Happy National Rum Day, Rummies!

I couldn't let a momentous day like National Rum Day go past unremarked upon, could I? Additionally, it's special for me because a year ago today, I attended a hiring event for the awesome job I now hold. So, I figured, hey, let's kill two birds with one stone and celebrate both.

I'm going with a cocktail today that's a newer one, and the recipe comes from the creator of one of the ingredients. You may recall my adventures making falernum, that clove/lime/ginger/allspice cordial that plays such a significant role in Tiki drinks. Well, I exhausted my supply, and rather than spending a large amount of time making a new batch, I figured I might as well try someone else's. You may also remember Trader Tiki, now, thanks to some jerks who have a foot in the Tiki world and also call themselves "Trader," have forced him to rejigger his nomenclature. He is now operating under his own name, B. G. Reynolds, and his new site is Okole Maluna, selling almost all of the old goodies. He's ramping things back up to where they were, and I have no doubt all will soon be ship-shape and Bristol fashion. (I'll leave it to you to figure out who the villain is, though I have my own theories on who chose to Victimize our poor Mr. Reynolds)

Anyway, his falernum, while not soaked with overproof rum as mine was, is still damned tasty, and on the back of the label, he offers this recipe. I've modified it a bit, as I don't have any aged rum handy, but I don't think it suffers for my substitutions.

Mi Deh Yah Cocktail (modified)
1 ½ oz aged rum (I used Rum Matusalem Platino)
½ oz falernum (I upped it just a hair to ⅝ oz)
½ oz lemon juice (I used key lime juice, and scaled it back to ⅜ oz)
dash of aromatic bitters (Angostura for me)

Shake all with ice, strain into a small cocktail glass, and garnish with a whole allspice berry.

Quite the agreeable little tipple. If I were using my alcohol-based falernum, I'd likely scale it back a bit, but for this version, I quite like it! It's got just a hint of spice, tartness from the lime juice, and some great aromatics from that allspice berry floating on the surface. The perfect little drink for relaxing in a hammock on the beach somewhere.

I'm like a crackhead, but for ginger.

I made a trip to World Market today. And I bought a whole bunch of ginger stuff. Ginger candy, ginger cookies, sodas with ginger as an ingredient. Also the new cocktail glass featured tonight. And then I went to the grocery store on my way home to get lettuce for my pet rabbits, and lo and behold, there was a new ginger liqueur there, made by Stirrings. I can't find anything on their website about it, but they had some other liqueurs, as well; pomegranate, triple sec, peach, apple, and one other one that I can't recall at the moment. All proclaimed that they were natural, and all looked pretty good (although the apple liqueur was that alarming shade of green we've sadly come to expect from apple-flavored anything. Curse you, Jolly Ranchers!). So I picked that up and decided to experiment with it.

I can't find out what the base is, but I'm assuming it's neutral grain spirits, rather than the cognac that Domaine de Canton is made from. The nose, however, is a much sharper, stronger ginger than the Canton. It's got a little fire to it! I used a drink called the Chatham Cocktail as a starting point for this, but since I'm not using ginger-flavored brandy, I made this one mine. Named after an area that's now part of NYC's Chinatown, I'm calling it:

The Chatham Square Cocktail

2.5 oz Plymouth gin
.75 oz Stirrings Ginger Liqueur
.75 oz lemon juice
3 dashes Fee Brothers orange bitters (cheaper than Angostura's but not as good. They're what I've got on hand, though)
3 drops Peychaud's or Angostura bitters, for garnish

Shake all save for the Peychaud's/Angostura with ice, strain into a 7.5 oz cocktail glass, and gently float 3 drops of your choice of bitters on top.

The ginger is very very strong with this drink...kitty wants to play! I really like it, though, because it stands up well to both the Plymouth and the lemon juice. The orange bitters round out the citrus notes a bit, and depending if you go with the Angostura or the Peychaud's, you'll get a slight spice or anise nose from the drink as you bring it up for a sip. I quite like it!

Spring has sprung, the grass is riz...

