Romana Sambuca

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Jimmy Conway

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

Jimmy Conway

1 oz.         Jim Beam bourbon whiskey
1 oz.         Seagram’s 7 whisky
1 oz.         Romana black sambuca 

Combine all ingredients together in a large shot glass. Stir and serve. Enjoy !

After one of the ladies on our panel brought in her Tarheel Shot recipe that was shared yesterday, one of the other guys on the team brought one in for today. It’s a trend we see often at ShareMyShot. When one person gets one of their contributions posted, then we have a string of suggestions from other people who don’t want to be left out. But that’s a good thing. Management doesn’t care where the recipes come from; we just want to share ideas with the rest of the shot drinking public.

So today Paul brought in a recipe called Jimmy Conway. 

This caught my attention right away just out of irony. While we were on the flight to New Orleans to enjoy the corporate trip to the Super Bowl, I read the Nicholas Pileggi book Wise Guy again. For those who don’t know, this is the book that spawned the movie Goodfellas with Ray Liotta as mobster-wannabe Henry Hill and Robert De Niro as hoodlum Jimmy Conway. 

I am a bit of a student on mob history and have read the book a few times and watched the movie four or five times. Jimmy Conway was actually known as Jimmy Burke to his associates. Although even he didn’t know many details of his birth and actual parents, he was born to a woman with the last name Conway. He bounced around from foster family to foster family (and prison at a pretty young age). By the time he was an adult in the Paul Vario crew, he was going by the moniker Jimmy Burke. But in the movie, they just went with Jimmy Conway.

Because the character was played by the world’s greatest actor in De Niro, the character was quite memorable and quirky. As was the real Jimmy Conway. He was a mean and dangerous SOB for sure. So it’s not out of the ordinary to hear that there is a shot named after him. I don’t know if this is what he drank in the film or not—-or how this concoction is directly attributed to him—–but I was curious to give it a try.

I drink a ton of Jim Beam as it is. So that component was not intimidating. The shot then calls for Seagrams 7 and Romana sambuca. This triple play seemed an interesting combination and the group dove right in. We also replaced the Jim Beam with Jack Daniels whiskey on the third round to see if it had a marked effect on the taste of the shot. We even used Jim Beam and Jack Daniels together in place of the Seagrams.

The reason we did this is because the shot didn’t go over very well with the taste panel. As I’ve stated before, I am not a huge fan of black licorice flavoring. But we couldn’t remove or replace the Romana black sambuca as it is a key ingredient in the recipe and not too flexible. So we thought we would try to switch out the whiskey element. Neither the Jim Beam nor the Jack Daniels was enough to snuff out the licorice flavor to the point of real enjoyment.

There was a suggestion to try a few other labels of whiskey to replace the Seagrams. But the consensus was that the sambuca would dominate the shot no matter what whiskey blend we tried. And there is a corporate policy that no taste session is to surpass five rounds. So we ran out of options in that regard too. The best we could give this shot was a 1 on a scale of 5. And that was only for the punch it delivered.

Like the real Jimmy (Burke) Conway, the shooter was just a little bit harsh. It was the type of shot that left a few of the panel members making a face after forcing it down. The aftertaste wasn’t that savory either.

While downing a shot of Jimmy Conway is definately better than getting on the wrong side of the gangster Jimmy Conway, personally I’d rather do neither. 

Your health will be worse for wear either way.

Cheers !!

Posted in 1 Star Shots, Black Sambuca, Canadian whisky, Evan Williams whiskey, Goodfellas, Irish whiskey, Jack Daniels, Jameson Irish whiskey, Jim Beam, Knob Creek, Romana Sambuca, Sambuca, Seagrams 7, whiskey | No Responses »

Homeless in Beijing

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

Homeless in Beijing

2 oz.                Dynasty (Chinese) medium dry white wine
1/2 oz.             1800 Tequila
1/2 oz.             Romana Sambuca
1 splash           lime juice 

Layer the (chilled) Chinese wine in the bottom of a large shot glass. Add a mixture of tequila, sambuca and lime juice on the top from a cocktail shaker (either chilled or unchilled). Enjoy !!

We thought it was time we tried something really daring today. Not necessarily daring in the sense of Everclear. And not daring in the sense of another 4-5 ingredient shooter of traditional libations. Yesterday we tried a recipe that didn’t have any of the hard hitters in it like vodka or rum. That wasn’t really the goal today either. We didn’t mind if today’s shot really packed a punch.

But we did want to sample something that didn’t have Bailey’s Irish Cream or Kahlua in it. We wanted to try and avoid rum as many recipes call for Bacardi 151 or another variety. We were seeking a recipe that didn’t call for banana, raspberry, or hazelnut liqueurs. We just sought a real change of pace….such as when we tried Ouzo a few weeks back. We try to keep things evolving here at ShareMyShot and after some scouring of some of our in-house literature and a few phone calls to some of our bartender friends, we believed we found something really unique to share.

Today we offer you Homeless in Beijing.

This is the first recipe we have shared that employs Chinese wine. China has been known for its grape wine for not just centuries…it has actually been traced back thousands of years. Typically rather strong, Chinese wine is itself evolving as there has been a recent French influence that has many more varieties penetrating the marketplace. The shot Homeless in Beijing calls for a pretty popular label known as Dynasty. They offer white and red wines along with a few other varieties. For today’s shot, you need their medium dry white wine.

Office lackey Keith had to go to three liquor stores here in the city before he could locate it.

And after trying three rounds of Homeless in Beijing, we could see why not too many liquor stores carry this crap. The shot tasted like I took a big glob of hair gel and shoved it in my mouth. It sucked big-time. I mean, expectations were a little reserved when we saw the recipe and the odd assortment of ingredients. But at the same time, we were seeking a new experience; something radically different. So we did go in with an open mind.

We should have stuck to a recipe that had some rum or something in there. This combination of Chinese wine, tequila, and sambuca was like chewing on a dirty dish towel. The kind of shot where even our toughest panel members were reaching for the salt crackers we set out to cleanse our palates. And reaching for them quickly I might add. Before they dry-heaved.

We even tried the wine by itself and while much better than the shot, it didn’t score high with the more educated wine drinkers in our group. And Dynasty is one of the more popular and rising labels in the Chinese wine market.

ShareMyShot gives this worldly wickedness a ZERO on a scale of 5. This tasted like we took a black marker and licked the tip for a couple of minutes. Like licking the blackboard in a schoolroom. We couldn’t figure out how the name applied until we had tried a few rounds of this nasty nectar. But now we know.

You would be better of being dressed in rags, starving, and Homeless in Beijing than drinking a bunch of these sorry shooters.

Cheers !!

Posted in 0 Star Shots, Black Sambuca, Chinese wine, Dynasty Chinese white wine, Romana Sambuca, Sambuca, Tequila 1800, flavored liqueurs, fruit juices, hangover remedies, herbal liqueurs, lime juice, liqueurs, tequila, white wine, wine | No Responses »