08 Sep 2024: Angel Face

This cocktail was featured this week by Anders Erikson. If you’re unfamiliar, here’s the link to his entertaining and inspiring YouTube channel where, to quote, when you hit that subscribe button you’ll find more “sips, tips, and recipes”.

This gin-based cocktail originates in Harry Craddock’s Savoy Cocktail Book (mostly Out of Print or in Reprints) where the proportions are equal parts gin, apricot brandy and Calvados. Anders tweaked the ratios a bit and recommends particular spirits - some of which I don’t have access to, but nonetheless, found this one a tasty treat. If you’ve not tried mixing with Apricot Liqueur, this is a good excuse to go out and buy a bottle.

Angel Face Cocktail

Ingredients (using Anders Erickson’s revision)

• 1.25 oz Beefeater London Dry Gin (I used Tanqueray)

• 1 oz Roger Groult Pays D’Augue 3 year Calvados (I used Lairds Applejack)

• 3/4 oz Giffard Abricot du Roussillon (I used Drillaud)

Chill a coupe. Put all ingredients in a mixing glass, add ice and stir for about 30 seconds until chilled. Strain into chilled coupe, Express orange peel over the glass - no garnish necessary.

09 Aug 2024: Vermont Carre

Saturday is Coctail Hour for us, the one day we find something new and different to try.

I scoured the web for the perfect concoction to make with my bottle of Mad River Revolution Rye, and found just the thing on Mad River’s website: a Vermont Carre.

Mad River’s recipe can be found here.

07 July 2024: Out of the Ashes Rose Sangria

We recently bought a bottle of an Italian rosé that we just did not enjoy at all. Rather than dump it, I usually add wine to something we are cooking, but as Julia Child might advise, don’t cook with anything you wouldn’t drink. So rather than pour an almost full 750 mL bottle down the drain, I set out to salvage it.

Based on a recipe for summer sangria found in Food and Wine, I guesstimated proportions of white rum, Campari, simple syrup and lemon juice. The transformation was, in a word, amazing.

I think the flexibility of Sangria makes it one of the easiest and tastiest drinks for aperitivo. And it didn’t hurt that a bottle of wine we didn’t care for was salvaged. Proportions are approximations, but this worked really well.

Ingredients

• A short bottle dry rosé (I used a nearly full 750 ML bottle)

• about 2 oz. white rum (McCoys was delish)

• about 2 oz Campari

• about 1 oz simple syrup (I used agave, easier to mix)

• about 3/4 oz fresh lemon juice

Instruction

Put all of the ingredients into the wine bottle, give it a good shake and refrigerate - several hours if possible. Pour into a glass and add ice cubes for a little extra chill. Garnish with berries (I used blueberries and raspberries).

12 Apr 2024: Alpine Spring Cocktail

I’ve been a fan of Liber & Co’s cocktail syrups for a while now. It started with the realization that the cloying Grenadine syrups readily available in grocery stores were much different that actual crafted Grenadines. One could say the rest is history. I use Liber & Co’s syrups in cocktails, of course, but they are great ingredients to use when building mocktails.

One of the latest offerings is a bright tasting Lemon Lavender Cordial. Since New England’s version of spring is definitely not very “spring-like” these days, I took Liber & Co’s suggestion for this beautiful, 3-ingredient cocktail tonight. Hopefully it will inspire Mother Nature to get with the program and turn the corner on the dismal late-winter cold we’ve been experiencing.

Alpine Spring

Ingredients:

• 1 oz Lemon Lavender Cordial

• 2 oz gin

• ½ Yellow Chartreuse

Instructions:

• Combine all ingredients in a shaker with ice

• Shake vigorously for 20 seconds or until shaker tin is ice cold

• Strain into a chilled coupe and garnish

24 Feb 2024: Left Hand

Is this a riff on a Boulevardier or a riff on a Negroni?

The Left Hand, concocted by NY bartender Sam Ross, the Left Hand is smooth with bitter notes of Campari accented by Chocolate Bitters.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 oz. bourbon (we used Jim Bean tonight)

• 3/4 oz. Campari

• 3/4 oz sweet vermouth (Carpano Antico)

• 3 dashes Chocolate Bitters

• Brandied cherry (garnish)

Add all to a mixing glass. Fill with ice and stir til well-chilled, about 20-30 seconds. Strain into a chilled coupe and garnish with a brandied cherry.

