Adding some class to the (Frozen) Strawberry Daiquiri

Let's face it. Frozen drinks have a bad rep. As I neared the drinking age in the early 1990s, I thought there were either strawberry daiquiris or banana daiquiris, both involving a blender and perhaps some whipped cream. As the years went by, after a few of these awful alcoholic slurpees, I learned that the real Daiquiri is actually a wonderful, simple drink with just rum, lime and sugar and more than delightful on a hot summer day.

That being said, one of the warmer days late this summer I had a big box of strawberries I was trying to get through and remembered a very interesting recipe in one of my cocktail books for a Frozen Strawberry Daiquiri that sounded interesting, mostly because of its use of Luxardo, and the fact that it was frozen. Surely, fresh fruit and no mix of any kind could make this into something quite nice.

As it happened, I had some friends over, it was a nice day and I was pretty sure "who wants a Strawberry Daiquiri?" would get me at least a couple yays. So I tried out this recipe. Absolutely delicious. Obviously, the fresh strawberries are key but so is the Luxardo, which is the other star player here. It plays soooo nice with the strawberry and the fresh lime. I may have killed a bottle of rum that day and a carton of strawberries will always be on hand from here on out.

Ingredients:

• 2 oz white rum
• 1 oz fresh lime juice
• 1 oz simple syrup (1:1)
• 1/2 oz Luxardo maraschino
• 5 fresh strawberries
• 1 cup ice

Put all ingredients in blender and blend for several seconds or until everything is as it should be. Garnish with a strawberry or a sprig of mint or a lime wheel. Or all three. Or nothing. Id doesn't really matter because this is soooo good. You must try one and I really recommend having a bottle of Luxardo maraschino in your liquor cabinet anyway. It will either last you forever or it will become indispensable. I just discovered a wonderful new French banana liqueur, so I may try improving the Banana Daiquiri one day soon and leave those dark Daiquiri days of the early 1900s behind completely.

Un peu en retard...Par avion cocktail

Every year my friend Kevin suggests cocktails for Bastille Day so this year I felt like like coming up with my own sort of French cocktail. As we are both big fans of Aviations, I thought I would try to put a French spin on it and went to work. Gin being the base spirit, I went for Citadelle, a lovely artisan gin from the South of France. I had a French brand of Creme de Violette I had barely tapped into, and then St. Germain sprang to mind. Of course no Aviation is complete without Luxardo maraschino....But then, oh dear, no lemons. Naturally, that meant I had a shitload of limes so, remembering an alternate Aviation recipe I came across a year or so ago, I went for it.

After two or three runs, I found a great ratio but, even with the addition of the St Germain and the swap of lime for lemon, I still felt like it needed something. And then it came to me. Absinthe. Although it was created in Switzerland in the late 1800s, its huge popularity in France in the late 19th and early 20th century with Parisian artists and writers really brings the french connection to the forefront. I then, just for fun, added a dash of Amer Picon, a legendary bitter orange liqueur from France that is nearly impossible to get in the US. I wasn't sure how this was going to play with the other ingredients but, despite ending up an unexpected murky color (far from the lovely hue of the original Aviation), it was a good choice. I then added a couple drops of cherry bitters (instead of a cherry garnish) and went for a slice of pamplemousse(grapefruit, but we're doing the whole French thing here) as a garnish and an added citrus element. Pretty darn good, if I do say so myself. This cocktail is complex but very balanced and approachable. It definitely has all the elements of an Aviation but with a few extra kicks that are with you in every sip, from the pamplemousse garnish that greets you to the subtleness of the absinthe coating the bottom of the glass.

Voila! Calling it a French Aviation seemed too easy, so I bring you the Par Avion!

Ingredients:

• 1.5 oz Citadelle gin
• 1/2 oz St. Germain
• 1/2 oz Luxardo maraschino
• 1/2 oz lime juice
• 1 tsp Drillaud Creme de Violette
• 1 tsp Amer Picon
• 3 drops Fee Bros. Cherry bitters

Combine all ingredients in shaker. Fill with ice and shake and strain into chilled cocktail glass coated with a few dashes of Absinthe. Garnish with a slice of grapefruit peel, expressing the oils over the glass and drop in.

 

It's a refreshing Long Way Down...

