The first thing you might notice is that this drink doesn’t use a typical sweet vermouth, nor a typical dry one. It wouldn’t be very innovative if it did. Instead, the substitutions are far more interesting and the proportions are such that they setup a wonderful balance between them. As simple as it sounds, it’s much more than a basic substitution riff. What we have with the Anodyne is another

Take a bigger gulp of this article. . .

One of the best gifts you can give someone interested in cocktails is booze. You don’t even have to break the bank (although you might reconsider picking from the bottom shelf) because it doesn’t have to be the rarest or the most expensive item in the shop. Pick a decent base spirit and you really can’t go wrong. For example, there’s no such thing as having too much gin for classic cocktails, and who would turn away a nice bottle of whiskey or rum? Certainly not me, so if you want a no-brainer gift idea that will be used and appreciated, look no further. The problem with this approach is that a bottle of alcohol may not be the most personal or creative gift idea. It will work as a last resort, but you can do better!

If a bottle of booze is the baseline,

Take a bigger gulp of this article. . .

Take a bigger gulp of this article. . .

Last year during the month of October I shared a series of Halloween-themed cocktails that are all great classics. The Corpse Reviver No. 2, Satan’s Whiskers, Trader Vic’s El Diablo and Don the Beachcomber’s Zombie. I couldn’t let the month go by without adding another ghoulish recipe to the list. This year I am sharing my interpretation of something I had at the Bradstreet Crafthouse back in January.

Although it’s no longer on the menu at Bradstreet, every time I look at the ingredients I am bitten. This is not for the faint of heart. First of all, it’s an all-spirits drink, and while that has the benefit of avoiding fresh juices making it easier in some respects, it also packs a wallop. This isn’t something all springtime-refreshing and peppy. It’s an autumn drink that is dark, herbal, complex and bitter—like a Negroni that fell under the spell

Take a bigger gulp of this article. . .

Take a bigger gulp of this article. . .

But, the cocktail that seems to evoke the most curiosity may also be the simplest. The Rural Juror isn’t exactly a tongue-twister, but it’s impossible to order one with a straight face. A cocktail’s name can mean

Take a bigger gulp of this article. . .

The Edgewood by Greg Best 1.5 oz dry gin 1 oz grapefruit juice .5 oz Punt e Mes

Take a bigger gulp of this article. . .

Take a bigger gulp of this article. . .

Not long ago, we explored genever in the Bols Alaska cocktail, so here’s another fun way to use it. If you’ve been thinking about adding genever to your cabinet, let me tell you, it’s time. The truth is, genever is a very interesting product that can

Take a bigger gulp of this article. . .

Take a bigger gulp of this article. . .

Take a bigger gulp of this article. . .

Since we are no longer living in the McCarthy era, I think it’s worth the effort to try making this. It’s also another good reason to get some Cherry Heering which may not appear as often as other liqueurs, but shows up in some fantastic drinks like the Singapore Sling and the Blood and Sand.

Communist 1 oz gin 1 oz orange juice

Take a bigger gulp of this article. . .

Bijou means “jewel” in french, and looking at the images of this cocktail, you can understand why it was called by that name. The recipe appears early in printed references, and Harry Johnson’s Bartenders Manual was probably the first. Originally

Take a bigger gulp of this article. . .

Tracing this drink’s origin puts it somewhere in the middle of Prohibition. It first appears in print in Bill Boothby’s World Drinks and How to Mix Them published in 1934. Sometimes called the Honey Bee, or the Honeysuckle, the basic format is a gin sour that balances the lemon with honey instead of sugar or simple syrup. Boothby’s version also had a spoonful of orange juice, but that disappeared from other references. The extra kick

Take a bigger gulp of this article. . .

I don’t see the Riviera

Take a bigger gulp of this article. . .

There are a few recipes floating around for the Jasmine cocktail. Most align on the ingredients with differences in proportions. I tried several of them and zeroed in on this one because it “evolves” in your mouth. Other cocktail recipes can be more forgiving of quarter-ounce adjustments, but here, tiny changes to the measurements (or inaccurate pouring) will transform the experience dramatically. For one thing, this is more than just a

Take a bigger gulp of this article. . .

