Posted by Paul Clarke, May 9, 2008 at 5:30 PM
Sure, you could make mimosas on Mother’s Day. But if you’re looking for something a little more adventurous to make with your bubbly—or, perhaps the idea of spending an afternoon at your mother’s place requires a little extra fortification—you can send your greetings via Air Mail.
Bar manager Thad Vogler at Beretta in San Francisco likes these with the dry, floral taste of Barbancourt rum from Haiti, but the gentle, vanilla-y richness of Bacardi 8 also works well. And you’ll want to use a dry Champagne or sparkling wine here; something sweet will overshadow the rum, and you can adjust the sweetness of the drink by tinkering with the honey. The important thing is, the Air Mail is flexible while being suitably celebratory, and the potency can be dialed up or down depending on your mother’s tastes—and the day’s situation.
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Posted by Alaina Browne, May 3, 2008 at 10:34 AM
The michelada is a spicy beer cocktail that first became popular in northern Mexico. The cocktail's name is derived from "mi chela helada," or "my cold, light beer" and as the name suggests, is perfect for sipping on a hot summer day.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, April 25, 2008 at 5:30 PM
Let's start the weekend right—with a cocktail recipe from Paul Clarke (The Cocktail Chronicles). Need more than one? That kinda week, eh? Here you go. Cheers!
Before there was tiki, there was tropical. Back in the 1930s and early ‘40s, as Don the Beachcomber was spawning what was to become a wave of openings of Polynesian palaces, bartenders and restaurateurs were filling up their liquor shelves with rum and experimenting with new concoctions.
One of the earliest to be influenced by the Beachcomber was Victor Bergeron, who saw what Donn Beach had started in L.A. and took the idea home to Oakland, revamping his old Hinky Dinks watering hole and renaming it Trader Vic’s. In 1947, Bergeron published Trader Vic's Bartender's Guide, an extensive recipe guide detailing hundreds of drinks, including many proto-tiki mixes that reflected the experimentation that had been going on in earlier years.
The Royal Bermuda Yacht Club Cocktail has a few of the tropical essentials: first, it’s based on rum; second, its flavor is fleshed out with fresh lime juice and the little-known syrup called falernum; and third, the name has both Caribbean and nautical overtones. It’s a few steps short of a full-blown Nui Nui, Sumatra Kula or Pearl Diver’s Punch, but there’s no shame in that. On a warm spring day, when the mood for something bright and tropical hits you but you’re not quite up for breaking into full luau mode, the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club Cocktail fits the bill quite nicely.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, April 18, 2008 at 6:30 PM
Let's start the weekend right—with a cocktail recipe from Paul Clarke (The Cocktail Chronicles). Need more than one? Hit up the archives. Cheers!
What, you thought Manhattan was the only borough of New York that had a drink named after it? We’ll get to the Brooklyn later, but Staten Island and Queens? Well, sorry—better luck next time.
Like its namesake, The Bronx cocktail has taken a beating over the years. It all started out well (with origins at the old Waldorf-Astoria back when that was the place to drink), but when Prohibition hit, the Bronx became ... popular. This was a bad thing, you see, because all sorts of rotgut gin were being mixed into cocktails, and the Bronx was one of those that had enough other stuff in it to somewhat obscure the vile taste of the booze. By the time Repeal rolled around, many drinkers had lost a few layers of stomach lining to Bronxes and others of its ilk. As a result, it was remembered with so much ill will that the drink practically disappeared.
Let’s be honest: The Bronx is unlikely to be anyone’s favorite drink. But while it’s not exactly bottled excitement, The Bronx is actually pretty good, and surprisingly refreshing. Be sure to use fresh-squeezed orange juice (and if you add a dash or two of Angostura bitters, you’ve got a somewhat tastier Income Tax Cocktail on your hands), and approach it with an open mind. There are some things from the past worth revisiting from time to time.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, April 11, 2008 at 5:45 PM
Let's start the weekend right—with a cocktail recipe from Paul Clarke (The Cocktail Chronicles). Need more than one? That kinda week, eh? Here you go. Cheers!
As much as I like to imagine it happening, chances are that Dorothy Parker, Alexander Woolcott and the rest of the gang never tipped up a round of these.
While the members of the Algonquin Round Table likely never got on the outside of an Algonquin—the drink’s recipe didn’t appear in print until years after the legendary lunch meetings ended—this mixture bearing the name of that venerable hotel is as dry and captivating as was their wit. Fortunately, while the Round Table disbanded around 1929, it’s not too late to explore the flavor of the Algonquin.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, April 4, 2008 at 6:00 PM
Let's start the weekend right—with a cocktail recipe from Paul Clarke (The Cocktail Chronicles). Need more than one? That kinda week, eh? Here you go. Cheers!
Let’s admit up front that the name could be a problem. "Tuxedo" is a perfectly fine name for this cocktail, given the crisp formality of its austere dryness; however, it’s such a fetching name that other cocktails have used it as well. It should also be pointed out that this drink has traveled under different sobriquets—CocktailDB.com lists similar recipes under names such as the Cutest One, the Fino Martini, the Golden Girl, the Straight Law and the Roe a Coe Cocktail, and that’s without even breaking a sweat. But it’s best not to get too tangled up in the etymology of a drink; instead, take the many versions as proof that dry gin and fino sherry are destined to be together.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, March 28, 2008 at 5:00 PM
Let's start the weekend right—with a cocktail recipe from Paul Clarke (The Cocktail Chronicles). Need more than one? That kinda week, eh? Here you go. Cheers!
