Crop Top

As we slog through the current heat wave, light and refreshing remains the best concept for cocktail hour - and absolutely nothing does that better than the combination of gin and citrus. So, from the pages of the Cocktail Codex* (a gift from my cocktail comrade, Brian) we offer the Crop Top. 
 
Gin and two citrus flavors – lemon and grapefruit – combine with amaro, to make a zingy, spicy sipper with a gorgeous golden color. It’s an unexpected combination of ingredients, but really effective. Spicy, light, and very refreshing.

BTW, I usually don’t bother to recommend using a specific brand of liquor, but sometimes there’s an exception. There are dozens of amaros on the shelf at a respectable liquor store, and they vary widely in flavor and heaviness. This recipe calls for Amaro Montenegro, lighter and spicier than some of the others. I’d stick with this recommendation for the Crop Top.
 
Shake up a Crop Top or two at 5:00 pm and wave goodbye to the heat wave. At least for the night ahead.
 
Crop Top

Equal parts:

• Gin

• Amaro Montenegro

• Pamplemousse (grapefruit) liqueur (I’m using Combier Liqueur de Pamplemousse because that’s what Midtown Corkdorks, my favorite merchant, stocks.)

• Lemon juice

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. A lemon peel makes a nice garnish.

*There are literally thousands of cocktail books out there, and I have at least 100 of them on the shelf, but Cocktail Codex is an especially good one. It goes into the fundamentals and variations on classic themes in a clear and fascinating way. It’s not only well-written, but also gorgeous to look at. Maybe the best book to have if you only have one.

Garden of Eden

Now that summer is really here, bright and refreshing is what the doctor ordered, and this one fills that prescription. 
 
Starting with gin – of course – adding healthy shot of St. Germaine elderflower liqueur and finishing with not one, but three, citrus flavors: grapefruit, lemon, and orange. Gin, sour, and sweet – all in the right proportion. Paradisical! 
 
This one started with a recipe I saw on Liquor.com (an excellent source for info on all things drinkable) that included the ingredients above, and added simple syrup (which made it too sweet) and topped-off with champagne (which muddled the flavors). A hot mess. 
 
So, I simplified. With cocktails, as in most of life, clarity and simplicity is usually best. 
 
Shake up a few of these on a hot day and you’ll be back in the garden. A few more, and you may need a fig leaf. I’ll leave that choice up to you …
                                          
Garden of Eden

• 2 oz gin

• .75 oz St. Germaine

• .5 oz grapefruit juice

• .5 oz lemon juice

• Healthy shot of orange bitters

Mix it up, shake it up, and serve it straight up. A bit of lemon or grapefruit peel makes a nice garnish.

Birthday Gimlet

As we – finally! – swing into spring, as usual my thoughts turn to gin, citrus, and sparking refreshment. The Birthday Gimlet is just the ticket!
 
Originating recently at the Electra Cocktail Lounge in Las Vegas, this is a simple variation on the classic Gimlet, which is a classic version of the basic sour – two parts base spirit, one part sweet, one part sour. 
 
This concoction starts with a Gimlet and simply adds a hint of grapefruit and layer of sparkling wine on top. For those who find a classic Gimlet a bit sweet, this will be a revelation. Drier – and with the bubbles – much more festive.
 
The Electra Lounge also recommends garnishing with an edible flower – but really, I think that’s a bridge too far. Who wants to find, buy, and/or eat a flower? Just mix it and drink it and admire the flowers blooming in the yard this time of year.
 
You won’t be disappointed.
 
Birthday Gimlet

• 1.5 oz gin

• .75 oz lime juice (always only fresh!)

• .75 oz simple syrup

• Grapefruit peel

• 1 oz sparkling wine – dry champagne, prosecco, cava – whatever you have in the fridge

Put the first three ingredients along with a healthy bit of grapefruit peel in a shaker with ice and shake to chill. Strain into a cocktail glass and top with the bubbly.

Remember the Maine

As we move through the waning days of winter (or at least we hope they are) one more deep, dark cocktail from the classic canon seems appropriate. This one has a fuzzy history involving a 1933 uprising in Cuba, though its name refers to the sinking of the American battleship Maine in Havana harbor in 1898, which touched of the Spanish-American War that same year. 
 
