Category: recipes

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Molecular Cocktail Recipe: The Aviary Gin & Tonic

Happy New Year – a phrase that holds a special sort of optimism this time around. To kick off a new and hopefully better year, I thought I’d offer a post on a different kind of drink: a molecular cocktail. The inspiration came from the Aviary Cocktail Book, a gorgeously illustrated compendium of complicated but delicious cocktails by the Aviary bar in Chicago. I decided to make my way through the book this year. My goal is not necessarily to try every recipe, but at least to consider each one, try a few out and share the results here and on Instagram. The first entry in the book is the Aviary gin & tonic. This drink is not actually served at the restaurant, but is a delightful recipe to enjoy at home.

It is worth noting that the reason the Aviary doesn’t serve this drink is that it is too labor-intensive. That word of caution is well-heeded if you intend to make the cucumber spheres that are the drink’s signature component. I would budget several hours to that task. And it wouldn’t hurt to have a friend help you speed things along.

The good news is that the gin and tonic component is not actually all that complicated. And it is a delicious recipe that does well without the cucumber spheres if you don’t have the time or inclination to make them. (For more gin & tonic inspiration and some fun travel photography, see my last post, the Sunset G&T. Or if you’re doing Dry January, check out my Actually Dry Martini recipe.) But we’ll go through the whole thing here. With enough patience, you should end up with something that looks like this:

The Aviary gin & tonic
The Aviary Gin & Tonic. Glass from Washington, D.C.’s own Salt & Sundry.
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Classic Recipe with a Twist: Sunset Gin and Tonic

So much has happened since my last post on the blog! When we last left our hard-hitting cocktail coverage at the end of 2018, my world – our world – was a different place. Since that time, I had a big day at the day job, the aftermath of which has contributed to my extended absence from posting. (I’ve done a little better on Instagram, but only a little.)

And of course, since earlier this year, we’ve all been struggling to adjust to life during a pandemic. For some of us this has meant virtual quarantine. Some luminaries of the cocktail universe have sought to help us through it all. One offered to give us recipes we can use based on ingredients we have in our house (Derek Brown is just an amazing human being). Many others have minted new “quarantini” cocktails for us to sample. (I don’t have any of those for you, but I do have a classic martini, a hot and dirty martini, and even a totally dry (i.e., alcohol-free) martini for you if you’re interested.)

Pandemic/quarantine has knocked me off my cocktail blogging game a bit. I (like many of you I imagine) now work from home day after day and for some reason that new pattern has further disrupted my already disrupted flow for creating cocktails and then posting here about them. I’ve said “yes” to collaborations on Instagram, thinking they would motivate me to get back to it, but then failed to follow through. I guess there is a momentum to this kind of thing. It’s (at least by comparison) easy to keep blogging going when you’re consistent about it; but impossible when you get out of rhythm.

So I know better than to promise you that “I’m back,” but I am at least popping up to say hello and offer you something to drink as you wait patiently for the world to return to normal. This one is inspired by the last superfun thing I did before quarantine: visit South Africa.

South Africa is a wonderland. I can’t show you everything I loved about it – there isn’t enough space here (and at some point we need to get to the recipe). But let’s consider at least a few items: penguins, mountains, zebras and sunsets.

Penguins near the Cape of Good Hope
Penguins near Cape of Good Hope

The penguins flock in large groups and just kind of party, looking as awesome as you would imagine. There’s no ice or cold weather here – it was in the 70s or 80s (Fahrenheit) in this shot. But they look unperturbed as they mingle on the shore between occasional trips to the water to cool off and look for food.

Mountains along the Garden Route
Mountains along the Garden Route
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Cocktails for The Game: The Gin Harbaugh and the Bourbon Meyer

Today the Michigan Wolverines face off for the 115th time against the Ohio State Buckeyes in The Game.  This is always a high stakes event, even when it isn’t from the perspective of the rest of the college football world, but this year a lot is on the line as both teams are 10-1 and the winner goes on to play for the Big Ten championship.  I’m a lifelong Michigan fan, and this year I decided to apply my passion for cocktails to this annual event and am pleased to bring you cocktails for The Game, named in honor of the teams’ head coaches:  The Gin Harbaugh and the Bourbon Meyer.

Since I live in D.C., which is now Big Ten country thanks to Jim Delaney, the league Commissioner and the mastermind of Big Ten expansion to College Park, I wanted to add a little D.C. flavor to these drinks and began with the idea of using gin and citrus in one drink and bourbon and citrus in the other, inspired by the rickey.  

