We’re super-jazzed to announce our first-ever sponsorship of the masterful hip-checkers known as the Ohio Roller Girls, whose roller derby season gets under way this weekend.
With bouts from March through August, the season will begin in earnest with a triple-header Saturday at the Ohio Expo Center (where all home bouts are held). Doors will open at 2:30 p.m., with the first bout beginning at 3:30 p.m.
See you there!
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With Absinthe & Meringues on the brain, we wanted to learn a little more about our new limited-edition ice cream’s mystical main ingredient.
So earlier this week we took a trip to Curio at Harvest Pizzerria in German Village, where bartender Travis Owens shared some absinthe history, mixed a few classic absinthe cocktails, and demonstrated how to properly serve the once-outlawed libation.
What’s more, on the spot Owens (pictured above) and his cohort Joe Peppercorn, created two new cocktails with Absinthe & Meringues: the Green Fairy Godmother, a delicious new twist on the classic Corpse Reviver, as well as a new take on the Ramos Gin Fizz, the Ramos Jen(i) Fizz. You’ll find both drinks on Curio’s menu (and you’ll find the recipes when you scroll down through this post).
If you’re getting into a glass of straight-up absinthe, here’s what you’re getting into: a distilled, highly alcoholic (90 to 148 proof), anise-flavored spirit derived from the flowers and leaves of wormwood. Different varietals are created using sweet fennel and blends of different dried herbs.
In the late 1800s and into the early 1900s, absinthe peaked in popularity with the citizenry of Europe and the U.S. In Europe, especially in the cafe societies of Paris and Prague, absinthe had a strong hold on the imaginations of artists and writers. Many imbibers believed the “Green Fairy/Green Muse” inspired their works in ways nothing else possibly could (see Albert Maignan’s Green Muse or Edgar Degas’ L’Absinthe).
By 1912 in the U.S., absinthe was banned for its supposed psychoactive properties. When the U.S. absinthe ban was lifted in 2007, Owens was working at Bar 11, a cocktail spot in Columbus’ Short North.
“People were really curious about absinthe for a little bit when it was legal again,” Owens said. “Most people who asked for it, asked for a shot of it. I’d say, ‘Really? It’s about 130 proof. Are you sure?’ ”
Owens said he’d give the customer a taste from a dropper right on the tongue. Most people didn’t go further than that.
“Then all of a sudden people just stopped asking for it in general around here,” said Owens, who added that absinthe goes over much better Stateside when used as a minor ingredient in cocktails. “I think it’s just the anise, the black licorice flavor. The domestic palate isn’t as used to it the way it is in France and other places and in Europe.”
When taken straight, or tempered with a bit of sugar and ice cold water, absinthe indeed does have a heavy licorice flavor. There aren’t many I-can-take-or-leave-it opinions when it comes to the stuff. You either like the licorice action or you don’t. But on Tuesday, Owens showed us how versatile absinthe can be. He showed us how to properly serve and enjoy a glass of the green and then whipped up some gorgeous, magical cocktails. A variety of absinthes on the bar at Curio at Harvest in German Village:
The first step in serving absinthe—icing water:
Next, filling the glass with absinthe (left) before placing an absinthe spoon on the glass’ rim (right). Iced water is then allowed to slowly drip on a sugar cube, which sweetens and dilutes the absinthe:
Left: the final stages of sugar melted by drips of ice water and falling into a glass of absinthe. Right: a bit more ice water added to the mix creates a lovely light green and an ever-so-slightly creamy consistency. The taste and aroma is a bit earthy and woodsy:
Travis Owens, bartender at Curio at Harvest, working his way through the process of making one of the most refreshing and flavorful cocktails any of us had ever had: the Triumph:
Behold the Triumph, a stellar apéritif or digestif:
Left: the Triumph. Right: The Triumph’s ingredients, plus notes on a two other cocktails, the twist on the rye Manhattan known as the Remember the Maine and the Broken Shoe Shiner, a Pernod-and-egg concoction culled from Rogue Cocktails:
Left: coating the inside of an ice cold glass with absinthe. Right: the final stages of an expertly mixed Remember the Maine:
Remember the Maine, a smoky rye-based cocktail that calls for just a bit of absinthe:
Left: Pernod prepped to add to the Broken Shoe Shiner (right):
Absinthe & Meringues ice cream, straight no chaser:
Left: the Green Fairy Godmother. Right: the Ramos Jen(i) Fizz, a twist on the Ramos Gin Fizz:
RECIPES:
The Green Fairy Godmother
The Ramos Jen(i) Fizz
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Heading to South by Southwest?