Whatever.
 
What really matters here is flavor. And we’ve got that – in buckets! A Remember the Main is really a mashup of a Sazerac and a Manhattan. Rye and anise dominate, but there are other flavors coming at you from all directions – in a most delightful way. 
 
Rich, spicy, potent, and delicious.  My kind of winter cocktail!
 
 Mix up one of these delights and you'll think spring is just around the corner!

Remember the Maine

• 2 oz rye whiskey

• ¾ oz sweet vermouth

• 2 teaspoons cherry heering liqueur

• ½  teaspoon Pernod (any anise-flavored liqueur will do)

Because there are no cloudy ingredients here, I prefer to stir rather than shake. Get it good and cold and serve it straight up. And a brandied cherry wouldn’t hurt.

Bijou

As I continue to ransack the classic cocktail vault, I came across this number dating from the teens of the last century, and it’s a real pip! 
 
Those of you who keep up with my monthly cocktail education efforts know I usually look to heavier, whisky- or brandy-based cocktails for winter. But now and then a gin-based recipe catches my eye. Et voilà! Here’s the Bijou.
 
Quite similar to another classic, the Negroni, but the Campari is replaced by green Chartreuse and the proportions are adjusted. It turns out much spicier and not as sweet. Tangy. Complex. And heavy enough to warm you up on a cold evening.
 
Sip one of these by the fire and a day full of unexpected trials will simply melt away. (Also works just fine if you don’t have a fireplace.)
 
Bijou

• 1.5 ounces gin

• 1 ounce sweet vermouth

• .75 ounce green Chartreuse

• 2 dashes orange bitters

Mix all the ingredients and stir with ice to get freezing cold. The Bijou is usually shown served straight up, but I poured mine in a rocks glass with one big cube. Either way it's wonderful!

Love and Murder

On the surface this one just shouldn’t work.
 
First there’s the name. Sounds a bit harsh, doesn't it? Especially during the “peace on earth” season.

And then there are the ingredients. Campari and Chartreuse together? In the same glass? And with a pinch of salt? Wow!
 
Well, I’m here to tell ya – it does work! Beyond just working. This cocktail is spectacular!
 
Created in recent years at a bar called Porchlight in New York, creator Nick Bennett, says he wanted something that tasted like a classic. And this one does. The bitter Campari and the intense anise Chartreuse don’t fight with each other. In fact, they dance cheek to cheek. Rich, layered, spicy – just right for this season – and easy on the eye. 
 
And that touch of salt, which you might think optional, really snaps the flavors into focus. Trust me. I’ve tried it both ways.
 
As for the name, well, in a season when we tend to gather with family, what could be more appropriate?
 
Love and Murder

• 1 ounce Campari

• 1 ounce green Chartreuse

• 1 ounce lime juice, freshly squeezed

• 3/4 ounce simple syrup  

• 4 drops saline solution (5:1 water to kosher salt. I made up an ounce or so and put it in a dropper bottle. It will keep forever.)

Combine everything in a shaker with ice and get it good and cold. You can serve it straight up, or with one big cube in a rocks glass.

Dorchester

Here’s a surprise – a gin and citrus cocktail that works perfectly for fall and winter. I usually lean toward the darker spirits this time of year, and leave the lighter drinks for warmer weather. But this drink – combining gin with both lime and grapefruit juice – is not the light and spritzy thing the ingredients might suggest. 
 
The Dorchester is rich, rounded, complex, and perfect for pre-Thanksgiving dinner. Plus, there’s a pine-needle tang on the back end that gives just a tiny hint of the holidays ahead in December.
 
Created by San Francisco mix master Erik Adkins, this isn’t a classic, but it has all the earmarks of a recipe that has stood the test of time – and I have no doubt it will. I found the original recipe a touch too sweet, so I dialed back the simple syrup a little – which is how I present it below.