...I wonder where dem boidies is?

Today was finally spring-like weather in my neck of the woods, topping 70°F, and generally being pleasant and agreeable outside. The trees and lawns have greened up nicely, and there's enough pollen in the air to put an allergic elephant down.

Therefore, in such a time as this it is most meet to trot out an appropriately themed libation. And I just so happened to pick up one of the ingredients today, as a reward to myself for donating blood and being such a swell guy (plus it was on sale!); Plymouth Gin.

Plymouth is a little different from a lot of other gins on the market today...I find it hard to quantify the differences, but Wikipedia notes that "[i]t has a distinctively different, slightly less-dry flavour than the much more commonly available London Dry Gin, as it contains a higher than usual proportion of root ingredients, which bring a more 'earthy' feel to the gin, as well as a smoother juniper hit." Plymouth themselves credit the flavor to a unique blend of juniper berries, lemon and orange peel, orris root (the root of an iris plant), angelica root, cardamom, and coriander. All are traditional gin ingredients, but they play up the earthiness and sweetness of the blend, and dial back the juniper a bit. Still, a most excellent drink, especially in a Gin Pahit (pink gin).

Anyway, on to tonight's drink:

Spring Feeling Cocktail

3/4 oz lemon juice
3/4 oz green Chartreuse
1 1/2 oz Plymouth gin
dash of Grapefruit Bitters

shake all well with ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass.

Truly a green and spring-like drink. Herbaceous, tart, bracing. Yes, this will do quite nicely. Greetings, o springy cocktail! Would you like to ride with Batman? Yes, you'd like that, wouldn't you?

Er, sorry. Got carried away there a bit.

Not much to say about such a simple drink, apart from "GO MAKE ONE!"

"Sittin' here in Avalon, lookin' at the pouring rain..."

Look! I'm back! And I have a drink for you!

Yes, I know it's been an entire month since my last post, and it's horrible, and you've gone un-tippled for entirely too long. My apologies. As I said in my interstitial update a couple weeks back, I've been busy and broke. But I rummaged through my remaining booze inventory and the list of drinks I've wanted to post but haven't yet, and I came across a wonderful convergence of the two.

This is one of those drinks that's more than the sum of its parts...you look at the ingredient list and go "Oh, no. It'll be too sweet/too herbal/too sour/too weird." But no. It turns out to be some impossible balance of all of those. This is a true Prohibition-era cocktail, and it's called:

The Last Word

3/4 oz London dry gin
3/4 oz green Chartreuse
3/4 oz lime juice
3/4 oz Maraschino liqueur

Shake all with ice, strain into chilled cocktail glass

All of those unlikely ingredients work together in an most unlikely harmony, and it's really sort of magical. Typically, using that much Maraschino is a death sentence on a cocktail, making it syrupy sweet and repugnant, but here it counteracts the grassy herbal nature of the Chartreuse and the sourness of the lime juice. For a switch up, Paul Clarke over at "The Cocktail Chronicles" suggests swapping rye for the gin and lemon juice for the lime. That sounds like it'd bring it into swinging distance of The Scoff Law Cocktail, but still, different enough.

Give it a whirl. And no, despite the ominous drink name, I'm not going anywhere...I'm just working to get some more money so I can buy more ingredients.

MxMo XLVII: Punch

The challenge posed by Hobson's Choice for this month's Mixology Monday is punch! Now, I used to consider myself quite the expert on punch, back when I was about 10, and my grandmother and I used to mix up non-alcoholic punches for New Year's Eve. I knew that it had to be sweet, but not overly so. Tangy, but not too sour. Fizzy was good. A sort of creamy mouth-feel was sought after, but not a prerequisite. I was, as it turns out, looking for all the criteria of a great punch with alcohol, as well, though I wouldn't know it for another decade-plus.

