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 Robin Bellinger, March 25, 2008 at 11:00 AM
Mothers & Menus is a New York City meal delivery service designed for families living through those first few crazy weeks with a new baby. Its founder, Karen Gurwitz, was frustrated after the birth of her first child: she wanted to lose her pregnancy weight, but since she was breastfeeding she worried about cutting out too many calories. Wouldn’t it be great, she thought, if someone else would figure out what she should eat and deliver it to her every morning? Such a service didn’t exist, so she invented it and committed to using whole and organic foods as much as possible.
Mothers & Menus sounds wonderful and flexible. But if it doesn’t fit into your budget (it certainly doesn’t jibe with mine) and you like making your own food (as I do), you might want to take a look instead at Gurwitz’s cookbook, The Well-Rounded Pregnancy Cookbook.
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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 Lucy Baker, March 13, 2008 at 3:45 PM
I must admit, I’m kind of a St. Patrick's Day scrooge: parades bring out the agoraphobic in me, I look terrible in green, and I detest shepherd's pie. I usually boycott the holiday entirely, staying in while my friends head out to pubs to guzzle pints of dyed beer.
I do, however, have a soft spot in my heart (stomach?) for Bailey's liqueur. It’s one of my booze shelf staples: I use it to bake brownies, and I often add it to hot chocolate for a special late-night treat. So this year, I decided to see if I could create a festive drink that would put even a cynic like me in the mood to celebrate the shamrock. Inspired by the knock-it-back-fast classic, the Irish Car Bomb, I came up with this beer float, using Guinness stout and Ben & Jerry's Dublin Mudslide. A marriage of alcohol and ice cream—what could be more delicious?
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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 The Serious Eats Team, February 13, 2008 at 3:00 PM
This week, in honor of Valentine's Day, we've put together a list of our favorite books on chocolate, with one Cook the Book recipe a day coming from each volume. And today's book from our "Chocolate Lover's Library" is Chocolate Obsession
by Michael Recchiuti and Fran Gage.
This drink takes advantage of burnt caramel, Recchiuti's signature flavor. If you've ever caramelized sugar, this should be a fun one, as it throws out all the rules about the process, actually allowing you to burn the sweet stuff. The recipe for the drink makes enough for two—you and your valentine—but you'll have an excess of the burnt caramel base, which may be kept indefinitely and used for other recipes.
Win the Serious Eats Chocolate Library
We're giving away five (5) sets of the Chocolate Lover's Library—one each day this week. So you can win Chocolate Obsession, along with four other fantastic chocolate books (to be revealed as the week progresses) by answering the following question in the comments:
What is your favorite chocolate recipe?
One (1) winner will be chosen at random from among the comments of this post. Comments will be open until 3 p.m. ET February 14. Feel free to enter every day, but you may win only once during the lifetime of the contest as a whole. The standard Serious Eats contest rules apply.
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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 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 Ed Levine, December 30, 2007 at 12:30 PM
This week's Cartoon Kitchen features Serious Eats' cartoonist in residence Larry Gonick's clever take on an adult fruit cocktail perfect for the holiday season. Oranges are in season now and campari is a perfect foil for them. These Oranges Campari should come with a NC-21 rating. They are a holiday libation in a bowl.
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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 The Gurgling Cod, December 18, 2007 at 10:00 AM
Eggnog may be second only to fruitcake as a holiday punchline. And why not? It comes up most often as an explanation for otherwise inexplicable behavior at office parties, and the pre-made version in most grocery stores resembles an opaque, insipid quart of 10W-30 motor oil. For the first 30 or so years of my life, I never gave much eggnog much thought. Then, thanks to a lucky day at Myopic Books, the Gourmet's Guide to New Orleans came into my life. The name is misleading—it is, in fact, a Junior League cookbook. Charleston Receipts is probably the most famous Junior League cookbook, but as a rule, they are worth keeping an eye out for when you trawl the cookbook section at your favorite used book store. My copy is the 13th edition, from 1955, but I don't know when the eggnog recipe became part of the collection. After I read the recipe, I knew immediately I had to make it:
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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 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, 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, 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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