After a long winter, rhubarb is now in season.  Is there a way to use this first sign of the growing season in a cocktail?

You ask a very worrisome question. I’m sure you’re aware that rhubarb leaves are poisonous, so before we start talking about anything else, we need to start with a disclaimer; trim leaves from your rhubarb stalks as soon as you harvest them, dispose of the leaves immediately, and wash the stalks, your hands, and your tools thoroughly.

Now that that’s taken care of…

Rhubarb stalks are going to act a lot like celery would act in a drink, which is to say that while it could be a fun garnish, it can’t add a lot of flavor just by its presence. You can’t muddle up rhubarb like you would a softer, juicier fruit; it won’t impart any of its flavor that way. Rhubarb needs to be cooked to extract its flavor.

I’d suggest a couple of approaches, both of which are a bit more involved:

• Make a rhubarb simple syrup. Slice your rhubarb into thumb-sized pieces, stack them in a stock pot, cover them with water, and boil covered for at least an hour. When finished, strain all liquid from the fruit, and press the fruit to extract whatever juices you can from the flesh. (Once you’ve done that, you can discard the pulp.) Measure the liquid you’ve poured off the rhubarb, return it to the stock pot, and place it on the stove top. Add an amount of sugar equivalent to the liquid, which you’ve just measured (so if you measured 1.5 cups of water off the rhubarb, add 1.5 cups of sugar.) Stir the sugar into the liquid under low heat, turning off the heat as soon as the sugar has dissolved completely. Once the syrup has cooled, you can add anything from 1/2 oz to 1 oz of the syrup to cocktails.
• Make a rhubarb jam, either by itself or with other fruit. This option will only appeal to you if you’ve already made jam or preserves before, and if you think you could use your rhubarb preserves for something other than cocktail making, so I won’t spend too much time rolling out a recipe here. Whatever recipe you do use, shake a tablespoon or so of the jam into a cocktail.

Here are a couple of sample recipes using both approaches.

Rhubarb Sidecar

• 2 oz. brandy
• Juice of 1/2 lemon
• 1 tbsp ( .5 oz) rhubarb syrup

Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker over ice; shake to combine. Strain into a cocktail glass; garnish with a cherry.

Rhubarb Collins

• 2 oz. gin
• 1 tbsp rhubarb jam
• Juice of 1/2 lime
• Soda water

Combine gin, jam, and lime juice in a cocktail shaker over ice; shake thoroughly to combine. Fill a highball glass with ice. Pour mixed cocktail into highball glass, and top with soda water.

Here’s a quick history of liquor in America that should help to explain a lot about the drinks that were popular 10-20 years ago, and the drinks that are popular now:

• When the country was founded, brandy, rum, and whisky were the most popular spirits around, and could be produced either in America or (in the case of rum) close to our shores. Gin was also in favor, but a bit harder to procure.
• Flash forward to the mid-1850s, and advances in technology give bartenders regular access to ice, which gives rise to the cocktail. The aforementioned popular liquors, along with wines and some cordials, began to be mixed with non-perishable, complementary ingredients like sugar, bitters, and fruit syrups, along with some seasonal fresh fruit.
• By the 1950s, further advances in technology give bartenders year-round access to fruit juices and other perishable ingredients. At the same time, vodka is introduced into the country, and immediately becomes popular. Now, instead of worrying about ingredients complementing a liquor, we have a liquor that complements any other ingredient you mix with it. Traditional cocktails are forgotten.

Now, we’re at a point when customers at bars are developing a newfound appreciation for those old recipes, and the flavors they evoke. And with that, the Manhattan — which never went away, but certainly spent a couple of decades as the unused cousin of the martini — has become popular again.

Some notes on this cocktail: you can use rye, bourbon, or Canadian whiskey in your Manhattan, but not Scotch (that’d be a Rob Roy) or Irish (that’d get you something close to an Emerald.) You can use more sweet vermouth if you’d like; a 3-1 or even 2-1 ratio would not be unheard of, especially if you’re using overproof whiskey. If you use equal parts sweet and dry vermouth, you’ll have a perfect Manhattan.  Angostura bitters are standard, but you can experiment with other brands, or with bitter liqueurs like Campari, Aperol, or Fernet. A splash of cherry juice to sweeten your Manhattan wouldn’t be out of the question. And these can be served on the rocks or strained, with either a cherry or a lemon twist. Enjoy!

Manhattan

• 2.5 oz. whiskey
• .5 oz sweet vermouth
• 2-3 dashes bitters
• 1 tsp cherry juice (optional)

Combine ingredients in a cocktail shaker over ice, and shake to combine. Strain either into a cocktail glass or a rocks glass with ice, and garnish with a cherry or a lemon twist.

Benedictine falls into the “less exciting” category, for the most part. An herbal liqueur made with a secret blend of 27 herbs and ingredients, Benedictine was falsely claimed to be made by the Benedictine monks, whose recipe was lost to time until it was “rediscovered” by the businessman who actually developed the stuff. Benedictine is a thick, sweet liqueur with complex herbal notes. It’s often paired with brandy to cut the sugary flavors. (There’s actually a pre-mixed version of the drink that’s sold — B&B, for Benedictine and Brandy.)