Dorchester

• 1.5 ounces gin

• .5 ounce Luxardo maraschino liqueur

• .5 ounce lime juice, freshly squeezed 

• .5 ounce grapefruit juice, freshly squeezed

• .25 ounce simple syrup

Re the grapefruit juice: use white, not pink, if at all possible. Its less sweet than pink and gives the right color to the drink.

Combine the ingredients in a shaker and shake for 10 to 12 seconds (I count them) to get it frosty cold. Serve straight up. 

Sinister Force

Great name for a Halloween cocktail, yes?

I owe my friend Brian credit for steering me to this one. It was featured in a snarky, and often hilarious, left-wing political blog he reads regularly called Wonkette. Wonkette has a weekly cocktail feature (doesn’t everyone these days) and this was the drink for last week. The name is a joke on a ridiculous comment made looong ago by Alexander Haig, Chief of Staff under President Nixon, during the Watergate scandal.

That said, few people reading this are old enough to even remember the name Richard Nixon, much less Haig or Watergate, so moving on …

What’s important here is the flavor, and this drink’s got that by the bucketful. Stout and boozy to be sure, but elegant and oh-so-smooth on the tongue. Bourbon, sweet vermouth, chocolate liqueur, and chocolate bitters – a rather sweet combination – are kicked just off center by the bitterness of Campari and Peychauds bitters.

The result is amazingly good. Balanced and delicious. Nothing sinister about it!

Sinister Force

• 2 oz bourbon

• 1 oz sweet vermouth – I used Carpano 

• .25 oz chocolate liqueur (The Wonkette recipe calls for Double Chocolate Vodka and I don’t have any of that – actually never heard of it – so I substituted ordinary De Kuyper Crème de Cacao. And I tried Kahlua another time. Both worked fine.) 

• .25 oz Campari

• 2 dashes chocolate bitters (I didn’t have these on the shelf either, so I went to Midtown and bought some.)

• 1 dash Peychaud’s bitters

Shake this with ice to get it very, very cold and serve straight up or, the way I like this sort of drink, in a rocks glass with one big cube. Or two.

Ward Eight

You know I love the classics, and here’s another one. Going waaaay back to 1898 or thereabouts, it was created to celebrate of the victory of Martin M. Lomasney, a political boss in Boston’s Eighth Ward. Like most of these cocktail origin stories, this may or may not be totally true, but it really doesn’t matter.

What does matter is the flavor and this one’s got flavor – in spades!

It’s a variation on the classic Whiskey Sour, but it’s richer because it’s based on rye, it includes orange juice as well as lemon, and it uses grenadine rather than simple syrup as a sweetener.

Definitely potent, but not as heavy as some drinks based on whiskey. And still refreshing as we move into fall, leaving the light sparklers behind until next spring.

Knock back a couple of these and you may find yourself writing-in Martin M. Lomasney the next time you go to the polls.

Ward Eight

• 2 ounces rye whiskey

• .5 ounce lemon juice

• .5 ounce orange juice – Go ahead, get an orange and squeeze it. You’ll be so glad you did!

• 2 teaspoons grenadine – real grenadine (available in some form from your favorite liquor merchant) not that dreadful Rose’s you might see at the grocery store.

Shake it all up with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Brandied cherries make a nice garnish. 

Mezcal Margarita

Margarita made better ...

One of the perks of my real estate business is the gifts I get from my clients. It’s always such a lovely surprise to get a thank you gift for just doing my job. 
 
One such gift was a bottle of Banhez mezcal, and it has transformed my opinion of agave. Very much for the better.
 
While I certainly wouldn’t turn one down, and I’ve knocked quite a few of them back over the years, the venerable Margarita has never been my cocktail of choice. Something about the flavor of tequila just doesn’t work for me. Or maybe I should say, it doesn’t work as well for me as other spirits.
 
Enter mezcal. Tequila is made only from blue agave plants from the tequila region. Mezcal is made from any old agave plant from anywhere they grow – and I like it much better! Fuller, rounder, more complex than tequila – and with a distinct smoky aftertaste that reminds me of good scotch.
 
And how does it work in a Margarita? Very well indeed! I might even say totally deluxe! The Mescal Margarita has become one of my go-to drinks.
 