Indecisiveness isn’t a characteristic limited to humans. Consider the weather: we’re fresh out of spring’s starting gate (those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, anyway), but here in Seattle, a place of moderate maritime climes if ever there was one, bits of slushy snow were clinging to the blossoming daffodils late last night.
When the weather (or your palate) is being indecisive, it’s best for your cocktails to play along. That’s where the El Presidente comes in: made with light rum, it has a bright, summery appeal; but with the gravitas brought to the drink by dry vermouth and orange curacao, the flavor is ready to pull on a sweater against the evening’s chill.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, March 21, 2008 at 5:30 PM
Let's start the weekend right—with a cocktail recipe from Paul Clarke (The Cocktail Chronicles). Need more than one? That kinda week, eh? Here you go. Cheers!
This Easter, the eggs won’t all be dressed up in pretty colors and beautifully arrayed in a basket.
As compared to the white-glove treatment most Easter eggs receive, the fate that awaits eggs at bars such as Green Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is much more harrowing. Last Easter, bar manager Misty Kalkofen marked the holiday by serving a menu full of cocktails that had eggs, in whole or in part, vigorously shaken into them. No word on if she plans to repeat the event this year, but here’s a drink created by Misty that certainly belongs in the Easter canon.
Mixed with applejack, Benedictine and maple syrup, the Fort Washington Flip retains hints of the winter just past; given the early Easter this year, don’t be surprised if the weather suits up to match the drink.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, March 14, 2008 at 5:15 PM
Let's start the weekend right—with a cocktail recipe from Paul Clarke (The Cocktail Chronicles). Need more than one? That kinda week, eh? Here you go. Cheers!
For a holiday so frequently associated with tipsy merriment, St. Patrick’s Day is certainly celebrated with a bum bunch of drinks.
Okay, there’s Guinness—I’ll give you that as the primary redeeming tipple for the day, with a tip of the hat also to the decent drams of Red Breast. But what else do you see being poured? Buckets of American lager tinted with vegetable dye, mugs of Irish coffee so laden with sugar and whipped cream that a drinker will lapse into a diabetic coma before inebriation sets in, and in the more raucous places the young folks frequent, the unfortunately named Irish Car Bombs.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, March 7, 2008 at 5:15 PM
Let's start the weekend right—with a cocktail recipe from Paul Clarke (The Cocktail Chronicles). Need more than one? That kinda week, eh? Here you go. Cheers!
If you’ve ever been to a luau-themed party or exotic bar, or sipped your way through a beach vacation, chances are you’ve been served a mai tai. Unless you’re especially lucky or just happen to have a thing for tiki drinks, however, chances are even better you’ve been served a fraud.
Spawned from the rum-soaked genius mind of “Trader Vic” Bergeron, the mai tai is one of the most regal refreshments in the exotic-drink universe. Originally made with 17-year-old Jamaican rum, imported French orgeat, Dutch curaçao and fresh-squeezed lime juice, the mai tai quickly became a phenomenon; it also quickly became perverted. Hordes of Trader Vic-wannabes took wild stabs at recreating Bergeron’s long-secret recipe, and the result is what we all-too-often experience now: a sweet, murky drink filled with assorted fruit juices and syrups, with little resemblance to the original swoon-worthy concoction.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, February 29, 2008 at 5:30 PM
Let's start the weekend right—with a cocktail recipe from Paul Clarke (The Cocktail Chronicles). Need more than one? That kinda week, eh? Here you go. Cheers!
When I was a kid, one of my mother’s closest friends was in the habit of slyly pointing out that she’d had only twelve (or thereabouts) birthdays—this, despite the fact that she was a middle-aged mother of three. Her punchline of course—and note I never said it was a good one—was that she was born on February 29, a date that only appears on the calendar when leap year rolls around.
Hey, look at today’s date! As you might expect from such a benign oddity, the day has spawned its own cocktail. The Savoy Cocktail Book states, “This Cocktail was created by Harry Craddock, for the Leap Year celebrations at the Savoy Hotel, London, on February 29th, 1928. It is said to have been responsible for more proposals than any other cocktail that has ever been mixed.”
I can’t attest to Craddock’s claim, but I can back up the notion that the Leap Year is a very engaging concoction. Mildly sweet, with a faint touch of bitterness, the cocktail is tasty enough to be enjoyed regularly while we wait for the next February 29 to roll around.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, February 22, 2008 at 5:30 PM
Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail recipe from Paul Clarke (The Cocktail Chronicles) to kick things off. Need more than one? That kinda week, eh? Here you go. Cheers!
The Manhattan’s fans are legion; they are also, fortunately, innovators.
While there are a handful of cocktails that take the basic Martini and employ respectful riffs, the Manhattan is the mixologist’s true muse. Whiskey, vermouth, bitters—a simple, basic trio, but one that lends itself to all manners of variation. Early versions of the venerable drink welcomed dashes of absinthe or maraschino liqueur—if you’re wondering why, try it and discover the brilliance a few dashes can make—and wider-ranging interpretations include the Brooklyn, made with the bitter orange Amer Picon, and the Rob Roy, with scotch in place of the rye or bourbon.
