Mixer

— No. 154 —

Spagett

Wet City’s bar­tender Reed Cahill cre­at­ed the Spagett in 2016 when the bar opened. For 3 years it had a cult fol­low­ing with the reg­u­lars at Wet City. Fast for­ward to 2019 where Alex Delany wrote an arti­cle for Bon Apétit mag­a­zine pro­claim­ing the drink his new favorite sum­mer drink, and now we have the world­wide craze we see today. The idea behind the drink is sim­ple. It’s an Aper­ol Spritz, but sub the Cham­pagne (or Pros­ec­co to be accu­rate) for the …

— 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. 152 —

Despacito

Yes, this cock­tail is named after Luis Fon­si’s song Despaci­to. After the staff at Wet City had been asked to play the song for the mil­lionth time they decid­ed to name a drink after the request. Yeah, it’s an inside joke, but it’s a great name for a great drink too. Recipe 1 1/2 oz apple & gin­ger infused vod­ka 1/2 oz Lunazul reposa­do tequi­la 1/2 oz lime 1/4 oz gin­ger syrup top with 2 oz Fever Tree Cit­rus gar­nish with edi­ble flow­ers …

— No. 151 —

Loss Leader

This drink, the Loss Leader, was cre­at­ed by Reed Cahill at Wet City for a week­ly event we’ll be hav­ing togeth­er where we cre­ate a spe­cial cock­tail menu each Mon­day. The “Loss Leader” name comes from a cou­ple of drinks that Miles Mac­quar­rie did at Kim­ball House in Atlanta. He dubbed these cock­tails “Loss Lead­ers” due to their use of ingre­di­ents that were unchar­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly expen­sive or rare for use in cock­tails. With that said, the star of this recipe is Coc­chi …

— 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. 147 —

Room 112

This cock­tail is a col­lab­o­ra­tion Reed Cahill and I came up with for Mon­day nights at Wet City where we show­case a spe­cial cock­tail menu. As it’s the 25th anniver­sary of Bad Boy Records, we fig­ured it was only appro­pri­ate to do a ‘peach­es and cream’-esque trib­ute to 112. The idea came about when Reed grabbed a bot­tle of bar­rel-aged peach white grape bal­sam­ic from local Greek vine­gar and olive oil store DEVOO. This bal­sam­ic is insane­ly com­plex and fla­vor­ful, so …

— No. 146 —

Basil Smash

The 4th of July is one of my favorite hol­i­days, and I cel­e­brate every year by host­ing a par­ty com­plete with home­brewed shandy and fresh sum­mer cock­tails. Because my gar­den is usu­al­ly over­flow­ing by this time of the year, I like to take advan­tage of that by cre­at­ing cock­tails packed with fresh herbs. This year, I’ll be serv­ing my adap­ta­tion of the Basil Smash. The Basil Smash was orig­i­nal­ly cre­at­ed by Jörg Mey­er of Le Lion — Bar de Paris in Ham­burg, Ger­many. Accord­ing to Jörg, he …

— 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 …