This week’s recipe is similar to that B&B, but it’s layered like a Pousse L’Amour (just without the raw egg.) It’s a French cafe drink — something that’s served at room temperature, and meant to be a pre-aperitif, to be consumed in the afternoon. Make it in a sherry glass, a narrow white wine glass, or a champagne flute, and make sure you use a spoon to layer the liqueurs.

Brandy Champerelle

• 1 oz . brandy
• 1 oz. curacao
• 1 oz. benedictine
• 3 dashes Angostura bitters

Pour 1 oz. benedictine into a sherry glass or champagne flute. Pour 1 oz. curacao over top of that, using a spoon and pouring slowly to create a second layer. In the same fashion, pour 1 oz. brandy over the curacao. Carefully float 3 dashes of  Angostura bitters to the top and serve.

The extra spice makes ginger beer completely different from its more boring cousin, ginger ale, but it can be used in most of the same drinks — it mixes equally well with whiskey or rum, and would likely mix well with brandy too. (Everything, of course, mixes with vodka. But that’s getting ahead of myself.) Ginger beer is available in most large supermarkets, but if you can’t find it there, your local liquor store should have some in stock, sold in either four- or six-packs of cans or bottles. (I’ve occasionally seen it sold in two-liter bottles as well.)

Today’s recipes, the Dark and Stormy and the Moscow Mule, are the two most common drinks served with ginger beer. The former is popular in the sailing community, and seems to have hailed originally from the Bahamas; the latter became a craze when vodka became America’s liquor du jour in the 1950s. Neither is a complicated recipe, but both have singular flavors because of the ginger beer. Serve either one to guests at your next party and they’re guaranteed to be impressed.

Dark and Stormy

• 1.5 oz dark rum
• 4 oz. ginger beer

Fill a highball glass ice, and fill 2/3 with ginger beer, leaving room for the dark rum. Pour dark rum slowly, against the side of the glass, so that the liquor floats over the ginger beer. (To make this effect easier, you can rest a spoon upside-down at the top of the ginger beer, and pour the rum over the spoon.) Serve with a slice of lime; do not stir, but provide a straw, spoon or swizzle stick so that your guests can mix the drink themselves if they’d like.

Moscow Mule

• 1.5 oz vodka
• 4 oz. ginger beer

Maraschino has to be one of the most completely forgotten ingredients from that time. A clear, thick liquor made by fermenting, distilling, aging, and sweetening the juice from mashed-up marasca cherries, maraschino has a raw, foreboding smell (almost like moonshine), but a surprisingly sweet taste, with a sour punch from the cherries, and a bit of a kick from not-quite-mellowed-out cogeners. It makes for a pleasant, albeit bracing, after-dinner drink, and it’s employed in small amounts to sweeten and flavor many classic cocktails, but it’s not the featured ingredient in many. (The only one I can find, a pousse l’amour, is a layered drink that includes a full raw egg, and may be just a bit too avant garde for your average American drinkers. The recipe linked there includes an illustration that seems to be from Jerry Thomas’s 1860s-era bartending guide.)

This week’s cocktail, the Brandy Crusta, is a lost classic in its own right, and uses a few dashes of the aforementioned lost classic liqueur to punch up its flavor. Preparation for this one is a bit involved, but the end result looks and tastes great — it’s a singular cocktail.

Brandy Crusta

• 1 1/2 oz. brandy
• 1/2 oz. curacao
• 3 dashes Maraschino liqueur
• 1 tsp. lemon juice
• 1 dash Angostura bitters

Pare a lemon peel into one long spiral. (Reserve the fruit inside to squeeze lemon juice for this and other cocktails.) Wet the rim of a wine glass, then dip it in sugar to coat the rim. Place the lemon peel spiral in the wine glass, then fill the glass with ice. Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker, and shake to combine. Strain into the prepared wine glass.

p.s. — If you can’t bring yourself to buy a bottle of maraschino to attempt this, or if you can’t locate maraschino in your liquor store, this drink is almost as good if you substitute an equivalent amount of grenadine or a teaspoon of sugar. You could even omit the sweetener altogether.

But I digress. During the majority of history of human drinking, if you wanted to drink something other than beer, wine, or straight liquor, you didn’t reach for your cocktail shaker. You made a cordial.

Cordials (or liqueurs) are defined as any spirit with added sugar, but the real way to look at them is any distilled spirit with added flavor. Whether you’re soaking neutral spirits in lemon peels to make limoncello, or mixing berries with rotgut to make sloe gin, you’re adding some sort of extra flavor to the alcohol. So instead of ordering a cocktail with orange juice, someone would just ask for a glass of Cointreau, an orange liqueur. (Which is a good thing — since until less than 200 years ago, ice wouldn’t have been readily available to bartenders. Imagine drinking a room-temperature martini, and you can understand why cordials seemed like a better option.)

Today, we think of liqueurs (or cordials — you can call them either) as potential flavorings for cocktails, and a lot of cut-rate schnapps is produced to that end. (Think anybody wants to sip Peachtree or Sour Apple Schnapps slowly on the rocks?) But there are still quality cordials out there that can be enjoyed on their own — or as a major ingredient in a simple cocktail.