In trying to come up with an original punch (or, if not original, at least one I hadn't read about specifically), I went back to the well of all punch wisdom, and dredged up that hoary old formula; 1 part sour, 2 parts sweet, 3 parts strong and 4 parts weak (plus spice, as Alton Brown recently pointed out on "Good Eats"). Well, being the crazy tinkerer that I am, I decided to take a few liberties with the formulation. I was remarkably faithful, but in lieu of using grated nutmeg or cinnamon for the spice, as is tradition, I used a homemade tincture of mine.

Then, of course, I struggled with a name. My concoction draws from so many disparate influences, it's really hard to find an overarching theme. Finally I decided to name it after the tincture I used to add that final bit of flavor, and thus I give you, for March's Mixology Monday:

Donn's Gin Punch

1 part lime juice
scant 2 parts limoncello, plus a dash of Maraschino liqueur
3 parts London dry gin
4 parts ginger beer
2 dashes per cup Donn's Tinc
1 dash per cup Blood Orange syrup (optional, for color. I used Torani's version.)

Combine all save for Donn's Tinc with a large block of ice in a punchbowl. Dash in Donn's Tinc to each cup, then ladle in punch mixture. If using Blood Orange syrup, add dash after punch has been ladled into cup. For an individual serving, assume 1 part is 1/2 ounce.

I think this is a wonderfully balanced drink. Sweet, sour, spicy from the ginger, botanical from the gin, ever-so-slightly fizzy, and just a bit of funk from that wonderful Maraschino. I'm tremendously pleased with how this turned out, and I think it could make a nice change from the classic rum- or bourbon-based punch. Come summertime, it certainly would make for a refreshing take on this classic concoction.

If an apple a day keeps the doctor away, what do pears do? Deflect chiropractors?

Oh ye gods, it's been a long time since I posted. I suck, and that's sad. But I've also been broke, once again (stupid car insurance payments), and getting busy once more with rehearsals for my latest theatrical engagement, so posting time has been at a bit of a premium. Mea culpa, everyone.

It is, however, because of rehearsals that I came across this drink to begin with. I had managed to pick up a bottle of St Germain Elderflower liqueur for a song, and went about looking for something to make with it. And lo and behold, I found this...it originally billed itself as a martini, but you know and I know that simply serving something up in a cocktail glass does not a martini make. It has no gin and no vermouth, and therefore I have demoted it to "cocktail" status. It also contains a flavored vodka, which you purists know I tend to cringe at. Surprisingly, however, this vodka wound up not being too synthetic-tasting (although I suspect an eau de vie of the fruit could have been even more interesting, albeit much more expensive). And furthermore, I had to tweak the proportions from the original, as it was WAY too sweet in its first incarnation. Plus, I added some bitters. You know me, I like to make modifications! So, I'd like to introduce you to:

The Pear Tree Cocktail

1 1/2 oz pear-flavored vodka (I used Smirnoff)
1 oz St Germain Elderflower liqueur
1/4 oz lime juice
1 dash Urban Moonshine Organic bitters

Stir all but bitters briskly with ice for a good minute, or until well mixed. Strain into a cocktail glass coated with a dash of Urban Moonshine bitters.

First off all, it's got a very true pear flavor. The St Germain actually augments this, and adds some sort of rounded, mellow tropical fruit notes. The lime juice prevents it from being sickly-sweet, and the Urban Moonshine bitters give it a nicely vegetal nose, adding to the fresh pear impression. It's still a rather sweet cocktail, and one that I wouldn't drink every day, but as a nice drink for someone who doesn't want a strongly alcohol-flavored libation, it's pretty damned good.

"Excuse me, I'm John Smith!" "John Smith 1882?" "My mistake."

It happens sometimes...you show up at the bar, and there's another girl there wearing the exact same outfit as you. Let's try that again. You show up at the bar, order a drink, and get something that's nothing at all like what you were expecting. Before you haul off and smack the bartender, consider this: there may be multiple drinks with that name that bear some passing similarity to each other, but are different enough that your bartender may have heard of one but not the other. I'm not just talking about different recipes (see part one of an ongoing series that hasn't gone on yet regarding variants on the Singapore Sling), but drinks with maybe an extra space, or a slightly different spelling, or even no difference at all that are nevertheless different.