These innovations aren’t all vintage. Here’s a relative of the Manhattan that dates to within the past five years, a drink created by New York bartender Enzo Errico that utilizes its ancestor’s rye whiskey base, matches it with the bitter Italian vermouth Punt e Mes, and fills in the flavor with a hearty dose of funky maraschino liqueur. Named for a once rough-and-tumble Brooklyn neighborhood that’s since changed with the times, the Red Hook is one of the more memorable variations of the Manhattan.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, February 15, 2008 at 5:00 PM
Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail from Paul Clarke to kick things off. Need more than one? That kinda week, eh? Here you go. Cheers!
In 2008, if you’re an adult male who feels the need for a little, um, assistance in the intimacy department, you reach for one of the pharmaceuticals you see advertised during football games. In 1928, if you needed a little vavoom in the bedroom, you went to see Dr. Voronoff.
So popular was Voronoff’s vitality procedure in the 1920s that it inspired the creation of the Monkey Gland, a cocktail named for the rather sensitive part of an unfortunate simian’s anatomy that Voronoff surgically implanted into his eager patients.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, February 8, 2008 at 5:00 PM
Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail from Paul Clarke to kick things off. Need more than one? That kinda week, eh? Here you go. Cheers!
This cocktail has a name, appearance and elegant flavor well suited for Valentine’s Day. Unlike its floral namesake, however, this Rose is best enjoyed in quantities of fewer than a dozen.
Rescued from a vintage bar menu by cocktail historian David Wondrich, the Rose enjoyed a brief flash of popularity at the Chatham Hotel in Paris in the 1920s. Good luck finding it since then, which is a shame; soft, floral, lightly sweet and with a titillating aroma from the cherry eau de vie, the Rose is an exercise in delicate decadence, a drink that, like the Widow’s Kiss, can put the imbiber in a mindset from a completely different era.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, February 1, 2008 at 5:15 PM
Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail from Paul Clarke to kick things off. Need more than one? That kinda week, eh? Here you go. Cheers!
Regardless of what Punxsatawney Phil happens to see when he’s persuaded to emerge from his burrow in front of a battery of television cameras at Gobbler’s Knob this weekend, there’s plenty of winter yet to come. To keep seasonal affective disorder at bay, sometimes it’s wise to embrace the season for its good points: steaming plates of comfort food are all the more comforting in the winter; you can build crackling fires in the fireplace to drive away the chill; and deep, brooding cocktails seem to provide extra solace at a time when daylight is still at a premium.
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Posted by Jenn Sit, January 30, 2008 at 11:00 AM
Manhattan
- makes 2 drinks -
Ingredients
4 1/2 ounces rye or bourbon whiskey
1 1/2 ounces sweet vermouth
2 dashes Angostura bitters
2 Maraschino cherries
Procedure
1. In a cocktail shaker filled with ice, pour the whiskey, sweet vermouth, and bitters. Mix until outside of shaker is very cold to touch.
2. Place a maraschino cherry in each of two cocktail glasses. Strain the contents Dividing evenly, strain the contents of the shaker over cherries and serve immediately.
Posted by Jenn Sit, January 30, 2008 at 11:00 AM
Cape Codder
Ingredients
1 1/2 oz Vodka
3 oz Cranberry juice
1 wedge Lime
Procedure
Pour vodka and cranberry over ice and stir. Serve with lime wedge.
Posted by Paul Clarke, January 25, 2008 at 5:45 PM
Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail from Paul Clarke to kick things off. Need more than one? That kinda week, eh? Here you go. Cheers!
Drinks such as the Manhattan have recipes that are so engaging and enduring that the cocktail moves straight from inception into the classic column; others, such as the Harvey Wallbanger, enjoy a brief flare of popularity then mostly disappear. Then you have the undead: the drinks that enjoy a certain degree of fame for years or even decades then succumb to changing tastes and disappear from view, only to pop up again on the cultural radar long after being presumed dead.
Enter the Corpse Reviver #2. Part of a class of “corpse reviver” cocktails—so named because of their purported ability to bring the dead (or at least painfully hungover) back to some semblance of life—this drink was a staple of bar manuals back in the 1930s, only to fall off the map in the last half of the 20th century. Then, thanks in large part to cocktail historian Ted Haigh (aka “Dr. Cocktail”), the Corpse Reviver #2 was rediscovered by a generation of 21st century cocktail geeks.
High time, too. Delicately balanced, not too powerful, with a lingering, mysterious flavor, the Corpse Reviver #2 is enjoying a well-deserved second wind.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, January 18, 2008 at 7:00 PM
Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail from Paul Clarke to kick things off. Need more than one? That kinda week, eh? Here you go. Cheers!
Before anybody nabs me on it, I confess: it’s not really a cocktail—and by that I mean there’s not a single drop of liquor in the glass. That’s okay, because there’s plenty of excitement going on in this drink so the harder stuff will never be missed.