I like the tangy flavor that lemon juice brings to a drink, but for the Gin Harbaugh I also wanted a drink that packs more punch in its flavor so it leaves a bit of a mark on you after each sip.  Enter Ancho Reyes Verde, the somewhat spicy poblano liqueur, which adds some depth of flavor and provides a spicy aftertaste.  I balanced it out with a little simple syrup and topped off the drink with soda water.  Add a lemon peel garnish shaped like the Michigan helmet and you’re good to go:

Gin Harbaugh
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Halloween Cocktail Recipe: Into The Dark

Think you’re ready to host that Halloween party? Sure, you’ve got the perfect costume, killer decorations, and a carefully curated Halloween playlist. But do you have a Halloween cocktail picked out? If not, have no fear. I’ve got a cocktail that has it all – fall flavors, Halloween black color, and smoky special effects. Follow me . . . Into The Dark:

Halloween Cocktail - Into The Dark

For my Halloween cocktail, I wanted to bring together some great fall flavors, but also to give the drink a costume of its own to foster the Halloween spirit.  Let me start with the latter first because you might need some lead time on a couple of the ingredients.  

The first is activated charcoal, which gives the drink its Halloween-appropriate black color.  There are plenty of options online; I used Viva Doria Virgin Coconut Shell Activated Charcoal Powder, which I found on Amazon.  You will also need dry ice pellets; I found mine at Talbert’s Ice in Bethesda (two pounds cost me about $5).  (Note that Talbert’s is especially safety conscious and will not sell you dry ice for use in drinks unless you have a dry ice cage; I found one of these online but did not order one, so I can’t speak to how well they work in a cocktail.)  Finally, if you want some skull-themed cocktail picks, try the Fred & Friends Bar Bones cocktail picks, like the one I used in the picture above.

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Original Recipe: Soyeux

Summer is my favorite season, mainly because I do not like being cold.  But the other seasons have their own redeeming values.  One of the things I like most about fall is building a fire on evenings when the mercury starts to drop – not far enough to make you really cold (see above), but far enough that no one gives you weird looks when you start piling logs on your andirons.  And for me, fire implies whiskey (but not fire whiskey, importantly).  So when the weather turned colder for the first time this fall season in the District, I started a fire and turned to the task of putting together a new whiskey-based cocktail.  The result was the Soyeux:

Soyeux

I wanted a strong whiskey base, so I began with two ounces of E.H. Taylor, Jr., Small Batch Bourbon, one of my favorite bourbons at the moment.  Then I added half an ounce of Cocchi Vermouth di Torino, which is my go-to vermouth for Manhattans (although I also add a bit of Dolin blanc vermouth to those as well; more details in an upcoming post).  Speaking of Manhattans, this drink was moving decidedly in that direction, but I wanted to try something new.  So I added half an ounce of yellow Chartreuse – an herbal and slightly sweet liqueur that I thought would lighten the taste slightly.  To round it off, I added a dash of Fee Brothers Aztec chocolate bitters.  I stirred the ingredients with ice and then strained into a rocks glass, adding a large ice cube and an orange peel as garnish.

The result was a cocktail that tastes a lot like a Manhattan but has a velvety smooth edge, owing to the addition of the herbal sweetness of the yellow Chartreuse.  The orange peel adds a nice citrusy scent that cushions the strong scent that pure whiskey on ice can deliver from a rocks glass.  It is a good fireside drink that goes down quickly.  (Just remember that, while smooth, it is also strong.)

Here is the recipe:

Soyeux recipe
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Soyeux

For a fall sipping drink that is like a Manhattan with a velvety smoothness, try the Soyeux cocktail, which mixes bourbon, yellow Chartreuse, vermouth, and chocolate bitters.
Prep Time5 minutes
Total Time5 minutes
Course: Drinks
Cuisine: Spirit-Forward
Keyword: Manhattan with Chartreuse
Servings: 1 cocktail
Calories: 210kcal
Author: Geoffrey Wyatt

Ingredients

  • 2 oz. bourbon I used E.H. Taylor
  • 1/2 oz. yellow Chartreuse
  • 1/2 oz. Cocchi Vermouth di Torino
  • 1 dash Fee Brothers Aztec Chocolate Bitters
  • orange peel

Instructions

  • Combine the bourbon, Chartreuse, vermouth, and bitters in a mixing glass with ice and stir until cold.
  • Strain into a rocks glass over a large ice cube.
  • Express orange peel over drink and add as garnish.

Enjoy!