A few months ago, my better half and I were in Denver for a business (his)/pleasure (mine) trip in Denver and we managed to find the time to seek out a couple great classic cocktail bars. My favorite drink was from Williams & Graham, a true speakeasy styled bar complete with hidden entrance and jazz and an atmosphere that really spoke of the prohibition era. 

I immediately zoned in on this rummy tropical concoction that uses some of my favorite fixins. Smith & Cross Rum, Velvet Falernum, and Allspice Dram. Alas, it was one of my few nights as driver so I only had one, but the bartender was nice enough to give me the recipe and I pulled it out tonight. Memorial Day, 80 degrees, the unofficial start of summer. Plus it was a day full of yard work and I deserved it.

Note the frost on the outside of the glass. You want that.

The Long Way Down 
(courtesy of Williams & Graham, Denver, CO)

Ingredients:

• 1 oz Smith & Cross Traditional Jamaican Rum
• 1 oz Appleton V/X Rum
• 3/4 oz Velvet Falernum
• 3/4 oz lime juice
• 1/3 oz Orgeat (almond syrup)
• 1 teaspoon St Elizabeth Allspice Dram

Combine all ingredients in highball glass. Add crushed ice and swizzle until you have formed frost on the outside of the glass and the ice mound has reached the top. Add several dashes Angostura bitters to the top of the ice. Garnish with an orange slice, a cherry, a sprig of fresh mint,  and an umbrella. 
Stick a straw in. Mmmmmmmmmmm.......

The bitters will follow you through the drink and it is a remarkable experience. 

Falernum is a sweet syrup used in Caribbean and tropical drinks. It contains flavors of almond, ginger and/or cloves, and lime, and sometimes vanilla or allspice. It is a staple in several old Tiki-style recipes and can be found as a non-alcoholic syrup or as a liqueur, Velvet Falernum. If you enjoy these sort of drinks and would like to experience the traditional flavors vs a "tropical tiki mix", this is a bar staple. It's not that hard to find, it's under $20 for a 750ml, and it will last you all summer if you don't get crazy.

Allspice Dram (also known as Pimento Dram) is a liqueur flavored with allspice berries. It adds a dark, spicy (and strong) counterpoint to sweet tropical rum drinks. It also is a staple in many old Tiki recipes and was impossible to find in the states until a few years ago. It too is a home bar staple if you're looking for that real traditional flavor and will last you all summer, and then some. It's a very strong taste and a trigger to be pulled very lightly.

Still flying high. My love affair with the Aviation Cocktail.

The Aviation Cocktail, in my opinion, is the perfect drink. It is boozy. It is tart. It is sweet. It is balanced (provided you make it right) and it is the reason I stopped drinking flavored vodkas and other awful things that I used to call a drink. It all started innocently enough with a text from a friend in DC telling me about this cocktail he was having at some high falutin bar with something called Creme de Violette.

I was intrigued. But not enough to stop me from making a "martini" ten minutes later with Fruit Loops flavored vodka and half and half with Froot Loops floating on top. I was so proud that it tasted like the milk you have leftover when you finish your cereal and that "you couldn't even taste the alcohol". Yikes. Cut to a few months later and I was in a large liquor store in Maryland seeing if I could score any new flavored vodkas that I couldn't find in PA when I spotted a bottle of Rothman & Winter Creme de Violette. With its dark purple color and tall slender art deco labeled bottle, I decided to buy it and text my friend later for the ingredients of that drink he had (still have no idea what it was but that ship has long since sailed). Creme de Violette has a wonderful floral taste but it is on the sweet side, a bit perfumey, and almost soapy. It has been described by a friend of mine as tasting like "her grandmother's drawers". In any case, I was a fan but I had no clue what to do with it now that I had it and it just remained a random oddity in my liquor cabinet. After drinking it on the rocks (??????) for a spell, I finally decided to look up some cocktails online using CdV. The Aviation was pretty much the one and only thing that came up, over and over and over. "Hmmm..gin, lemon, maraschino liqueur (? maraschino cherry syrup and a little vodka would suffice, right?), and Creme de Violette. Well, I went ahead and fixed myself an Aviation with the first recipe I found online, not knowing in my flavored vodka world that maraschino liqueur has NOTHING to do with the artificially colored bright red maraschino cherries we all know and (sort of)love. Maraschino liqueur is actually a clear, dry liqueur made from the distillation of Marasca cherries, pits, stems and seeds (I was to discover later).Pick up any old cocktail book and you'll find it in dozens of recipes. It adds a wonderful earthy complexity and assertiveness to cocktails. Needless to say, the cherry juice and vodka combo I came up with did not add up to anything other than something I dumped down the drain immediately. This had nothing to do with the gin, as I've always been a gin fan as well, but the sum of the parts of a real Aviation, of which I knew nothing.

