Two At The Most

This month’s Mixology Monday is hosted by Sonja Kassebaum over at Thinking of Drinking. In addition to running a fine boutique distillery, North Shore, with her husband, Sonja is one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet.

This month she’s chosen the topic that’s near and dear to my heart:
The topic for February is Absinthe. That much maligned, misunderstood, mistreated spirit, suddenly plentiful … Continue Reading

Here’s another drink I stumbled upon in Barflies and Cocktails.

Welcome Stranger

Welcome Stranger Cocktail

0.5 ounce gin
0.5 ounce brandy
0.5 ounce Swedish punsch
0.5 ounce lemon juice
0.5 ounce orange juice
0.5 ounce grenadine

Shake until good and cold, double strain into cocktail glass.

This was one of those recipes I couldn’t quite guess how it would taste, much less if I would like it. But it was invented by Harry McElhone himself, and the man who gave us the Monkey … Continue Reading

I was paging through Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails when I hit The Communist.

The Communist Cocktail

The Communist

1 ounce London dry gin
1 ounce orange juice
0.75 ounce lemon juice
0.5 ounce cherry brandy (Cherry Heering)

Shake until as sold as Mother Russia, double strain into a very proletarian cocktail glass.

With fresh fruit juices and Cherry Heering, this is a little bourgeois for the name. I was initially reluctant to go with the full 3/4 ounce lemon juice, but decided the cherry … Continue Reading

It took a long time for me to warm up to grenadine as a cocktail ingredient, after a childhood chock full of bright red Rose’s Grenadine Shirley Temples.

Rose's vs Homemade Grenadine

But now I know how many great cocktails include grenadine. A couple of personal favorites are the El Presidente and the Blinker. And now that I know how easy it is to make my own grenadine, I’ll never … Continue Reading

A lot of high end liquors try to sell you with a story. Martin Miller’s Gin has quite a doozy – after distillation, the raw spirit is shipped from England to Iceland to be combined with water to bring it to proof.

Fin de Siècle

I can tell you after receiving a sample bottle, and having enjoyed it in many fine establishments, that gimmick or not, Martin Miller has put his name on a fine gin.

As the story goes, in … Continue Reading

When I was 10, I won a trip to Greece.1 My dad and I went on a two week tour of the country, and I learned I did not like ouzo.2

The Author, age 10

I also learned that … Continue Reading

I’m eagerly looking forward to this week’s Thursday Drink Night. Our sponsor is Beefeater Gin. I’m expecting there will be a lot of fun and interesting drinks invented based on this London dry gin, which is one of my favorites because it brings high quality at an affordable price.

San Martín Cocktail

To get into the spirit, I wanted to try a a new-to-me gin cocktail. I picked up my copy … Continue Reading

Has this ever happened to you? You invent a new drink, and you think it’s the greatest thing ever. You sweat over a good name, you brag about it to all your friends. And then you forget about it. You remember a few months later, and try it again, and cannot imagine what lead you to think it was a great drink.

Campari Dolce

Happily, this is not the case with the Campari Dolce. I invented this drink at a … Continue Reading

It’s Mixology Monday again, and this month’s host is the inimitable Matthew Rowley. This month’s theme is mighty timely: Hard Drinks for Hard Times. Our task this month is to:
[M]ix, consume, and write about an alcoholic drink you’ve made that resonates with the current economic turndown and explain how it addresses the theme.
One of the things I have discovered as I delve deeper into mixology is that the really expensive … Continue Reading

I rarely make the same drink two nights in a row. I’m developing a large home liquor selection, as well as a robust home library of cocktail books. This leads me to want to continually challenge myself to new-to-me cocktails.

But for nearly a week, I’ve been drinking the same drink almost non-stop. It all started when I bought a bottle of pineau des Charentes. I had seen reference to this vin de liqueur, and it finally stuck … Continue Reading