking spices? Half ounce is poured for comparison. OK I can taste the difference in 30% ABV for sure. Licor 43 is MUCH more dense and vanilla forward. OK. 

We need a cocktail now. I google some cocktails with falernum. I come upon the Detroit Athletic Club. Irish whiskey, Green Chartreuse, Sweet Vermouth and Falernum. As Dan is a whiskey connoisseur, this will surely be a winner. 

Hands down, this is a new favorite. The grassiness of the Chartreuse brings out the deep woody barrel flavors found in the whiskey. The Falernum mellows out the entire drink. This is wild! We are so excited by this drink and this blend of flavors that we keep describing the nose to the cocktail as if we are some sophisticated liquor experts and not two people who took up craft cocktails as a hobby during the pandemic. Dan made mention that he wished we were recording this. I joked that we needed a podcast. Then we both looked at each other and said BLOG!! I quickly grab my phone and start looking for domain names. Our first choice was taken but Cocktails and Kitchen was available! But of course! This is what we DOOOO–we make cocktails and cook something fancy nearly weekly! We’re already taking pictures of our stuff and posting it to Instagram. We’re both writers. I’m pretty good at maintaining a website (developing is a whole other beast). 

Somewhere around 12:30 a.m. we’re entering a credit card number and we are the proud new owners of a domain, three years of hosting, an email address and new titles as bloggers. Dan is hoping for a promotion to “influencer” soon, but I’m just hoping I can make something of the back end of this site. 

So join us won’t you on our drinking and culinary adventures. There will be lots of cocktails and one very tiny kitchen featured. 

Cocktails

My theory is you either love vodka or gin–very few people love both. You can like both, but you only love one. Gin is my love. 

In college, I drank a lot of Captain Morgan Spiced Rum and Jim Beam because that is what my friends had. I was 24 before I ventured into beer. My grandmother would drink a glass of beer, and I thought it was the cutest thing. I moved on to wine during most of my 30s. 

The Pandemic started my exploration of cocktails. Dan and I started making cocktails at home. Craft cocktails. One day we went to Total Wine and just put everything in our cart. As we found more cocktails, we bought more liquors, cordials, mixers and accoutrements. We did the same thing the following month. For Christmas, Dan bought me a bar fridge. I needed an entire mini-refrigerator to hold all my juices, syrups, wine, and mixers.

Kitchen

I never ate for the first 18 years of my life. My parents will tell you it was a struggle to get me to eat. I remember so many nights left sitting at the table until I finished my plate. I never finished. 

At 19, I started working in a restaurant. That’s when I became interested in food. We Caesar salads. We had all these soups. There was nine-grain bread. There was cajun chicken pasta! The restaurant’s food was nothing unique, but it was enough to pique my interest. 

I learned to cook watching cooking shows on TV. I remember I was watching this show on Lifetime, “The Main Ingredient with Bobby Flay.”  Yeah, before the Food Network! I also watched Martha Stewart back in the day. It’s been a journey. I’ve learned the most from Alton Brown. 

Cocktails

He might be known as “Bar Dad.”  He’s not mad at you. He’s just disappointed.

Like many, the Coronavirus pandemic of 2020 was a time to learn new skill sets or to finally do those projects we kept putting off “until we had time.” For me, it was exploring classic cocktails from the Prohibition-era and earlier.

See, I run a restaurant/sports bar. It’s a mom-n-pop kind of place, a fun and busy neighborhood joint that has been in the same spot for over 30 years and has been home to several generations of drinkers. Nothing too fancy, just the basics if you please. Vodka Soda? I gotchu. Sex On The Beach? Easy peasy. Liquid Marijuana, Baybreeze, Tequila Sunrise, Long Island Tea, Vegas Bomb? Yup, yup, yup, yup, aaannd yup. But try to do a cocktail that incorporates egg white? You’re just going to get a blank stare. And bitters is for trying to stop the hiccups.

I don’t remember exactly how Monday Night Cocktails with KL came about, possibly from a tv show we were half-heartedly listening to while sitting on the couch and crack-boxing on the Web, but we started playing with ingredients and styles of liquor, gradually building up a pretty impressive home bar and library of cocktail books. We’ve also learned a lot about craft cocktails and ourselves through this project; she really doesn’t like vodka, and while whiskey is my preference, I’ve discovered that some of the gin botanicals really don’t taste like rubbing alcohol. Also, use the egg whites!

Kitchen

I grew up in a home that when it came to food, the rule was you “had to try it once.” Both of my parents were good cooks, with my dad doing most of the everyday cooking and mom handling the holiday and special meals. They also liked to experiment with different ingredients, which often resulted in less-than-appetizing results and a quick phone call to the local Chinese restaurant down the street (I detest eggplant to this day). But it did set me up to be an adventurous eater and unafraid of the kitchen later in life.

I enjoy cooking at home. I really don’t at the restaurant. I do both, but prefer the pace of home cooking. Don’t get me wrong, the chaos and energy from being on the line during a push can be exhilarating, but it doesn’t compare to taking your time preparing a meal; sipping a glass of wine as you and your partner slowly dance around each other to the musical strains of burbling pots and sizzling pans, carefree in the knowledge that the Chinese restaurant down the street is just a phone call away.