Periodista

I can trace my love affair with cocktails back to a single evening. I had just found out that I had gotten a competitive NSF fellowship to support me during graduate school, and my husband and I were going to celebrate. Earlier that week I had picked up a copy of one of those free magazines that used to be all over - I think it was Stuff at Night - and they had a feature on the best cocktail bars in Boston. In my mind there wasn't really anything fancier than sitting at a marble-topped bar and sipping a beautiful drink, so we went to one of the places on the list, Eastern Standard. I don't remember what the magazine said that made us pick Eastern Standard, but I do remember the cocktail they featured: the Periodista, a rum drink made with lime juice and apricot and orange liqueurs.

I don't know why the Periodista in that article stuck in my head. I didn't even order it that night - I ended up getting an Aviation, my first one ever, and realizing that there was so much more to cocktails than I had ever known. But I distinctly remember the orangey cocktail pictured in that magazine. I later tried one elsewhere in Boston and found it to be quite as tasty as Stuff at Night made it out to be. Little did I know that the Periodista is a drink with a story behind it.

The Periodista (Spanish for "journalist") is a happy, crowd-pleasing cocktail. Its flavor is bright and citrusy, with tart lime and sweet apricot playing against each other on your tongue. It's like a Daiquiri with a few extra tricks up its sleeve. It's somehow simultaneously perfect for drinking on a tropical beach or in a Boston dive bar in the dead of winter. It's not hard to see why it became so popular here. It's the how that is a bit more convoluted. If you're curious, read on.

History: I could just tell you what is known about the history of the Periodista, but I would be doing you a disservice. Because if you're at all interested in craft cocktails, the people who make them, and the stories behind them, you should read Devin Hahn's Periodista Tales.

Briefly, Devin Hahn is a writer and filmmaker who lives in Boston. He also enjoys a good craft cocktail. In particular, he became a fan of the Periodista after having one at Chez Henri, a now-shuttered French-Cuban restaurant in Cambridge, in 2007. The menu there indicated that the cocktail originated in Cuba, and was a favorite of Ernest Hemingway. An instant fan, Hahn began ordering Periodistas at bars all over Boston, and bartenders were happy to make him one. This was, in fact, right around the same time that I made my pilgrimage to Eastern Standard and learned about the drink myself. It was not a hard cocktail to find.

Unless, apparently, you left Boston. When Hahn traveled out of the city, no one seemed to have even heard of Periodista. Bartenders at places like PDT in New York and The Varnish in Los Angeles had no idea what he was talking about. And Hahn couldn't find the recipe online or in any cocktail books.

So in 2010, Hahn set out on an epic quest to uncover the origins of the Periodista that he chronicled online in the Periodista Tales. It takes him to some of Boston's most beloved watering holes and introduces a cast of characters that I've come to know well as a cocktail lover in the city - people like Jackson Cannon, John Gersten, and Misty Kalkofen. And then Hahn's search expands, and he meets with luminaries like David Wondrich and Ted Haigh, who share their own stories and insights into the craft cocktail renaissance. It becomes a rumination on the craft of bartending itself, as well as a perfect example of how difficult it can be to find out the real story behind a cocktail.

The only thing wrong with it is that it seems to end prematurely. The last installment from 2011 reads like a cliffhanger. I don't know if Hahn has continued his research since, but I hope he updates us at some point.

If you're short on time and really just itching to get to the punchline (the Periodista Tales is a lengthy read), I will spoil the results of Hahn's research here. The real origin of the Periodista remains unknown, but it does seem to hail from Cuba. The earliest mention of the recipe in print that Hahn could find is from 1948, buried at the back of El Arte de Cantinera, a bartenders' manual from the Club de Cantineros de la Republica de Cuba in Havana.

The Periodista came to Boston when Paul O'Connell and Joe McGuirk were building Chez Henri's cocktail list. They found the recipe in a "little tropical cocktail book," one of those pamphlets that spirits brands used to print. Like El Arte de Cantinera, it called for white rum, but they found it far better with Myer's dark rum. It ended up on the menu. From there, McGuirk took the recipe to the B-Side Lounge, one of Boston's most (in)famous cocktail bars, where many of the greats got their start. As they left to begin their own ventures, they took the Periodista with them. And the rest, as they say, is history.