Today’s cocktail features Drambuie, a complex honey-and-herbal liqueur made from a base of Scotch. Company materials claim the recipe is at least 250 years old, and hearkens back to the English royal family Stuart. Today, it may be enjoyed on its own, but its main use (and the only reason most bar managers keep it around) is to make the Rusty Nail, a cocktail that mixes Drambuie with Scotch, its mother liquor. As a cocktail, it takes the bite off modestly priced Scotch (though you wouldn’t want to waste a single malt on it.)

Rusty Nail

• 1 oz. Scotch
• 1/2 oz Drambuie

Combine ingredients over ice in a rocks glass and stir; if preferred, combine over ice in a cocktail shaker, stir, and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon peel if desired.

P.S: The same recipe yields a Godfather if you substitute amaretto for Drambuie. Vodka and amaretto in the same proportions is a Godmother. And the same drink with Southern Comfort and amaretto is a Sicilian Kiss, and a terrible  idea.

What to drink, then? It’s a continual problem I’ve mentioned more than once — but once again, I think I’ve found a decent solution that balances the needs of winter and spring. A good gateway drink between the season we’re leaving (or, at least, the one we were supposed to be experiencing) and the one we’re approaching. I found this drink in Jerry Thomas’s bartending guide, published in 1887. It’s fairly simple, yet bracingly complex, with the sour punch of the whiskey complementing the grapey sweetness of the brandy. I’m guessing it was named after the New York town, and its accompanying racetrack. (Maybe to approximate the racetrack, or the sport of kings itself, at the same time base and cosmopolitan? Or maybe just because some of his customers there liked to drink it.)

Tonight’s drink mixes brandy, whiskey, and vermouth. You’d be well-served to use a good version of each — you don’t have to pour cognac into this, but make it a decent brandy, at least a couple years old. Your whiskey could be rye or bourbon, but don’t skimp on that, either, or you’ll pay for it the next morning. You could garnish this with a cherry or a lemon peel, and if you wanted to pour it over rocks and serve it well into the spring (or even summer,) you’d be fine.

But the weather just isn’t cooperating! Over the past week, I’ve had three days that look like fall, and one that could almost pass for early spring! And if you’re like me, the seasonal uncertainty is very destabilizing. Not just in your cocktail choices, I’m sure, but still…

What to do? I’ll admit, I didn’t know either. And then I flipped through my notes, and came upon this old standard… made notable if only for its name (which, apocryphally, is a shortening of “suffering bar steward.”) I’ve tried to do my own research to find the origin of this drink. No luck. Not in my late-1800s-era bartending handbook by Henry Craddock, or my 1940s-era Burke handbook, or the 1950s bartending book from Dave Embury, or the Playboy bartending book, or the 1981 Mr. Boston bar book.

So what is this drink, and where did I even hear of it? To answer the latter question first, I think it was a line of dialogue from a terrible episode of forgettable late-90s television. The former, I would never have found without the Internet. But eventually, I found several sources pointing to a clip from a 1959 New York Times interview with Joe Scialom. Regrettably, their archive isn’t completely electronic and free, so I can’t confirm it (at least, not without surrendering a good portion of my pay for this post):

“When liquor was short during the war, he had to concoct “something to quench the boys’ thirst.” He combined equal parts gin and brandy with a dash of Angostura bitters, a teaspoon of Rose’s lime juice, and English ginger ale. He garnished the drink with a sprig of fresh mint, a slice of orange and a cucumber peel. The bartender advised Americans to substitute ginger beer for the ginger ale because the British version of the soft drink is more heavily seasoned with ginger than ours.”

So… the Suffering Bastard:

• 1 oz. brandy
• 1 oz. gin
• 1 dash Angostura bitters
• 1/4 oz. Rose’s lime juice (if a more tart drink is desired, substitute juice of 1/4 lime)
• 4 oz. ginger beer (ginger ale will do in a pinch, but your Suffering Bastard will have too much sweet, and not enough spice.)

Combine gin, brandy, bitters, and lime juice in a glass. Stir to combine, then fill with ginger beer. Garnish? Mint, orange, and cucumber peel are suggested, but a lime would work just as well. 

In addition to keeping it simple, I’m never caught with my pants down when the bartender comes up and asks what I’ll have. One cannot always be prepared, and one needs to be quick on their feet when it comes to these sorts of decisions, lest one be viewed as a dolt or worse by their company. This will be on the final, so pay attention.

As I was saying, I’m not much into big mixed drinks as I find them distasteful. There has been a perpetual exception for the past few weeks, however, and that is the Long Island Iced Tea. Made with vodka, gin, tequila, rum, triple sec, sour mix, and Coke, this is both one of the most complex drinks one can make as well as one of the simplest. It’s quite simple to remember all the ingredients, and it’s not like it matters, anyway. This is simply a delightful-tasting way to get silly.

