1919

A few weeks ago I finally went to get a drink at Craigie on Main, a restaurant/bar that has been a Cambridge mainstay for the past ten years. I was drawn to a cocktail called the 1919, which was listed as a "classic" on the menu even though I had never heard of it. The bartender explained that it was something of a local classic, created a few miles away at Drink. This only made me love it more. And I already really loved it. Spirit-forward and rich, it's reminiscent of a Manhattan or a Vieux Carre. It is an absolutely lovely drink to sip on.

The 1919 has a split base of rye whiskey and rum. The recommended rum is Old Monk, which I keep hearing about recently. It's an Indian rum, quite cheap but much-loved. Definitely something I'm going to add to my bar soon! In the meantime, Appleton Estate was a wonderful replacement. Benedictine, Punt e Mes, and Mole Bitters round out the recipe. I personally like reducing the recommended 1/2 oz. of Benedictine to 1/4 oz. to keep the drink from getting too sweet.

History: The 1919 was created by Ben Sandrof at Drink in Boston's Fort Point neighborhood. He named it after the year of the Boston Molasses Flood (affectionately known as the Boston Molassacre) because of the molasses notes in the rum. The Molasses Flood took place on January 15th, 1919 - the day before Prohibition ended. I just realized that I missed the 100th anniversary of this weird and tragic event! Still, 2019 seems like the perfect year to sip on a 1919.

1919

3/4 oz. rye whiskey (Rittenhouse recommended; I used Redemption)
3/4 oz. rum (Old Monk recommended; I used Appleton Estate Signature Blend)
1 oz. Punt e Mes
1/4 oz. Benedictine
1 dash Bittermen's Xocolatl Mole Bitters

Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass with ice and stir until chilled. Strain into a coupe or cocktail glass. No garnish.

Recipe from Cocktail Virgin Slut.
Photos taken at The Canopy Room.

Pumpkin Spice Old Fashioned

It's a little hard to believe it's already Thanksgiving. Wasn't Halloween like last week? And to top it off, my extended family is celebrating Christmas on Thanksgiving day this year because most of us will be out of town in December. Definitely a condensed holiday season.

Thanksgiving is a perfect cocktail holiday. It already centers around sharing food and drink with friends and family. And there are so many fantastic flavors that we associate with autumn and Thanksgiving: cranberry, cinnamon, pecan, sweet potato, maple... and of course pumpkin! I've never put pumpkin in a cocktail before, but I did have a guest post on pumpkin cocktails a couple of years ago. I've been meaning to make one myself ever since. And since the pumpkin spice trend doesn't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon, it's high time to hop on the bandwagon.

This is a very simple Old Fashioned recipe made special by a pumpkin spice syrup. I tried a couple of recipes I found online and didn't think any of them had enough pumpkin in them, so this one is my own creation. You're going to want to whip up a big batch, because it is good in everything - try it in coffee or on ice cream! A jar of it would make a great gift for your host this Thanksgiving.

Pumpkin Spice Syrup

1/2 cup water
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
3/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ginger
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. cloves
1 dash cardamom
OR 2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice - I used Trader Joe's

Combine water and sugar in a saucepan and bring to a simmer, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Lower heat and add pumpkin and spices, whisking to combine. Let barely simmer for five minutes, whisking frequently. Then cover and let cool. Once the mixture has cooled, strain it through cheesecloth to remove the pumpkin solids. Store in the fridge.

Pumpkin Spice Old Fashioned

2.5 oz. bourbon
2 barspoons pumpkin spice syrup
1 dash Angostura bitters
1 dash pecan or walnut bitters (or another dash of Ango if you don't have this)

Build the drink in a rocks glass. Combine bitters and syrup, and then add bourbon and stir. Add a large piece of ice and stir briefly. Twist an orange peel over the drink and discard. Garnish with a cinnamon stick.

Penicillin

One of the things I love about cocktails is how they tie you to the past. Thanks to the recipes that have been preserved and the consistency with which many spirits and liqueurs are made, we can literally make drinks that someone would have sipped one hundred years ago.