In his account, Hahn includes the Periodista recipes from many of the bars and bartenders that he interviews - a dozen in all, from the B-Side Lounge's version (which specifically calls for "generic bottom shelf" apricot liqueur and triple sec) to Drink's recipe with house-made lime peel syrup. The one that appealed to me most was Brother Cleve's recipe, which uses Appleton Estate Jamaican rum and included a bit of simple syrup to make the drink less tart. The result, in my opinion, is perfection. But if it doesn't suit your fancy, try adjusting the ratios or checking out some of the other recipes.

Periodista

1 1/2 oz. Appleton Estate aged rum (12- or 21-year recommended, I used Signature Blend)
3/4 oz. apricot liqueur (Rothman & Winter)
1/2 oz. Cointreau
1/2 oz. lime juice
1 barspoon (1/8 tsp) simple syrup

Combine all ingredients in a shaker with ice and shake until chilled. Strain into a coupe and garnish with a lime wheel.

Recipe from Brother Cleve via Devin Hahn.

Sunflower

This week was another fun campaign on Instagram, #WeHaveTheLastWord. Started by Mike of mmydrinks last year, it's a weeklong celebration of one of the greatest cocktails out there, the Last Word. This equal-parts mix of gin, Green Chartreuse, maraschino liqueur, and lime juice is iconic in the cocktail world for its simple recipe and unique flavor. If you haven't had one, you need to make or order one immediately.

As one of the more famous equal-parts cocktails out there, the Last Word lends itself to all sorts of riffs and variations. The Last of the Oaxacans trades the gin for mezcal. The Naked and Famous takes this even farther with Yellow Chartreuse and Aperol instead of the Green Chartreuse and maraschino. The bourbon-based Paper Plane doesn't share a single ingredient with the Last Word, but is still generally considered a variant due to its equal-parts proportions. And if you check out We Have the Last Word on Instagram, you will find countless other variations on this formula containing just about every spirit and liqueur you can think of.

I wanted to create my own riff on the Last Word for the campaign, and even started playing around with some recipes, but I didn't have a chance to perfect one in time. Using equal parts can be a tricky business. Usually when you pick ingredients that you think might work together, you can adjust the amounts of each until they're in perfect harmony. But when you're committed to equal parts, if it doesn't work, it just doesn't.

Not wanting to miss out on all the fun, I turned to my copy of Shake. Stir. Sip. to see if there were any 4-ingredient equal parts cocktails I had never made before. And to my surprise, the first recipe in the 4-ingredient section was not only one I had never made, but it was one that sounded really, really good: the Sunflower. It's actually a riff on the Corpse Reviver, swapping elderflower liqueur for the usual Lillet or Cocchi, but since I've seen some Corpse Revivers and variations posted with the #WeHaveTheLastWord hashtag, I think it will fly.

You can tell the Sunflower is going to be a crowd pleaser long before you taste it. You can't go wrong with gin, lemon, St. Germain, and orange liqueur. It's basically a sunny, floral, boozy lemonade. The absinthe wash might seem a bit polarizing to the casual drinker, but once they try it they'll see that it's fairly subtle touch that really brings the cocktail together, and it keeps the discerning drinker from rolling their eyes at ingredients so tasty and versatile that they might overlook the Sunflower for being too ordinary. Plus, it's a recipe by Sam Ross, creator of the Penicillin and the aforementioned Paper Plane. I will basically drink anything he comes up with, no questions asked.

And man, "Sunflower" is a much happier name than "Corpse Reviver," huh?

History: This cocktail was created by Sam Ross of Milk & Honey and Little Branch in New York, now at Attaboy. He created it around 2008.

Sunflower

3/4 oz. gin
3/4 oz. St. Germain
3/4 oz. Cointreau
3/4 oz. lemon juice
Absinthe rinse

Combine gin, St. Germain, Cointreau, and lemon juice in a shaker with ice and shake until chilled. Pour a dash of absinthe (I used Herbsaint) into a coupe and swirl it to coat the glass. Strain the cocktail into the glass. Garnish with a lemon twist or some sunflower petals.

Recipe from Shake. Stir. Sip.

Mixology Monday: Syracuse

This is the first time I've ever made a cocktail for Mixology Monday when I was the one who came up with the theme! The monthly cocktail challenge has been through 114 iterations at this point, and they've covered all sorts of topics and ingredients. I was a little surprised that chocolate wasn't already on the list. I can't wait to see what everyone does with what is quite possibly my all-time favorite food. If you missed it, check out the announcement post here.

