Wine mixology Number 2: Project Amber Sunrise – Wine and Sake

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

This all started some years ago, maybe a decade or more, with myself becoming a fan of Quady Winery Electra and Essencia wines, luxurious ambrosias made from the Orange Muscat grape.  Two years ago, I would call up the winery and ask to speak to the person in charge of marketing, because I felt as though their product would do well with the African American market.  Several email exchanges later and I would be talking to Andrew Quady on the phone, and then meeting he and his wife later on that year at the New York Chocolate Show.  This culminated [to the current point of progress] through a series of several associations which would entail myself, Nate 'Slkfngrjonz' Rogers (a local bartender) and Silvio Lello (President of Nationwide Wine and Spirits), who imports and distributes sake.

Here we are at the first milestone, the creation and presentation of a sake sangria that we call the Amber Sunrise.  Sunrise because Japan is the land of the rising son, and Amber because Electra in Greek mythology has a name that means "bright, shining and/or amber."  I hit Silvio up for some sake, purchased some Electra and some Elysium and Nate came in and made up the recipe.  It is a perfect blend of east meets west meets the Caribbean, with Japan's national wine combined in harmony with dessert wine from California and triple sec from the island of Curacao; the sake used was Itami Onigoroshi Super Dry.  Add in a dash of 7-Up, a splash of orange juice and drop in a little bit of grenadine to either float to the bottom like a Tequila Sunrise or color the whole thing pinkish, and there you have it.

We presented this concoction at the 2010 Philadelphia Sake Festival and it went over big.  I will admit that I didn't try it as I rarely drink liquor or mixed drinks, though two little sips of two different sakes went right to my head.

If you can get access to Red Electra, you can substitute that and get a "Red Amber Sunrise."  Nate wants to push this as the drink for the summer, and I am sure that both Silvio and Andrew would be happy with those results.  Now that it's started in Philly, the next thing would be to take it down to my folks over in Baltimore.  Teddy, here we come!