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The Sidecar Cocktail
I don’t know how I got this old without ever having a Sidecar, but I recently sampled a friend’s at Town Talk * in Minneapolis. I’m something of a sour junkie, so the Sidecar instantly jumped way up my...
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Repeal And The Scofflaw
On Prohibition Day and Repeal Day I thank my lucky stars that I can decide for myself if a cocktail is in order this evening, and that some faceless bunch of bluenoses no longer blockades a significant...
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Jack Rose: Lime or Lemon?
Lime or lemon? Jack Rose recipes seem to be schizophrenic. David Embury, in The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks, singles out the Jack Rose as one of his six fundamental cocktails; curiously, he then...
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Cloister Cocktail
I have not been able to find historical information about the Cloister cocktail. It doesn’t appear in any of my older cocktail manuals, from which I infer that it is a relatively recent invention. Its...
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Derby Cocktail (Bourbon)
Trying to track down the One True Derby Cocktail is a fool’s errand–so many Derbies, so little time. There are so many Derbies, in fact, that it looks like every bartender who wanted to promote himself...
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Pegu Club Cocktail
Rangoon… I’ve never been there; all I know of the city is its evocative, roundly poetic name, its portrayal in the movies, and a little bit of WW2 history. It slows you down just to say the name,...
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The Countrypolitan Cocktail
I still remember my earliest encounter with a bartender who could remember my cocktails. My bride and I arrived for our first dinner at Goodfellows, which was well on its way to becoming the best...
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Twentieth Century Cocktail
The Twentieth Century Cocktail, according to lore, is a celebration of Henry Dreyfuss’s gorgeously Art Deco Hudson locomotive, introduced in 1938 to power the New York Central’s 20th Century Limited...
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The Daiquiri Cocktail
The Minnesota winter has worn off, and the Daiquiri is gradually supplanting the whiskey sour in my cocktail rotation. I’ve never been much of a rum drinker in the past (I can’t explain that), so this...
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The Mojito del Coronado Cocktail
I recently noted that rum drinks, notably the Daiquiri, were sneaking into my cocktail repertoire. I was reminded of a visit to San Diego, and to the Babcock and Story bar at the Hotel del Coronado. It...
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Leap Year Cocktail
I’m one of those people who is fascinated by cosmic markers like solstices and equinoxes. It’s hard to explain—I guess it’s sort of a feeling of being in the presence of greatness. Or cosmic forces. Or...
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Aviation Cocktail
The history of the Aviation Cocktail is a tale of neglect and abuse, rehabilitation and redemption, and even controversy. Sort of like Cinderella with politics. I love these cocktails with stories. The...
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Cranberry and Bourbon: Reinventing the Bardstown Sling
It’s nearly Thanksgiving in the United States, and my wife commissioned me to invent a harvest-themed cocktail for our traditional family dinner. To guide my thoughts, she suggested a palette of autumn...
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What color is the Blue Moon Cocktail?
Quick! What color is the Blue Moon Cocktail? It’s blue, right? It’s called the Blue Moon. Yes and no. As it turns out, the original Blue Moon was… red. As first published in Hugo Ensslin’s 1916 Recipes...
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Detroit’s Finest: The Last Word Cocktail
The Last Word is another of those cocktails that just doesn’t look right on paper. Chartreuse and Maraschino? C’mon, man, that doesn’t make any sense at all. I suppose that’s why it took me so long to...
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The Last Word with an Asterisk: variations on a classic cocktail
When I first encountered Phil Ward’s “Final Ward” cocktail, I wrote it off as a “why would I do that?” type of experiment. It was, after all, just a variant of the Chartreuse and Maraschino Last Word,...
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What flavor is your Cosmopolitan?
There are only a few vodka cocktails important enough that every bartender should know how to make them. The Kangaroo leads the list (usually under its street name, “Vodka Martini.”) Next in line is...
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The Seventh Heaven Cocktail
The Seventh Heaven Cocktail is a quick, simple, and summery gin sour. The formula—gin, citrus juice, and Maraschino—will be familiar as the basis of the Aviation in its late 20th-century...
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The Old Cuban Cocktail
You could think of the Old Cuban as a Mojito for grown-ups—more refined, more complex, and more sophisticated than the popular, tall summer drink. It starts with the same set of fundamental...
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Margarita — the Tequila Daisy
I remember the first time I made a Margarita. It was shockingly good, completely different from anything I had been served in a restaurant or bar. It wasn’t the tequila—I’m certain I was using a famous...
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