So, if you find the taste of the standard Margarita a little thin, or even if you love them but want to branch out, try one of these beauties. You won’t regret it!

Mezcal Margarita

• 2 ounces mezcal

• 1 ounce lime juice

• .75 ounce triple sec (use a clear one like Combier or Cointreau)

• .25 ounce agave nectar (or simple syrup in a pinch)

Get the mixture absolutely freezing cold and serve up or on ice. Salt the rim if you must, but I like it better without.

Third Man

Here’s something out of the ordinary – a refreshing, summery cocktail based on bourbon. And it has Nashville roots. Concocted by the bar manager at uber-trendy restaurant, Henrietta Red, and featured Garden & Gun magazine, this number has the surprising quality of being both rich and light and refreshing at the same time.

Most people associate the darker, heavier spirits with cool weather drinking. So do I, and that’s why this one is such a pleasant surprise. The rich flavor comes from the bourbon, but it is lifted into the summer sipping category by grapefruit, lemon, and the ever-bracing bitterness of Campari.
 
A complex, delicious combo with a gorgeous color. Perfect to sip at the end of a long, hot day. 
 
Who knew?

Third Man

• 1½ oz. bourbon

• 1 oz. grapefruit juice

• ¾ oz. lemon juice

• ¾ oz. Campari

• ½ oz. simple syrup

Combine the ingredients, shake with ice until frigid, and strain into a rocks glass with another cube or two.
 
A word about grapefruit juice. Anybody who knows me, knows that I insist on fresh squeezed citrus in cocktails. With grapefruit I can make an exception. Fresh squeezed is best, but if you go to somewhere like Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s and buy a jug of organic, all-juice, no additives, not-from-concentrate, never-frozen stuff, it will be okay. 

The Goddess

My sister, Wesley Paine, who has been the Museum Director at the Parthenon for 42(!) years retired as of June 30. There have been parties and receptions in honor of this event and her service. For one of them, I was asked to come up with an appropriate cocktail. 

Et voilà! The Goddess.
 
It seemed appropriate to go for Greek ingredients, so I based it on metaxa, a Greek brandy, and retsina, a white wine flavored with pine resin. Retisina is considered by some the national drink of Greece, and by others as all-but-undrinkable. Either way, it works well in this cocktail. Rounding these out are lime juice – because every summer cocktail needs some citrus – and simple syrup to balance the retsina and lime. 
 
The result is a smooth sweet-sour flavor, similar to s Sidecar, but with a pine needle tang. Hard to describe, but pretty easy to drink.
 
Sip a few of these and you may start wearing a toga.
 
The Goddess

• 2 ounces metaxa

• 1 ounce retsina

• .5 ounce lime juice

• .5 ounce simple syrup

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. It’s also pretty good on the rocks.

Super 70

Earlier this month, friends and relatives celebrated the 70th birthday of the estimable Kate Monaghan, my former real estate partner, current next door neighbor, and friend for life.
 
So, of course there had to be a special drink.
 
This is it. And it’s a doozy! It’s a variation on the Nifty Fifty (recipe on my web site), a drink I was asked to devise to help celebrate the 50th anniversary of Senior Citizens, a local non-profit that was rebranding itself as Fifty Forward. 
 
Both employ gin, citrus, and ginger, but the proportions are different. The Super 70 has Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur as the base sprit and adds lesser quantities of gin and lime juice. 
 
The result is absolutely delicious! And it’s a bit less alcoholic than some due to the lower proof of the ginger liqueur. Which means you can sip a bit more and enjoy the lovely flavor without getting loaded – or at least overloaded. 
 
Sip and celebrate the passing of the decades!
 
Super 70

• Two parts Domaine de Canton

• One part gin

• One part lime juice – Need I say it? Must be fresh!

This one can be served straight up or on the rocks. It’s great either way.

Jack Rose

Here we go again – back to the vault of historic cocktails for an absolutely deluxe concoction dating back the early decades of the 20th century.

Documented Jack Rose mentions go back as far as 1905, and it has the booze-soaked literary cachet of being mentioned in Hemmingway’s The Sun Also Rises, and being a favorite of John Steinbeck. So history.
 
