It’s Still Summer: Cocktails to Cruise to an End of Season Happy Place

Red Almond Beetle Bliss Cocktail 

Red Almond Beetle Bliss*   

Recently, we were looking to enjoy a cocktail that was a little tiki; a bit of a favorite summer classic -- the Negroni and one that embraced Bill’s favorite fruit - the Red Jacket tart cherries.

So I played around with the ingredients and came up with a cocktail that we loved. Hope you do too.

Ingredients:

• 2 jiggers Nolet’s Gin
• 1.5 jiggers Orgeat
• 1 jigger Campari 

You can also do equal parts gin and Orgeat.

Method:

Put a few ice cubes in a cocktail shaker; add in the ingredients; wait until all cold and shake. Add the frothy mix to a chilled coupe glass.

Garnish:

Add a few fresh cherries or true maraschino cherries as garnish. You can also add edible flowers that are plentiful this time of year. Red Hibiscus would be especially lovely.

Cheers!



* Did you know that until 2006, Campari originally colored with carmine dye, derived from crushed cochineal insects - beetles!


Vine-groni

Vine-groni, photo courtesy of Nitecap and Bulldog Gin 

Vine-groni Made by Natasha David, Nitecap

Ingredients:

• 1.5 oz Cucumber infused Bulldog Gin
• 1 oz Cinzano Bianco Vermouth
• 0.25 oz Campari
• 1 tsp. Rice Wine Vinegar
• 3 drops Salt Solution

Method:

Add to cocktail shaker; stir, strain

Garnish:

Quick pickled Persian cucumber slice, Tomolive & green pitted Castelveltrano olive on pick

Did you say Rum?

Our sun-filled days are numbered, so say goodbye to the summer with one last boozy hoorah by sipping on Ron Barceló’s Last Concho. Reedy and woody aromas of vanilla and toffee makes this refreshing taste not very unlike my orgeat infused Red Bliss... 

The drinks’ sunset coloring gives a nostalgic touch, while its combination of Ron Barceló Añejo, Triple sec, citrus pineapple mix, and grenadine gives it a sweet and sour zing for a symbolic finish.

Last Concho

Last Concho, photo courtesy Ron Barcelo 

Ingredients:

• 1.5 oz Ron Barceló Añejo
• .5 oz Triple Sec
• 2 oz. Citrus Pineapple Mix

Method:

Combine all ingredients in shaker. Shake vigorously. Pour over crushed ice and top with a touch of grenadine. Pour into a small coupe glass

Garnish: 

Touch of Grenadine

New Exclusive Cocktails Featured at the Cove Lounge - and featured at their weekly Caribbean Thursday party.

Cove Rum Punch:  

Cove Rum Punch, courtesy of Cove Lounge

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 oz Wray & Nephew
• 1/2 oz Meyers Dark Rum
• 1 1/2oz Pineapple juice
• 1 oz Cranberry juice
• 1 oz Orange Juice

Method:

Add Wray & Nephew, Pineapple, orange and cranberry juice. Squeeze a lime in and add ice. Shake, pour all ingredients into highball. 

Garnish:

Top off with Meyers Dark Rum float and blue edible flower.


Sweet Ting Mojito

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ oz. Bacardi Banana
• 1 oz. Coco Lopez
• 3 strawberries (sliced into 3 or 4)
• 5-8 mint leaves (depending on size)
• 2 limes 
• 1/2 oz Simple syrup
• 1/2 oz Lime juice

Method:

Muddle the strawberries in lime juice and simple syrup in the highball, then add the lime and mint to muddle (not too much) Add the Bacardi Banana. Add the Coco Lopez. Add the ice, and top with club soda. stir all the ingredients to open it up.


Sweet & Spicy Margarita
Ingredients: 

• 1 1/2 oz Herradura Silver 
• 1/2 oz Cointreau
• 1 oz simple syrup
• 1/2 oz lime juice
• 1/2 oz lemon juice
• 1 oz pineapple juice
• 2 slices of jalepano (1 for garnish)

Method:

Rim the glass with salt & cayenne pepper mixed and put to the side. Muddle a small piece of jalapeno (the bigger the piece, the spicier it will be) with simple syrup and lime juice.

Add Herradura Silver, Cointreau, pineapple juice and lemon juice. Add ice. Shake. Strain over ice in the glass.

