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 I have to start with a word of caution. If you decide to make this Drink of the Week including it’s fiery presentation, proceed carefully. I have always been an advocate of responsible drinking and although that applies here too, there’s no reason to come this far only to let your hair catch on fire! That being said, there are alternatives if you don’t have the proper bowl or if you want to avoid the flames altogether. We’ll get to that, but first, let’s talk Tiki.
Over the years there have been several “bowl” style drink recipes that, for me, epitomize the laid-back attitude of tropical consumption. While I enjoy an outlandish ceramic Tiki mug filled with exotic juice and rum as much as the next beach bum, I also appreciate the idea that sometimes a drink is just so big (or so strong) that it needs to be
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 Ever since it appeared in the March/April 2008 edition of Imbibe Magazine, I have wanted to make the Edgewood by Greg Best, Holeman & Finch, Atlanta. I am not sure why I delayed. Perhaps it was because I rarely buy grapefruit, or maybe I was just waiting until I could get my hands on the right vermouth. In any case, I finally mixed one up tonight and as I expected, it’s a decent drink. The ingredients are not so obscure that it would prevent you from tracking them down, and even if you run into trouble with one thing or another, you can always make a few substitutions and still come away with a solid cocktail. I went ahead and made two versions (it was happy hour after all) and both worked nicely.
The Edgewood by Greg Best 1.5 oz dry gin 1 oz grapefruit juice .5 oz Punt e Mes
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 You could slap a name on any unique combination of ingredients and call it an original cocktail, but if you create something from scratch that you want people to remember, the name can be pretty important. Of course, it also has to taste good, so by the time you’re ready to pick the name, hopefully you’ve weighed your options. Memorable drinks of the past have celebrated geographical locations, an individual’s name, and even popular events throughout history. If you want the name to stick, it helps if it’s accompanied by a good story. As stories go, the one behind the Mexican Circus Tiger is pretty hard to beat.
This cocktail actually has two stories—mine, and that of the cocktail’s creator. I’ll start with mine since it’s shorter and not as intersting. A few weeks ago, my wife and I found ourselves at Beaker & Flask, a fantastic cocktail bar
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 We like vodka at Summit Sips. We really do. But over the years it hasn’t shared as much of the lime light on these pages as other spirits. There are a few good reasons for that. One is that vodka was virtually non-exisitent in the US before the 1940s. As such, it’s nearly impossible to find classic cocktails that use it because it doesn’t appear in any of the old books. Of course, one can’t ignore the the Moscow Mule, the Cosmopolitan, or even James Bond’s Vodka Martini, but these are all relatively new ideas. Everything pre-prohibition would have contained gin, whiskey, brandy or rum; it may be hard to imagine, but vodka was unknown at that time.
Another reason vodka doesn’t appear quite as often considering the momentum surrounding classic mixology these days is that by definition, it’s a flavorless spirit. Now, I realize, some of you will
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 This week we finish up our short Caribbean series with a two-for-one daiquiri post.
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 As some of you may have heard, the Town Talk Diner is now closed for business. It’s no secret that I considered Town Talk one of the best places to find good cocktails. So, when I heard the news, I decided to reach out to Nick Kosevich who was the front of the house manager there for several years. He has won numerous awards including the first annual Iron Bartender Competition in 2009 and was voted Best Bartender by City Pages in 2008. It’s fair to say Nick has been one of the most influential figures in transforming the local craft cocktail scene. Given his history with the restaurant, I wanted to find out his perspective on recent events.
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
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 It’s the last of the Halloween cocktails, and I am finishing with a good one, the Zombie. This is another Tiki classic, but like many others in its class, this drink is rarely made properly. There’s a good reason for that: the drink’s creator, Don the Beachcomber, kept his recipes a secret from the world believing his unique, tasty creations were vital to sustaining his business. Over the years, plenty of knock-off recipes have appeared, but the original remained a mystery until recently.
If there is an expert alive today that knows more about tiki mixology than anyone else, it’s Jeff “Beachbum” Berry. His research, along with that of several others, has produced a growing compendium of tropical masterpieces along with a few surprises. One of these is the original Don the Beachcomber recipe for the Zombie which appeared in a New York Times article. The Beachbum acquired a
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 Yesterday, my brother told me he was searching for other ways to use basil in a cocktail. His first thought was to do a search on Summit Sips to see what I had to offer. Most of my basil references point back to the Gin Basil Smash which is a wonderful cocktail, but he already knew about that. Of course, you could muddle some basil in just about anything and have a nice new riff on an old classic, but I think he was after something a little more interesting.
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
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 Making a great cocktail takes time, and if you have tried to recreate any of the recipes here, you know that the results are worth waiting for. But, during those moments when you have a guest waiting, you need a plan that makes the most of your equipment, your space, and your time. Although technique is important from beginning to end, I believe the biggest challenge comes when using fresh citrus.
It’s not that squeezing citrus is a big problem. It isn’t. In fact, if you aren’t using fresh juice in your cocktails it is by far the best improvement you can make. Yet, the moment you do start squeezing fruit, you quickly realize that the additional steps can slow you down, and if you are just a little bit clumsy, can result in a sticky mess all over the work area. Not everyone has the perfect space for making drinks, and few of us can dedicate an entire section of the kitchen for the task. With everyone probably doing it just a little bit differently, I thought I would write about my experience with some of the equipment I have used as well as a few techniques that make the process a little easier.
 Juicing Equipment
Let’s get a few things out of the way first. Some gadgets are just impractical. First on the list are the little wedge squeezers. Most of them are made of thin, stamped metal. One is setup like a pliers that you hold in your hand to squeeze lime wedges. Another is shaped like a cute bird with a hinged tail that pours from the beak. When you make a sour, you need .75 to a full ounce, and you are not going to get that much juice from a wedge. Consequently, you’ll be squeezing wedge after wedge, juice spraying everywhere, while you try to collect enough juice. This is just a hassle, not to mention the fact that you need to cut everything into wedges in the first place. These may be fine for seafood, but not for cocktails.
On the opposite side of the spectrum are the big, heavy pull-arm squeezers. Setting aside their higher price, these are fantastic for juicing a lot of fruit. I own the Hamilton Beach Juicer which does a great job of extracting every last drop from grapefruit to key limes. If I batch my juice or want a gallon of fresh orange, I pull this out. Similar models may work just as well, but to be honest,
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Kimberly and I have a new favorite location for great food and even better cocktails, but it requires a little planning to get there from St. Paul. That’s because this destination is all the way over the Rocky Mountains in Portland, Oregon. The object of our affection is Clyde Common, a Downtown/Pearl District hot spot that is helping to define the cocktail revolution.
Before I jump right into the cocktails, it’s important to mention that first and foremost, Clyde Common is a restaurant. The decor has a basic, modern look that reminds me of a warehouse. The stenciled labels on the wall identify the “KITCHEN” or the “BAR” with a somewhat industrial look that is softened by wooden tables and candles glowing from every corner.
We were seated in front of the open kitchen at a huge table that seats perhaps 20 guests. This “common” seating arrangement was
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