I decided I wanted to use cacao nibs in my cocktail. I have a whole bag left over from my homemade Coffee Pecan Bitters and I've been itching to do something with them. They have this incredible dark chocolate scent that I wanted to impart into a cocktail without introducing the sweetness of chocolate in most of its other forms. I figured the best way to do this would be with an infusion. There are a couple of cocktails in the Death & Co book that use cacao nib infusions, and it's a quick and easy way to introduce the flavor of cacao nibs into a drink.

Cacao nibs are the seeds of the cacao tree, Theobroma cacao. The seeds are removed from the fruit, fermented, dried, roasted, and cracked open, giving us cacao nibs. From here, the nibs have many uses. They can be ground up and mixed with milk and sugar to make chocolate, or the grinds can be used sort of like ground coffee to make traditional cocoa tea. Cocoa powder is made through a process that removes the fat, or cocoa butter, from the nibs, allowing them to be ground even finer and drier for baking or hot chocolate. The cocoa butter can be added to chocolate bars or used in lotions. Cacao nibs are amazing little things!

Death & Co provides recipes for cacao nib infused tequila blanco and Campari. I decided to try both of these, as well as some bourbon, sweet vermouth, and rum. For the rum I went with my new bottle of Rhum Clement, an agricole rhum from Martinique. The results were interesting. I found the tequila a bit strange and jarring, and the sweet vermouth smelled exactly like barbecue sauce - intriguing, but not really appealing to me. The bourbon, Campari, and rum were my favorites, and as I started experimenting with them in cocktails, I ultimately settled on the Rhum Clement.

I was also interested in introducing some Ramazzotti to the mix. I haven't talked about Ramazzotti yet, except briefly in my post on amari - my growing bar has outpaced my Bottle Buy posts, and I need to catch up! Ramazzotti is a thick, sweet, citrusy amaro. It's often described as having a "root beer" flavor, but it's the orange notes that I really pick up on. Right after I got a bottle I had a bit with some Godiva blood orange dark chocolate that we'd gotten for Christmas, and I thought it was the most perfect pairing imaginable. I wanted to capture some similar flavors in my cacao nib cocktail. I added some sweet and nutty East India Solera Sherry, another new purchase, as well as a bit of Cointreau to enhance the orange flavor. Finally, to blend it all together and amp up the cacao flavor, I included a dash of El Guapo Spiced Cocoa Tea bitters.

I really like this cocktail. The aroma is lovely: raisins, chocolate, and orange. It has flavors of bright citrus and rich sherry, with a hint of bitterness and deep dark chocolate notes. The orange flavor is the most intense, whereas the chocolate is a more subtle background note that really comes through at the end of your sip. This is exactly why I love Mixology Monday - I never would have come up with this combination otherwise.

Check back here for the roundup of everyone's chocolate cocktails! I hope to post it in a week, but I'll be doing some fieldwork in Texas until the end of the month, and I'm not sure what the internet situation will be. So don't be concerned if there's radio silence from me on the blog and social media. (Unless it lasts into February - then send a search party.) I can't wait to see what everyone else comes up with!

Syracuse

1 1/2 oz. cacao-nib infused rum (I used Rhum Clement)*
3/4 oz. East India Solera Sherry
1/2 oz. Ramazzotti
1/4 oz. Cointreau
1 dash El Guapo Spiced Cocoa Tea bitters

Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass with ice and stir until chilled. Strain into an Old Fashioned glass with one large ice cube. Garnish with an orange twist.

*To infuse rum with cacao nibs, combine 1/2 tsp. of cacao nibs per 2 ounces of rum in a jar or bottle. Seal it and let it sit overnight, stirring or shaking occasionally. Strain out the cacao nibs.

Cacao nib infusion adapted from Death & Co: Modern Classic Cocktails.

Corpse Reviver #2

When it comes time for a Halloween cocktail, you don't need to look any further than the classics. Flip through any good cocktail menu and you will find some excellent libations with some thoroughly macabre names: Death in the Afternoon, Blood and Sand, Last Word, Zombie... the list goes on. But my personal favorite has to be the Corpse Reviver #2.

I've been meaning to make a Corpse Reviver #2 for the blog for a while, so Halloween seems like the perfect excuse. That said, this is a cocktail for any time of year (sans cherry juice blood, of course). If you're wondering what corpse it is supposed to revive, I'm afraid to say that it's you - the gruesome name is actually a nod to the fact that this cocktail was invented as a hangover cure.

