This might be the most delicious thing I’ve sipped in a good long while. It’s a kissing cousin to the Basil Bliss, but the addition of fresh, juicy cucumber takes everything in a more refreshing direction. While the cucumber strip garnish isn’t necessary, it’s easy to do and really helps make this drink visually impressive. Try…
Beverages
Rhubarb Honey Shrub (A Sweet Tart Drinking Vinegar)
Everything you need to know to make great shrub drinking cock
The Corpse Reviver No. 2
Back in the late 1800s, Corpse Reviver drinks were promoted as hangover cures – think “hair of the dog” for the 19th century inebriate. There were all number of drinks that claimed the potency to bring even the most hungover “corpse” of a drinker back to life. Only a few of the Corpse Reviver recipes survive – and of these, the…
Maple and Spice Old Fashioned Cocktail for Winter
Like people, cocktails can be organized into families. There are the sours, the champagne cocktails, the duos, the trios….many families. And the great, great, great granddaddy of them all is the Old Fashioned. The first known definition of the word cocktail was in 1806. Back then a cocktail was spirits, bitters, water, and sugar. Nothing more, nothing less….
The Fig Old Fashioned
I have a fig tree, and this fig tree has my heart. What this fig tree does not have, unfortunately, is a reliable second crop of figs in our cool-summer climate. So, after the breba crop ripens, that’s usually it. This year, I dried all the breba figs I could, to try to extend our enjoyment…
What Makes A Cocktail A Sour?
Many of the cocktails I share here are subtle variations on a theme. That theme has a name: The Sour. Ignore, for now, drinks with “sour” in the name like The Whiskey Sour or The Pisco Sour. While these drinks are in fact sours, not all sours announce themselves so obviously.
The Aronia Gin Cocktail
“This one’s a keeper. What should we call it?” I asked my husband after our initial tasting of this shockingly pink cocktail, a classic gin-and-citrus shakeup made interesting with aronia berry simple syrup. “We should name it after the ducks!” My husband suggested. “Aronia….Ancona…very similar!” “Nothing about this drink is duck-like,” I argued, and took another sip.
Easy DIY Tonic Water For The Best Gin and Tonic
There’s only one cocktail I make deliberately light on the booze, and that’s the Gin and Tonic. Is there a more perfect summertime drink? Refreshing, charmingly straightforward and with the added bonus of warding off both malaria and scurvy – the G&T is a classic for a reason. A Gin and Tonic has four ingredients: gin,…
The Honey Badger Cocktail
I’m quite sure that, were it not for that viral YouTube video of a Honey Badger, there would be no cocktails celebrating this ferocious, Cobra-snake-eating badass of an animal. The Honey Badger is what you might call an interpretive cocktail. Drinks based off memes are, by definition, not classics. There are as many variations of the Honey Badger Cocktail…
The Jubilee Cocktail
Let’s say you need a really celebratory cocktail. Perhaps it’s time to toast a new baby, a promotion, or your first harvest of the year. It’s a special day and it deserves a special drink. That’s where the Jubilee Cocktail comes in. It’s a lighter, champagne-flute cousin to the French 75 with a very pleasing balance between grapefruit,…
Tart Cherry Mint Mojito
Can we talk for a minute about the amazingness of tart cherries? They make the best jam, the best pie, and the best mojito variation I’ve ever sipped. Now I know what you are thinking. “It’s months from fresh cherry season!” Too true, but thanks to the modern miracle of the deep freeze, frozen tart…
The Sage Brush Cocktail
Happy Friday and Happy Spring, my friends! It’s time for a delicious cocktail to celebrate the transition from Winter to Spring, and I have just the one. This Sage Brush Cocktail is the perfect blend of herbal, tart and sweet. It’s one of those cocktails even non-gin drinkers will likely enjoy. The Sage Brush was developed by Chef Jerry…