When going out to various establishments, you may be tempted to try their various takes on the Long Island. This can be a fun experiment in certain places – particularly those which make it a habit out of crafting unusual and creative beverages. I would caution against this, however, in chain restaurants and bars, which tend to throw expensive ingredients into the mix in an effort to jack up the price, while disregarding the matter of taste, which is what the drink is supposed to bring to the table anyway.

So when a drink is advertised with Grey Goose vodka, know that you can use Ketel One and be fine. When Patron is parroted in the description, opt for 1800 instead. Long story short, you can get a great tasting drink cheaper, and it will go down all the same. And if you’re getting an extremely mixed drink like a Long Island, the kind of booze you add to it won’t matter much anyway.

You probably already have a fairly strong opinion on the Bloody Mary — either you love it, or you can’t stand it. Some people find the salty, spicy bite from the drink wakes up a bleary palate after a too-short night of boozy sleep. (Personally, I’m not sure it works any better than a strong cup of coffee.) Some people feel like the tomato juice, along with the celery garnish, make the Bloody Mary almost healthy, and thus a good way to “equal out” all the pain imbibed against the body the previous night. Of course, the alcohol helps. Hair of the dog and whatnot. (Though you could get that just as easily from a mimosa, or an Irish coffee, or even a beer.)

Now, I can’t address whether or not a Bloody Mary is your cup of tea, or whether it’s the best way to treat your hangover (or whether you should even be contemplating the “best” way to treat a hangover — really, how often do you get that banged up?) But hangover or no, if you’re planning on serving a holiday brunch (or just a simple breakfast for houseguests who would be amenable to drinks before noon), you’ve got a perfect occasion to serve up a bunch of these. They’re tasty, appropriately festive, and whether or not they actually help salve your alcohol-inflicted wounds, the ritual is somewhat comforting.

This recipe is fairly basic, and can be altered however you’d like. I would caution against throwing the entire kitchen sink into your Bloody Mary, though. The first bar I worked at made Bloody Marys with a dash each of A1 steak sauce, barbecue sauce, Worcestershire sauce, cayenne, Tabasco, lemon juce, orange juice, Rose’s lime juice, horseradish, salt, and pepper. The process looked great, and customers liked all that attention their drinks received, but at the end of the day, what’s the point of all those redundant flavors?

Bloody Mary

• 1.5 oz. vodka
• 4 oz. tomato juice
• 1/2 tsp. celery salt
• 1 tsp. horseradish
• 1/2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce (3-4 dashes)
• Juice from 1/4 lemon
• 1/2 tsp. Tabasco sauce (you can substitute a similar vinegar-based hot sauce, but something like Sriracha or a darker chili-based sauce wouldn’t have the right acidic kick.)
• 1/2 oz. orange juice

I decided that because I was at a sushi place that it would be apropos to order something with Japanese flair. The night wasn’t as cold as the nights prior, so I opted for something cool and refreshing. A saketini would do just the trick.

A saketini is really any kind of drink you can come up with that involves sake and a cocktail glass. Sake, of course, being that benevolent rice spirit from Japan which is typically served hot, although being served cold is not unheard of – especially when used in a martini. A traditional saketini recipe calls for 2 and a half ounces of gin, with a quarter of an ounce of sake, along with an olive for garnish. I think this is stupid.

What’s the purpose of making a saketini if all you’re going to be tasting is gin? Thankfully, Hokka Hokka got it right. They blended roughly one and a half ounces each of vodka and sake and garnished it with a cucumber. I must say, this was one fantastic drink. I wonder, though, if you’re going to garnish it with a cucumber, wouldn’t it be more appropriate to be crafting the drink with a little Hendrick’s gin? No matter. It was fantastic as it was.

Don’t be afraid to get your feet wet on this one, by the way. There are many brands of sake to choose from, and many of them are very affordable. Two of the most popular in the United States are Gekkeikan and Hakutsuru respectively. Have a look around at your local mart and ask for advice. Typically you’ll find an employee who can impart on you his sake wisdom. Just don’t go calling him sensei – that would be weird.

- Ian Fleming, Casino Royale

James Bond (whose tastes ranged much more widely than the vodka martinis most associate with him) was right – an expensive mixer is the best way to perk up a cheap drink. The inverse is also true, though. Consider this a warning. Cheap mixers can ruin the best intentions and the finest liquors. Your $15 cosmo, even if it’s mixed with premium liquors like Ketel One and Cointreau, will only taste as good as the splash of cranberry juice that lends it its color.

This can be a serious problem, since many bars these days pour reconstituted cranberry juice from a soda gun – and even the bars that splurge on the bottled stuff often buy “cranberry juice cocktail”, a sweetened version of cranberry juice spiked with water, sugar, and citric acid. You might run into similar problems with the bar’s orange and grapefruit juice (though the pineapple juice bars use, sold in cans, is usually unadulterated.)

I’m not suggesting you fret too much about any of this. The last thing we want to do is make our readers into cocktail snobs. (Bond, while both a bad-a** and a bon vivant, would certainly have been an annoying customer.) Knowing all this, I suggest you either order what you’d like and enjoy the best version of it your favorite bar has to offer, or stick to bottled beer.