Garnish:

 Rim the glass with salt and cayenne pepper; Garnish with a fresh jalapeno pepper or a few slices (seeds removed!) and a slice of lime.

Cove Lounge is located on Malcom X Boulevard (at West 126th St), NYC.

Fabulous Finishing Touches!

Toast to a Finishing Touches Interview with The Modern Bar Cart Podcast

Earlier this month I opened an email with the subject line: Podcast Interview Opportunity. Generally speaking, I do love podcasts and was curious what this could invitation was all about. Well, I’m delighted to share with you I discovered The Modern Bar Cart Podcast via the note from Sami (Samantha) a production assistant at The Modern Bar Cart.

She noted that Eric, the host, has taken an interest in your upcoming book, Finishing Touches, the Art of Garnishing the Cocktail and he would like to speak with you “for an hour of sparkling conversation and genuine curiosity. An interview with you about your book would be the ‘cherry on top’ of a discussion about garnishes”

Sami had me at sparkling conversation and genuine curiosity!
Nevertheless, I had to vet the production. I listened with keen interest - after all, cocktail culture is a passion with me - and I was duly impressed. I wrote back that Eric not only possesses a resonant voice that is easy and compelling to listen to but he is also impressively knowledgeable.
I admire and respect that quality of content and so we confirmed the interview.

Truth be told, the first interview attempt went off the rails due to technology glitch on my end via Skype and passwords and time-stressed frustration. Eric remained calm and courteous - a consummate professional.
We rescheduled for Monday. A hiccup with the Skype tech again didn’t prevent Eric from prevailing and we completed the hour-long cocktail chat. It was fun and provoking. When he asked, “Are you ready for the lightning round?” I gulped a “I hope so reply.” 

After some thoughtful edits, the Art of the Garnish episode is posted for your listening pleasure.

Please make yourself a drink and listen in on my interview about Finishing Touches - including the variety and back story to garnishes, garden-to-glass cocktail creations, accessories from glamorous swizzle sticks to sassy toothpicks to cocktail napkins and knives and muddlers and jewelry as cocktail picks (Yes!) And also how I came to create the food pairings, and creative tablescape or I should say, bar cart decor for the presentations by looking to the ingredients as inspiration...

And now that you know about The Modern Bar Cart Podcasts, you can listen to Eric’s previous interviews and learn more about experimenting with cocktails and home bartending. It’s all very inspiring. Eric says you can listen online (see link to my feature above) or on all major podcasting outlets including, iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Spotify.

Plus, you can Follow The Modern Bar Cart on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Me too, please. :)

Thank you again, Eric and Sami and Modern Bar Cart. It was an honor and a pleasure to work with you.

Cheers!
P.S. Eric and Modern Bar Cart make their own line of crafted cocktail bitters. I am eagerly awaiting a sample and look forward to posting my review of what I’m sure will be a superlative cocktail ingredient. I adore the botanical ingredients in bitters - the herbs, bark, roots or fruit are endlessly fascinating and have the power to transform a drink. A kind of botanical magic potion!





Cracker Jack garnish (plus a prize!) in my I'm Nutty For You cocktail pairs with the Averna (herbal, caramel, Black Walnut Bitters, plus


English Rose cocktail, edible rose petal garnish


Pisco Royale - made with my favorite Macchu Pisco brandy - from my friends' Melanie & Lizzie & their abuela's family recipe!


Heart of Gold Cocktail - jewelry holds candied ginger garnish

And my twist or remix on the classic Grasshopper is the Verdant Green Jangala.
The garnish is teeny, tiny key lime, cut like a basket with mango in the lime -- and perched on the glass rim.
The showstopper is the Cocktail Composition tablescape.
I used smart technology tuned to nature videos.  The jungle sounds of birds singing and cascading waterfalls, and jungle cats really helps set the mood.
Delight and engage your guests with an immersive, transporting experience...

What to Drink While Viewing the Jeff Sessions Testimony? Start with an Alabama Slammer!

Washington has become a kind of running reality show or a series … It’s all too Game of Thrones.

While today’s testimony from the Attorney General Jeff Sessions, may not have the celebrity accorded to last week’s James Comey media event and it’s party-like halo that prompted me to write a pertinent post about Cofveve Cocktails - today is still a must-see TV day to watch or listen -- to the proceedings.