Plus, it’s perfect for springtime, with a refreshing sweet-sour flavor and a gorgeous deep rose color. So, why not.
 
It's based on applejack, an American apple brandy that used to be hard to find, but is readily available these days, and is not expensive. Where you will need to shell out a little, is the grenadine. Do NOT bother with Rose’s – the grocery store stuff, that’s little more than sugar water. At your favorite liquor merchant’s you will find real grenadine, made with real pomegranates, and imbued with real flavor. 

 
Shake up a bunch of these delights and sip your way to springtime nirvana.

Jack Rose

• 2 oz Applejack – Laird’s is the brand you’ll likely find most often

• 1 oz lemon juice or lime juice – try it both ways

• .75 oz grenadine – only the real stuff

Shake until frigid and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with an apple slice if you garnish.

The Slope

As we continue to slog through the winter, I usually look for something hearty and robust – like a Manhattan. Variety being the spice of life, here’s good news for cocktail-focused drinkers everywhere: the basic Manhattan recipe lends itself to interesting variations – there are hundreds, if not thousands – and we’ve got an excellent example right here.
 
Not a classic – it was concocted in 2009 at the Clover Club, a bar in Brooklyn – but it drinks like one. Stout, boozy, and serious, but it goes down very smoothly. A nice balance between the whiskey and the sweet/bitter ingredients. 
 
I have Kristin and William, my totally deluxe daughter-in-law and son, to thank for first serving me this one. So nice to have creative, interesting, reasonably well-behaved children to hang-out with! Makes all the past parenting drama worth it! 
 
Mix up one of these delights and you won’t mind the cold!

The Slope

• 2.5 oz rye

• .75 oz sweet vermouth. (Best to use a stout one like Punt e Mes or Carpano Antica)

• .25 oz apricot liqueur (I’m using Rothman & Winter because that’s what they stock at Midtown)

• Dash of Angostura bitters

Because there are no cloudy ingredients here, I prefer to stir rather than shake. Get it good and cold and serve it straight up. And a brandied cherry wouldn’t hurt.

Fresh Start 46

If you’ve been following along for more than a few months, you’ll know I am drawn to the timeless cocktail classics from the Golden Age of Drinking, the first three decades of the last century. But, now and then something new comes along that’s totally deluxe and I can’t help but love it.
 
That’s what we’ve got here! My friend and former client, Jim Vickers, came up with this delight in honor of our new president’s inauguration and named it Fresh Start 46. How appropriate!
 
It’s reminiscent of a French 75, but deeper, richer, and more complex with the addition of cognac and elderflower liqueur. It’s also fizzy and festive as all get-out. Delicious!
 
So, if you’re still celebrating – I am! – this beauty is just the ticket.

Fresh Start 46

• .5 oz. Gin

• .5 oz. Cognac

• .5 oz. Elderflower Liqueur (I’ve got St. Germaine on the shelf. Jim is using Fiorente.)

• 1 oz. Meyer Lemon juice (if you don’t have a Meyer lemon handy, by all means squeeze a regular one!)

• Bubbly (most any kind will do as long as it’s dry and very cold)

Combine the first four ingredients in a beaker, shake or stir to get icy cold, strain into a flute, and top with the bubbly.

David’s Holiday Gimlet

I don’t usually approve of messing with the venerable classics –  and the Gimlet is certainly one of those – but occasionally I run up on something that’s worth a try. My son and daughter-in-law alerted me to this one, which had come to them via Ina Garten. 

It calls for gin, lime, and simple syrup – the usual Gimlet ingredients – and adds the lush color, and dark, fruity flavor of pomegranate juice. 
 
My kids played with the proportions to make it less sweet – a good call – and I played with them some more to increase the gin-based tang, and viola, David’s Holiday Gimlet.
 
It’s like a regular Gimlet, but has more heft. Deeper, more complicated flavor. Perfect for cold weather and festive occasions like ringing in a new – and long-awaited – year. And it’s not as strong as some cocktails, so you can have more than one without spoiling your evening. 
 
Happy New Year to us all!
 