Either way, the next time you’re drinking at home, make yourself this – and remember to work with good, 100 percent pure, unsweetened juice. The result, while effortlessly simple to make, is a refreshing cocktail that manages to be fruity with almost no sweetness.  It’s a great seasonal drink, too, combining the flavors of summer and fall to make something that’s just as bracing as it is cooling. You can even add a splash of sparkling water (Perrier or otherwise) to give it a bit of fizz.

Sea Breeze

• 1.5 oz vodka
• 2 oz. cranberry juice (100% juice, unsweetened)
• 2 oz. grapefruit juice (100% juice, unsweetened)
• Splash soda water (optional)

For extra credit: This drink has a sweeter cousin called a bay breeze, which is made by substituting pineapple juice for the grapefruit. The sweetness in the pineapple is balanced nicely by the bitter cranberry. These days, a Bay Breeze made with Malibu (coconut rum) is the cocktail of choice for just about every bachelorette party I serve. Please don’t read that as a recommendation.

Either way, if the Old-Fashioned were a first-generation cocktail, the Sazerac is an immediate descendant. The same formulation – whiskey, bitters, and sugar – with a swirl of absinthe to transform the drink with anise flavors. (In localities where the absinthe is frowned upon, Pernod, anisette, Chartreuse, or even Sambuca would suffice.) The drink is usually made with rye, rather than bourbon, but if you really want to make it like Don Draper would have drunk it, you should use Canadian Club – it’s not strictly a rye, but it’s a rye-based blend, and it’s also Don’s brand of choice.  We sampled a bottle of their new 10-year Reserve label, and it’s a great buy in the $25-$30 range, whether you’re making Sazeracs or an Old-Fashioneds.

Sazerac

2 oz. Canadian Club Reserve 10, or similar rye
1 tsp. sugar
2 dashes bitters (if you want to be a bitters snob, you should use Peychaud’s, but Angostura will do just fine.)
1 dash absinthe

Drink recipes are, after all, fluid (forgive the pun.) Do you like your mint julep with a spritz of soda water? A slice of lime? Then that’s the right way to make it. Sure, it might not have been the way to make a “traditional” julep – but if julep drinkers in the antebellum South had ready access to limes, chances are they’d try it.

With that said, let’s talk about vodka – unique amongst liquors for its understated characteristics and ability to blend with just about everything. Unless you’re drinking cheap stuff, any flavors you notice – other than the actual taste of alcohol – will be pretty mild. The process of making vodka (in which something with starch/sugar is fermented, the alcohol is chemically removed to almost pure strength, then diluted with pure water to bottle strength) doesn’t leave much room for taste. While some vodkas do retain a hint of the original ingredients that made them, the smoothness (or lack thereof) is the main thing you’ll notice in whatever vodka you’re drinking.

This week, I’m drinking a sample bottle of I Spirit vodka, a new brand purporting itself to be styled after old Italian distilling techniques. Distilled from a mix of white wine and fermented Italian grains, I Spirit is a smooth, neat vodka, with a hint of fresh garden flavors. A vodka like this would be great for a cocktail that focuses on fresh summer ingredients. Here’s one I came up with, but if you pick up a bottle of I Spirit – or any decent vodka, really – you should feel free to come up with your own.

Raspberry-basil vodka smash
1.5 oz vodka
5 – 6 raspberries, rinsed.
5-6 basil leaves
1 tsp. sugar
Soda water

Add the berries, basil, and sugar to a highball glass, along with a splash of water to dissolve the sugar. Muddle the mixture. (If you don’t have a muddle, just use the bottom of a spoon to smash the berries and press the basil leaves against the bottom of the glass.) Fill with ice, add the vodka, top with soda water, stir and serve.

What else should you try? Maybe watermelon and mint? Blueberry with lemon peel? Cucumber and honeydew? Want to add a splash of cranberry, or a float of Grand Marnier? If you come up with something particularly tasty, tell us about it in the comments.

The first, more refined category includes any drink with one primary spirit and secondary ingredients to complement it. Examples range from the Manhattan (vermouth and bitters to complement your bourbon) to the margarita (curacao and lime juice to punch up tequila) to the Godfather (a splash of amaretto to sweeten up a Scotch on the rocks) and countless others. Simple, classic cocktails, designed by bartenders who had limited ingredients and hoped to give their customers the best tastes possible (or at least mask the flavor of whatever rotgut booze was available in more austere times.)

The second category of drinks, like Lord Byron, are mad, bad, and dangerous to know: bizarre concoctions featuring several main spirits mixed together with no regard for the consequences. Today, a lot of drinks ordered in college bars fall under that category. A Long Island iced tea (vodka, gin, rum, tequila, and triple sec)? Three Wise Men (Jack Daniels, Johnny Walker and Jim Beam)? Sounds like a George Thorogood b-side.) A Red Death (Vodka, triple sec, amaretto, sloe gin and Southern Comfort)? Put that many different liquors in your head, and you deserve whatever hangover you get.

Many of those drinks seem to exist for no earthly reason, save for the sheer lunacy of it. Why would anyone attempt to mix three different whiskies together? Why must we live in a world in which bartenders can be expected to shake these things up? My God, why have you forsaken us?