The Black Velvet’s name perfectly describes the experience and sensation of drinking one: thick, rich, luxurious, decadent and probably a little bit dangerous. I was apprehensive the first time I came across the recipe, but I was quickly won over: the drink marries the stout’s ferrous tang with the dry, fruity crispness of Champagne, and makes itself all the more drinkable by cutting the beer’s robust richness with all those manic bubbles.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, January 11, 2008 at 6:00 PM
Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail from Paul Clarke to kick things off. Need more than one? That kinda week, eh? Here you go. Cheers!
Not every occasion calls for something as strong as a Martini. Sometimes you need a drink that's a little softer and more gentle, one that slowly works out the kinks from a long day yet has enough character and sophistication to make it clear you’re not taking any short cuts.
There are several drinks that go by the name “Trilby;” I don’t know where this one originated, but I really like it as an aperitif, and keep one at hand when preparing a weekend dinner. It’s simple, yet elegant, and soft but not too much; if you’re looking for an engaging pre-dinner companion, you could do a lot worse.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, January 4, 2008 at 7:00 PM
Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail recipe from Paul Clarke (The Cocktail Chronicles) to kick things off. Need more than one? That kinda week, eh? Here you go. Cheers!
We’re less than a week into the new year, and I’ve only broken a couple of my resolutions so far. For me, that’s a pretty good start.
Along with eating healthier, getting rid of clutter, and pausing to count to ten before I place a hasty bid on eBay, one of my resolutions is to combat my habit to procrastinate. Anybody else with me on that one? Yeah, I thought so.
Here’s a cocktail I came up with a couple of years ago, and it’s not too shabby if I say so myself. Its moniker derives from the fact that it took me more than a month to get around to posting it on my blog, for no reason other than its namesake. Tonight, after a light dinner, I’m mixing up one of these to enjoy while I go through the piles of paper on my desk and stay the hell away from eBay. Well, I dunno...maybe I'll do that tomorrow.
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Posted by Ed Levine, December 31, 2007 at 7:30 PM
Another delicious cocktail from the fertile imagination of Mario Batali to toast the new year with. Think of it as the liquid version of Larry Gonick's Oranges Campari. Let's raise a glass to the Serious Eats community. We love hanging out with all of you, chewing the fat about our mutual food enthusiasms and passions. May the new year be filled with all things delicious. Happy New Year, Serious Eaters!
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Posted by Paul Clarke, December 28, 2007 at 6:00 PM
Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail recipe from Paul Clarke (The Cocktail Chronicles) to kick things off. Need more than one? That kinda week, eh? Here you go. Cheers!
For many people New Year’s Eve means breaking out the bubbly, but all too often the bottles are kept socked away until midnight. That’s a shame—good Champagne and other sparkling wines are great to enjoy throughout the evening (in moderation, of course). And as a bonus, modest wines easily take on a new, more luscious character with just a little help from the liquor cabinet.
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Posted by Ed Levine, December 28, 2007 at 4:15 PM
You don't normally think of Mario Batali as a mixologist, but I came across this Balsamic Bloody Mary recipe in his cool little book Holiday Food. If you're throwing a New Year's brunch or party this weekend, make a pitcher of these and offer one to every guest that walks in the door. You'll kick-start your party in a major way.
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Posted by Mario Batali, December 24, 2007 at 4:00 PM
Christmas Eve this year is the Feast of the Two Fishes. We are doing my linguine with clams, hot chiles, and pancetta, but I'm subbing my dad's "mole" salami for pancetta to give it a deeper spice component. The main course will be super jumbo stone crab claws from Joe's—yes, served with their mustard sauce—a green salad, and some Guido's garlic bread.
Desserts will be espresso drops and coconut balls (first step, find the coconut's legs) both from Martha Stewart's magazine Everyday Food because my kids find it very accessible and there is a photo for every cookie. I will make a version of Gina DePalma's chocolate hazelnut kisses, and we will surrender early to a deep mug of hot buttered rum from my mom's recipe file, which I'm sharing with you in this post here.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, December 21, 2007 at 7:00 PM
Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail recipe from Paul Clarke (The Cocktail Chronicles) that's perfect for Christmas. Cheers and ho! ho! ho!
As Yuletide traditions go, they don’t come much more classic than the Tom & Jerry. Bowls of this rich, boozy warmer were a staple at countless 19th century saloons after the season’s first sign of snow. As a Christmas tradition, the ritual of breaking out the Tom & Jerry mugs lasted well into the Eisenhower administration; the link between the drink and the holiday was such that it was immortalized by Damon Runyon in Dancing Dan’s Christmas, in 1931:
This hot Tom and Jerry is an old-time drink that is once used by one and all in this country to celebrate Christmas with, and in fact it is once so popular that many people think Christmas is invented only to furnish an excuse for hot Tom and Jerry, although of course this is by no means true.
Changing tastes left this venerable holiday drink behind, but pockets of devotees still remain. Today, the Tom & Jerry is enjoying a bit of a renaissance, as lovers of classic cocktails try their hand at mixing a bowl. Preparing the batter does take a little work, but it can be doled out all day (and night) at holiday parties and Christmas gatherings. Basically a sort of hot eggnog, the drink may seem unfamiliar to contemporary palates; no worry, Tom & Jerry has a way of making friends real fast.
