Happy National Caesar Day!

With apologies to all of my non-Canadian readers today I will be talking about a bit of Canadiana that you may not understand. Today is a special sort of Throwback Thursday, A throwback at least, to my time as a bartender. Right out of college I started travelling and working in many different places around Canada. I saw many different drinks and learned many different things about what the people across this country like to imbibe with. However, one thing stays almost constant... It is the closest thing we have to a National Cocktail, and in my mind a very big portion of our National Identity, and today it is celebrating it's day: The Caesar.

Today is the first annual National Caesar Day in Canada. Mark your calendars, so you can celebrate this day next year. Sadly no one trumpeted the news from on high, so it even caught me by surprise a bit.

I imagine, if I still have some American readers tuned in, that they are confused. As much as we love and adore the Caesar here in Canada, it is virtually unknown outside of our borders. I you would dear American readers, please read "Caesar" as "The Canadian Bloody Mary," and I shall explain further.

To Walter!

In 1969 in the rapidly growing city of Calgary, Alberta, was a hotel. The Calgary Inn as a matter of fact. and this Calgary Inn employed a bartender who went by the name of Walter Chell. When the hotel was opening it's new fine dining Italian restaurant, "Marco's,"the hotel requested that Walter create a new signature drink for the restaurant.  The story goes that Walter took inspiration from a popular dish in Italy at the time "Pasta Vongole," a spicy tomato sauce and clam pasta. He took fresh squeezed tomato juice and muddled it with baby clams, then added vodka, salt, cayenne pepper, and Worcestershire sauce (it's actually pronounced "woos-ter-sure" if you were ever curious. My mother called it "What's-this-here-sauce").  It was served in the celery salt rimmed glass with a stalk of celery. A legend was born. Later, Mott's Clamato came onto the scene bolstered by the meteoric rise in popularity of Walter's drink. And the Cayenne was swapped out for Tabasco sauce, something more bars would have on hand. This brings us to the present day incarnation of our drink.

Hurricane Lantern

Glassware for the Caesar has always been an interesting subject. As I have travelled around I have seen it served in just about anything except a rusty bucket (If somebody opens a place and serves Caesars out of rusty bucket  now... I want a cut). Most bars these days default to a standard pint glass to serve their Caesars in. Originally, I believe the Caesar was served in a highball glass. But often I have seen it in double rocks glasses, pop glasses, solo cups (more times then I would care to think about...) In my mind though, the best glass was always the first glass I used when I started learning: The "Viva Grande." Pictured above right is my Caesar for tonight in the traditional Viva Grande, also called a Poco Grande or sometime erroneously a tulip glass. I find Poco Grande a hilarious name as Poco means "a little" and Grande means "big." Anyway, the Viva Grande is a shorter version of the Tiki bar standard the Hurricane glass which gets it's name from the Hurricane lantern whose glass chimney is shaped similarly to the fluted curve of the Hurricane Glass. Also the Hurricane Lantern is not named after the shape of the hurricane but rather the fact that these sturdy oil lanterns could not be blown out, even in a hurricane. The Viva Grande holds between 12 and 15 ounces of liquid and is meant to be used with cocktails that require a straw.


 The Pint Jockey's Standard Caesar

Stalk of Celery
Wedge of Lime
Ice
1.5 oz of Vodka (Nothing fancy)
2 to 3 drops of Tabasco Sauce
3 to 4 drops of Worcestershire Sauce
Shake of Salt
Shake of Pepper
Clamato Juice to fill glass

Rim your glass first by putting the mouth of the glass into lemon or lime juice that is no more than 1/4 inch deep, then dip the wet rim into your choice of seasonings. I used Matt and Steve's premade rim mix which contains several herbs and spices including salt, pepper, celery salt, cumin, and a few other things. Plain ol' celery salt is the classic, or you can just rim with some coarse salt, or nothing at all... your choice! Then add your garnish to the glass first (an old bartender's trick to prevent you from overflowing the glass if you happen to put in too much Clamato). The carefully add your ice, then the vodka, seasonings, and the clamato last (it mixes the ingredients so you do not have to stir this way!)

This is your basic run of the mill restaurant Caesar. I have seen some weird stuff go into Caesars in the past. All manner of garnishes, cucumbers, pickles, pickled asparagus, pickled beans, boiled eggs, an ocean of seafood, like grilled shrimp, crab legs. But honestly, it doesn't compare to the Caesar's older sister The Bloody Mary. The Bloody Mary may have come first and her simple concoction of vodka tomato juice lemon juice and a salted rim but some people love them and they love them so much they put entire meals on them... see below:
                                                      

This drink is garnished with a drink... it's drinkception!

Bloody-HELL Mary!

Yes, That drink on the left has a pizza on it. And a sub. And a pound of wings. And a stack of Onion rings. AND a bag of fries! But not only that. That Bloody Mary... is actually garnished with ANOTHER Bloody Mary. I'm not going to even talk about the other woman's entire fried chicken on her drink...

Back to our drink. The Caesar, is one of the most varied drinks in Canada. Everyone has their preference, their "signature," their "new" way of doing the Caesar. The most common variations I have seen lately are swapping out the vodka for gin or tequila... (try it they are awesome!) The Bacon Caesar has been a thing for awhile now too. Try using bacon infused vodka and garnish with a crispy fried piece of bacon. My favourite variation is the Pan-Asian Caesar I use wasabi and sambal oleck as the spices I shake the drink and top it with grilled shrimp. If Sambal is not your flavour by all means substitute Sriracha. The last variation I remember clearly is horseradish. It is not a new one, it has been kicking around for a very long time. I remember when I learned the craft of mixology, we used to call a Caesar with horseradish in it a "General Caesar." It was a regional name and I have never come across anyone else that has called it that, but I have always liked it. It is another variation of the drink that is improved by shaking.

Well that's my musings on the Caesar for one night (two Caesars in I might point out...) I will now return you to my regular musings on beer (aka my cold is gone...) If you enjoyed this little diversion and like to here more of the history of some famous drinks I would be more than happy to share that and many of my catalogue of drinks and drink tips with you. drop me a comment, a tweet, or hit me up on Facebook.

And Happy Caesar Day.... To Walter!

Cheers
CJT