We’ll see you there during a variety of sweet events in the Lone Star State’s capital city, including SouthBites in Qui’s Corner (headed up by Top Chef winner Paul Qui of Austin).
Check out the full intinerary at: sxsw.jenis.com.
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Here is some news you can use, Jeni’s fans. The location of our next scoop shop will be in the heart of Easton Town Center, and the doors will open this spring. Please stay tuned for details, feel free to help us spread the word, and thanks for 10 years of support.
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Ladies and gentlemen, the curtain rises today on Absinthe + Meringues, an ice cream inspired by the Columbus Symphony Orchestra and BalletMet‘s 100th anniversary performances of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. The performances—March 22 to 24 in the Ohio Theatre—will honor the groundbreaking work with a world-premier ballet by internationally renowned choreographer James Kudelka.
Absinthe + Meringues will send you right back to the debut of The Rite of Spring on May 29, 1913, in Paris. Its foundation is grass-grazed Snowville cream and milk softly scented with absinthe, the once-outlawed libation and anise-based botanical spirit known as the Green Fairy in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Throughout the clean, crisp, and refreshing ice cream are tiny little crisp, sweet, and airy meringues.
The absinthe-laced cream—green like spring foliage and grass—represents the wild side, the artists, the bohemians—enthusiastic imbibers of the Green Fairy at the time. Matcha—finely powdered green tea—gives the ice cream its lovely pale green, spring-like hue, and crisp finish.
The precisely-made meringues represent the traditions of the prim and proper and intolerant-to-change upper class audience of 1913 Paris. The meringues are hand-piped sugared egg whites dried in the oven until they are crispy and cloud-like white, and under the weight of the absinthe ice cream they are crushed and morphed into new forms.
In 1913, The Rite of Spring was a story of life as never told before through music and dance. The work—with envelope-pushing choreography by dancer Vaslav Nijinsky—dealt not with the usual “swans and tutus and elevation,” but “ugly earthbound lurching and stomping.“ The result: fist fights and jeers in the hall, a dent in Stravinsky’s reputation, and the world of traditional music and dance turned on its head.
Absinthe + Meringues won’t likely inspire near riots in the halls and streets, but it definitely will take you back to an exciting era when seismic cultural shifts were afoot.
And now, here’s how we make Absinthe + Meringues:
First, the meringues. We mix egg whites and sugar, slowly beating together, hand-pipe them onto baking sheets, and bake them at a very low temperature until they’re white, crispy, and delicate:
Baked meringues, which later will be added to anise-, matcha-, and absinthe-laced ice cream:
All-natural anise (left) and matcha—powdered green tea for color as well as a clean, crisp finish (right):
Anise and matcha being mixed with a small amount of Absente absinthe—the first legal absinthe in the U.S. since 1912. France banned absinthe in 1914, a year after the debut of The Rite of Spring in Paris. The U.S. banned absinthe in 1912 and lifted the ban in 2007.
Absinthe, a spirit made with wormwood, anise, fennel and other herbs, in its purest form has a high alcohol content. But in our ice cream the alcohol content is .5%:
Snowville’s grass-grazed cream is added the the mixture of anise, matcha, and absinthe (left), and stirred (right):
Left: A mixture of absinthe, anise, matcha, and cream coming out of the machine. Once everything is evenly blended, the cream overpowers the dark green matcha powder, leaving the final ice cream a lovely and light pale green. Right: meringues being stirred into the ice cream. Most will crumble under the weight of the ice cream and when the ice cream is scooped:
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This year, we’re hitting more sweet national events than we ever have, and a big one on the horizon is the sold-out South Beach Wine & Food Festival.
Presented by Food & Wine magazine, the 12th-annual fest is touted as “a star-studded, four-day destination event showcasing the talents of the world’s most renowned wine and spirits producers, chefs and culinary personalities.”
