Featured Issues

— No. 104 —

Elephant Flip

As you may know, I great­ly admire the Franklin Mort­gage and Invest­ment Co.‘s cre­ative cock­tails. Dur­ing my last cou­ple vis­its, a cer­tain cock­tail stole the show. It had my whole par­ty ques­tion­ing the foun­da­tions of log­ic and rea­son. I present to you (insert drum roll) The Ele­phant Flip. When I first tried this cock­tail, I knew I had to seek out its cre­ator. The bar­tender who devel­oped this beau­ty is the Franklin’s own Christi­na Ran­do. She has giv­en birth to …

— No. 103 —

Daiquiri

The clas­sic Daiquiri might just be the most con­ve­nient and appro­pri­ate rum drink you can make on your beach vaca­tion. In fact, it’s so sim­ple it only includes three ingre­di­ents. That means you’ll want to choose a qual­i­ty rum. I just hap­pened to be in a coun­try that allowed me to pur­chase Havana Club Añe­jo 7 Años (Score!). So it was a no-brain­er to use this rum in my Daiquiri. Some­times the sim­plest drinks are the most enjoy­able. I guess that’s why it’s a …

— No. 102 —

Barrel Aged Negroni

You may have heard of Jef­frey Mor­gen­thaler. You may have even heard about his exper­tise in bar­rel aging cock­tails. I had, and he was one of the major inspi­ra­tions for my trip out to Port­land. I vis­it­ed his bar at Clyde Com­mon to get on a first name basis with one of his bar­rel aged Negro­nis. Well worth the trip and well worth the effort to recre­ate it in my own bar. As a cock­tail enthu­si­ast, it’s hard not to …

— No. 101 —

Pressure Drop

The Pres­sure Drop, a cock­tail cre­at­ed by Man­hat­tan’s Death and Com­pa­ny, is undoubtably a wor­thy addi­tion to my series fea­tur­ing the best cock­tails from my trav­els. New York City boasts some of Amer­i­ca’s best cock­tail bars. If you’re in the Big Apple, seek out Death and Com­pa­ny and pull a stool up to the bar. The Pres­sure Drop was eas­i­ly my favorite cock­tail on their menu. It’s such an out­stand­ing cock­tail it even made it on Syl­vain’s menu all the …

— No. 100 —

Manhattan

There are as many vari­a­tions to the Man­hat­tan’s his­to­ry as there are to its recipe. The most seduc­tive sto­ry, which is wide­ly regard­ed as false, is that the cock­tail was invent­ed for Lady Ran­dolph Churchill (Win­ston’s Moth­er) at the Man­hat­tan Club in the ear­ly 1870’s. This sto­ry might not have sur­vived the test of time, but the cock­tail cer­tain­ly did. It’s a clas­sic that I like to enjoy with a cig­ar and some good con­ver­sa­tion. The one ques­tion you’ll need …

— No. 99 —

Smith and Cross Rum

Smith and Cross has been fly­ing off my shelves late­ly. I must admit I’ve been join­ing my patrons in its con­sump­tion. And at the same time join­ing a his­toric tra­di­tion that traces its linage all the way back to 1788 as one of Eng­land’s old­est pro­duc­ers of sug­ars and spir­its. Thank you Hay­man Dis­tillers and David Won­drich for bring­ing back this mar­velous spir­it. If you’re in the mar­ket for a new rum I high­ly rec­om­mend giv­ing Smith and Cross a …

— No. 98 —

The Six Inch Gold Blade

One of my favorite speakeasy style cock­tail bars is The Franklin Mort­gage and Invest­ment Com­pa­ny in Philadel­phia. Their cock­tail menu is the best I have come across in my trav­els. Yup, I said it… the best. They even have a sec­tion in the menu quot­ing a Howl­in’ Wolf song called “I asked for water and she gave me gaso­line.” The menu is very coura­geous and their exe­cu­tion and style is flaw­less. A few of their cock­tails are fea­tured in this mod­ern cock­tail …

— No. 97 —

Bittercube Bitters

This sum­mer I went out west on a cock­tail tour, which includ­ed Seat­tle and Port­land. I was sit­ting at the Tav­ern Law in Seat­tle and across the way I saw a guy that looked like one of the pro­duc­ers of Bit­ter­cube Bit­ters. I’ve always been a fan of this com­pa­ny. Their unique bit­ters are qual­i­ty and their events are always intrigu­ing. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, I do not live any­where near Mil­wau­kee. Nick is a dis­tinct char­ac­ter, so I moved down a cou­ple …

— No. 95 —

La Distillerie Combier

I was lucky enough to meet the very per­son­able Curt Gold­man who is a part­ner of Cadre Noir, an importer of arti­sanal French liqueurs, crèmes and spir­its. I emailed Curt and he prompt­ly came out to the Mary­land Club to pro­mote his prod­ucts. I’m glad he did. I was very pleased with the La Dis­til­lerie Com­bier prod­uct line, which is the old­est work­ing dis­tillery in France’s Loire Val­ley. The Com­bier web­site tells the sto­ry that began near­ly 175 years ago at 48 Rue …