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Posted by The Gurgling Cod, December 20, 2007 at 3:45 PM
For those of you who may have been intrigued by the Charleston Punch but do not have plans to entertain groups of 300 people over the holidays, consider this saner yet festive alternative from The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook
.* Matt Lee and Ted Lee are Charleston denizens, but Matt developed the prototype of this punch for a black-tie holiday dinner at a Harvard eating club, so make of that what you will. It is possible that lower indigenous levels of gentility call for lower levels of alcohol.
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Posted by The Gurgling Cod, December 20, 2007 at 3:00 PM
The response to the New Orleans Junior League eggnog suggests that within the Serious Eats community there is a hitherto unexpressed interest in the alcoholic concoctions of nice Southern ladies. And why not? Without a flutter, they present recipes featuring booze in quantities that would make Dylan Thomas blanch. Witness the Cotillion Club Punch from the aforementioned Charleston Receipts. To make about 300 servings, you'll need:
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Posted by Paul Clarke, December 14, 2007 at 5:00 PM
Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail recipe from Paul Clarke (The Cocktail Chronicles) to kick things off. Need more than one? That kinda week, eh? Here you go. Cheers!
Think of it as an easy, no-egg eggnog. Or think of it as a classic Southern tipple, with an alluring blend of sweetness and richness, and a deep-flavored kick. However you approach the milk punch, just be sure to think of it sometime during the holiday season.
I had a great time sipping one of these on a July morning in New Orleans, but with its fullness of flavor, its silky texture and its nutmeg finish, the milk punch seems particularly well-suited to this time of year. Classically made with a combo of brandy and rum, the milk punch also works well with bourbon in the place of either or both. And while it’s lovely to drink the punch when poured into a glass full of crushed ice, you can instead serve it hot, for a rich and potent warmer. Either way, this drink that dates back to horse-and-buggy days has a way of slowing everything down, taking the edge off a hectic holiday season if only for an hour or two.
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Posted by Jenn Smith, December 13, 2007 at 3:00 PM
Before he was an Iron Chef, before challenging other cooks to a Throwdown, before planning an upscale burger joint, Bobby Flay was a cook with a passion for the flavors of the Southwest—smoky, spicy, fruity. He translated this love of chiles, honey, and mesquite into the menu for his first restaurant, Mesa Grill.
In the 16 years since it opened, the menu has evolved, but the core ideas and the Mesa classics that bring the color and energy of the "contemporary Southwest" to diners in New York and Las Vegas year after year are still present.
Today Flay is everywhere, including on the bookshelves (he's written six previous cookbooks). This is his first restaurant-related cookbook, but the translation of food created in the professional kitchen into recipes useful to the home cook is pretty successful.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, November 23, 2007 at 2:45 PM
Let's get this weekend started right. And since it's a day off for many people out there, let's kick it off a bit early today. Here's a cocktail recipe from Paul Clarke (The Cocktail Chronicles) to get things going. Need more than one after yesterday? Here you go. Cheers!
While retailers started gearing up for the season weeks ago, now that Thanksgiving is over it’s one long sprint to Christmas. Shopping malls opened at midnight in the suburbs around my Seattle home, and some crowds had been gathering since early Thursday morning. Without delving into news from around the country – really, checking out what’s happening at the malls in Des Moines isn’t my idea of a good time—I’m sure the story was repeated nationwide.
Whether you’re settling in after a long day of shopping, or letting the swarm blow past you while biding your time until closer to the holiday, the dawn of the Christmas season calls for some refreshment. The Stinger isn’t a seasonal cocktail, per se, but its crisp minty snap always puts me in the right frame of mind for the festive weeks to come.
While early recipes call for two parts brandy to one part crème de menthe, many contemporary palates find that way too sweet; a more brandy-heavy 4:1 ratio is much easier to handle. And while brandy is traditional, the stinger is comfortable with other spirits: I’m quite fond of substituting bourbon for the brandy, and rum works well, as does vodka, so I’m told – technically that’s called a White Spider, though I doubt you've heard anyone call it much of anything lately. However you choose to fix yours, be sure to make a toast to the long holiday season ahead.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, November 9, 2007 at 5:00 PM
Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail from Paul Clarke to kick things off. Need more than one? That kinda week, eh? Here you go. Cheers!
Before serving a big Thanksgiving meal, there are two things you want to avoid: getting your guests (or yourself) too giddy on generous pours of wine or scotch; and killing the palates of all the assembled guests by doling out rich, sweet pre-prandial ice-breakers that blunt, rather than enhance, the appetite.
Here’s a way to avoid these related hazards, while still serving something creative that will help get the conversation flowing. Created by Audrey Saunders, co-owner of Pegu Club and the mind behind some of the best cocktails in current circulation, Eve relies wholly on a base of dry vermouth, its herbal flavor enhanced by a slow maceration of fresh apples. Lower in alcohol than a cocktail or a scotch on the rocks, and with a complexity of flavor that sets the stage for the meal to come, Eve has a delicate character perfectly suited for the season.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, November 2, 2007 at 6:00 PM
Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail recipe from Paul Clarke (The Cocktail Chronicles) to kick things off. Need more than one? That kinda week, eh? Here you go. Cheers!
I don’t know who Cameron was, or why he might want to be kicking. But I do know that this unlikely union of ingredients makes one of the most startlingly appealing drinks in the bartender’s vintage-cocktail arsenal.