Leaving a five-year gig at Palomino to work with Tim Niver and Aaron Johnson, both of whom he considers some of the best restauranteurs in the area, Nick helped open

Take a bigger gulp of this article. . .

I wanted to end

Take a bigger gulp of this article. . .

The Fog Cutter has had its share of variations too, as one might expect with so many ingredients. Some bar recipes have even blindly suggested pouring everything from the speed rail into the mixing glass. That would never do, and although

Take a bigger gulp of this article. . .

That’s right, this is a two-for-one recipe because history has recorded two slightly different ways to concoct this drink. According to Harry Craddock’s eponymous tome The Savoy Cocktail Book, the hair on Satan’s beard is either straight or curled. Thankfully, your preference will depend

Take a bigger gulp of this article. . .

It may sound like a potion that can resurrect the dead, but in this case the Reviver is actually a class of cocktails usually considered “morning-after” refreshments. Nothing helps a corpse recover from

Take a bigger gulp of this article. . .

Then, I remembered a cocktail I had at the Town Talk Diner a while back called the Jackson Pollock. It’s basically a gin sour made using grapefruit and lime juice plus sparkling wine, but the feature that makes this cocktail so unique is the inverted basil garnish. Basil oil is eye-droppered into your cocktail glass first, and then the

Take a bigger gulp of this article. . .

I love the name of this drink partly because it’s actually a nickname. Most cocktail gurus agree that this drink was once referred to as “My Suffering Bar Steward” which seems to recall a time before ice machines and soda dispensers. Imagine a poor, suffering assistant scurrying to and fro to keep the ice bin full and to retrieve ingredients for the barman. Plenty of drinks are named for the men behind the stick, but it’s not unreasonable to believe that in a loud, crowded bar, someone might fancy a misheard

Take a bigger gulp of this article. . .

Vesper 3 oz gin 1 oz vodka .5 oz Lillet Blanc

Combine in a shaker, add ice and shake to chill. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with a twist of lemon.

Bond eyes his Vesper.

For a completely fictional set of circumstances, Ian Flemming created a cocktail that is actually pretty good. As martinis go, this is

Take a bigger gulp of this article. . .

Punch is a borrowed word from the Hindi panch which itself came from the Persian word paantch meaning five, to represent the five typical ingredients in this early beverage: alcohol, sugar, lemon, water and tea or spices. It was brought back

Take a bigger gulp of this article. . .

I doubt FDR’s intent was to promote an interest in cocktails, but it’s a very good excuse to post the Aviation as the Drink of the Week. To a cocktail enthusiast, every classic is important because of what it represents in the world of mixology. Whether it’s a brilliant use of spirits or a unique and successful pairing of ingredients; classics are often foundational. Recipes evolve, but many of them stand the

Take a bigger gulp of this article. . .

The Gin Red Basil Smash is a drink from Le Lion – Bar de Paris, in Hamburg, Germany. Jörg Meyer has featured both the red and green version at his bar, but I find that many people don’t even realize basil comes in a red variety. Inspired by the Whiskey Smashes that he enjoyed at the Pegu Club in New York, Mr. Meyer brought the classic smash technique back home with him to Germany where they tried it with gin. Adding basil almost as a joke, and later, writing about the cocktail, word got around. Soon, the drink was being served at bars all over Germany to

Take a bigger gulp of this article. . .

It can be a delicious cocktail, depending on the recipe you use. That said, it’s just as easy to make one taste awful. Part of the problem is that like a lot of cocktails, the original recipe was lost and this has caused

Take a bigger gulp of this article. . .

The French 75 is named for a French-made 75mm artillery canon that saw widespread use in World War I. It’s revolutionary recoil design allowed rapid firing without the need to reposition

Take a bigger gulp of this article. . .

As important and recognizable as the Martini is in the pantheon of cocktails, few people have ever heard of the Martinez. Instead, we recognize the V-shaped glass dripping with sweat, the ice cold gin and vermouth glistening like a clear, perfect gem, the olive or lemon twist garnish—the Martini is iconic. And yet, we are really talking about the Dry Martini, a more accurate name because of the fact that it is made with dry, French vermouth. Of course, that would imply there was a sweet version, right?

It’s true. The first Martini was concocted of gin and

Take a bigger gulp of this article. . .