Tonight I made a drink called the "Scoff Law Cocktail," which is not to be confused with the previously featured "Scofflaw Cocktail." Confused yet? No? Good, then I can introduce you to a new ingredient being used on here for the first time tonight; Chartreuse.

"Wait," I hear you say, "Isn't that a color?" Why, yes it is. It's a shade of a sort of yellow-green hue. However, Chartreuse-the-spirit comes in two colors. Green Chartreuse and Yellow Chartreuse. Kind of like how, in the southern US, you might get this little exchange in a diner or restaurant:

Customer: "And can I get a Coke?"
Server: "Sure, what kind ya want? We got Pepsi Coke, Sprite Coke, orange Coke..."

In this case, Chartreuse refers to the spirit, not the specific color. As a matter of fact, the color was named after the spirit, as it's been made since 1605 or so. Now are you confused? Good. You'll want a drink to settle your addle-pated mind. Make this one.

Scoff Law Cocktail

1 oz rye whiskey
1 oz dry vermouth
3/4 oz green Chartreuse
3/4 oz lemon juice
1-2 dashes orange bitters

Stir all with ice, strain into cocktail glass.

If you've never had Chartreuse, it's really nearly impossible to describe. There's 130 different plant flavors in there, and the few that can be agreed upon are anise and hyssop. It's very vegetal, but a little sweet. There's a little spice in there, to boot. A very complicated flavor. In our drink, it melds with the spice of the rye, the sour of the lemon, and the botanicals from the vermouth. It's really a hard flavor to pin down, but that complexity makes for a very interesting cocktail. If your local bar has a hidden stash of Chartreuse, see if they can make this particular version of the Scoff Law.

"Torna a Surriento, famme campà!" (updated)

A friend of mine recently asked me if I create a drink for her; she said she was passionate about mojitos, but she wanted something that was a bit novel, a little less standard, a little more interesting. So I told her I'd do some digging around, and would come up with something for her. Gary Regan made a really interesting version of the Mojito swapping in limoncello for the rum...it's very very citrusy, but it also called for muddling four lemons (at least, so said the adapted version of his Massa Mojito from the Cocktails+ iPod Touch app I refer to sometimes. Mr Regan has very kindly reproduced the original recipe in the comments, which I have added to the end of this post). That seemed a bit excessive, even for me, so I did some tweaking to his drink, called the Massa Mojito, and I came up with this:

The Sorrento Mojito

1 lemon, cut into eighths
2 barspoons raw sugar
15-20 fresh mint leaves
2 oz lemon juice
2 1/2 oz limoncello

Muddle lemon, sugar and mint in a tall mixing glass. Add lemon juice, limoncello and ice and shake well. Strain into a tall glass, topping up with club soda, and garnish with spring of mint.

First of all, it's lemony. I mean, crazy woo-woo lemony. But it's got that deep green herbal mint flavor in there, too, though the mint really hits you as an aroma. It's fantastically refreshing, and I think if you're tired of the basic rum-mint-club soda Mojito, you may enjoy this one.

EDITED TO ADD: As I said above, Gary Regan actually stopped by and commented on my blog, setting me straight on the original recipe for the Massa Mojito, which I will concede is not only easier to make than the adapted version I saw, but likely a damn sight tastier than mine (I'll try it this evening and report back, but he's a professional, and I'm an enthusiast, so the odds are in his favor, I'd say). Here is his original guide for the drink:

Gary Regan's Massa Mojito

Adapted from Pizzicato Restaurant, Philadelphia

30 ml (1 oz) fresh lemon juice
20 ml (.75 oz) simple syrup
15 fresh mint leaves
60 ml (2 oz) Massa Limoncello
club soda
1 mint sprig, for garnish

Muddle the lemon juice, simple syrup, and mint in a mixing glass. Add ice, and the limoncello. Stir and strain into an ice-filled collins glass. Top with the soda. Add the garnish.