This sour, citrusy cocktail is made with equal parts gin, lemon, Lillet, and triple sec. A wash of absinthe in the glass gives it a delightful hint of anise and a slight eerie green tint. I decided to use Kina L'Aero d'Or instead of Lillet, which gave the cocktail an intriguingly bitter finish - a different experience than with Lillet, but something I definitely recommend trying if you have a bottle. A bit of juice from my jar of Luxardo cherries, slightly reduced in a saucepan, made a spooky, bloody garnish.

History: The fact that this cocktail is called the Corpse Reviver #2 immediately suggests that there is at least one other Corpse Reviver floating around, and that’s true - the Corpse Reviver #1, sometimes just called a Corpse Reviver, made with Cognac, apple brandy or Calvados, and sweet vermouth. Both of these recipes date back to the publication of The Savoy Cocktail Book in 1930, but the idea of a Corpse Reviver has been around a lot longer than that.

Prior to 1930, the term likely didn't refer to a specific cocktail at all; it was rather a catch-all term for a cocktail consumed to cure a bad hangover. Everyone had their own recipe. The earliest mention of a Corpse Reviver is in Punch magazine in 1861, in a brief article entitled “A Smash for a Sensationalist,” a humorous piece about the Trent Affair that I confess I have some difficulty really understanding. But it ends by describing a hangman who “expectorated twice with a marked gaiety of manner, and after liquoring up a Sling, a Stone Wall, and a Corpse-Reviver, he merrily danced forth into the middle of the room and sang a pleasant little song….”

The earliest printed recipe for a Corpse Reviver comes from 1871, in The Gentleman's Table Guide by E. Ricket and C. Thomas. It calls for a 1:1 mixture of brandy and maraschino and two dashes of Boker's bitters, served in a wine glass. The 1903 Steward's Handbook and Guide to Party Catering by Jessup Whitehead has a different recipe, calling for "a long, thin liqueur-glass filled with equal portions noyeau, maraschino and yellow chartreuse, one on top of the other without mixing them; to be taken off with one draught." Here I presume that noyeau is an almond liqueur like Crème de Noyeaux, which makes this a very different cocktail from any of Corpse Revivers above (and one that seems more likely to cause a hangover than cure one).

The two recipes that remain well-known today were popularized by Harry Craddock in The Savoy Cocktail Book. I don't think it's known whether he developed the recipes himself or not, but many of the cocktails in the book were his invention. #2 has stood the test of time better than #1, and is certainly better known. 

Corpse Reviver #2

3/4 oz. gin

3/4 oz. Lillet, Cocchi Americano, or Kina L'Aero D'Or

3/4 oz. Cointreau or triple sec

3/4 oz. lemon juice

Absinthe rinse (I used Herbsaint)

Combine gin, Lillet, triple sec, and lemon juice in a shaker with ice. Shake until chilled. Wash a coupe with absinthe and strain the cocktail into the coupe.

Try as a hangover cure if you want, but take care; Harry Craddock notes that "Four of these taken in swift succession will unrevive the corpse again."

Recipe from The Savoy Cocktail Book. Lots of this history came from an article by Cara Strickland for Tales of the Cocktail.

Water Lily

One of the first things I bought for my bar was a bottle of crème de violette. I tried my first Aviation and I loved it so much that I splurged on both the crème de violette and Luxardo maraschino liqueur. The Luxardo turned out to be a brilliant purchase, and it ended up in many more cocktails. The crème de violette, on the other hand, hasn't really seen much use. So I was pretty excited to come across the Water Lily, which features it as a main ingredient.

With equal parts gin, crème de violette, Cointreau, and lemon juice, this cocktail is very sweet and tart, with flavors of orange and florals. It's reminiscent of the Aviation, but much sweeter - almost candy-flavored. But in a good way. It's surprisingly delicious.

History: The Water Lily was created by Richard Boccato at PDT in New York. According to The PDT Cocktail Book, he made it for a good friend of his whose middle name was Lily.

Water Lily

3/4 oz. gin
3/4 oz. Cointreau or triple sec
3/4 oz. crème de violette
3/4 oz. lemon juice

Combine all ingredients in a shaker with ice and shake until well chilled. Strain into a coupe glass. Garnish with an orange twist.