Luxardo maraschino has since become one of the most necessary bottles in my bar. It is probably the single most consistent ingredient in the drinks that I love. It is indispensable in an Aviation of course, but is also the backbone to many other wonderful cocktails. It adds a great twist to a Manhattan and I find it quite nice on the rocks as well.

Cut to a year later. Manchester, England. My 40th birthday trip with an old friend. Exploring the city on our first day, and killing some time before the 6pm mass at Manchester Cathedral that we decided would be a very cultural thing for us to do, we decided to check out this cool looking corner pub called Trof and have a drink or two. I walked in and, in my then ignorance, I ordered a cider (naturally) and failed to appreciate or even notice the treasures that were surely behind the bar (I took one of the menus so I kind of have an idea....the bottles of Amer Picon, Havana Club..oh the list is too painful). Anyway, I noticed on the menu, The Aviation Cocktail. Well by this time the Manchester Cathedral thing was relegated to just a nice thought we had earlier in the day so I thought I would order an Aviation to see if this bartender could do any better. "I'll have an Aviation, please". Down comes the bottle of Beefeater, the Creme de Violette, and then this mysterious green bottle wrapped in straw. The maraschino thing was still unknown to me so I assumed it was some sort of British cherry juice? I watched the bartender go to work on this drink and it was way more involved than what I was used to seeing. Such careful measurements, not one strain but two, freshly squeezed lemon juice, and then the cherry dropped in at the end. This was my first experience with a craft cocktail and it was fascinating.

One sip. WOW. This was like nothing I had ever tasted. Not that it was intense or offensive or overpowering, it was just the first time that, aside from a Negroni, I felt like I was having a REAL cocktail, and a classic cocktail at that. Tastes that I was unfamiliar with and it was fresh and exciting. A little history into the background of the Aviation....

The recipe first appeared in 1916 in Hugo Ensslin's book "Recipes For Mixed Drinks, though it had been floating around for a few years before that. Following Prohibition in 1933, The Savoy Cocktail Book from The Savoy, London's first luxury hotel, printed the recipe without the violette. It has become widely believed that it was simply an oversight, but nonetheless this became the standard recipe, a mixture of sour from the lemon and the assertiveness of the maraschino, and inevitably led to Cdv's obscurity and complete disappearance from the US market in the 1960s.

My first Aviation. Trof, Manchester, 2012. My facebook post said "Possibly, POSSIBLY my new favorite cocktail"

Then, after decades, in 2007, Rothman & Winter Creme de Violette appears on the US market and the true Aviation can once again be made, but not without controversy. The Aviation was one of, if not THE drink that led the classic cocktail renaissance, but there were (still are) two camps. One with the Violette and one that follows the long published Violette-free version. In my opinion, there is no point in an Aviation without CdV. It brings a sweetness and a unique flavor profile that is just not there without it. Aside from the fact that it adds the color of the light blue sky for which it is believed the drink was named, as the sport was widely fashionable at the time.

So back to me. This cocktail changed the way that I would drink forever though it didn't happen overnight. I still spent the rest of my European vacation ordering St-Germain and Campari and things that I was used to but I slowly started learning to move away from vodka and discover different types of gin which led to bourbons and ryes, brandies and rums, cordials and bitters. Old forgotten sprits and recipes. Centuries old Punches. Batavia Arrack and Swedish Punsch. It's become a passion like no other, bringing the history and the TASTES of these old, wonderful remnants of the past into the present. Parfait Amour, Maurin Quina, Byyrh...Genever...these all have a taste of another world..a time gone by. And, for me, it all goes back to that day in Manchester and my very first Aviation.