Holiday Gimlet

• 2 ounces gin

• 1 ounce fresh lime juice 

• 1 ounce pomegranate juice 

• .5 ounce simple syrup (or less to make it tangier)

• Combine and shake to get freezing cold and serve straight up. If you want to crank up the party vibe, garnish with a lime slice.

Oriental

Moving into the winter months, I’m always on the lookout for drinks that are a little darker, a little heavier, less breezy than the summer coolers. Here’s yet another classic, based on rye, from the early decades of the 20th century that fills the bill. 
 
There’s nothing remotely Asian or “Oriental” about this drink, but who cares?
 
It first appears in Harry Craddock’s Savoy Cocktail Book published in 1930. According to Harry it was invented by an American engineer working in the Philippines who gave the recipe as a thank you to a local doctor who saved his life when he was dying of some tropical disease. Or something. Whatever.
 
The important thing is this – the Oriental is a really great cocktail. Dark, rich, and sweet-ish, but saved from being too sweet by the surprising addition of lime juice. Layers of flavor and very easy to sip on a chilly evening. Perfect for this time of year. 

The Oriental

• 1.5 oz rye whiskey

• .75 oz triple sec (I’m using Combier here)

• .75 oz sweet vermouth

• .75 oz lime juice

Combine the ingredients in a shaker and shake for 10 to 12 seconds (I count them) to get it frosty cold. Serve straight up. You may see recipes that call for an orange peel for garnish. I think lime looks better.

David’s Dark Daiquiri

A disclosure right off the bat: The concept for this drink – if not the precise recipe – comes courtesy of my cousin Stephen, an excellent fellow who lives in Manhattan. He pulled me into an early Covid-era Zoom class conducted by one of his favorite NYC bartenders who was making dark rum drinks. But I played with the recipe a bit, so I claimed the name …
 
David’s Dark Daiquiri is a variation on the standard Daiquiri, a summer-perfect confection of white rum, lime, and white sugar syrup. Light, breezy, and to my taste, a little thin. Not where I’d turn on anything but a hot summer day.
 
This version steps things up and transforms the traditional Daiquiri into a rich, rounded, much deeper, cocktail that’s perfect for fall and winter. 
 
For the base spirit we substitute dark rum – specifically Diplomatico Reserva from Venezuela – for the white Bacardi. Instead of plain simple syrup, we use syrup made from raw sugar – turbinado in this case – which makes a brown syrup. And we bump up the lime juice a bit to keep it from getting too sweet.

The result is a rich, mahogany concoction, bursting with flavor. It warms rather than cools – the opposite of a traditional Daiquiri. 
 
Absolutely wonderful! And very easy to sip on a chilly evening.
 
David's Dark Daiquiri

• 2 ounces dark rum* 

• 1 ounce raw sugar syrup**

• 1.25 ounces lime juice (you can adjust this to taste)

* Diplomatico Reserva is totally deluxe, but why not sip your way up and down the dark rum aisle. You may find something you like even better. If you do, by all means tell me about it!
 
** Using turbinado or demarrera raw (not brown) sugar, make the syrup the same way you do simple syrup. Bring equal parts sugar and water to a boil, dissolve, and cool. Done!  

Boulevardier

Fall weather fabulousness!

Here’s yet another beauty from the vault of ancient cocktails. Devised in Paris in the 1920s and attributed to American expat, Erskine Gwynne, a member of the Vanderbilt clan who founded a monthly magazine in Paris called
Boulevardier. 
 
This might be considered a bourbon-based Negroni or maybe a jazzed up Manhattan. And while I love Negronis and Manhattans on occasion, I love this one even more! It’s a deeper, richer, more layered flavor. Slightly peppery and almost mysterious. 
 
Delicious and absolutely perfect for fall weather. Also really strong so, sip judiciously, and enjoy the crisp evening …
 
Boulevardier

• 1.5 ounce bourbon (try it with rye as well)

• 1 ounce Campari

• 1 ounce sweet vermouth

This has only clear ingredients so I like to stir rather than shake, but it’s your choice as long as you get it icy cold. Strain into a short glass with more ice – I like one big cube – and enjoy slowly.