Recipe from The PDT Cocktail Book.

Joy Division

I've been leaning more and more towards stirred gin drinks lately. Remember, you shake cocktails that contain ingredients with different densities from your spirits, like fruit juice, so stirred cocktails tend to be more spirit-forward. Things like the Means of Preservation, #42, Gin-Campari Old Fashioned, Lucien Gaudin, and of course the Martini and its close cousin the Vesper. I've got some new favorite recipes in this category that I'm excited to share. Today it's the Joy Divison.

The Joy Division is definitely a spirit-forward cocktail. It starts with your typical martini ingredients - gin and dry vermouth - and makes the addition of Cointreau and a bit of absinthe. It's strong and herbal with a hint of sweet citrus. It's a great alternative to a martini if you're in the mood for something with a little more flavor.

History: The Joy Division comes from Phil Ward of Death & Co in New York. He created it in 2008. As far as I can tell, the name is an homage to an English rock band.

Joy Division

2 oz. gin
1 oz. dry vermouth
1/2 oz. Cointreau
3 dashes* absinthe (I used Herbsaint)

Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass with ice and stir until chilled. Strain into a coupe glass and garnish with a lemon twist. I discarded the twist and threw in some edible flowers.

*Remember, a dash is between 1/8 and 1/4 tsp. For the absinthe, I recommend measuring it out since the flavor can be overpowering if you put too much.

Recipe from Liquor.com.

Lucien Gaudin

The Lucien Gaudin is a current favorite of mine. It's an older cocktail, probably Prohibition-era, that has managed to fly under the radar for nearly 100 years. Which is a shame, because it's very good. With gin, Campari, Cointreau, and dry vermouth, it's sort of a Negroni-meets-Martini. It's a perfect aperitif, with just the right amount of bitterness, sweetness, and bright and beautiful hints of citrus.

One thing I love about this cocktail is how simple and classic its four ingredients are. You probably have them in your bar already. The one thing I didn't have until recently is Cointreau. Since it's a bit pricier than other orange liqueurs, I've often substituted Triple Sec in the past, which will give you generally the same flavor. But since buying a bottle, I have to say that it is definitely not the same. Triple Sec is orange candy in comparison to Cointreau's brighter, more complex flavor. It adds a level of sophistication to a cocktail that Triple Sec lacks. It's a worthy splurge.

History: Lucien Gaudin was a famous French fencer. He was known for his graceful technique, which fellow master Felix Bertrand called "poetry in motion." He won two gold medals at both the 1924 and 1928 Olympics, in which he competed in both the foil and the épée. He went on to become a journalist and co-owner of a company that made sports films. He committed suicide in 1934. Most sources say it was because his company had gone bankrupt, but others claim he suffered a thumb injury that would prevent him from fencing.

Lucien Gaudin

The cocktail named for Gaudin was probably invented in France during the height of his popularity, but its exact origins are unknown. The earliest publication to include a recipe is Trader Vic's Bartender's Guide from 1948. It has recently been rediscovered by cocktail enthusiasts, probably due to its inclusion in Ted Haigh's recent book Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails. This recipe uses the proportions from Trader Vic's; Haigh's recipe reduces the gin to 1 oz.

I think the Lucien Gaudin cocktail is an apt tribute to its namesake. It's elegant and strong, and the ingredients work together like a bit of poetry themselves.

Lucien Gaudin

1 1/2 oz. gin
1/2 oz. Campari
1/2 oz. Cointreau
1/2 oz. dry vermouth

Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass with ice. Stir until well chilled. Strain into a coupe glass. Garnish with an orange twist.

Recipe from Cold Glass.

Hotel D'Alsace

Christmas is less than a week away! In previous years, I've been so busy during December that I've felt like it snuck right up on me. But this year I feel like I've really had time to anticipate and look forward to it. I love Christmas, and I love all the culinary traditions that come along with it. All my favorite blogs are posting recipes for eggnog, hot buttered rum, and bright red drinks involving cranberries and champagne. But not every holiday cocktail needs to be so obviously Christmasy. I'd argue that anything you'd enjoy sipping on while chatting with friends or sitting by a fire is a perfectly good holiday cocktail. Even if it's one that wouldn't be all that out of place at another time of year.