02 Dec 2023: Old Fashioned

Lately, I’ve discovered the subtle, but distinct differences that bitters can make to cocktails. On a recent trip to Houston, Adrien ordered a smoked old fashioned which included cherry bitters and that was delicious.

After checking out our home bar, I discovered a bottle of Woodford Reserve Chocolate Bitters - which led me to this delightful version of an old fashioned: The Double Oaked Old Fashioned.

Ingredients:

• 2 oz. Bourbon (recommended Woodford’s Double Oaked)

• 1/2 oz Grade A Dark Organic Maple Syrup

• 2 Dashes Chocolate Bitters (I used Woodford Reserve Chocolate Bitters)

Put everything in a mixing glass, add ice and stir until well chilled - about 30 seconds. Strain over ice into a rocks glass and add garnish as desired (I went with the traditional).

28 Oct 2023: Stone Fence

When I’m looking for non-classic cocktail ideas, I often fall back on an iPhone app called Perfect Drink. The offerings are searchable by name of course, but there is also an option to locate a drink that utilizes a specific base alcohol or even a non-alcoholic ingredient such as apple cide.

Which is exactly what I did last night when looking for a fall-themed drink (no thank you to pumpkin spice anything). The cocktail I gravitated to was an apple-cider based drink enhanced with both Bourbon and Angostura Bitters - and it was delightful.

Stone Fence Cocktail

• 2 oz. Bourbon (I used Buffalo Trace)

• 4 oz. non-alcoholic apple cider

• 2 dashes of Angostura Bitters

Place all of the ingredients in a rocks glass, add ice and enjoy. The directions did not call for stirring, so I didn’t - which meant that the first sips were more apple cider-y with a touch of Bourbon and the last ones were more Bourbon with a touch of apple cider. I did like this!

29 Sep 2023: Whiskey Rebel

When I’m looking for something other than a classic cocktail, I have several go-to resources. This one, The Whiskey Rebel, comes from Be Your Own Bartender by Carey Jones and John McCarthy. It’s a great guide to creating cocktails that appeal to your personal tastes!

I had a bottle of Pimms No. 1 in the fridge, and was looking for a way to use it - other than the Pimm’s Cup of course.

A little reminiscent of a whiskey sour, this one checked all of the boxes tonight.

1 1/2 ounces of rye (I used Rittenhouse)

1 ounce Pimm’s No. 1

3/4 ounce fresh lemon juice

3/4 ounce simple syrup (I used agave - easier to mix)

Lemon wedge for garnish

All the ingredients go into the shaker, add ice, and shake (I went for 30 seconds). Pour into a lowball glass with ice. Garnish with the lemon wedge.

13 Sep 2023: Savoy Cocktail #1

I’m pretty much a fan of any cocktail that uses a form of gin as the base, the juniper-y the better. So after spotting this beauty of a riff on a Martini on Liber & Co’s website, I knew I would be trying it.

Liber & Co. makes some really wonderful syrups for mixing up cocktails or mocktails, or just plain making beverages more interesting. Their version of grenadine is authentic and tasty - and for those of us not inclined to make our own grenadine syrup - the answer to our prayers.

In place of adding a barspoon of absinthe to the mix, I prefer to spritz the glassware, which is what I did for this drink. Spritzing the rim imparts the absinthe without it become overwhelming.

Ingredients

• 2 oz gin (my current dry gin of choice is Bombay)

• 1 oz dry vermouth (Dolin)

• 1/4 oz grenadine

• Barspoon of absinthe (see head note)

Put all the ingredients into a mixing glass, add ice, and stir for 20-30 seconds until well-chilled. Strain into a chilled martini glass.

30 Aug 2023: Raspberry Bee's Knees Mocktail

While I enjoy an adult beverage prelude to dinner, sometimes that takes the non-alocholic form of a mocktail.

Personally, I don’t care for faux spirits, so when I look for mocktails, I gravitate toward drinks that don’t use things like non-alcoholic gins or rums or whiskeys. This recipe comes from barmini, José Andrés restaurant in Washington, DC.

Unfortunately, most of the honey ended up at the bottom of my shaker. Next time around, I think a dry shake followed by shaking with ice might solve that for me. But, no matter, this was still a delightful, refreshing, and definitely beautiful drink.