But sometimes, those insane concoctions can yield something a bit refined. This week’s drink, Between the Sheets, is a good example. A mixture of brandy, rum, curacao, and lemon juice, Between the Sheets almost uses the brandy and rum as one liquor, with the unrefined grapey sweetness of the brandy dovetailing with the sugary vanilla flavors of the rum. It features brandy, which was once one of our most popular liquors, but has of late become an underused, forgotten spirit. If you’d like, you can look at it as a hybrid of a sidecar and a classic daiquiri. At the very least, it comes in a cocktail glass, so it’s got to be at least a couple of steps more refined than frat-boy swill like the Long Island.

Between the Sheets

• 1 oz. brandy
• 1 oz. white rum
• 1 oz. triple sec
• 1/2 oz. lemon juice

Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker over ice. Shake to chill and combine, and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon peel. If you feel fancy, rub the lemon peel around the rim of the glass before straining the drink.

Sure, it stars in a number of cocktails – a Manhattan, an Old Fashioned, a Sazerac – but there aren’t many cocktails in which whiskey is a complementary flavor. The very reasons we love it – the assertive, smoky kick of a good Scotch, the oakey, sour flavor of a bourbon, the sharp, tart sweetness of a rye, the liquid-lightning kick of an Irish whiskey – make any cocktail based on the spirit fraught with peril. The whiskey will simply overpower everything else in the mix.

This doesn’t hold true for mellow, blended whiskeys – often called “Canadian” whiskeys, after the blending techniques pioneered by Hiram Walker and his Canadian Club label. Distillers swirl together rye, corn, and barley whiskeys for a smooth, even flavor – the blend mellows out the harsher notes of the individual flavors.

When the blending technique is combined with a generous aging period, you get something like Crown Royal, or Canadian Club’s new Classic 12 – a smooth, nuanced mix of rye and bourbon flavors with none of the kick of a younger, more homogeneous whiskey, aged long enough for all the harsher elements from the distillation process to disperse.

Something like the Classic 12 would be perfect to revive the Ward 8 – a subtle mix of citrus, whiskey, and grenadine. A harsher bourbon would overpower the mix, and with Scotch? Forget it. But with the right rye-based blended whiskey, it’s great. (If you’re not going to use a blend, rye would be the best whiskey to use.) This recipe’s just as strong as a Manhattan, so consume accordingly.

Ward 8

• 2.5 oz. Canadian Club Classic 12
• .75 oz (1/2 jigger) orange juice
• .75 oz (1/2 jigger) lemon juice
• Splash of grenadine

Chill a cocktail glass, and combine ingredients over ice in a cocktail shaker.  Shake vigorously to mix, and strain into the chilled glass. Garnish with a cherry, if you’re so inclined.

For you Mad men fans out there, Canadian Club is Don Draper’s favorite whiskey (he’d probably drink it straight, but he might order a Ward 8 for his date.) If you’re interested in the history behind this drink, check out David Wondrich’s write-up of the recipe, and its origins in Boston’s eighth ward – which is now Roxbury and the South End. Like many cocktails, this went by the wayside once people started clumsily mixing their whiskey with ginger ale, cola, and the like, so half the bartenders in Ward 8 probably wouldn’t even know how to make this anymore.

(Editor’s note: The author was provided with a sample of Canadian Club Classic 12, with which he was able to make a Ward 8.)

Mixing mojitos can be an annoying, time-consuming process, whether you’re a professional bartender working a busy shift or a barbecue host mixing drinks for guests. The official recipe – which requires attacking mint leaves, sugar, and water with a muddler for at least 5-10 seconds before adding the liquor – takes time, and the mint leaves and sugar always wind up congealed at the bottom of the glass, making life miserable for whoever is doing the dishes (the busboy, or worse, you, half-drunk and cleaning up after your barbecue.) If you plan on making more than one of these things, you’ll need a better way.

If I plan on whipping up a huge number of mojitos, I start by making a mint simple syrup. Buy a couple bunches of mint from the supermarket, then chop them coarsely – you’ll get about a cup of chopped mint. Bring two cups of water to a boil in a saucepan, then turn the heat to low. Mix in the mint leaves, and let them steep in the water. If any of the water is boiling off, turn the heat down. After twenty minutes or so, strain out the mint, put the water back in the pot over low heat, mix in two cups of sugar, and stir until all the sugar is dissolved. That should be enough syrup to make as many mojitos as you need – and you won’t have to muddle one drink.

Mojitos

• 2 oz light rum
• 1 tsp mint simple syrup (see recipe above)
• 1/4 lime, sliced
• 6 oz soda water (more or less to taste)

1. Fill a tall glass with ice.
2. Add the light rum and mint simple syrup, and stir vigorously to combine. You could get fancy and shake this to combine, if you’d rather.
3. Fill the drink with soda water. Generally, drinks will include three parts soda to every one part of liquor, but you can add less if you want to taste a stronger drink, or more if you need a tall drink on a hot day.
4. Squeeze the lime into the drink. You can throw the wedge away or drop it in, depending on your preference.