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Classic Recipe with a Twist: Meet Me in the Woods at Midnight (a take on the Scofflaw)

You could do a lot worse than spend a week or two or your summer in Maine.  I’ve spent some time with my family up on Mount Desert Island the last few summers, near Acadia National Park.  One favorite activity there is hiking on one of the many trails on the oceanside mountains; another is making cocktails at happy hour with made-in-Maine ingredients.  This year is no exception, and after one of these hikes I wanted to make a cocktail that captured the beautiful Maine woods on a foggy, misty day – a drink I called Meet Me in the Woods at Midnight, which is a slight variation of the classic Scofflaw:

Meet Me in the Woods at Midnight

I always feature the drink first in these posts so you can see what you’re getting into.  But that makes this post sort of backwards because you’re seeing the ultimate creation before its inspiration.  So without further ado, let me share a bit of what I saw earlier in the day.  The first part of the hike featured a long stretch of woods immersed in fog – with living trees standing comfortably next to the dead.  The forest floor was covered with almost glow-green moss that added to the eerie effect.  It was a beautiful, almost haunted scene:

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Recipe: Founder’s Fizz

Happy Fourth of July!  Today we celebrate American Independence, which, as a recent article in the Atlantic noted, a European visitor once described as “almost the only holy-day kept in America.”  As the same article noted, drinking has long been practiced in observation of the day.  In that spirit, I bring you this short post to offer you a recipe for the Founder’s Fizz – a refreshing drink perfect for a hot summer day, conceived by Michael Anthony, the bar manager at the Richard Rodgers theatre, the Broadway home of Hamilton:

Founder's Fizz

Like many classic and enduring drink recipes, this recipe is very simple, consisting of gin, simple syrup and lime juice, topped off with seltzer.  Pour that over a glass full of crushed ice and you’ve got a drink that will help keep you cool as you wait for the sun to set and the fireworks to commence.

Now, to be clear, the Founder’s Fizz is a modern creation.  But here’s a bit of history to put you in a July-4th-type of drinking mood.  On July 6, 1803, the Washington Federalist recounted the Independence Day festivities in the District that year.  On that day, “the Artillery and Grenadiers under their Captains, Edgar and Benjamin Patterson, with several respectable citizens, retired to the Federal spring on Rock Creek.”  Following an “elegant dinner,” several “toasts were drank, under discharge of cannon and musketry.”  As one does (don’t tell me you forgot to order the cannons and muskets for your Fourth of July party?).  And here were the toasts:

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Classic Recipe: Piña Colada

Today’s forecast is 95 and sunny, with more of the same (and even hotter) for the next two days.  When this part of the summer comes around, I resort to standard survival methods:  crank the air conditioning; put out the inflatable backyard pool; and blend up some frozen drinks.  To help you in your fight back against the heat and humidity, I offer you a recipe for the classic frozen cocktail:  the piña colada.

Piña Colada

The piña colada combines pineapple and coconut flavors with ice and rum and – through the power of these tropical flavors and the position the drink has come to occupy in the collective imagination – mentally transports you to a breezy tropical island.  Suddenly, the blazing heat and humidity of the Washingtonian jungle feels right – almost as if you really are at the beach:

Tropical island

Even if all you are really doing is filling your inflatable pool for that inflatable-pool party you’re hosting later (but trust me, this is a good idea – it helps with the tropical-island fantasy):

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Original Recipe: Ted’s Tequila Cocktail

My friend Ted hit a birthday milestone earlier this year.  I was invited to contribute to the celebration by designing a signature cocktail that the fantastic bar team at Del Mar would serve the guests at his party.  The only guideline I was given was to use tequila.  This turned out to be harder than I thought.  I haven’t worked a lot with tequila outside of making margaritas (though my Desert Orange and Smoked Pearl recipes use mezcal).  And I wanted to live up to the circumstances – an important occasion attended by a lot of people.  The recipe had to be good and have wide appeal.  Needless to say, there was a lot of trial and error before settling on a final recipe.  But I think I succeeded, and now I’m sharing it with you – Ted’s Tequila Cocktail:

Ted's Tequila Cocktail

The concept I had in mind was to make a drink that marked a transition from spring to summer, which seemed both literally and metaphorically apt.  For spring I chose the floral and herbal flavors of St.-Germain and yellow Chartreuse; for summer, pineapple and jalapeño.  I also added a little lemon juice to amp up the tanginess a little and balance against the sweetness of the spring flavors.

It worked!  In fact, this is one of my favorite concoctions to date.  It’s a perfect balance of sweet, tangy and spicy, and very easy to drink.  It went over very well at the birthday party, and it has been a crowd-pleaser in subsequent events, too.  Be prepared to serve multiple rounds if you’re making this one for guests!