Ingredients

• 1 oz filtered water

• 1/2 oz. lemon

• 1/2 oz honey

• 2 raspberries plus one additional raspberry as a garnish

Put all of the ingredients except one raspberry (the garnish) into a shaker. Here’s where I would dry shake the ingredients before additing the ice and shaking a second time. Shake and strain into a glass. Top with soda water. Garnish with one raspberry.

12 Aug 2023: The Highfalutin

I have a deep appreciation for gin, my favorite style being London, and the juniper-y the better.

Tonight’s cocktail comes from J.M. Hirsch’s Shake Strain and Done (purchase options, highly recommended) and even though the headnotes suggest this would be a tasty cocktail in Autumn, I enjoyed it immensely on an 80+ degree New England August evening.

The characteristics of this drink are strong, sweet and fruity. I agree! And I’d also add that it was one of the smoothest cocktails I’ve had in a long while. The proportions for this concoction are found on p 101 of Shake Strain and Done and I’ve included the spirit list below.

The Highfalutin

• gin (Bombay Dry)

• sweet vermouth (my go-to is always Cocchi Torino)

• maraschino liqueur

• Angostura bitters

03 Aug 2023: Summer Vibes Mocktail

JM Hirsch, the travel writer, food writer, and editorial director for Milk Street, creates some of the most intriguing alcoholic cocktails! Recently I’ve discovered he also develops delicious mocktails. The video for this one, Summer Vibes, can be found on his Instagram account and meets one of my criteria for good non-alcoholic imbibing: no fake booze - something I detest.

The only thing I would change from my first go-round is to absolutely crush the ice, which probably would make adding ginger ale unnecessary. Otherwise, a tropical, refreshing summer mocktail which I plan to put on repeat.

Summer Vibes

A Mocktail by J.M. Hirsch

Ingredients

• 4 ounces unsweetened coconut water

• 2 ounces pineapple juice (since my local Market Basket didn’t have this (!), I used what I could get in small sizes. That turned out to be a pineapple-mango juice)

• 1/2 ounce grenadine (buy - or make this version from Anders Erickson - something high quality. You won’t regret it)

• Dash of orange bitters

• Dash of Angostura bitters

• 6-10 granules kosher salt (It makes a difference. Really.)

• OPTIONAL: Ginger ale (I used sugar free)

Add the first 6 ingredients to a mixing glass and mix thoroughly without ice. Pour into a highball glass (or what have you) filled 2/3 with ice (see my headnote). Top with ginger ale if using.

04 Apr 2023: The ATTY

On this somewhat historic day, I thought a cocktail with a connection might be in order. So tonight’s sip was the aptly named ATTY cocktail. I consider this a sort of punched up riff on a gin martini. Because I was looking to highlight the purple color of the drink, I used Empress 1908 Gin, but I missed the more juniper-forwardness of our usual Bombay Dry, so I played around with adding a barspoonful of the Bombay to the 1908. Not too shabby.

Traditional ATTY cocktails call for a 1/4 oz of Absinthe. I’m not a huge fan of Absinthe, but didn’t want to miss out on the flavor, so I spritzed the chilled glass instead.

Ingredients

(per the traditional recipe - see my headnote for tweaks)

• 2 oz dry Gin

• 3/4 oz dry Vermouth (used Dolin)

• 1/4 oz Créme di Violette Liqueur

• 1/4 tsp absinthe (see headnote)

Place all ingredients in a shaker, add ice and shake until super chilled (I did 40 seconds - maybe not necessary to do that much). Pour into chilled coupe glass and optionally garnish with lemon peel.

29 Mar 2023: The Buster Brown Cocktail

As a bourbon sour, this one appealed to me. The original recipe I followed called for - in my opinion - too much lemon juice. Next time around, I’ll even out the proportion of lemon to simple syrup.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 oz Bourbon (I used Buffalo Trace)

• 1/2 oz. fresh lemon juice (see headnote - this seemed like a lot)

• 1/4 oz. simple syrup

• 2 dashes Orange bitters

Put all in a shaker, add ice and shake for about 15 seconds. Pour into a chilled cocktail glass - no garnish needed.

17 Mar 2023: Tipperary

The Tipperary has sort of become an annual tradition in our house on March 17. While decidedly not green (who thinks drinking green adult beverages is a good thing?), it is our nod to St. Patrick’s Day by way of Irish whiskey.

