Whiskey

— No. 153 —

Lil Snickers

Lil Snick­ers, a cock­tail that reminds us to nev­er take our­selves too seri­ous­ly, fea­tures a local­ly sourced Snick­ers Mini gar­nish that’s for­aged from the Rite Aid across the street from the bar at Wet City. Some peo­ple, when read­ing a cock­tail menu, might feel that ingre­di­ents like Car­damaro or Capalet­ti Aperti­vo might be a tad pre­ten­tious. How­ev­er, throw a Snick­ers Mini into the mix and wham­mo you have one hell of an approach­able and humor­ous drink for the mass­es.  And that’s why Lil …

— No. 150 —

Dandy

Did you know that Bal­ti­more defied Pro­hi­bi­tion and still served alco­hol? It’s true, Bal­ti­more was a wet city dur­ing Pro­hi­bi­tion. When the rest of the nation went dry dur­ing Pro­hi­bi­tion, Mary­land was the only state that refused to pass an enforce­ment act to sup­port the fed­er­al restric­tions. Thanks to stub­born, free-think­ing Mary­land rule-break­ers, the Chesa­peake Bay became the prime port of call for the nation’s boot­leg­gers, mak­ing Mary­land the wettest state in the union. Ok enough with the his­to­ry lessons. …

— No. 149 —

Baku

Baku is a cock­tail bar­tender Reed Cahill cre­at­ed for Wet City’s open­ing cock­tail menu. This cock­tail was inspired by Japan­ese high­balls. They tend to focus on get­ting as much com­plex­i­ty and depth of fla­vor from a short list of ingre­di­ents as pos­si­ble. We want­ed a breezy sum­mer rye drink that would be acces­si­ble to non-rye drinkers as well. The earth­i­ness of the macadamia orgeat plays off the rye well, while the cream soda gives it its soft, smooth tex­ture.  The 18–21 …

— No. 145 —

The Sparrow

This recipe is a twist on a clas­sic cock­tail known as The Old Pal. If you’re not famil­iar with it, you might be famil­iar with its sib­ling — the Boule­vardier — which has over­shad­owed it in pop­u­lar­i­ty for years. Both drinks are 1920’s cre­ations by Har­ry MacEl­hone — cock­tail pio­neer and founder of the infa­mous Har­ry’s New York Bar in Paris. Har­ry attrib­uted the Old Pal to a writer known as William “Spar­row” Robert­son, who called any­one he talked to his “old pal.” Turns out Spar­row Robert­son has …

— No. 144 —

The Bearcat

This cock­tail is a fiery lit­tle num­ber so it seemed fit­ting to call her “The Bearcat” — a 1920’s slang term for a feisty, hot-blood­­ed gal. The Bearcat has quick­ly become a favorite com­pan­ion dur­ing the sum­mer thun­der­storms, and I’m already look­ing for­ward to bring­ing her back out in the autumn and win­ter months. The veg­e­tal attrib­ut­es of Cynar, matched with the sweet heat of the Ancho Reyes Chili Liqueur, come togeth­er here for a unique and entic­ing fla­vor pro­file. The mez­cal rinse draws you …

— No. 138 —

Les Paul

When the leaves start to fall I get a crav­ing for Cynar. It’s hard to explain, but Cynar has a veg­e­tal, har­vest-like attribute that calls to me. So I made a sim­ple recipe that’s a twist on the clas­sic Man­hat­tan recipe. I serve my fair share of Man­hat­tans and it’s nice to change it up for my guests every once in awhile. This cock­tail fits the bill. Get a bot­tle of Cynar and give it a shot. You won’t be dis­ap­point­ed. …

— No. 126 —

Old Faithful

Are you hav­ing peo­ple over for the Raven’s game this week­end? The last thing you’ll want to be doing while your Ravens are tak­ing it to the Patri­ots in the AFC Cham­pi­onship game is mak­ing drinks for every­one. The best way to keep your guests hap­py and liquored up while main­tain­ing fives on your seat is to pre­pare a punch. I got this recipe from Dan Sear­ing’s book The Punch Bowl. The Old Faith­ful is a recipe by Gina Cher­se­vani …

— No. 115 —

Mint Julep

Call me what you will, but I shake my mint julep. I don’t like my straw get­ting clogged with all that mint. It hin­ders the drink­ing expe­ri­ence. So this is how I make my julep. Recipe 2 1/2 oz over­proof bour­bon (Noah’s Mill) 3/4 oz sim­ple syrup (1:1) 12 mud­dled mint leaves Crushed ice 1 mint sprig for gar­nish Dust top with pow­dered sug­ar 1 small drink­ing straw Add the sim­ple syrup in a shak­er tin. Then add 12 mint …

— No. 112 —

Thus Always To Tyrants

Thus Always To Tyrants, the infa­mous phrase shout­ed as John Wilkes Booth jumped from Ford The­ater’s bal­cony after he assas­si­nat­ed Abe Lin­coln. The phrase is said to have orig­i­nat­ed with Bru­tus dur­ing the assas­si­na­tion of Julius Cae­sar. It’s also the Vir­ginia state mot­to. So what bet­ter whiskey to fea­ture in this cock­tail than Bow­man Broth­ers Small Batch Vir­ginia Whiskey. I incor­po­rat­ed a touch of Smith & Cross Rum and home­made cher­ry gas­trique to include a cher­ry vanil­la com­po­nent. Then I …

— No. 109 —

Manly Deeds Womanly Words

Beer cock­tails are a pop­u­lar trend right now. As you may have noticed from my events, when sum­mer comes around I like to focus my cre­ative juices on a few beer cock­tail recipes. This one stood out from the rest. If you think you’re get­ting off easy on the alco­hol per­cent­age, don’t fool your­self. This cock­tail packs a man­ly suck­er punch. It’s sneaky, hid­den by all those pret­ty flo­ral and herbal tones. This is exact­ly why I named the cock­tail …