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Here’s a cocktail that combines two base spirits, brandy and rum. It’s a prohibition era recipe that takes inspiration from the Sidecar, a delicious and flavorful drink that was itself the predecessor to drinks like the Margarita. That puts us squarely in the sour family, though there are differing opinions about how sour you should make it.
Whenever we make a sour style cocktail we are combining something sweet with something acidic. Like the Sidecar, the Between The Sheets cocktail plays lemon juice against Cointreau, though the lemon plays a less prominent role in this drink. And that’s where documented recipes and opinions differ. Most references position the orange liqueur at a ratio equal to half that of the combined base spirits, but the amount of lemon juice tends to vary. There are recipes that call for a mere dash,
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It may be long overdue, but we are finally getting around to posting about the El Presidente cocktail. We mentioned this drink way back in November 2009 but never provided a recipe. That’s because it was one in a list of several classics you could make with grenadine and we placed our focus on a homemade recipe for this wonderful syrup. It’s been a while since we’ve touched on this ingredient, and even though the El Presidente contains just a tiny portion of the stuff, there are plenty of other great classics that employ pomegranate syrup to sublime effect. Of course, you have to use the real deal, not an artificially flavored bottle of corn syrup. It seems appropriate to briefly revisit the details.
The sad truth is that the most common store-bought brand of grenadine is excruciatingly bad for cocktails. It’s supposed to be a syrup based on real
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We don’t post enough tropical Tiki rum drinks on Summit Sips. It’s not intentional—it just works out that way. With winter behind us now and the magnolias in bloom, we thought it might be nice to catch up on a classic that we mentioned back in April of last year. We may not be quite ready to kick off our sandals and relax in the luxurious sunshine, but this string of 70-degree days and thundershowers has us thinking maybe we should get few summer recipes prepared. The Painkiller is a perfect drink to put on the summer menu, and unlike a lot of Tiki tranquilizers, this one is easy to make.
In order to make the Painkiller, you need to gather a few ingredients, but it’s not nearly as difficult as you might think. First and foremost, you need coconut cream. Don’t worry, we aren’t
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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 shared
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Muddling cherries and lime
This drink of the week is pretty easy to pull off. It’s a Caiprissima, which is like a Caipirinha only it uses rum instead of cachaça, and of course, this one also has cherries in it. According to my notes, I saw this somewhere back in June so it’s probably a summer drink. It’s been raining in December around here, so a summer drink sounds like a good drink in my book. This Caiprissima variation was created by Meaghan Dorman of Raines Law Room, Manhattan. If you are familiar with the Caipirinha, you know the drill—just use rum and throw in some cherries!
The process goes something like this: Take some pitted cherries and drop them into a shaker. Add your simple syrup (or just a couple spoons of sugar if you prefer) and muddle them into oblivion. Drop in
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Assorted Syrups
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, or
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A few weeks ago, a friend of mine was asking me why she couldn’t find the recipe for Hot Buttered Rum on the site. I realized it’s because I had never posted it. It’s time to fix that!
There are a couple schools of thought when it comes to Hot Buttered Rum. One is that the best recipe is actually not for the cocktail at all but rather a batter that you use as the basis for the drink. It’s hard to deny that a good batter recipe probably makes a fantastic cocktail, but there is another approach that I find appealing for a different reason. It follows the idea that if a recipe is too hard or just too time consuming, you probably aren’t going to make it. I am not one to back away from a challenge, but I also recognize that
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Back in March I posted a recipe for the Sloe Gin Fizz. If you haven’t had the pleasure of tasting this drink, or more importantly, tasting real sloe gin, I highly recommend making a little room in your cabinet for this wonderful spirit. Do everything you can to find Plymouth Sloe Gin since other brands may not be the same product. Some people say that the best sloe gin is homemade, and that’s probably true. Just be aware that many of the bottom shelf brands have nothing in common with blackthorn berries, let alone actual gin. Plymouth, on the other hand, is made using the real fruit and their own gin, and it is absolutely delicious.
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
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I have always wanted to make fresh cranberry juice, and you can find plenty of good recipes online that seem simple enough. Most of them describe putting cranberries through a blender or food processor, adding water, sometimes cooking them, sometimes letting the purée rest for some period, then straining the result. Then, it’s just a matter of adding sugar which helps bring that astringent flavor under control and counteracts the bitterness. The benefit is that you can add as little or as much sweetener as you like. The steps are straightforward enough, and I might try it some day, but for a single cocktail there had to be a shortcut.
The obvious solution is to simply muddle a handful of cranberries in your mixing glass and build the balance of flavor using other cocktail ingredients. That’s what Misty Kalfoken of Drink, Boston does in her Boston Bog. This cocktail
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Last year, the New York Times ran an article featuring another fantastic cocktail by Bobby Heugel of Anvil, Houston. At the time, I didn’t really think much about it, but looking back, the simplicity and the seasonal significance right now make it a perfect feature for the Drink of the Week.
I am referring to the Apple Smash, a basic rum cocktail that makes great use of fresh apples both in the drink and for the garnish. With so many different apples available this time of year, why not give this easy recipe a try? After all, fresh apples are underused in cocktails and it’s nice to have a recipe that works without requiring a bunch of odd ingredients. In other words, you probably have everything you need to make this drink right now—just grab some apples and you are ready to go. Heugel suggests Honeycrisp, but it’s fun to
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Antique/Vintage Store Spotlight:
 Irish Coffee Mug |
 Coupe, Deep Bowl |
 Pump Decanter |
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