The true test of a great cocktail is its ability to withstand the test of time. What allowed classics like the Manhattan and the Negroni to persist while other drinks were destined for obscurity in the pages of old recipe books? Obviously a classic cocktail needs to taste great. It also needs to be relatively simple. It's unlikely that a recipe involving orange foam or a fat wash is going to become ubiquitous. It needs to be something that any bartender at any bar can make.

By these metrics, what cocktails invented recently do you think people will still be drinking in 100 years? If you were to pose this question to a group of bartenders or cocktail enthusiasts, I can just about guarantee that someone would mention the Penicillin. It's a modern drink that has found universal fame and appeal. And it's easy to see why. A Scotch sour is made infinitely more interesting and delicious with a honey-ginger syrup and a bit of peaty single-malt to give it a hint of smoke. Admittedly, the honey-ginger syrup does break the rules a bit - not every bar will have one ready to go. But any bartender worth her salt will be familiar with the recipe. It's undeniably a new classic.

History: The Penicillin was invented in 2005 by Sam Ross (now at Attaboy) at Milk & Honey in New York. He created it as a riff on the Gold Rush while playing around with some bottles of Scotch from Compass Box - their Asyla for the base, and the Peat Monster for the float.

Penicillin

2 oz. blended Scotch (Famous Grouse)
3/4 oz. ginger-honey syrup*
3/4 oz. lemon juice
1/4 oz. peaty single-malt Scotch (Laphroiag 10-year)

Combine blended Scotch, ginger-honey syrup, and lemon juice in a shaker with ice and shake until chilled. Strain into a rocks glass over one large ice cube. Top with the single-malt and garnish with candied ginger.

*For ginger-honey syrup, combine equal parts honey and water in a saucepan and simmer gently, stirring until honey is dissolved. Add a small piece of ginger, peeled and thinly sliced. Let simmer for a couple of minutes, then remove from the heat and let sit for at least 15 minutes before straining. Let cool before using.

Recipe adapted from Punch.

Recipe Round-Up: The Negroni

Unless you're living under a rock (or, you know, not on social media), you probably know that it's Negroni Week! Sponsored by Imbibe and Campari, this is a week-long celebration of what is arguably the cocktail world's favorite drink. Bars around the country serve Negronis and Negroni variations, with proceeds from the drinks going to various charities. I'm only getting in on the tail end of the week, but if you're reading this before June 10th, see what venues are serving Negronis for a good cause near you here.

The Negroni and I have a tumultuous history. When I first tried one, I did not like it at all, and I said as much in my original Negroni post three years ago. In the cocktail world, thinking that Negronis are anything less than amazing is a fairly controversial opinion, but I was prepared to stand by it unless I magically developed a taste for them. And I did. Not magically, exactly; I think it was a combination of buying better sweet vermouth (and storing it properly in the refrigerator) and developing a taste for more bitter drinks in general. Other less polarizing cocktails eased me into the flavors of the Negroni, and before I knew it I was a convert. But I still understand how someone might not enjoy them, especially if they're new to Campari or cocktails in general. So whether you love a classic Negroni or are looking for your gateway drink, I've rounded up some Negroni variations in honor of this iconic equal-parts cocktail.

Assume that all of these should be stirred over ice and strained into a rocks glass over ice (though the last two can also be served in a coupe). Alternatively you can build them in the glass for an even easier cocktail.

Classic Negroni

1 oz. gin
1 oz. Campari
1 oz. sweet vermouth
Orange twist

The original: easy to remember, easy to make, and always great. Opinions will differ on the best gin and sweet vermouth for the job, but my go-tos are The Botanist or Wire Works and either Cocchi Vermouth di Torino or Carpano Antica Formula.