"Ensign authorization code 9-5-wiktor-wiktor-2"

So, it should come as no surprise to regular readers that I'm doing yet another show. This time I'm working a little bit behind the scenes as a dialect coach, in addition to the on-stage role I've got. One of our actresses has to do a Russian/Ukrainian dialect (doesn't have to be perfect, just suggestive) and so I got to thinking about Russian drinks. I looked through my collection, and I found one that sounded intriguing (if slightly risqué), and I served it up at rehearsal tonight (relax, it was just a table reading...we weren't stumbling around on stage. We'll save that for performances!) I present it to you now.

The Vladivostok Virgin

1 1/2 oz London dry gin
1 1/2 oz vodka
1 oz grapefruit juice (canned is traditional)
dash of Angostura bitters (I threw a dash of my Jamaican bitters in, as well, just for kicks)

shake all well with ice. Garnish with a cucumber slice, or, failing that, a lime slice

Tart. And herbal. And vodka-y. You all know I'm not a huge fan of vodka...I sort of consider it the Muzak of the liquor world...there to fill space, but not really bringing anything to the drink. And here, it really serves to just dilute the botanical notes of the gin, sending it into the deep background. Still, though, the grapefruit juice does something kind of interesting, and makes an almost basil or tomato leaf flavor pop into the drink, and that's kind of cool, though I have no idea how it does that.

All in all, it's tasty. I'm not sure exactly what's virginal about it (maybe it looks like it's blushing?) but it's still a tipple worth sampling.

"If I...were king...of the foreeeeeeeeest!"

Yes friends, I'm actually posting within a few days of the last one. I feel bad about leaving you in the lurch for so long, and I picked up a couple nice deals at the liquor store today, so I'm mixing up a new one for all of you.

Tonight's drink is one that features a spirit I haven't used in far too long; rum. Rum was one of the first liquors I actually picked out as being something I liked. Before I really started to branch out into the world of spirits, rum was my old standby. I think it was, in no small part, an extension of my interest in Tiki drinks that made me gravitate towards rum, but I can now tell you, that rum is by no means the exclusive spirit of faux Polynesia.

That being said, rum's really an interesting spirit, one that's far too often taken for granted. Tonight, though, I've got a great showpiece for it.

The White Lion Cocktail

1 1/2 oz white/silver rum (I used Mount Gay Eclipse Silver)
1 oz lemon juice
1 tsp sugar (I used raw sugar, but that's just me. Bar sugar would dissolve a lot more readily)
1/4 oz grenadine or falernum (I had falernum in the fridge, so I used that)
2 dashes bitters

Shake all with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Spicy, sweet, fruity, sour...this drink really hits all the notes you want a drink to hit. There's the acidity of the lemon, and the spice and lime notes of the falernum, the subtle tropical fruit notes from the rum (banana seems to be a popular note detected in the Mount Gay Eclipse Silver), all of these combine to make for a really interesting drink. I have no idea of the provenance of this drink, especially since one old drink book, 1888's "New & Improved Illustrated Bartender's Manual" by Harry Johnson (no laughing, please), has the White Lion as four ounces of rum mixed with raspberry syrup, curaçao, lime juice and seltzer, and served in a pint glass...quite a different beast altogether. All that being said, this would be a different drink entirely just by swapping the falernum with grenadine. Not a bad one, but very very different. If you feel up to making some falernum (and I highly recommend you do), try using it in this drink. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Y'arrr, it be a ghost ship!

Battling my way through some sort of head cold, I bring you a new drink! Yay!

Tonight's drink is named after the ghost ship of legend, the Flying Dutchman. The good news, as Ted Haigh puts it in "Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails," is that this is a most interesting variation on what's normally a bland drink. The bad news is that you'll have to buy a new ingredient; orange gin. Haigh found Seagram's Orange Twisted Gin, which he says has an unfortunate name, but otherwise tastes pretty good. I've only been able to find that in 1.75 liter bottles, and I didn't really want to rush in to get one only to discover no uses for it. But I did find something at my liquor store (and on sale!) that I think will make an adequate substitute; Stellar Citrus Crush Gin. Apparently it has 6 different citrus fruit flavors in it, so I figured it'd do a comparable job.