With that in mind, I give you the Hotel D'Alsace. The only thing about it that could perhaps be called Christmasy is the rosemary garnish. I've seen springs of rosemary popping up in cocktails left and right the last couple of weeks, and I have to admit that I'm a big fan. Not only does the piney, herbal taste evoke the holidays, but it basically looks like a piece of Christmas tree in your glass. I love the scent of it every time I take a sip. It was an ingredient in The Last Cocktail, and I'll almost certainly be putting a sprig in something else before the holiday season is over.

The Hotel D'Alsace is a simple formula: whiskey, Cointreau, and Benedictine with a bit of that rosemary muddled in. The result is actually a fairly sweet cocktail, more so than I expected. Admittedly, I didn't have a bottle of Irish whiskey on hand, so I subbed in bourbon, which surely amped that up a bit. I found that I preferred the flavor if I reduced the amount of Benedictine by half. Even such, its sweet, herbal taste of it is the dominant flavor in the cocktail. If you like it, it's delicious. The citrus is far more subtle than I expected, and I might add an orange twist garnish next time as well.

History: The Hotel D'Alsace was created by David Slape at PDT in New York. He named it for the hotel in Paris where Oscar Wilde died, now called L'Hotel. Wilde had been living there for over a year, deeply in debt but still going through five bottles of Couvoisier a week (he famously remarked "I am dying beyond my means"). He contracted cerebral meningitis and spent the last month of his life confined to the hotel. The infinitely quotable Wilde was apparently not too fond of his room's decor, remarking, "My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has got to go."

Hotel D'Alsace

2 oz. Irish whiskey
1/2 oz. Cointreau
1/2 oz. Benedictine (I preferred 1/4 oz.)
1 rosemary sprig, halved

Combine Cointreau, Benedictine, and the bottom of the rosemary sprig in a mixing glass and muddle. Add whiskey. Fill with ice and stir until chilled. Strain into a rocks glass with one large ice cube. Garnish with the top of the rosemary sprig.

Recipe from The PDT Cocktail Book.

Pepino's Vengeance

I used to subscribe to Bon Appetit Magazine, and on the last page of each issue they'd usually have a celebrity sketch something out on a napkin (like this one by Aziz Ansari). At some point, Justin Timberlake shared the recipe for his favorite cocktail, the Pepino (Spanish for "cucumber"). It's a mix of tequila, Cointreau, basil, pineapple juice, agave, and cucumber that was cooked up by a New York mixologist named Junior Merino. It's a good cocktail, and one I should definitely make for the blog at some point. But I don't often have pineapple juice on hand, which is how I came across this recipe for the simpler Pepino's Revenge. It was created by Lee Hefter, an executive chef at Wolfgang Puck. It omits the pineapple juice and the Cointreau, giving top billing to tequila and the fresh flavors of cucumber and basil.

One evening, my husband (henceforth "GarnishGuy") asked if I could make him a Pepino's Revenge, but I was out of basil. So I subbed in cilantro, which I thought would go even better with the lime and tequila. (I mean, is cilantro bad in anything? I'd probably eat cilantro ice cream.) We both really liked the result, which I have christened Pepino's Vengeance to distinguish it from the original version. It's citrusy and refreshing, but still very spirit-forward. A great alternative to a Margarita.

Pepino's Vengeance

4 half-inch thick slices of cucumber
Handful of cilantro
2 oz. silver tequila
1/2 oz. lime juice
1/2 oz. simple syrup

Muddle cucumber and cilantro in a shaker. Add remaining ingredients and ice. Shake until well chilled. Double strain into a rocks glass filled with ice. Garnish with a cucumber slice and cilantro leaves.

Recipe adapted from Food & Wine.

Seelbach

I love champagne cocktails, but I understand that many of them can seem a little girly. If you're looking for a recipe for New Year's or a wedding that even the manliest men in your life will enjoy, the Seelbach is a perfect choice. This mixture of bourbon, orange liqueur, and lots of bitters should please whiskey and champagne drinkers alike.

History: The Seelbach was invented in 1917 at the Seelbach Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky. The hotel was frequented by characters such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, who used it as the setting for Tom and Daisy's wedding in The Great Gatsby, and Al Capone, who had secret passageways leading to and from his favorite room. The cocktail was supposedly created when the bartender used a Manhattan to catch the overflow from a champagne bottle.