White Negroni

2 oz. gin
1 oz. Lillet Blanc
3/4 oz. Suze
Lemon twist

This variant from London bartender Wayne Collins is actually a lot more yellow than white, but let's not nitpick. Suze and Lillet make this Negroni a bit lighter but more herbal. It does diverge from the typical equal parts ratio, since Suze can be a bit overpowering. See my full post on this drink here.

Negroni Bianco 

1 oz. gin
1 oz. Luxardo Bitter Bianco
1 oz. blanc vermouth
Orange or grapefruit twist

This truly white Negroni is known as the Negroni Bianco, and it is my favorite drink on this list. In fact, it's easily one of my favorite drinks of all time. (Someone told me recently that I say that a lot on here. Well, tough. It's true, especially in this case.) It's beautifully light and balanced, still bitter but not overpowering. It would be a perfect introductory Negroni. I wish I'd had one years ago - I might have started liking Negronis sooner.

Special Negroni

1 oz. gin
1 oz. Aperol
1 oz. Lillet Blanc
Orange twist

I have a feeling this recipe exists under other names, but ever since I was served one at Canary Square in Boston, I call it the Special Negroni. This is the ultimate introductory Negroni - milder, sweeter, and a bit more citrusy, but still preserving all the crucial parts of the original.

Toffee Negroni

1 oz. aged rum
1 oz. Aperol
1 oz. Amontillado sherry
Grapefruit twist

I had never heard of this Negroni until I saw it in Kara Newman's equal parts cocktail book Shake. Stir. Sip. Created by Lynette Marrero, it has a deep toffee sweetness with just the right amount of bitterness.

Deconstructed Negroni

1 oz. gin
3/4 oz. dry vermouth
Dehydrated Campari
Orange twist

This one is a bit more of a novelty than a go-to recipe, but it seemed like I ought to include it. A bartender at Roosevelt in Denver told me how they dehydrated Campari and used it to serve a colorless Negroni with a Campari rim. I tried it at home and was pretty pleased with the result. See how to make it here.

Boulevardier

1 1/2 oz. bourbon
1 oz. Campari
1 oz. sweet vermouth

This is another drink that definitely goes on my list of all-time favorites. I find the juniper notes of gin one of the more polarizing things about a Negroni, and subbing in bourbon makes a smoother drink that's more akin to a Manhattan. Say what you will, but I'll order a Boulevardier over a Negroni any day. See my original post on the Boulevardier (from before I developed my undying love for this cocktail) here.

Old Pal

1 oz. rye
1 oz. Campari
1 oz. dry vermouth
Orange twist

A close relative of the Boulevardier, the Old Pal is an even lighter cocktail that uses dry vermouth instead of sweet. You can take it one step further and try a Pen Pal, which additionally swaps the Campari for Aperol.

I've seen a ton of other interesting Negroni variations this week... what's your favorite?

Fallback

We are currently in my absolute favorite time of year. The holidays are just so joyful. There are so many happy events and opportunities to get together with friends and family. It's not yet bitterly cold, but the temperature is low enough to turn on the heat and snuggle up under a blanket. Preferably with a whiskey cocktail.

The one thing I don't like about this time of year is how short the days are. It seemed bad enough as fall began, but then Daylight Savings Time ended. We "fall back" and suddenly it's getting dark at 4 pm! This makes it supremely inconvenient to get good cocktail photos. I like to shoot with natural light, but I'm not usually going to have a drink in the mid-afternoon. I end up having to just set things aside for later. My husband has gotten used to coming home and taking a peek in the fridge to check whether anything I made earlier that day is waiting to be consumed.

It was with this annual disgruntlement in mind that I picked the Fallback out of Regarding Cocktails. In addition to the appropriate name, it's made with Applejack and Amaro Nonino, a couple of my favorite fall ingredients. They lend flavors of apple, spice, vanilla, and brown sugar to rye and sweet vermouth. The Nonino and a couple of dashes of Peychaud's give the drink just the right amount of bitterness. It's utterly perfect for the fall.

And it still tastes just fine if you have to throw it in the fridge until cocktail hour.

History: The Fallback was created by Sasha Petraske for John Dory Oyster Bar in New York City.

