Tag: recipe

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Original Recipe: Decorator’s Drink

I would never suggest that holiday decorating might drive one to drink.  But it is difficult to dispute that decorating can be more fun with a good drink in hand.  Or if that complicates the task of, say, putting up a tree, you might at least be tempted to reward yourself for a job well done after erecting the biggest blue spruce you have ever managed to squeeze into your living room.  For your efforts, I offer you the Decorator’s Drink:

For this cocktail I used Michter’s small batch unblended American whiskey, green Chartreuse, Cherry Heering, freshly squeezed lemon juice, and orange bitters, with a cherry for garnish.  For bonus points I broke out the silver chalice as a nod to the Silver Bells of Christmas.  But any coupe or martini glass will do the trick here.

The whiskey provides that nice, warm base you want on a cold December evening.  And the Chartreuse, Cherry Heering and lemon juice provide a pleasant piney and tangy flavor that tastes like winter break.  So mix yourself one of these, sit back and take a break from decorating or appreciate a job already done.  (And if your thoughts are turning to the gifts for the folks still on your list, check out my recent post with holiday gift suggestions here.)

Decorator's Drink recipe
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Decorator's Drink

Need a cocktail to reward yourself for holiday decorating? Try the Decorator's Drink featuring whiskey and Chartreuse and imbibe the holiday spirit!
Prep Time5 minutes
Total Time5 minutes
Course: Drinks
Cuisine: Sour
Servings: 1 cocktail
Calories: 245kcal
Author: Geoffrey Wyatt

Ingredients

  • 2 oz. whiskey I used Michter's small batch unblended American whiskey
  • 1/2 oz. green Chartreuse
  • 1/4 oz. Cherry Heering
  • 1/4 oz. freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • 1 dash orange bitters I used Fee Brothers
  • cherry

Instructions

  • Combine the whiskey, green Chartreuse, Cherry Heering, lemon juice, and orange bitters with ice in a mixing glass and stir.
  • Strain into a coupe or martini glass.
  • Garnish with a cherry.

Enjoy!

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Classic Recipe: The Aviation

The Aviation is a classic cocktail, named after its unique hue – a light shade of something between blue and violet, reminiscent of the morning sky.  It is more than a century old at this point, reportedly printed for the first time in a 1916 book by Hugo Ensslin, the head bartender of the Hotel Wallick in New York.

Despite its early birthdate, the Aviation had faded into obscurity for a time due to the difficulty in obtaining a key ingredient:  crème de violette.  This violet-flavored liqueur gives the drink its signature color but, for many decades, was not widely available in the United States.  But renewed interest in the Aviation was sparked by Paul Harrington and Laura Moorhead’s 1998 book, The Drinks Bible for the 21st Century, which covered the Aviation among many other traditional cocktails.  And today, a number of crème de violette options are available, including one by Rothman & Winter, which is the ingredient used in this recipe.

The drink has a strong floral, herbal taste.  It shares three of its four ingredients – gin, Maraschino, and citrus (though here lemon instead of lime) with the Last Word, and as such there are some overlapping flavors here.  But the use of crème de violette instead of Chartreuse pushes the drink in a more floral direction.  Note that, for my preference, less is more with the crème de violette, so if you are tinkering with the portions here, you probably want to exercise restraint in increasing that ingredient.

Here is the recipe:

The Aviation recipe
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Aviation

Recipe for the Aviation, a classic, century-old cocktail with an herbal and floral taste, made from gin, lemon, Maraschino and crème de violette.
Prep Time5 minutes
Total Time5 minutes
Course: Drinks
Cuisine: Sour
Servings: 1 cocktail
Calories: 200kcal

Ingredients

  • 2 oz. gin I used Botanist
  • 3/4 oz. freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • 1/2 oz. Luxardo Maraschino liqueur
  • 1/4 oz. crème de violette liqueur I used Rothman & Winter
  • cherry

Instructions

  • Combine the gin, lemon juice, Maraschino and crème de violette with ice in a mixing glass and stir.
  • Strain into a coupe or martini glass.
  • Garnish with a cherry.

Enjoy!

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Original Recipe: The Autumn Breeze

If you read my last post offering cocktail gift ideas for the 2017 holiday season, you know I’m a fan of shrubs and Chartreuse.  This recipe – the Autum Breeze – shows you how to make good use of these things together.

The context for this recipe is my frame of mind when I was dreaming it up:  thinking about the last days of fall and avoiding unpleasant thoughts of winter by imagining myself on a Caribbean vacation.  This daydream inspired island ingredients like pineapple and rum on the one hand and warm autumnal flavors like smoky scotch and spices on the other.  My ingredient list became clear:  rum, scotch, a pineapple-allspice shrub by Shrub District, and yellow Chartreuse.

This is a spirit-heavy cocktail so I decided that stirring rather than shaking was the way to go.  I stirred the ingredients with ice and strained into a couple glass and garnished with a lemon peel.  And here was the result:

Autumn Breeze

This is a sweet drink, with a pleasant complexity provided by the different flavors.  The smokiness of the scotch and the herbal goodness of the Chartreuse come through clearly, offsetting what might have been an overpowering sweetness if the rum and pineapple flavors had been left alone.  It definitely works as a fall sipping drink, but you could easily pour this over crushed ice and swizzle for a fine poolside (or seaside) drink and throw a number of these back quickly.