That syrup recipe will work for any other kind of simple syrup you can dream up. A lot of bars were playing with basil simple syrup last summer. I make a great ginger syrup the same way – just chop up a ginger root, steep it in hot water for a while, strain out the ginger, stir in some sugar, and you’re all set. Makes a great ginger old-fashioned, or you could just mix it into soda water for a homemade ginger ale.

Now it makes perfect sense to me. Bartenders back then didn’t have all the mixers we work with now. They didn’t have cola, for the most part, and they certainly didn’t have sour mix (or margarita mix, or daiquiri mix, or Collins mix, or whatever else you want to call it.) All they had was sugar, ice, and fruit. If they wanted to serve cocktails or mixed drinks, they had to make their own mixers, on the spot.

And they did. Take a look at a drink like a Tom Collins. You’re mixing lemon, sugar, and water (melted from the ice) together. That’s sour mix. It’s better, in fact, because you’re making it from fresh-squeezed juice, and you’re getting extra flavor from the lemon rind that isn’t normally included in a premade bottle of sour mix (which is basically lemonade with slightly less sugar.) Yes, it’s a simple recipe, but that’s kind of the point – you don’t want anything too complex to cover up the taste of the gin, do you?

Tom Collins

• 2 oz. gin
• Juice of one lemon
• 2 tsp. sugar (if possible, use powdered sugar – it dissolves faster)
• Cracked or cubed ice
• Soda water

Juice one lemon (using some sort of juicing tool will save you time and yield more juice.) Combine the lemon juice, gin, and sugar in a cocktail shaker and shake vigorously. Strain the mix into a tall glass filled with fresh ice, then fill with soda water.

This is a pretty versatile recipe. Sub whiskey in for the gin, and you get a John Collins. A brandy Collins or vodka Collins would work just as well, though neither of them has a special name. And for extra credit, you can make a Tom Collins, but fill it with champagne instead of soda water at the end. That gives you a French 75, a drink named after a cannon used in World War I. Consume accordingly.

P.S. – If you plan on making many drinks with fresh citrus, you might want to go out and find some sort of juicer. Mine’s just an $8 handheld version that helps to squeeze every last drop from your fruit without killing your knuckles. Also, I read on a box of limes once that if you slice your citrus into thirds instead of halves, you’ll get every last drop of juice out of it. I haven’t done enough testing to be sure about that, but I’ll pass on the tip nonetheless.

The Tradicional Paloma is made with tequila, giving it that typical Mexican drink flavor.  However, instead of requiring a handful of other ingredients, all that is needed is soda.  Add a spark to the celebration with little effort, how much better could it be?

Tradicional Paloma

1 oz. Jose Cuervo Tradicional Silver

3 oz. Squirt (or other grapefruit soda)

lime wedge

Pour tequila and soda over ice in a highball glass.  Garnish with lime.

*The glass rim can be coated with salt, if desired.

The Herradura Bloody Maria isn’t your typical Bloody Mary.  First of all, there are special ice cubes for this drink.  Yes, you read that correctly, ice cubes.  Made with jalapeños and cilantro, they offer more flavor to this drink.  Second, instead of using vodka as the kick in the beverage, this drink is made with tequila for a bit of flair.  Finally, to add another layer of spice, a splash of jalapeño-cilantro juice is added.

So, for your next unscheduled weekend day, plan ahead and buy all of the necessary ingredients for a hearty brunch and a tasty cocktail.  Then after a little bit of cooking and mixing, you will have a delightful brunch to savor.

Herradurra Bloody Maria

2 oz. Herradura Reposado tequila

4 oz. Bloody Mary mix

1 oz. jalapeño-cilantro juice*

1 whole jalapeño

2 cocktail onions

1 small red pepper

1 jalapeño-cilantro ice cube

Fill martini shaker with plain ice and add tequila, mix, and juice.  Shake well and strain into a martini class.  Add jalapeño-cilantro ice cube.  Garnish with jalapeno, onions, and red pepper.

*Jalapeño-Cilantro Ice Cubes

24 oz. water

1/2 cup sliced jalapeños

rind of 1/2 lemon

1 lemon, quartered

1/4 cup fresh cilantro

1 tsp. sea salt

Combine ingredients in a blender, and blend until liquefied.  Strain and pour into ice cube trays, reserving one ounce of liquid for each Bloody Mary you plan on making.

Regardless to how this day makes you feel, there is one thing everyone can have in common: a great cocktail recipe.  Whether you make this beverage as a special something for your loved one or as a way to drown your sorrows, Love Potion #9 is a tasty drink.  Made with Cruzan 9, which included nine different spices, it provides a delightful array of flavors for your tastebuds to enjoy.

No matter if you celebrate the day or wish it would go away, this cocktail could be the perfect way to the day.

Love Potion #9

1 1/2 oz. Cruzan 9

3/4 oz. DeKuyper Coconut Amaretto

3 oz. pineapple juice

1 oz. cranberry juice

orange slice

cherry

Fill a martini shaker with ice, and add all ingredients.  Shake well.  Pour into a hurricane glass, and garnish with an orange/cherry stack on the rim.

