Kip's Cookery

Nate's Memorial Bar and Grill

Nate’s Memorial Bar and Grill Drinks

Nate, or “Lord Natrone” as he was known on the LOTR boards, was a pillar of the Ringnut community. His knowledge of Tolkien was near exhaustive, but more important were his warmth, wit, and just plain goodness. He was just a genuinely great guy who was always ready to share his knowlege and his time. After earning masters in bio-chem, he went into genetics but decided he didn’t like working in a lab and so quit to become a bartender. He loved it and took great pride in his work before he was taken from us suddenly at age 30 by a fatal arrhythmia. A true gentleman and a scholar, he is still missed.

In the spirit of Nate’s open hand, I share his personal recipes (and accompanying comments) with you:

The Bellbird (created for one of our Kiwi members):

- 1oz light Rum

- 1oz gold Rum

- 1/2 oz Razzmatazz (Raspberry Schnapps) or Creme de Cassis or Chambord

Three quarters fill with Cranberry Juice

One quarter fill with Pineapple Juice

Garnish with a squeeze of lime

Build drink in a tall, iced glass, roll into a shaker for a few shakes.

Roll back into glass and serve.

Nate's Vodka Gimlet:

“If you look up a Vodka Gimlet in a bar book it will probably say something like 1.5 ounces of vodka plus 1/2 oz. of Rose's Lime Juice - that's just gross, I don't like RLJ at all, way too sweet and artificial tasting. As much as possible I use fresh juices - one of these days I'll make my own batch of sweet and sour but I haven't been making that many drinks at the house lately.

I haven't made it in a while, so I'd encourage you to try it out and adjust if you make this at home, but I "researched" this at home until I got it just right and I think it was this:

1.5 ounces of vodka (Skyy, Absolut, or Stoli would be decent choices)

1.5 ounces of fresh lime juice

2 Tb. of sugar (use granulated - superfine if you can get it)

Pour ingredients into a mixing glass with a scoop of ice, shake well and strain into a chilled glass. (You will have to shake it a bit to get the sugar to dissolve)."

Nate's replacement for the detested Rose's Lime Juice:

“On that subject, I combined my interest in cocktails, cooking background and scientific training tonight in order to develop a homemade recipe for sweet and sour mixer that is used in cocktails. I try to use fresh juices in drinks whenever possible, I don’t care much for the standard sour mix that is used in most bars and I cannot abide the syrupy, artifical crap called Rose’s Lime Juice (which neither tastes nor smells like lime juice). Obviously when making drinks on the fly it isn’t practical to cut or squeeze citrus fruit to order so I figured that I could come up with a sour mix that could be made in any quantity. Here is what I came up with:

½ Cup lemon juice

½ Cup lime juice

1 ½ Cup water

½ Cup sugar

For those of the metric persuasion:

120 mls lemon juice