So....about that. My tastes have changed considerably since my first Aviation post a couple years ago. I have tried countless variations since. Different gins, alternate brands of CdV and maraschino...limes vs lemons...SEVERAL SEVERAL SEVERAL different ratios....the addition of Benedictine and bitters (which is delightful but altogether a different drink), absinthe rinses, grapefruits, simple syrup (also nice) but it all comes back to the four core ingredients and I think I have finally found the measures that suit me to a (one) T.  

Ingredients:

• 2 oz Old Tom Gin (Hayman's)or Boomsma Oude Genever. If you can't find either of these at your liquor store, a quality London Dry would work fine.
• just over 1/2 oz Luxardo maraschino liqueur (the only brand to buy. period.)
• just over 1/2 oz lemon juice (3/4 is too much, 1/3 not enough- same goes for Lux)
• 1 teaspoon Rothman & Winter Creme de Violette
• 1 Luxardo cherry to garnish. (or a red cherry or lemon twist)

Shake with ice and double strain (with fine mesh strainer) into chilled cocktail glass. I think it benefits from the lack of pulp and bits of ice).

Now, you may think that 1 teaspoon (of CdV) wouldn't make much of a difference one way or another but I really think it's the perfect amount. It adds the sweetness, the balance, and the color without upsetting any of the other ingredients.

I think I've said enough. I love classic cocktails. I no longer see drinking as a way to get drunk. In fact, I wish that I could drink without the worry of getting drunk. The tastes of good spirit mixed with fresh ingredients and fantastic amaros and liqueurs and bitters are like none other. In the last couple years I have accumulated a bar that would give any NYC bar a run for its money and this has allowed me to enjoy experimenting with unusual liqueurs and spirits and creating endless delicious (most of them, anyway) cocktails. But the Aviation (no matter how I may decide I like it best at any given time) is one I will always be obsessed with. It is not only my sentimental favorite, it is the reason I am sitting here typing this. Make one now.

Happy Derby Day! Here's a delicious old twist on the Mint Julep!

In the 18th century, Juleps were more of a category of sweet with spirit rather than a specific drink. Brandy, rum and gin...all could be a julep. The Julep also went in and out of fashion throughout the times but in 1803, the addition of mint was first notated, but this recipe was with brandy, not bourbon, as is the norm now. The recipe for The Georgia Mint Julep (what we're drinking today) is from around 1862, loosely based on a formula in Jerry Thomas's How To Mix Drinks or The Bon Vivant's Companion.  By 1887, the Julep was, again, out of fashion. 

In 1910, a recipe in the Louisville Courier-Journal used whiskey. This Kentucky Mint Julep has been promoted every year at The Kentucky Derby since 1938 and every year hundreds of gallons are made at Churchill Downs.

This particular recipe comes from the time when brandy was just giving way to bourbon. The "Georgia" was added on later but this is based on the first printed recipe and what some cocktail historians consider the "real" Mint Julep.

Ingredients:

• Fresh mint leaves
• 1/2 2oz simple syrup (minted simple syrup even better)*
• 1.5 oz Brandy (I used Pierre Ferrand's 1840 Cognac as it is modeled on a rare 1840 bottle of cognac- seemed appropriate, but any brandy will do)
• 1.5 oz REAL Peach Brandy
• 2-3 dashes peach bitters (optional)

Muddle mint with the syrup in a highball glass. Add the brandies. Fill glass and swizzle with crushed ice until the outside of the glass is frosted. Add more sprigs of mint for garnish. Stick a straw in and have at it. I added some peach bitters to the top of the crushed ice mound, just cuz.

*Mint Simple Syrup: 
1.5 oz mint leaves. 1 oz sugar. 1 oz water.
Chop mint. In a saucepan bring sugar, water and mint to a boil, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Simmer syrup, undisturbed, 2 minutes. Pour syrup through a fine sieve, pressing hard on solids, and cool. Syrup keeps, covered and chilled, 2 weeks.

**Real peach brandy is not the peach-flavored brandy easily available at all liquor stores and very reminiscent of peach schnapps. Real peach brandy was a commonly used ingredient before prohibition. A real brandy, much the peach equivalent of Calvados or Applejack. Trouble is, it didn't survive prohibition. It was lost for several decades and sugary peach-flavored brandy became what was known. Thanks to the classic cocktail renaissance, real peach brandy has found it's way back from the dead thanks to several dedicated distillers. Please seek it out. Dogfish Head in Delaware makes a great peach brandy but there are several available now. If you DO have a bottle of peach-flavored brandy at home and want to try to use it, here is a modified recipe:

• 2 oz brandy
• 1 oz peach brandy
• fresh mint leaves
• a dash of water

Keep everything else the same. 
Enjoy and good luck with your bets!