Ingredients:

• 2 oz Irish whiskey (our go-to is Powers)

• 1/4 oz. Green Chartreuse

• 1/2 oz. sweet vermouth (for this one I pulled out the Carpano)

• Dash of Angostura Bitters

Stir all of the above with ice and serve up in a well-chilled glass. Express a little lemon peel over the top before enjoying.

04 Mar 2023: The Greenpoint

My Dad used to drink an occasional Manhattan, and recently I’ve discovered I also enjoy this style of spicy, strong cocktail as well. I’ve also discovered, though, that there are as many variations on the Manhattan as one can imagine - at least as many as there are boroughs in New York.

This variation, the Greenpoint. was invented in 2006 by Michael McIlroy of the Milk and Honey Bar. It’s unusual in that along with the usuals, Yellow Chartreuse is added to the drink. I honestly wasn’t sure how that was going to fit in, but it did - and the drink is delicious!

Just a heads up that recently Chartreuse - Yellow and Green - is sometimes hard to come by. Whenever I see it on the shelves, I grab a bottle just in case.

The Greenpoint Cocktail

• 2 oz Rye or Bourbon (I used Mad River Rye, a local craft rye)

• 1/2 of Sweet Vermouth (I used Cocchi di Torino)

• 1/2 oz Yellow Chartreuse

• Dash Angostura Bitters

• Dash Orange Bitters

Add all of the above to a mixing glass, add ice and stir for 15-30 seconds until well chilled. Serve in a chilled coupe or martini glass. Express lemon oil over the drink and rub the peel over the rim of the glass before discarding it.

28 Feb 2023: The Alaska Cocktail

No one seems certain as to how this cocktail got its name, but that should not stop anyone from giving it a try. Harry Craddock records the Alaska Cocktail’s proportions in his Savoy Cocktail Book 2:1 gin to Yellow Chartreuse. Most modern version of the cocktail add a dash of orange bitters, which I did as well. Shake, serve in a chilled cocktail glass and add a twist of orange. Delightful!

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 oz. gin (I used our current London Dry favorite, Bombay Dry)

• 3/4 Yellow Chartreuse

  Dash Orange Bitters

22 Feb 2023: Creole Cocktail

We always look forward to Friday night’s YouTube posting from Anders Erickson. If you haven’t seen the videos he posts, highly recommend it. A little cocktail history and some great tips and ideas (or as Anders says: “Sips, Tips, and Recipes) for making homebar concoctions excellent can be found on the site.

This week, however, after a long (and dry) period forced upon us by our recent engagement with the Omicron variant, we decided to celebrate on Tuesday, which just happened to be Mardi Gras. The Creole cocktail from Anders was just the ticket to celebrate, not only getting out of COVID jail, but laissez le bon temps rouler.

You can find the version of the Creole Cocktail that Anders shared here. The ingredients are found below (my tweaks necessitated by what’s currently in our bar in parenthesis)

• 1.5 oz Old Overholt Rye Whiskey (I used Rittenhouse)

• 1 oz. Cocchi Vermouth di Torino

• 1/4 oz. Bénédictine DOM

• 1/4 oz Ramazzotti Amaro (I used Amaro Averna b/c that’s what we have)

• 2 dashes Fee Bros Orange Bitters

• Expressed lemon oil

• Lemon peel for garnish

22 Jan 2023: The Income Tax

Since Tax Season, or Tax Records Season, has started, this seemed like a good idea for our Cocktail Saturday. Orange-y and somewhat sweet, I made this with Cape Cod Gin (Dry Line) and used Cocchi Torino, my current favorite go-to for sweet vermouth.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 oz. gin

• 1/4 oz dry vermouth

• 1/4 oz. sweet vermouth

• 1 oz. orange juice

• 1 dash Angostura bitters

Combine all of the above in a shaker filled with ice. Shake for about 20 seconds or until well chilled. Strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with twist of orange.

10 Dec 2022: Bennett

If you a fan of a Gimlet, this cocktail might be for you. Lime juice and Angostura Bitters added to a nice dry gin make this a refreshing change from Gin Sours.

The Bennett

• 2 oz Gin (I used Dry Line from South Hollow Distillers)

• 1 oz fresh lime juice

• 1/2 oz simple syrup (I used Agave)

• 2 dashes Angostura

Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker, fill with ice and shake for 15 seconds. Strain into a coupe. (Optional garnish suggestion: dried lime wheel).