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,

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Besides the Fizz, there are several sloe gin cocktails worth trying, and one of them is the Millionaire #1. This drink appears in Harry Craddock’s The Savoy Cocktail Book. It’s also another great cocktail that

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When cold weather dominates the land, it’s hard not to think about places you might rather be—instead of digging out from the latest snow storm. Why not bring home a little of the exotic, maybe from the not-so-distant Caribbean? This week and next, we will feature two Caribbean cocktails that share something in common: Cuba.

And that’s not all they share. Although US readers are legally barred from traveling to Cuba as tourists (let alone enjoying any products that originate there) you should know that Cuba has played an important role in shaping the cocktail landscape. Most notably, a bar called El Floridita in Havana has made many significant contributions—most of them attributed to the 1918 bartender/owner Constantino Ribalaaigua Vert. Constante, as his friends referred to him, featured numerous daiquiris and classic American cocktails on his menu. One daiquiri was

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There is also disagreement on the exact proportions of this drink, but most folks recognize the same ingredients. You occasionally see Canadian Club used as the base spirit, but it really should be rye whiskey. You need a lemon and an orange and a bit of grenadine. I had one of these at the M & S Grill a while back and it was very nicely executed. Some prefer it on the rocks, but I like mine served up. How you decide to make

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Like the Scofflaw, this Drink of the Week pokes fun at our “Noble Experiment”, but in this case, it’s more than just words. At the time, since it was not illegal to drink alcohol, only to manufacture, sell and transport it, anyone with a boat could head a mere three miles out, buy whatever they wanted and drink it on

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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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I’ve made plenty of flavored syrups in the past, but never passion fruit until recently. I could buy passion fruit syrup, but I held off because I wanted to make it myself. However, fresh passion fruit or its juice is pretty hard to find. It turns out, much of the passion fruit juice that’s out there is grape or apple

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O’course, them thar Royal bilge-suckers be savin’ up rations o’ plain ol’ Navy Grog fer quench. Aye, e’en a Corsair knows not to be ignorin’ citrus, else ye be placin’ the black spot ‘fore ye be makin’ berth. I be keepin’ ye from walkin’ the plank by pushin’ a right, fine Bumboo upon me great, grand matey!

Ahoy, me hearty, thar ain’t no caulkin’ when nothin’ crawls out o’ ye bung hole. Ye sprog be needin’ to plunder a few ‘sential gredients ‘fore ye weigh anchor. All hands hoay! Let’s splice the mainbrace!

Modern Bumboo 2 oz dark (as Davy Jones’ locker)

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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

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Monkey Gland 2 oz gin 1 oz orange juice 1/4 oz grenadine 1 dash absinthe

Add all ingredients to a mixing glass and shake with ice to chill. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with an orange twist.

The Monkey Gland is named for an unusual medical procedure once thought to reinvigorate a man’s sexual prowess. By transplanting a monkey’s testical into a human host,

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All of my recent posts regarding bourbon left me considering the fact that although it is truly an American spirit, it wasn’t actually the first to be produced in this country. That honor goes to Applejack, a brandy-based spirit produced from fermented apples. As one of our readers pointed out in a comment to my Kentucky Teaser, it

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This week in history. . . I was researching this week in history and found a few things that seemed thematic to me, although not every story has a good ending. First, on this day in 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded. I know, it’s not a happy event, and it’s certainly not an image most of us will forget. So, let’s just get the sad stuff out of the way first. In the coming week on February 1, 2003, the world watched in shock and disbelief as the Space Shuttle Columbia broke apart on re-entry. Again, it’s another sad day for the space program. Meaning no disrespect to those brave spacefarers who lost their lives, there were a couple positive achievements that also occurred.

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It was a well-known fact that some people in America were simply ignoring the law. So, in 1923 a contest was held to create a word that meant, “a lawless drinker of illegally made or illegally obtained liquor.” The winning entry was submitted by two people independently, and on January 16th, 1924, the Boston Herald

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