Seelbach

1 oz. bourbon
1/2 oz. Cointreau or triple sec
7 dashes Angostura bitters
7 dashes Peychaud's bitters
Champagne
Orange peel, for garnish

Combine bourbon, Cointreau or triple sec, and bitters in a mixing glass. Add ice and stir until chilled. Strain into a champagne flute or coupe and top with champagne. Garnish with the orange peel. Toast like this.

Recipe from Punch.

Sidecar

Let me preface this by saying that I don't know a thing about Cognac. I only recently learned that it is essentially the same thing as brandy, the same way champagne is the same thing as sparkling wine; Cognac is brandy that is made in Cognac, France. So the two are essentially interchangeable in cocktail recipes. Before I found this out, I knew I needed some Cognac to make a Sidecar, but I must have gone to the wrong liquor store; they only had a few bottles, and my eyes bulged at the prices. I ended up buying an itty bitty bottle of Hennessey just to try in a few cocktails. Once I found out that brandy could be substituted, I did what any good grad student would do and went to Trader Joe's and bought a bottle of the second-cheapest brandy they had.

Since it's our first time using brandy, we should talk about what exactly it is. I once had a friend at a party drunkenly insist that brandy was just "burnt wine," a notion that I scoffed at, but he wasn't entirely off base. Brandy is distilled wine, usually aged in oak casks. It is popularly served by itself as an after-dinner drink. Cognac, as I said above, is brandy made in the Cognac region of France. A similar type you may have come across is Armagnac, from (can you guess?) the Armagnac region of France.

If you buy brandy or Cognac, you may notice some letters on the label. Brandy is traditionally graded on a standard system to say how long it has been aged (though by law, only Cognac and Armagnac have to abide by these rules):

V.S. (Very Special): the youngest brandy in the blend was aged for at least two years.

V.S.O.P. (Very Superior Old Pale): the youngest brandy in the blend was aged for at least four years.

X.O. (Extra Old) or Napoleon: the youngest brandy in the blend was aged for at least six years.

My very fine Trader Joe's brandy is Pierre Duchene V.S.O.P. Tasting it next to the V.S. Hennessy, there was a clear winner. The Hennessy is smoother and a little sweeter, while I honestly thought the brandy had a faintly unpleasant, musty taste in comparison. In cocktails, the difference is far more subtle, but not long after this experiment I finally splurged on a bottle of Pierre Ferrand Cognac. A Sidecar will be the very first drink I make with it.

The Sidecar is a really nice cocktail. It's classic, classy, and oh-so-drinkable. I'd dare you to find me someone who doesn't like it. Yet it was never on my cocktail radar before. Like the Gimlet, I thought of the Sidecar as a recipe from a bygone day. Which is interesting, given that they've been the two most pleasant surprises I've come across so far. They're also both made from very simple ingredients, so it would be a safe bet to order them at any bar. And I intend to.

History: Here's another drink with a few different possible origins. Let's get the "but we thought of it first" out of the way: the Sidecar is very similar to both the Brandy Crusta and the Brandy Daisy, and could have evolved from either one. But while these are both American cocktails, most accounts suggest that the Sidecar originated on the other side of the pond around World War I. The Ritz Hotel in Paris claims credit for its invention, but there's not much of a story to go along with their claim. Harry MacElhone of Harry's New York Bar in Paris was the first to publish a recipe. In his 1922 book Harry's ABC of Mixing Cocktails, MacElhone credits a London bartender named Pat MacGarry with the drink, but omits this is in later additions. The more popular tale is that an American army captain came to Harry's and developed the drink, named for the fact that he rode to and from the bar in a motorcycle sidecar.

There is a division of opinion when it comes to the exact proportions of ingredients in a Sidecar. The "French school" argues for equal parts Cognac, Cointreau, and lemon juice, while the "English school" likes 2:1:1. I followed The PDT Cocktail Book, which takes the Sidecar even farther from the French version with less than one part Cointreau and lemon juice.

Sidecar

2 oz. Cognac
3/4 oz. Cointreau or triple sec
3/4 oz. lemon juice
1/4 oz. simple syrup

Combine all ingredients in a shaker. Add ice and shake until chilled. Strain into a coupe glass with a half-sugared rim.

Recipe from The PDT Cocktail Book.