You can watch or listen today as Sessions testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee at 2:30 ET on all major media, including PBS.

Because Mr. Sessions hails from the Camellia state or the Yellowhammer state (so named for the state bird, a type of woodpecker), an Alabama Slammer seems most appropriate.

The Alabama Slammer’s history stems from the 1970s and was developed near the University of Alabama to celebrate the Crimson Tide.

The Alabama Slammer is a cocktail made with amaretto - this is key, Southern Comfort, sloe gin, and orange juice. It is served in a Collins glass. It is also sometimes known as a Southern Slammer. This is a sweet, fruity drink.

And Mr. Sessions is hoping he doesn’t end up in the slammer! See, you can have some fun with this…



Ingredients:

3/4 oz Sloe Gin, 3/4 oz Southern Comfort, 3/4 oz Amaretto, Orange juice

Method:

Pour Amaretto, sloe gin, and Southern Comfort into glass of ice. Fill with orange juice and stir.

Serve, on the rocks; poured over ice into a Tom Collins glass.

Garnish:

Maraschino Cherry, slice of Orange, or Lemon Wheel -- or all three!

You can substitute Jack Daniels for Southern Comfort and add in lime or lemon, and add Grenadine -- the main point is to make you see Red!
(In keeping with all the fury on both sides of the issue…. Ha!) 

How about watching the news with a new drink: The Recuser?!





This cocktail is from my upcoming book, Finishing Touches the Art of Garnishing the Cocktail - and it’s called the Mediterranean “Sunrise” in the book. But I thought it looks a bit like the Slammer. And besides, it’s delicious.

Ingredients:

1 jigger ouzo

1 jigger tequila

8-12 ounces orange (or other fruit juice)

A few dashes of peach bitters or grenadine

Method:

Pour the juice into a tall glass over ice, top with the liquor so they float like some drifting iridescent Aegean sea plankton, followed by the bitters.

Garnish:

With speared fruit wedges and a red swizzle licorice stick! The licorice flavor complements ouzo’s anise for a pretty and fun presentation. Place the licorice swizzle sticks in a red glass for a shot of color to boost the cocktail composition, adding red and white or blue and white striped cocktail napkins. Stretches the American-ness of the proceedings, don’t you think?

Try ouzo with Kahlua for a wicked take on a “Fireball.”

Need a drink to celebrate bailing out the boat? Then there’s the Dark & Stormy made with dark rum and ginger beer - I very much like the Gosling’s brand of ginger beer.


And because all this hubbub is supposed to be about Russian spying or interference, after all, you can always soothe your anxieties with the classic cocktails: White or Black Russian (I’m calling this one, Glasnost). They are easy to make, quite luxurious and offer a lot of comfort. Interestingly, the White Russian made its way West in the 1930s with the proliferation of vodka’s appeal; the Black “Glasnost” sibling didn’t follow until 1949. Can’t go wrong with either drink.

White Russian

Ingredients:

2/3 oz (2 parts) Coffee liqueur, such as Kahlua or --

1 2/3 oz (5 parts) Vodka - I suggest Royal Elite, or LIV , Tito's or Belvedere. I sampled the handcrafted 1857 Vodka last week at the Greenmarket - bought a bottle, too. But it doesn’t taste good… has a kind of cosmetic aftertaste that took over a martini - disrupting a prime feature of vodka - meaning it plays well with other flavors. Try the recommended vodkas - you won’t be disappointed.

1 oz (3 parts) Fresh cream or milk

Method:

Pour coffee liqueur and vodka into an Old Fashioned glass filled with ice. Pour the mix and float fresh cream -- or milk - on top and stir slowly. You can do this layering using the back of a spoon over the drink and slowly pouring the cream over the “sled” of the spoon.

Garnish:

What could be better than whipped cream? Well, topping the froth with fresh, shaved chocolate! Or a toasted marshmallow!








Black Russian or Glasnost

Ingredients:

⅔ ounces or 2 parts Coffee liqueur - Kahlua or… 1 ⅔ (5 parts) vodka (see above recommendations)

Method:

Mix the ingredients into an old-fashioned glass, poured over ice cubes

Pour the ingredients into an old fashioned glass filled with ice cubes. Stir gently.

You can also add a splash of cola - to make it a kind of

Garnish:

Maraschino Cherry skewered on a diamond hat pin or similar-looking Shashka Sabre!

Cheers!