Original

— No. 122 —

A Sound & Pristine Health

It’s no secret that amaro and liqueurs like Zuc­ca have been con­sumed for their med­i­c­i­nal prop­er­ties. Zuc­ca’s fea­tured ingre­di­ent rhubarb has been known to be used in medieval pre­scrip­tions and is the inspi­ra­tion behind this cock­tail’s name. In Mac­beth (Act V. Scene III), Mac­beth says to his doc­tor: “If thou coudst, doc­tor, cast the water of my land, find her dis­ease and purge it to a sound and pris­tine health, I would applaud thee to the very echo, that should applaud again. …

— No. 117 —

The Lady Detective

After a late night stake­out it’s not uncom­mon for a dame to let her hair down and knock back a prop­er cock­tail before end­ing the night at the down­town flop house. It’s no mys­tery that rum pairs well with coconut, gin­ger, lime and mint. If you weren’t aware, well I guess the jig is up now. Recipe 2 oz El Dora­do 12 year rum 3/4 oz fresh lime juice 1 oz gin­ger syrup (1:1) 6 to 8 mint leaves Top …

— No. 116 —

El Matrimonio Clandestino

If you fol­low my Twit­ter or Face­book you may know that I recent­ly went down to Ran­cho San­tana, a Nicaraguan resort, to con­sult on their bar, train their bar staff and cre­ate their cock­tail menu. The El Mat­ri­mo­nio Clan­des­ti­no is a cock­tail I cre­at­ed for Ran­cho San­tana’s restau­rant and bar, La Fin­ca y El Mar. Cre­at­ing drinks for this client was a good oppor­tu­ni­ty to explore the cur­rent trend of low alco­hol con­tent recipes. Con­sid­er this recipe for your next …

— No. 114 —

Bonne Fée

Ah, to live the bohemi­an lifestyle, sip­ping a Bonne Fée and lis­ten­ing to the lit­tle birds chirp away in my gar­den. Maybe I’ll reread my favorite book and smoke a hand rolled cig­a­rette. Maybe I’ll meet up with friends for mac­chi­atos and polit­i­cal­ly dri­ven con­ver­sa­tion. Maybe, but first the Bonne Fée. Recipe 1 oz Absente 1 oz water 1/2 oz lemon juice 3/4 oz house made grena­dine 1/2 oz Cam­pari 6–8 mud­dled mint leaves Top with 1 oz of club …

— 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. 111 —

The Gaucho

The inspi­ra­tion for this recipe was the mar­riage of tequi­la and cof­fee. You can see this unex­pect­ed pair­ing in a hand­ful of suc­cess­ful Latin Amer­i­can cock­tails (e.g. Mex­i­can Cof­fee). With the help of a local barista I cre­at­ed a small batch of cof­fee bit­ters espe­cial­ly for this recipe. You can buy cof­fee bit­ters at Cock­tail King­dom. And to tie in yet anoth­er fla­vor of South Amer­i­ca I topped The Gau­cho off with an Argen­tin­ian red wine (Mal­bec) float. Recipe 1 …

— 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 …

— No. 108 —

Justice For All

Jus­tice For All is a cock­tail I was com­mis­sioned to cre­ate and serve for a Baltimore/DC adver­tis­ing fir­m’s client par­ty. This recipe is a twist on the clas­sic Side­car. I ramped up the fla­vor pro­file and added my own per­son­al touch with a home­made hon­ey syrup that fea­tures notes of chamomile, clove and black pep­per­corn. To bal­ance the addi­tion­al sweet­ness I also includ­ed a bit­ter­ing-agent in Mon­tene­gro Amaro. Side Note: Wash­ing­ton D.C.‘s mot­to is “Jus­tice For All”, so it seemed …