Here's how to make it:

The Flying Dutchman Cocktail

2 oz orange gin (or the Stellar Citrus crush stuff)
juice of 1/4 orange
juice of 1/4 lemon
2 dashes Angostura bitters

Shake all with ice, and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish, if desired, with an orange twist.

Yes, it's a glorified gin 'n' juice. No, it doesn't taste like crap. It's supercharged with citrus, to be sure, but it's really quite tasty and nuanced. The bitters do a lot on that front, I'm sure. If you know of a place to get orange gin, grab a bottle and give this a taste. It's certainly easy enough to make, and innocuous enough that most anyone will like it.

And there’s a hand my trusty friend! And give us a hand o’ thine!

And we’ll take a right good-will draught,
for auld lang syne.

For our New Year's Eve post, I'm of course using champagne, but I'm doing a little something different with it. Not a lot of non-lushes realize that champagne makes a great mixer. You get the effervescence of club soda with the flavor of wine, plus hell, anytime the champagne gets broken out, it's a party in and of itself.

This drink has many many stories as to it's origin, but it seems most likely that it originated just after World War I. Some say it was first made with cognac, which I can see, because cognac and champagne would have a lot of similar flavors going on, both being grape-based spirits, but my version, which could perhaps be considered the British version (as I am an unrepentant Anglophile), is made with gin. Named after the rapid-firing artillery piece that proved so useful to the French in WW I (contrary to popular belief in the US, the French are not the cheese-eating surrender monkeys they're so frequently portrayed as), I present to you, the last drink on this blog for 2009...

The French 75 Cocktail

1 oz gin
3/4 oz lemon juice
2 bar spoons simple syrup
champagne to top

Shake the first three ingredients with ice and strain into a small champagne flute. Add champagne to top. Garnish, if desired, with a lemon peel spiral and/or maraschino cherry.

Rather than the single-minded sweetness that so often plagues champagne, this really is a complex drink. The gin adds a little crispness that's most welcome here, and the lemon juice and small amount of sugar syrup also tweak the flavor profile of your champagne, making for a really interesting drink. The only problem is that it's waaaaay too easy to down two or three of these in rapid succession. And then, well, the eponymous machine gun may feel like it's opening fire on your sobriety...but hell, it's New Year's Eve!

Thanks for sticking with me so far, dear readers. I hope to keep things lively and interesting for you well into 2010 and beyond.

"In a pagoda, she orders a soda; banana-fanana...hey diggity!"

OK, first, before you wonder if I'm having some sort of transient ischemic attack and talking funny, watch this video. I'll wait.



All done? Excellent. The song is an old one, as evidenced by it's presence in the "Jeeves and Wooster" universe...it's called "Nagasaki" and dates back to 1928. I figured, since in my last post I was experimenting with reconstructing the old Jamaican Ginger, sans paralytics, I might as well make one up of my own creation. And so I give you tonight's drink:

Hot Ginger and Dynamite

3/4 oz lemon juice
3/4 oz Dubonnet
3/4 oz London dry gin
1/4 oz Jamaica Ginger (or equivalent. I wound up using a barspoon each of ginger syrup, ginger beer base and ginger extract)

Shake all with ice, strain into small cordial glass.

It's small, it's spicy, it's complex, and it'll make a great digestif. The gin and Dubonnet work nicely together, as always, the lemon and ginger play along, and all in all, it makes for a really interesting little concoction. I think if I had a spicier ginger extract, things would be even better. I'll have to keep plugging away at that.

And now I'm back, from outer space. Or at least Chicago.

Oh, and what a libation-filled weekend I had, too, friends. Mixing drinks at a birthday party, mixing drinks at a combination housewarming/holiday party, making a pilgrimage to the new Chicago Trader Vic's and befriending my bartender...oh glory and trumpets it was a swell weekend.