During the festival (Feb. 21-24) we’ll be serving these special new ice cream sandwiches:
We’ll be participating in several private and public events, and the two open-to-the-public highlights are:
Delta Diamond Dishes, Saturday Feb. 23 at Marlins Park
Check it out: entrée stations at a first, second, and third base and home plate. When we were kids, running the bases in a big league ballpark was pretty cool, but walking the bases and eating great food paired with great wine? See ya later, warm and fuzzy childhood memories. You can’t beat this.
Trisha Yearwood Brunch, Sunday Feb. 24 at Loews Ballroom
In recent years, country singer Trisha Yearwood has spent as much time in her southern kitchen whipping up comfort food as she has in the recording studio belting out the tunes. Whatever she has in store is going to please the people, but we can’t wait to get her take on the evening soap opera Nashville.
See you there.
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That’s right.
Today through Sunday Feb. 17, 2013, spend $25 in Homage’s shop at Easton or the Short North and receive a voucher for one small cup or cone of ice cream (or sorbet or frozen yogurt) in any of our scoop shops. (The voucher is valid from the time of purchase through Thursday March 14, 2013.)
And while you’re at either Homage branch, make sure to check out Homage’s sweet new Ohio Is For Lovers sweatshirt.
Happy Valentine’s Day, from all of us at Team Jeni’s and Homage.
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Here’s something special to share with your sweetest on Valentine’s Day—Banana Cajeta.
Available in our scoop shops, in select grocers’ freezers, and at jenis.com, it’s one of the stars of our Valentine’s Day Collection, and it’s made with four main components: Ripe, fresh bananas blended with Ohio honey, grass-grazed Ohio cream, and swirls of sweet and tangy small-batch cajeta from Vermont’s Fat Toad Farm.
For those not in the know, cajeta is a traditional Mexican confection. It’s a thick, sweet caramel syrup made from boiling goat’s milk down with sugar until it caramelizes.
Check it out—bananas are blended with cream and added to the ice cream machine. Once it’s ready, it flows forth, then Fat Toad Farm’s goat’s milk caramel sauce is poured and blended into an utterly divine swirl of goodness:
Banana Cajeta. Yes, please:
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Double-Toasted Coconut is a coconut nut’s dream that instantly transports you to your favorite sunny spot.
In each scoop: exquisite grass-grazed Ohio cream laden with flecks of chewy, nutty, toasted coconut.
Here’s how we make it:
First, we unsweetened coconut is placed on trays and toasted for 20 minutes. We stir throughout the toasting to make sure it turns an even, golden brown:
Unsweetened, evenly toasted, golden-brown coconut:
Double-Toasted Coconut ice cream:
Double-Toasted Coconut: delicious all its own, or alongside scoops of Salty Caramel and Dark Chocolate.
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The new Guava Cloverton, part of our Valentine’s Day Collection, proves that a great ice cream flavor requires few main ingredients—as long those ingredients are top-shelf.
Here’s what we use to make the sunny new Guava Cloverton:
Together, the ingredients taste like a creamy tropical cheesecake, and here’s how we do it:
First, we make the sweet guava jam, which has an intense, concentrated flavor. Pulverized guava is blended with sugar, heated for 30 minutes, set aside to cool, and refrigerated until it’s time to blend it into the Cloverton cheese and Snowville cream ice cream:
Once the jam is set aside, it’s time to make the ice cream with Cloverton cheese from Laurel Valley Creamery, which is near the Ohio River town of town Gallipolis (“Gal-eh-police”), Ohio:
Cream and sugar is mixed then poured over the Cloverton cheese and further mixed together (not pictured). Then we strain the mixture, separate it into buckets, and add more cream:
The cream-sugar-Cloverton cheese combination is added to the machine to freeze into ice cream. Once it’s drawn from the machine, the final step is mixing our from-scratch guava jam into the Cloverton cheese ice cream:
And here it is—Guava Cloverton ice cream:
Enjoy Guava Cloverton atop a waffle cone or solo in a bowl, or try it with scoops of Banana Cajeta and The Milkiest Chocolate in the World.
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