Aperol Spritz!

It's a beautiful saturday afternoon and nothing is better on a nice day than a refreshing beverage.
Today seemed like a good day for an Aperol Spritz. Aperol is an italian apertif, similar to Campari but a little less bitter. It is also 11% alcohol so it does make for a nice daytime refresher. The Aperol Spritz came to be around the 1950s and, much like numerous old school cocktails, has enjoyed a recent renaissance and has become so popular overseas that it is now sold in ready-to-serve bottles. There are several slight variations out there but the idea is simple. Aperol and fizz. The official recipe on the Aperol site is 3 parts Prosecco, 2 Aperol and a splash of soda. This particular recipe is from the PDT cocktail book and adds fresh squeezed orange juice, which I happened to have on hand. I tried a variation with Luxardo Apertivo as well, which is very similar to Aperol. Maybe even a little lighter. Perfect either way! A great substitute for a Mimosa at your next sunday brunch!

Ingredients:

• 2 oz Aperol (or Luxardo Apertivo)
• 1 oz Prosecco, champagne or sparkling wine
• 1 oz Club soda
• 1/2 oz fresh orange juice

Build in tall glass, add ice, stir and enjoy! Add a slice of orange for an extra something nice.

Delightfully smokey take on the Margarita!

Tonight I was flipping through one of last year’s issues of Imbibe for some inspiration and came across “Eight Ways To Make A Margarita”. I settled on the Nuestra Margarita, mainly for its use of Mezcal as it has been awhile since I had the bottle out, and I was intrigued by the addition of green Chartreuse. And it was also the least amount of work compared to the other seven recipes (I am not pureeing cucumber or making habanero-infused simple syrup tonight.)

Well, this turned out fantastic. Occasionally, Mezcal is a little TOO smokey for me but this was a great balance. My only complaint is that I don’t get a lot of Chartreuse in the sip. I may make another and up the Chartreuse to 1/3 oz just to check things out. Aside from that, it’s a great contender for one of my go-to summer drinks and something fun to make for my more adventurous margarita fans!

UPDATE: 
Yes, I do prefer the extra little bit of Chartreuse and I think everyone else will also.

Ingredients:

• 1 oz Mezcal (I use El Buho simply because I think the bottle is cool)
• 1 oz Triple Sec (I used Luxardo Triplum for this. It's 1/2 the price of Cointreau while remaining very high quality. Great for trying recipes for the first time)
• 1 oz fresh lime juice
• 1/3 oz green Chartreuse (altered from original recipe to taste)

Shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a slice of fresh lime.

Who wants the funk?                     Swedish Punsch and Batavia Arrack

As I may have mentioned previously, I'm a big fan of Swedish Punsch. The tradition of Swedish Punsch dates as far back as the early 17th century, when sailors of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) began infusing Batavia Arrack, ( a clear, sugar- and rice-based Javanese spirit with a rough, "otherworldly" bite) with sugar and spice to create "punch". By the turn of the 20th century, Swedish Punsch was bottled and found its way to America, where it became an essential ingredient in numerous classic cocktails. However, its popularity faded when Prohibition was established, and it soon disappeared from the market. It's return  in 2011 has made it possible to revisit numerous forgotten cocktails. It has a very rummy, funky taste and can easily dominate a drink if not handled responsibly. My favorite way to drink it is, of course, with an aggressive dark jamaican rum with enough "hogo" to stand up to it. The term Hogo was used in the 18th-19th century to describe the sulfurous odors that happen naturally when raw sugar cane juice is distilled. Basically a strong funky rum that packs a punch. It is a taste that was once desirable but rum distillers tried hard to tame it in the 20th century and light rums like Bacardi became the preferred taste.