But now I'm back, and after a weekend with no small amount of Tiki drinks (three of 'em at Trader Vic's alone), I figured I'd go for something a little more, well, sane and easy to make. This is yet another classic from the Savoy Drink Book, and is yet another variant on a whiskey cocktail. This one, however, is called:

The Commodore Cocktail

2 barspoons simple syrup
2 dashes orange bitters
juice of 1/4 lemon or 1/2 lime
1 1/2 oz Canadian Club (the Savoy Drink Book calls it, so that's good enough for me)

Combine all in shaker with ice, shaking well to combine. Strain into cocktail glass.

Yep, another variant on a whiskey cocktail or whiskey sour, but still...I never really get tired of them. Even in the little tweaks from drink to drink, there's still enough variety to keep things interesting. In this case, the lime juice and orange bitters are strong enough together to keep it from getting too sweet, and the Canadian Club has just enough heft to add just a little spice to things. It's a nice, very reasonably sized and tasty drink for a civilized gathering.

And speaking of civilized gatherings, I'll have to tell you all some time about some of the fantastic spirits my host at the housewarming/holiday party was good enough to share with me...oh, mercy, those were good.

Can't get theah from heah...

This was another libation I served at Thanksgiving, and again, it will require a little prep for one of the ingredients. However, it's non-alcoholic, so little Johnny and Susie can have one, as well as Mabel, your tee-totaling great aunt, thrice removed on your mother's side. I got this recipe from the November/December 2009 issue of Imbibe Magazine, and they built it thus:

New England Buck (mocktail)

4 oz apple cider
1 oz lemon juice
1 oz sage and juniper syrup (recipe follows)
2 dashes orange bitters
ginger beer (I used mostly ginger ale and a splash of ginger beer base I had sitting around)

Combine all but ginger beer with ice in a cocktail shaker and shake to mix. Strain into an ice-filled double old-fashioned glass and top with ginger beer. Gently stir and serve.

Sage and Juniper Syrup

1 cup water
1 cup sugar
5 fresh sage leaves
10 juniper berries, cracked in mortar and pestle

Heat ingredients in saucepan until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat, let stand 10 minutes, then strain into a clean squeeze bottle or glass container. Keeps for up to a month in the fridge.

The cider's natural tartness plays with the really fresh flavors of the sage and juniper and makes something that's really unique and crisp-tasting. The ginger gives it a little warmth, too. It's really an appealing drink, and a good one to serve at any fall or winter family gatherings. It would also work well for, say, a brunch with certain family members who don't believe in mimosas before noon.

Aw, how can I stay away from you guys?

Ok, I stumbled across a drink that sounded too interesting to keep under my hat until after Turkey Day here in the US...I went looking for drinks that might use some of the 1/3 remaining bottle of Dubonnet in my fridge, and while this one takes only two barspoons of it, that's still two barspoons I don't have to contend with anymore. Plus, it's sort of unusual in its proportions, so that's worth something, as well. And third, it's got an interesting name, and thus I bring it to you this evening.

Alfonso (Special) Cocktail

1 dash Angostura bitters
2 dashes Jamaican bitters (or 2 dash Bittermens Grapefruit bitters...this is my addition but it works)
2 barspoons Dubonnet (or, lacking that, sweet vermouth)
1 oz London dry gin
1 oz dry vermouth
2 oz Grand Marnier

Shake well with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

With two full ounces of Grand Marnier, you may think that a sweet citrus flavor would dominate, and it's there, make no mistake...but the bitters and gin and dry vermouth and even the Dubonnet to a degree help temper that, and while the predominant flavor is of course orange, it's still got enough other things going on in there that it's not too monotonous. It has some other citrus notes in there, some spice, and some botanicals. As long as you serve it in a scrupulously chilled glass after no less than 30 seconds of shaking, it's a great drink...it just functions best when ice cold.

If this drink is Irish, then Sean Connery's a Spaniard...

