A Buck's Fizz is a special cocktail. It can take the familiar Mimosa to an entirely new level. More

The Journalist Cocktail goes back to at least 1930, when it appeared in the Savoy Cocktail Book. Essentially a perfect martini—"perfect" in the cocktail sense meaning it's made with equal parts dry and sweet vermouth—with a dash of this and that for flavorful accents, the Journalist is dry and crisp, yet has a complexity and hint of richness that make it especially endearing. More

The Bloody Mary is, of course, a staple of the American brunch and a universal hangover cure. The drink's origins are oft-rumored and still open to the kind of disputed bickering that is absolutely painful on a weekend morning, so it's best to move onto the heart of the matter: what's essential in your Bloody Mary? More

The San Martin first cropped up in bar manuals in 1922, when a slim volume called Cocktails: How to Mix Them listed it as "a well-known South American drink." While it appeared under a slightly altered name in the 1930s, it popped up again in 1951 in Charles H. Baker's South American Gentleman's Companion. More

Here's a good balancing-act drink: the Stone Fruit Sour. I wrote this drink up for the current issue of Imbibe, and it's become a welcome part of my early autumn cocktail arsenal. More

The drink was suggested to me by Eric Alperin from The Varnish in Los Angeles--it has a suave potency of flavor and rightly demonstrates gin's appealing qualities. Not that a good gin needs any help in the lovability department. More

There are a number of recipes for the Suffering Bastard floating about. Some are merely Mai tai variations with extra rum, while some call for brandy instead of bourbon, and others for rum. Today's drink historians generally settle on bourbon as one of the two base spirits, along with a shot of gin. The drink is then leavened with the healing powers of lime juice and bitters (the lime juice can range anywhere from a teaspoon to an ounce) and lengthened with a good dose of ginger ale. More

This recipe is deceptively simple--just gin, yellow Chartreuse (a lower alcohol, slightly sweeter relative of the more common green variety) and, optionally, a dash of orange bitters. Yet the drink is energetically complex due to a vibrant mix of botanicals. Some bartenders use a floral gin like Hendrick's but I think an old-school classic London dry gin like Beefeater or Tanqueray works nicely. More

Introducing the Lucien Gaudin. Named for an early 20th century French Olympic fencer, the Lucien Gaudin starts off in the manner of a Negroni by combining gin with Campari. With the addition of Cointreau and dry vermouth the result is a pleasantly bitter drink that is simultaneously rich and dry--a challenging flavor to create which is all the more enjoyable because of its rarity. More