So, anyway, I was doing some internet cocktail surfing this evening and came across this recipe. I was anxious to try my peach bitters as they were something I HAD TO HAVE at that moment and they have been sitting around doing nothing since. This was a GREAT addition to the rum and the punsch.
There is a similar cocktail to this called The Tanglefoot that I found in one of my old recipe books that uses lemon juice instead of the vermouth and a light rum vs the dark. I decided on the funk tonight. Gotta have that funk.

Ingredients:

• 1 oz dark rum (I used Zaya)
• 3/4 oz Swedish Punsch (Kronan)
• 3/4 oz Dolin Blanc vermouth ( a bit sweeter than dry)
• 3/4 oz fresh orange juice
• 2 dashes of peach bitters (Fee Bros)

Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. The peach bitters really shine through here and compliment the other tastes extremely well. At the moment, Kronan is the only brand of Swedish Punsch available in the US. It's sort of a pain in the ass to get around here so I made a homemade version with Batavia Arrack, demerara rum, sugar, citrus and tea that turned out pretty nice and good to have around.

Mine is a bit lighter for when you don't gotta have the funk.

Happy Birthday to me!

Having dinner with a few friends tonight for my birthday and I decided to try out my Nana's old recipe for Harvey Wallbanger cake. I will admit I used an on orange cake mix for this first time, not wanting to bite off more than I could chew, but this turned out so good, next time I'll try my hand at making it completely from scratch. 
The Harvey Wallbanger cocktail is a modern classic, invented sometime in the early 50s. It's rise in popularity in the 1970s undoubtedly is what gave this drink it's bad reputation. The 70s were a very dark time for cocktails. Fresh citrus was replaced with sour mix from soda guns, artificial sugary bottles replaced real fruit syrups, and numerous other shortcuts were taken everywhere to cut costs and corners. Galliano itself even became a lighter, sweeter version of itself up until a few years ago when the original formula was reinstated. What was once a very tasty cocktail combing vodka, fresh orange juice and Galliano, a sweet, herbal Italian liqueur, basically became a sweeter, headache-inducing screwdriver. Alas, I had never tried a Harvey Wallbanger despite having had a bottle taking up an awkward space in my liquor cabinet for the past few years. 
After reading up on the cocktail while assembling the ingredients for the cake, I was delighted to find that my bottle is the original 80 proof formula and decided the best thing to do would be to enjoy a proper Harvey Wallbanger while I baked the cake. It was refreshing, light and delicious.

Back to the cake. The recipe for Harvey Wallbanger cake is all over the internet, mine varies only
slightly from some, probably not at all from others. But taking your direction from your grandmother's handwritten yellowed recipe card has alot more charm than staring at a screen.

Harvey Wallbanger Cake Ingredients:

• 1 pkg orange cake mix 
• (though next time i may try and make my own instead of a mix)
• 1 pkg vanilla instant pudding
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 cup cooking oil
• 1/2 cup orange juice
• 1/2 cup Galliano
• 2 tbsp vodka

combine cake mix and pudding mix in large bowl.
add the eggs, oil, orange juice, Galliano and vodka
beat on low speed for 5 minutes.
pour into greased and floured bundt pan.
bake at 350 for 45min.

cool in pan for 10min.
remove and pour on glaze while cake is still warm

Glaze:

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1tbsp each vodka, orange juice, Galliano (I added a little extra vodka)

I recommend enjoying a Harvey Wallbanger cocktail while you're at it. Why wouldn't you, really?

• 2 oz vodka
• 3 oz fresh orange juice
• 1/2 oz Galliano

Build vodka and orange juice in ice-filled highball glass. Float the Galliano on top.

The Weekly Special Cocktail

Tonight I was perusing through my copy of The Cafe Royal Cocktail Book for an interesting new cocktail to try. The original edition of this book was printed in 1937 consisting of recipes from top bartenders and compiled by William J. Tarling, head bartender at The Cafe Royal in Piccadilly, London. It was an elegant book, printed in color and illustrated. The two main goals of the book were to raise money for the UK Bartenders Guild, and also to compile a set of tightly standardized and accurately measured recipes to be used behind every reputable bar in London, thus retaining consistency and avoiding duplicate drinks with the same name. The recipes here capture a booming time in cocktail history and offers a fascinating view into the wide array of drinks being served in London between the two world wars. Sadly, there was only one printing and the book became unobtainable rarity for several decades. This fascimile edition, published in 2008, unlocks the time capsule of drinks and knowledge for modern bartenders and cocktail enthusiasts. Some of the widely used ingredients in this book have reappeared in recent years, while others still, sadly, remain lost in time. This new edition of The Cafe Royal Cocktail Book is available at Amazon.com.