Scotch whisky is a notoriously difficult ingredient to use in cocktails; Irish whiskey isn’t much better. Introduce them into the same glass, though, with some lemon juice for brightness and the ethereal character of orgeat for sweetness, and they get along as nice as can be. This cocktail dates back to at least 1930; that’s when it crops up in a slim book called Cocktails, by “Jimmy” late of Ciro’s (it also appears in the Savoy Cocktail Book at about the same time). It’s too unlikely a bird to ever have enjoyed widespread fame; but its idiosyncrasies are the very things that make it so appealing.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, October 26, 2007 at 5:45 PM
Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail from Paul Clarke to kick things off. Need more than one? That kinda week, eh? Here you go. Cheers!
It may sound like a powder keg, but this drink that predates the republic has its own charm. Quintessentially autumnal and once a staple of every tavern menu, the Stone Fence is a bibulous fossil of the colonial era, a time when hard cider filled every cup, sometimes mixed with something harder to help ward off the chill.
Use an artisanal cider, if you can find one, but the choice of spirit is pretty open: applejack or the bolder Laird’s Apple Brandy provide a nice boost of apple flavor, but bourbon, rye, scotch, or dark rum are all perfectly acceptable. Just don’t underestimate the Stone Fence—get too casual with a second or a third, and you may feel like you’ve run headlong into the drink’s namesake.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, October 19, 2007 at 5:00 PM
Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail from Paul Clarke to kick things off. Need more than one? That kinda week, eh? Here you go. Cheers!
It ain’t fancy, but that’s a big part of its appeal. Because at the end of a long day—scratch that; long week—you don’t always feel like challenging your palate, or even thinking about it very much. You just want a nice, easy drink, one that’s as loyal and friendly as an old dog, that doesn’t mind if you pad around the living room in your socks or lie back on the couch watching shows you’d never dare admit you enjoy. Who’s it gonna tell, anyway?
It’s Friday afternoon, and if you’re lucky you’ve got about 60 hours before you have to think or speak for anybody else again. Time for the Whiskey Sour—the comfortable T-shirt of drinks.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, October 12, 2007 at 5:30 PM
Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail to kick things off. Need more than one? That kinda week, eh? Here you go. Cheers!
You could call the Last Word the true zombie of the cocktail world. Unlike the Zombie—that venerable tiki concoction which was constantly altered over the years, but which never actually disappeared—the Last Word was created and was then promptly forgotten for decades, before being brought back to life—rising from the grave, as it were—stronger and more powerful than ever.
The Last Word dates to Prohibition, as far as anyone can tell, and except for a brief mention in Bottoms Up!—a 1951 cocktail manual by Ted Saucier—the drink languished in obscurity until about four years ago, when Seattle bartender Murray Stenson dusted off the recipe and began serving the drink to customers at Zig Zag Café. Fast-forward to the present day, and the Last Word is a fully revived classic, gracing the bar menus in cities around the globe. More popular now than it ever was in its youth, the Last Word is a surprisingly tasty balance of four ingredients working in perfect unison. Mix one up this weekend, and make up for lost time.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, October 5, 2007 at 5:30 PM
Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail to kick things off. Need more than one? Here you go. Cheers!
I first noticed it two weeks ago, when I’d look out my front window in the morning: The first few branches on the maple tree near the street were tinged with bits of yellow and orange. Now, the sidewalk is lightly coated with broad yellow leaves, and in a couple more weeks, I’ll have to shuffle my way through the crunchy mounds beneath the trees just to get to the corner.
I love October.
This is a perfect autumn cocktail. With the color of its namesake foliage, the Fallen Leaves has a rich, delicate flavor derived from that most seasonal of spirits, aged apple brandy. It’s fine to use Calvados in one of these, but I like to reach for the 8-year-old Eau de Vie de Pomme, from Oregon’s Clear Creek Distillery. At a time when the autumn chill is becoming a little more apparent each night, a Fallen Leaves can be a great evening companion.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, September 28, 2007 at 5:00 PM
Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail to kick things off. Need more than one? Here you go. Cheers!
New York’s contributions to the cocktail world are legion, but here’s a drink that includes a good dose of New Jersey. Combining Gotham ingenuity with the Garden State’s native spirit, the Marconi Wireless is a pretty simple cocktail: Take our good friend the Manhattan, but instead of using whiskey, reach for the applejack—produced in Monmouth County by the Laird family for more than 200 years.
In Old Waldorf Bar Days, published in 1931, Albert Stevens Crockett writes that the Marconi Wireless "first sprang across the Bar of the Waldorf when the ancestor of the radio began to raise its ghostly voice." While the precursor to the radio may be lost to the ages, this Marconi Wireless is still as vibrant as ever. Besides, I have yet to see a drink named the Streaming Audio.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, September 21, 2007 at 5:15 PM
Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail to kick things off. Need more than one? Here you go. Cheers!