We’ll start with the recipe.  Love in the FIG City is a delicious cocktail made with tequila, ginger liqueur, prosecco, and fig and was created by by Tomas Delos Reyes of the Standard Hotel in New York City.  This combination of ingredients produces a drink that is both pleasurable to taste and sight.  Its light pink hue gives the drink a feminine touch, while the tequila gives it a nice bit of a kick.  It’s perfect as a pre-dinner cocktail, an accompaniment for tapas dishes, or simply a drink to be enjoyed on its own, particularly on a certain day of the year.

Which brings me to the reminder part of this article.  Love in the FIG City would be the perfect cocktail to serve to your valentine.  Yes, for those of you that are calendar challenged, Valentine’s Day is only seventeen days away.  So, rather than fighting the crowds at the local card and chocolate shops on the 14th, perhaps now would be the good time to shop.  While you’re out there, get the ingredients for this drink and make your night extra special.

Love in the FIG City

2 oz. Partida Reposado Tequila
1/2 oz. fresh lemon juice
1/2 oz. ginger liqueur
1/2 oz. cinnamon syrup
3/4 oz. fig puree or half a fresh fig
Mionetto Brut Prosecco

Muddle fig or fig puree in the bottom of a martini shaker.  Add tequila, lemon juice, ginger liqueur, and cinnamon syrup, and shake well.  Fine strain over ice into a rocks glass. Top with prosecco and garnish with a fresh fig wheel.

To help with drink planning, we have selected our ten favorite holiday cocktails.  Help us choose the best from this elite group, and on Wednesday, December 22nd we’ll share the full recipe, which will give you more than a week to gather all of the necessary ingredients.  Place your vote, and return on the twenty-second to see who won.

1. Baby, It’s Cold Outside- Alizé Gold Passion, apple schnapps, vodka, triple sec (Alizé Liqueur)

2.Cuervo Confetti Drop- Jose Cuervo Especial Tequila, Goldschlager (Jose Cuervo)

3. Don’t Talk, Just Kiss- Sobieski Polish Vodka, Grand Marnier, pomegranate juice, brut-style champagne (Sobieski Vodka)

4. Ginger Dazzle- Kilimanjaro Foods Sunrise Ginger Syrup, pineapple juice, champagne (Kilimanjaro Foods, Inc.)

5. Hibiscus Sparkler- hibiscus syrup, ginger beer, prosecco (Prohibition)

6. Holiday Flip- Amaretto, creme de cacao, half & half, egg (Ago of Hard Rock Hotel)

7. It Takes Two- reposado tequila, silver tequila, cherry liqueur, Angostura bitters, orange bitters (Page 71 Lounge)

8. Rouge Noir- Combier Rouge, Combier Orange Liqueur, brut champagne (Junior Merino)

9. Sparkling Ginger Daisy- gin, ginger liqueur, lemon juice, grenadine, Mionetto Prosecco Brut (Mionetto)

10. Sparkling Sangria- Tequila Avión, sparkling wine, lemon lime soda, orange, lime, pear, raspberries (Tequila Avión)

Please note that there are strict regulations on voting. Additionally, our system audits for fraudulent votes.

We received two samples:  12 noon to midnight original and 12 noon to midnight rouge.  As noted on their website,  “12 noon to midnight is a sophisticated and culinary inspired non-alcoholic beverage perfect for every occasion noon to midnight. Developed by legendary American chefs David Burke and Alfred Portale, 12 noon to midnight is a delicious and healthy alternative to soda, wine, beer and sparkling apple and grape juices.”  These would be fun beverages for both the kids and adults to try.

We sampled the 12 noon to midnight rouge first.  This was our favorite beverage of the pair. With hints of pomegranate and ginger, it was flavorful yet not overpowering.  What everyone liked about this beverage was that it had a nice amount of carbonation but a subtle amount of sweetness.  With only 60 calories in an 8-ounce serving, there’s no guilt in having a glass.  The adults also sampled the rouge mixed with vodka, which gave this tasty drink a nice little kick.

A couple weeks later we sampled the 12 noon to midnight original.  This beverage has peach and apricot notes, but they seem to be much more subtle.  Served straight up, it was light, but almost too light.  Therefore, we decided to give this beverage a little assistance via some added ingredients.  Once mixed, this 12  noon to midnight cocktail was delightful.  Between the lightness of the 12 noon to midnight, the kick of the vodka, and the sweetness of the schnapps, it made a wonderfully refreshing cocktail.

12 noon to midnight cocktail

1 oz. vodka

1/2 oz. peach schnapps

12 noon to midnight original

Fill a lowball glass with ice.  Pour vodka, schnapps and 12 noon to midnight into glass.  Stir to combine.

Recently on Idea Offer, there was an idea request to get people’s thoughts on the best way to garnish the morning elixir we call a Bloody Mary.  The winning idea was from Lacey Thompson.  Her response was both well-written and mouth-watering:

“I prefer a garlic and lime soaked shrimp, a slice of yellow onion, and a portion of kosher dill pickle, and lastly a cube of muenster cheese. The cheese smooths the whole drink and brings all the flavors together. Top it off with dripping Tabasco or habanero sauce over the garnishes. “

So the next time you want to spice up that morning meal, try Lacey’s garnish and make your Bloody Mary memorable.