This particular cocktail, The Weekly Special, grabbed my attention because of it's pairing of maraschino liqueur (a favorite and indispensable home staple for me) and kummel ( a caraway, fennel and cumin flavored liqueur). I haven't had many opportunities to experiment with it and was excited to give it some attention. The kummel was very much tamed by the maraschino and grapefruit but still retained a pleasant background presence.

Ingredients:

• 1 oz gin (I used Seneca Drums from the Finger Lakes)
• 1 oz grapefruit juice
• 1/2 oz Luxardo maraschino
• 1/2 oz Kummel

Shake all ingredients and double-strain into a chilled cocktail glass. No garnish. Maybe a grapefruit peel?

There are some higher end brands of Kummel out there, but I will hold off for the time being. Though this is tasty enough that Kummel might end up going faster than it has!

The feeling of spring continues with The One Flight Up cocktail...

Spring is still in the air, though I don't believe much longer. So to cash in on the fleeting feeling,I found this springy drink from Pouring Ribbons in NYC. I found this because I was trying to find something else to do with my orange flower water other than a Ramos Gin Fizz. It turned out that this also gave me the opportunity to dust off the Pisco for the season. Hooray. This is actually sort of Ramos Gin Fizz-y in a respect. I love the addition of the Campari and the egg white and soda water makes it feel like an old school drug store soda fountain kinda thing....

Ingredients:

• 2 oz Pisco (I used Capel)
• 3/4 oz Bianco Vermouth (Dolin)
• 3/4 oz Lemon juice
• 1 oz Simple syrup
• 5 dr Orange flower water (Fee Bros.)
• 1 dash Angostura bitters
• 1 Egg white
• 1/2 oz Campari
• 1 oz Soda water

Add Campari and soda water to a highball glass and fill with ice. Add the other ingredients to a shaker, seal and shake without ice to emulsify the egg white. Add ice to the shaker and shake to chill, then strain into the highball glass to float over the Campari and soda mixture. Garnish with twists of lemon and orange peel. Serve with straw.

Lots of ingredients, and a good many steps but totally worth it. As long as you have everything out you may as well just have two.

London Briar Cocktail..                    Kind of like a Springy Last Word.

A Last Word Cocktail (equal parts gin, maraschino, Chartreuse and lime juice) has always been kind of an end of the evening cocktail for me, as the name might suggest. The addition of creme de framboise (a raspberry liqueur)in the London Briar kind of lightens it up a bit and makes it not quite so...direct.

Ingredients:

• 2 oz London Dry Gin
• 1/2 oz creme de framboise (Mathilde is a nice brand, affordable and not cloyingly sweet)
• 1/4 oz green Chartreuse
• 1/4 oz Luxardo maraschino
• 1/2 oz lime juice

The classic Last Word cocktail is 3/4 oz each gin, Chartreuse, maraschino and lime. I love it but it can be intense for some. By switching around the proportions a bit, this would make Chartreuse and maraschino much more approachable for anyone new to these unique tastes. 

The Tanglefoot Cocktail:                   More fun with Swedish Punsch

Came across another great recipe using Swedish Punsch tonight on one of my favorite blogs cocktailvirgin.blogspot.com. This is very similar to a Dr. Cocktail but uses lemon and orange juice instead of the lime, and Bacardi Rum vs. the funky jamaican rum. The book Pioneers of Mixing at Elite Bars 1903-1933 suggests using cuban rum as the Bacardi of that era was similar. The combination of orange and lemon vs lime is also another alternate recipe of the Dr. Cocktail, and, I find, one that I am
beginning to prefer. I am lucky enough to have a couple bottles of Havana Club on hand so I used the lighter of the two. This is a very nice drink and one that I am happy to add to my Swedish Punsch list of recipes. 

Ingredients:

• 1 oz Cuban rum (I used Havana Club)
• 1 oz Swedish Punsch (Kronan)
• 1/2 oz lemon juice
• 1/2 oz orange juice

Shake and double strain into a chilled cocktail glass.