The Cocktail à la Louisiane is much more delicious than a near-obsolete drink has any right to be. Once the house cocktail for the Restaurant de la Louisiane—“one of the famous French restaurants of New Orleans,” wrote city historian Stanley Clisby Arthur in 1937—this rich, voluptuous mix of rye whiskey, sweet vermouth and the herbal Benedictine liqueur is accented with the subtle flavor of anise, provided by New Orleans’ homegrown Peychaud’s bitters and a few dashs of absinthe or pastis. First documented 70 years ago in Arthur’s Famous New Orleans Drinks and How to Mix ‘Em, the Cocktail à la Louisiane has been largely ignored since then. It’s worth the effort to search out the ingredients (or a talented bartender in a well-stocked establishment) and bring this drink into the 21st century.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, September 14, 2007 at 5:00 PM
Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail to kick things off. Need more than one? Here you go. Cheers!
Unlike the unwritten rule about wearing white, there’s no stipulation that you must pack away your white liquor after Labor Day. But after the unofficial end of summer, it’s entirely appropriate to start breaking out the brown spirits of fall and winter.
Scotch whiskey is a notoriously difficult ingredient to mix in a cocktail. Here’s a drink that uses it to great effect: the Blood and Sand. The earliest printed recipe I’ve found for this drink was in the Savoy Cocktail Book, from 1930, and it likely takes its name from the popular 1922 silent film starring Rudolph Valentino as an ill-fated matador. With an unlikely cast of ingredients, the Blood and Sand rises above the chaos and helps set the stage for the approach of more robust-flavored drinks for the cooler months.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, August 31, 2007 at 6:00 PM
Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail to kick things off. Need more than one? Here you go. Cheers!
First things first: it's not really Hemingway's daiquiri.
That one was much more fierce. In his memoir Papa Hemingway, longtime friend A. E. Hotchner described the daiquiri served under that name (or under its more familiar moniker, the Papa Doble) at Havana's legendary Floridita bar.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, August 24, 2007 at 11:00 AM
Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail to kick things off. Need more than one? Here you go. Cheers!
Even though summer is waning, it's still sunny and you’re hot—what could be better than the icy, minty, rum-soaked goodness of a mojito?
This isn’t a mojito. It’s close, though—and maybe even better.
Think of the Old Cuban as what a mojito wants to be when it grows up. Suave and urbane, yet with the mojito’s summer-busting power, the Old Cuban is one of the finest rum drinks around. A contemporary classic created by Audrey Saunders—she of Pegu Club fame—the Old Cuban is the cocktail to spring on your mojito-loving friends when you want to take them to a new dimension.
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Posted by Michael Nagrant, August 22, 2007 at 11:15 AM
Just a quick note here to introduce our newest voice on Serious Eats, Michael Nagrant. If you're not already familiar with his work, Michael's a food writer living in Chicago and also the publisher of Hungry magazine. He'll be joining us periodically on notes from around Chicagoland. Welcome, Michael. Cheers! —The Serious Eats Team
They say defeat is an orphan and victory has a hundred fathers. Likewise, the origin of many classic cocktails or iconic dishes is usually mired in pitched battles between generations of families, restaurateurs, and shady credit claimers. The Southside, a gin-based cocktail muddled with mint and citrus, and very popular among the South Hampton set, is one of those libations.
Thanks to Tobey Maloney, "chief intoxologist" and partner in Chicago's Violet Hour cocktail lounge, this has been the summer of the Southside for me. While I was working on a story about Chicago bartenders who make their own cocktail bitters, Maloney shared his recipe for the Southside, and since then, I've been sucking 'em down like Rush Limbaugh working a Sizzler buffet. In addition to the refreshing taste, my verve for the drink was also borne of regional affiliation.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, August 17, 2007 at 5:30 PM
Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail to kick things off. Need more than one? Here you go. Cheers!
Record delays. Overbooked flights. Security lines.
Does anyone remember when flying was fun?
In its early days, aviation was just about the most dashing thing around, and the whole idea of taking to the sky was as fantastic a dream as any. Back then, it was all leather flight jackets and pilot’s goggles, the roar of the propeller and the wind in your hair; now, we’re stuck with cramped seats, missed connections, and walking around in public in our socks.
Aviation’s glory days even inspired the creation of a cocktail. Once the secret-handshake drink of the cocktail cognoscenti, today this drink is as common as an extended layover. A mixture of gin, lemon juice and maraschino liqueur, the Aviation is a very friendly introduction to classic cocktails--and let’s face it, if you’re flying this summer, you’re going to need a drink.
Why is it called the aviation? Because the drink's earliest printed recipe (in 1917) called for the inclusion of creme de violette (creme Yvette was a notable proprietary brand), a violet-flavored and colored liqueur that gave the drink a cerulean hue that brought to mind the wild, blue yonder. Production of creme Yvette was discontinued decades ago, but fortunately, a new violet liqueur from Rothman & Winter appeared in New York last month; starting this month, it should start trickling into California. Keep an eye out for a bottle, so you can mix up an authentic aviation.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, August 10, 2007 at 2:00 PM
Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail to kick things off. Need more than one? Here you go. Cheers!
Don’t let the color fool you. With its gentle pink hue, the Jasmine may look as prissy and cute as a Hello Kitty armband, and its unassuming appearance and sprightly color has no doubt appealed to many drinkers of the once-ubiquitous Cosmo. But unlike that candy-colored alcopop, the Jasmine is all business, its alluring tint supplied not by the Cosmopolitan’s innocuous red cranberry juice but by the intensely garnet Campari, an Italian aperitif famous for its powerful bitter flavor and its racy advertising campaigns.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, August 3, 2007 at 5:00 PM
Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail to kick things off. Need more than one? Here you go. Cheers!