Here is the recipe:

The Autumn Breeze recipe
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Autumn Breeze

The Autumn Breeze is the perfect cocktail for that fall day when you're daydreaming about a tropical vacation, with rum, scotch, pineapple and Chartreuse.
Prep Time5 minutes
Total Time5 minutes
Course: Drinks
Cuisine: Sour, Tiki
Servings: 1 cocktail
Calories: 175kcal
Author: Geoffrey Wyatt

Ingredients

  • 1 oz. aged rum I used Appleton Estate 12-year
  • 1/2 oz. Laphroaig 10-year
  • 1/2 oz. yellow Chartreuse
  • 1 oz. pineapple-allspice shrub by Shrub District
  • lemon peel

Instructions

  • Combine the rum, Laphroaig, Chartreuse and shrub with ice in a mixing glass and stir.
  • Strain into a coupe.
  • Express lemon peel over the glass and add the peel as garnish.

Enjoy!

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Recipe: The Thanksgiving Boulevardier

Searching for an aperitif to round out that fantastic Thanksgiving dinner you have been planning?  Try this twist on the Boulevardier, a classic cocktail based on the Negroni, but with whiskey instead of gin as the base spirit.

The traditional Boulevardier recipe calls for 1 1/2 ounces of bourbon and an ounce each of Campari and sweet vermouth.  But Thanksgiving can involve more drinks than the average meal so I dialed back the bourbon just a touch to 1 ounce.  I also replaced the sweet vermouth with Kina l’Aero d’Or (more on this fantastic aperitif wine here).  And I added 1/4 ounce of lemon juice to balance out the sweetness just a touch.  Stir these ingredients together, strain into a rocks glass, express a lemon peel and add the peel as garnish, and you get something like this:

The cocktail works nicely as a Thanksgiving aperitif because the tangy flavors of Campari and lemon combine in a way that pleasantly previews the cranberry sauce to come.  And as noted above, the drink isn’t so strong that you could not have a couple of them if the dinner takes a little bit longer to get to the table than anticipated, as is often the case at Thanksgiving.

Here is the recipe:

Thanksgiving Boulevardier recipe
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Thanksgiving Boulevardier

Looking for the perfect Thanksgiving aperitif?  Try this twist on the classic Boulevardier cocktail to round out that fantastic dinner you have planned.
Prep Time5 minutes
Total Time5 minutes
Course: Drinks
Cuisine: Spirit-Forward
Servings: 1 cocktail
Calories: 245kcal
Author: Geoffrey Wyatt

Ingredients

  • 1 oz. bourbon I used E.H. Taylor
  • 1 oz. Campari
  • 1 oz. Kina l'Aero d'Or quinquina
  • 1/4 oz. freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • lemon peel

Instructions

  • Combine the bourbon, Campari, quinquina and lemon juice with ice in a mixing glass and stir.
  • Strain into a rocks glass.
  • Add a large ice cube.
  • Express lemon peel over the glass and add the peel as garnish.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Classic Recipe with a Twist: The Old Fashioned

It’s old fashioned week, where we celebrate a cocktail that (per the preceding source) has roots as far back as 1802.  The classic cocktail uses classic ingredients:  whiskey, sugar and bitters, along with some muddled fruit or at least a cherry, depending on what you have handy.

But after 215 years of the same old recipe, @theoldrefashioned thought it was time for an update.  This Instagram feed invites followers to submit their variations on the classic, and I couldn’t resist joining in the fun.  Expanding on the use of fruit and sugar in the original, and with the fall season on my mind, I started by smoking a rocks glass with orange peel and cinnamon, which I torched over a maple wood plank (I found an assorted set of planks here):

For the recipe, I kept the traditional sugar, bitters, whiskey and fruit ingredients, but I added a bit of amaro and Maraschino liqueur.  I muddled and mixed and added a big cube of ice, and it came out looking like this:

(Ignore the gridlines. Oops.)

I really liked the way this tasted.  The smokiness was subtle but definitely there – there was a hint of cinnamon on the nose the whole way through.  And the amaro and Maraschino combination combined with the fruit in a very pleasant way to make this an exceptionally smooth old fashioned.

Here’s the recipe:

Geoff's Old Re-Fashioned recipe
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Geoff's Old Re-Fashioned

A new twist on the classic Old Fashioned recipe in celebration of the "Old Re-Fashioned" thread honoring Old Fashioned Week.
Prep Time7 minutes
Total Time7 minutes
Course: Drinks
Cuisine: Ancestral
Servings: 1 cocktail
Calories: 200kcal
Author: Geoffrey Wyatt

Ingredients

  • 2 oz. bourbon I used E.H. Taylor
  • 1/2 oz. amaro I used Averna
  • 1/4 oz. Luxardo Maraschino liqueur
  • 3 dashes old-fashioned bitters I used Fee Brothers
  • cinnamon stick
  • orange slice
  • lemon peel
  • cherry
  • sugar cube

Instructions

  • Smoke a rocks glass by holding it upside down over an orange peel and cinnamon stick while torching the ingredients over a maple wood board.  Let the orange and cinnamon catch fire before removing the flame and place the rocks glass over them while they continue to smolder.
  • Turn the rocks glass right-side up.  Add sugar cube, three dashes old-fashioned bitters, the orange slice, and a bit of lemon peel.  Muddle the ingredients.
  • Add the bourbon, amaro, and Maraschino, and mix the ingredients.
  • Add the cherry.
  • Add a large ice cube.
  • Optionally, garnish with the burnt orange peel or cinnamon stick.

Try it out and let me know what you think – and please share your own takes on the old fashioned!