A word on spice.  You can modulate how spicy the drink is by being mindful of the number of seeds in the jalapeño pepper.  As I detail in the recipe, this drink should be shaken with one slice of jalapeño pepper and garnished with another slice.  More seeds (in either place, but especially in the shaker) means more spice.  You can minimize the spice by using slices of pepper that contain no seeds.

Here is the recipe:

Ted's Tequila Cocktail recipe
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Ted's Tequila Cocktail

This cocktail celebrates spring with some herbal and floral flavors provided by yellow Chartreuse and St.-Germain, warms you up with a bit of jalapeño, and previews summer with pineapple juice and citrus.
Prep Time5 minutes
Total Time5 minutes
Course: Drinks
Cuisine: Sour
Keyword: Pineapple tequila recipe
Servings: 1 cocktail
Calories: 182kcal
Author: Geoffrey Wyatt

Ingredients

  • 1 oz. tequila I used Espolòn
  • 1/2 oz. yellow Chartreuse
  • 1/2 oz. St.-Germain
  • 1/2 oz. pineapple juice
  • 1/2 oz. freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • 1 pineapple chunk
  • 1 jalapeño

Instructions

  • Combine the tequila, Chartreuse, St.-Germain, juices and a slice of jalapeño pepper in a shaking tin with ice.  Note that more seeds in the jalapeño pepper means more spice.  Shake vigorously.
  • Strain into a rocks glass over ice.
  • Garnish with a chunk of pineapple and a slice of jalapeño pepper.

Enjoy!

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Classic Recipe with a Twist: Cherry Blossom Negroni

Cherry-blossom season is basically over in the District.  But cherry-blossom drinking need not be.  So far I’ve offered you two cherry-blossom cocktails.  The Sakura Sparkler is a refreshing non-alcoholic cocktail made with Seedlip.  In that recipe, I also showed you how to make your own cherry-blossom ice cubes.  Bookmark that, because we’ll use it again here.  I also brought you another original recipe – the Cherry Blossom Cocktail – which was made with Cerasum cherry-blossom liqueur by D.C.’s own Don Ciccio & Figli.  Now I bring you one last recipe for this cherry-blossom season:  the Cherry Blossom Negroni.

Cherry Blossom Negroni

The Negroni needs no introduction.  It is made with equal parts gin, Campari, and sweet vermouth.  One of the classic cocktails, the Negroni has one of those colorful and contested histories.  The leading versions agree that the drink is named after a Count Negroni of Italy.  But they disagree as to when the drink was invented, and by which Count.  And other historical research casts doubt on whether the inventor was really a Count at all.

What is certain is that the drink is a legacy of which any family should be proud.  The same is true of Don Ciccio & Figli, that District-based distiller that traces its roots to a family liqueur-making business back (also to Italy) in 1883, somewhere in between the competing dates (1857 or 1919) on which the competing Counts Negroni might have first invented their eponymous drink.  In one of its latest offerings, Don Ciccio has brought forth Cerasum, a cherry-blossom-based liqueur that stands in very nicely for the Campari that usually serves as the Negroni’s signature ingredient.

The Cherry Blossom Negroni is a worthy cousin of the original.  The classic bitter taste of the Negroni is still there, but softened slightly, with subtle floral and cherry flavors that give the drink a smoother, almost velvety finish.  Here’s the recipe:

Cherry Blossom Negroni recipe
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Cherry Blossom Negroni

Try this twist on the classic Negroni recipe, substituting Cerasum, a cherry-blossom liqueur by D.C.'s own Don Ciccio and Figli, for the traditional Campari.  It's a velvety-smooth cocktail perfect for enjoying cherry-blossom season!
Prep Time5 minutes
Total Time5 minutes
Course: Drinks
Cuisine: Spirit-Forward
Keyword: cherry blossom Negroni
Servings: 1 cocktail
Calories: 190kcal
Author: Geoffrey Wyatt

Ingredients

Cocktail

  • 1 oz. gin I used Botanist
  • 1 oz. vermouth I used Cocchi di Torino
  • 1 oz. Cerasum

Ice cubes

  • cherry blossoms

Instructions

Ice cubes

  • In advance of making the drink, fill large ice cube tray with water. Add 1 to 3 cherry blossoms per cube. If working with dried cherry blossoms, be sure to rinse the salt off the flowers before adding. Try to orient the flowers in the cube so they will appear near the surface when the ice freezes. Leave in the freezer until completely frozen.

Cocktail

  • Combine the gin, vermouth, and Cerasum in a mixing glass with ice and stir.
  • Strain into a rocks glass.
  • Add cherry-blossom ice cube.

Enjoy!