Margarita

A real margarita is a lot simpler than I thought. I knew that the frozen concoctions I've ordered at Mexican restaurants were not exactly authentic (though boy are they good), but I had no idea just how bare-bones the original cocktail was. Tequila, lime, triple sec. That's it. Add some simple syrup if it's too sour for you, salt the rim if you want. But a margarita is pretty basic. And delicious. Like its cousins, the Gimlet and the Daiquiri, the Margarita is a great way to enjoy its spotlight spirit, tequila. It's also like a blank canvas - thus the many variations you see. I can't wait to try a few.

History: If you begin to research the history of the Margarita, the first thing that becomes abundantly clear is that no one knows the history of the Margarita. Like other cocktails that follow the formula of alcohol + lime juice + sweetener, it may have been thought up a number of times. But here are the many possibilities for the recipe we now all know and love:

1. The Texas Socialite. The first mention of the Margarita in print was in 1953 in Esquire magazine. The magazine credits Margaret "Margarita" Sames, a Dallas socialite, with inventing the cocktail for a party in 1948 that was attended by a number of influential hoteliers and restraunteurs. But most cocktail historians seem to think it originates much earlier, most prominently because of a Jose Cuervo ad in 1945 that mentioned the drink.

2. The Allergic Actress. A fellow named Carlos "Danny" Herrera claimed credit for inventing the cocktail at his restaurant outside of Tijuana, Rancho la Gloria, in 1938. He whipped it up it for a dancer and aspiring actress named Marjorie King who wanted a cocktail but was allergic to all types of alcohol other than tequila (if your bullshit radar is going off, it probably should be). Regardless of what Miss King's allergies were, Herrera is enough of a contender that his 1992 obituary claimed he invented the drink.

3. The Ambassador's Daughter. A bartender named Don Carlos Orozco was working at Hussong's Cantina in Esenada, Mexico in 1941 when the daughter of the German ambassador, Margarita Henkel, came in to ask for a cocktail. Don Carlos had been experimenting with some recipes, and when she enjoyed his concoction, he named it "Margarita" after her.

4. The Mexican Milkman. Mexican bartender Francisco "Pancho" Morales may have invented the Margarita in Juarez at Tommy's Place Bar in 1942. Morales later immigrated to the United States, where he worked as a milkman for 25 years.

5. Rita Hayworth at the Race Track. Two different possibilities trace the Margarita back to Danny Negrete, who worked at the Agua Caliente Race Track in Tijuana. He may have invented the Margarita in 1936 as a wedding present for his new sister-in-law, whose name was (can you guess?) Margarita. Or he may have named it for Rita Hayworth (Rita being short for Margarita), who performed at the track in the 1930's.

6. The Absentminded Irishman. There appears to be an entire category of cocktails that I need to get to know: a "Daisy" is essentially a spirit + citrus + sweetener + club soda. Back in the 30's, they were made with gin, rum, brandy, basically anything - except tequila. The story goes that a new cocktail was invented when an Iowa newspaper editor, James Graham, and his wife went to Tijuana on vacation. They were in a bar run by an Irishman named Madden who was known for serving Daisies. The word "tequila" is unfortunately never mentioned in the story, but it is Mexico, and Madden confessed to Graham that he invented the drink in question when he grabbed the wrong bottle off the shelf. If you stretch your imagination to believe the wrong bottle was tequila, then the Tequila Daisy becomes the predecessor of the Margarita - margarita is the Spanish word for "daisy." It's surprising to me that the Graham's hometown of Moville, Iowa could possibly be the Margarita's gateway to America, but this one comes from David Wondrich, so I'm inclined to believe. In 1936, the Syracuse Herald ran a recipe for a Tequila Daisy, and the evolution of the Margarita may have proceeded from there, whether or not Madden was involved.

There you have it; the many origin stories of the Margarita. And that's still not all; I haven't even investigated where the idea of salting the rim of the glass came from, or the what is the origin of the iconic, upside-down sombrero-shaped margarita glass. Questions for another time. But now when someone asks you where the Margarita came from, you can say - with certainty - "I have no idea."

Margarita

2 oz. tequila
1 oz. Cointreau or triple sec
3/4 oz. lime juice
1/2 oz. simple syrup, if desired.

Combine ingredients in a shaker. Add ice and shake until chilled. Strain into a rocks glass filled with ice, a cocktail glass, or a margarita glass. If salt is desired, first rub the edge of the glass with a wedge of lime and invert it into a plate of coarse salt to coat the rim. Garnish with a wedge of lime. Toast to Margarita, whoever she is.

Recipe adapted from Vintage Cocktails.