As promised, I'm bringing you a drink this time that's about as un-Irish as you can get, despite it's name. You see, this one is named, I suspect, for it's color, not it's cultural awareness. You'll see why when you run down the list of ingredients...gin, Cointreau, and green curaçao. Yes, green curaçao. Remember, it comes in many colors, but only one flavor. If you don't have green curaçao and don't feel like tracking down a bottle of it, just use triple-sec (which, if you'll recall, is "white curaçao") and add a couple drops of green food dye to it. That way, you can mix up your own:

Hibernian Special

1 1/2 oz London Dry Gin
1 1/2 oz Cointreau
1 1/2 oz green curaçao (or your homemade equivalent)
splash of lemon juice

shake all with ice, strain into cocktail glass. toast in the direction of the Auld Sod, or possibly the Caribbean.

Yes, as Data said about Aldebaran Whiskey in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, "It is...it is green." I suspect that's what made this drink's creator think of Ireland. Perhaps he was homesick, perhaps he was just really quite drunk, who knows. That being said, it's not bad tasting...it's very orangey, but you get the botanicals from the gin and the sourness from the lemon keeping it out of cough-syrup territory. Worth a shot. But then please wash it down with something authentically Irish...Jamesons or Guinness or something. Even a wee dram of poitín, if you've a mind...

Oh, ye think ye're a true Scotsman, do ye?

Yes, it's been a bit since our last drink. Sorry, all.

I'll make up for it by writing this one in a Scottish dialect. Set your brains to Sean Connery mode.

Thish drink ish shimple enough to make, but it'sh shtill quite tashteh...it'sh got four very shimple ingredientsh, and while none of them are Shcottish, I enjoy it jusht the shame.

The Old Chomlean Cocktail

1 1/2 oz Canadian Club whishkeh
3/4 oz Cointreau
3/4 oz Grand Marnier
3/4 oz lemon juicshe

Shake all with ische and shtrain into your chilled cocktail glassh.

OK, enough with the Connery, before he starts telling off-color jokes about Alex Trebek's mother. I have no idea why I opted for that, apart from perhaps the word "Chomleans" having a Connery-esque chewy feel in the mouth when you say it. Anyway, this is a simple drink, but a good one. You don't need or want an expensive whiskey in it, just one strong enough to hold up to the various orange-y liqueurs and the lemon juice. In some ways, it's similar to a whiskey sour, but it's got enough different from it that it's worth a taste.

Next time, a drink with a true Irish name that contains absolutely nothing Irish.

Lone Pine Mall serves this drink in their food court.

I was nosing around some of my cocktail guides, looking at the pages that I'd dogeared for future mixing and consumption, and stumbled across this old beauty. It's another one from the great old Savoy Cocktail Book, and it's called:

The Lone Tree Cooler

juice of 1/4 lemon
juice of an orange
1/2 oz dry vermouth
1 oz London dry gin
1 oz grenadine
club soda to top

shake all but club soda with ice, strain into tumbler, top up with soda.

This is really a nifty drink...the flavor is so much more than the sum of it's parts. I find it really hard to describe, but it's so simple to make, perhaps you should try it for yourself and see what you think? Yes? Hmm?

Yes.

It's Halloween! This calls for a spooky-looking drink!

Ah yes, Halloween. A time when bartenders bust out their Bailey's, their corn syrup laden grenadine, and some sort of schnapps or another and make a shot that looks like brains. Lovely. Doesn't taste like anything you'd care to drink any other time, but it's got the panache you need for a good Halloween drink.

How about I give you something that looks appropriate and tastes good too? Here's an oldie-but-goodie from the 1930 Savoy Cocktail Book:

Albemarle Fizz

juice of 1/2 lemon (about 3/4 oz or so)
1/4 oz simple syrup
1 1/2 oz gin
seltzer
2 bar spoons raspberry syrup

Shake lemon juice, syrup and gin with ice, strain into glass. Top with seltzer and add two bar spoons raspberry syrup.

There you go. It's a modified gin sour, but with the added benefit of a little fizz, and the lovely, somewhat bloody look of the more dense raspberry syrup settling in the bottom of the glass. Tip tip hurrah, boils and ghouls!