There’s no shortage of libations designed to temper the effects of a bruising hot summer day. But in the light and heat of an August afternoon, sometimes the old gin-and-tonic and mojito standbys come on a little too strong.
Enter the Pompier. Also known as the vermouth cassis, this tall glass of icy goodness offers a gentle, sophisticated alternative for those looking to idle away a steamy afternoon. Based on vermouth—so it’s lower in alcoholic horsepower than many other seasonal refreshers—the Pompier increases its allure with the robust fruitiness of crème de cassis, a blackcurrant liqueur. Poured over ice and energized with chilled club soda, the Pompier is a good addition to anyone’s summer survival kit.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, July 27, 2007 at 5:10 PM
Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail to kick things off. Need more than one? Here you go. Cheers!
If you were to take a pop quiz on mixed drinks, the average cocktail enthusiast would be able to rattle off at least a half-dozen gin libations; ditto for rum, and quite possibly for whiskey.
Tequila? Not so much. Go ahead and take a point for the Margarita—that’s an easy one; and then there’s the Tequila Sunrise, with its aura of floral shirts and Jimmy Buffett. Dedicated mixologists may cite the cassis-laden goodness of the Diablo, while others may guiltily offer up a Freddie Fudpucker or a Long Island Iced Tea. It’s OK; we’ve all been there at one time.
To this small list, add a delightful contribution to the summer-satisfaction arsenal: the Paloma. Commonly found in regions where tequila is produced as well as consumed, the Paloma seems deceptively simple. In truth, this drink manages to cover the bases when it comes to flavor receptors, and its lively taste and gentle effervescence make it a great seasonal refresher. You may have to hunt down one of the ingredients (depending on your proximity to the nearest bodega), but trust me—you’ll find more happiness with the Paloma than with any drink named Freddie.
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Posted by Erin Zimmer, July 25, 2007 at 2:00 PM
The name reminds me of Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time. "It was a dark and stormy night," opens the novel, giving off that clichéd horror film quality. But it was a reality yesterday afternoon in Washington, D.C. Such is the case for many seemingly sunny days here, which can be all fine and dandy in the mid-70s but by mid-afternoon get annoyingly wet and drippy. Weather.com predicts T-storms all week. Grrrr.
A drink to make up for our damp clothes?
The Bermudan dark rum–based Dark and Stormy, made with ginger beer and lime juice. Kind of tastes like a citrus-spiked gingerbread cookie (in a good way). The rum makes you feel all warm inside, but the lime aftertaste reminds you that gingerbread isn't for a few more months. This one's so easy to swallow, perhaps it could be considered a girly drink? But don't old Bermudan men down these all the time?
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Posted by Paul Clarke, July 20, 2007 at 3:14 PM
Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail to kick things off. Need more than one? Here you go. Cheers!
If you were to select the nation’s cocktail capital, New Orleans would have to be at the top of the list. Sure, New York City and San Francisco have some of the best and brightest bartenders working today, but in terms of history, endurance, and sheer joie de vivre, the Big Easy has plenty in its favor.
That’s one reason why, every year, hundreds of spirits and cocktail aficionados from around the world converge in the swampy heat of New Orleans for Tales of the Cocktail, a five-day conference celebrating everything shaken and stirred. Now in its fifth year, Tales of the Cocktail is currently in full swing, and countless tipplers—myself included—are scouring the French Quarter, asking bartenders at venerable watering holes such as the Carousel Bar, the Napoleon House and Tujaque’s to mix up a perfect Sazerac.
Credited as being among the first true cocktails, the Sazerac is a New Orleans original; one sip of its hazy, lusty character tells you everything you need to know about living the good life. After the jump, the recipe, so you can make one yourself.
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Posted by Paul Clarke, July 13, 2007 at 4:15 PM
As promised on Wednesday, Paul Clarke of The Cocktail Chronicles returns here with a recipe to do you up right for the weekend. Drink up! —The Serious Eats Team
Photograph by Paul Clarke
If you look at the gin rickey and think it’s nothing but a gin and tonic without tonic’s bittersweet bite, you’d be mostly correct. Dismiss it as a G&T wannabe, however, and you’re missing out on one of the great joys of summer. Created in a Washington, D.C., bar called Shoemaker’s during an especially brutal heat wave in the 1890s—before the advent of air conditioning, you’ll note—the gin rickey is like an effervescent Frigidaire. Refreshingly bubbly and pleasantly bitter, this Gilded Age cooler demonstrates how your great-grandparents made it through the summer alive.
Gin Rickey
Squeeze the juice from 1/2 of a well-washed lime into an ice-filled 10-ounce Collins glass. Add 2 ounces London dry gin, toss in the lime shell for color, and fill the glass with chilled club soda. Some prefer to add a touch of sugar or simple syrup; the rickey really doesn’t need it, but if you’d like a sweeter drink, go for it.
About the author: Paul Clarke blogs about cocktails at The Cocktail Chronicles and writes regularly on spirits and cocktails for Imbibe magazine. He lives in Seattle, where he works as a writer and magazine editor.