Fallback

1 oz. rye whiskey
1 oz. Applejack or apple brandy
1/2 oz. sweet vermouth (Carpano Antica recommended)
1/2 oz. Amaro Nonino
2 dashes Peychaud's bitters

Build the drink in a rocks glass beginning with the bitters. Add one large cube of ice and stir until the drink is chilled. Garnish with an orange twist.

Recipe adapted from Regarding Cocktails.

Bottle Buy: Amarula

Even though my bar has grown quite a bit over the last few months, it's been a while since I properly introduced a new bottle. I'm particularly excited to introduce Amarula today because of a wonderful campaign they are running right now - keep reading for details!

A friend of mine who has spent a lot of time in Africa introduced me to Amarula several years ago. I fell instantly in love. It's a rich, silky cream liqueur that puts Bailey's to shame with its complex flavors and just the right amount of sweetness. If you think you don't like creamy dessert liqueurs, give Amarula a try before you give up.

Amarula is made from the fruit of the marula tree. This bright yellow fruit has a unique flavor described as a "citrus tang and a creamy, nutty taste." It only grows in sub-Saharan Africa and cannot be cultivated. The fruit is hand-harvested from wild trees to make the liqueur. The marula pulp is fermented, distilled, and aged in French oak barrels for two years. After this, cream is added to give Amarula its silky texture. The resulting liqueur has a rich and nutty flavor with hints of citrus and coconut. It's definitely sweet, but not tooth-achingly so, making it versatile enough to use in cocktails but also perfect to sip on its own.

Marula fruit is a favorite food for elephants. When the fruits are in season, elephants will travel for miles to find trees with ripe fruit. Amarula has long been dedicated to the conservation of these incredible animals, and this fall they have launched the "Don't Let Them Disappear" campaign to raise awareness and support elephant conservation. Until the end of the year, Amarula will donate $1 of every bottle sold to WildlifeDIRECT to support their efforts to save the African elephant. So now there's even more reason to try a bottle of Amarula! You may even find one without the elephant on its label, an illustration of the danger of elephants disappearing within our lifetime.

Amarula

Price: $24
Alcohol Content: 17%
Popular Cocktails: Often served on the rocks or with coffee

For a cream liqueur, Amarula is surprisingly versatile. It works well with tropical flavors like banana, coconut, and rum as well as with dessert flavors like vanilla, chocolate, and coffee. I decided to play with this a bit in my first Amarula cocktail, the Savannah Sunrise: Amarula, dark rum, and Giffard Banane du Bresil (a banana liqueur) served over coffee ice cubes. The rum and Banane du Bresil bring out the more citrusy, tropical notes in the Amarula, but as the coffee ice cubes melt, they change the character of the drink and emphasize the sweetness of the liqueur and the caramel and vanilla notes from the aging process.

Plus, I made the coffee ice in these adorable elephant-shaped ice cube molds that Amarula sent me. It just doesn't get any cuter.

Savannah Sunrise

1 1/2 oz. Amarula
1 1/2 oz. dark rum
3/4 oz. Giffard Banane du Bresil
Coffee ice cubes

Combine Amarula, rum, and Banane du Bresil in a mixing glass with ice and stir briefly until chilled. Strain into a rocks glass over the coffee ice cubes.

You basically can't work with something as decadent as Amarula and not make a dessert drink. It's absolutely heavenly served over vanilla ice cream, so it seemed pretty clear that a boozy milkshake was the way to go. A little bourbon goes great with the vanilla and adds some depth and caramel flavor. It's so ridiculously good.

I garnished the milkshake with whipped cream and edible gold leaf, because why not?

Amarula Milkshake

2 scoops vanilla ice cream
1 oz. Amarula
1/2 oz. bourbon

Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Pour into a glass and top with whipped cream.

Props and liqueur supplied by Amarula; copper straws and strainer from Viski.

Teenage Riot

A couple of weeks after Luke was born, my parents came up to Boston to help us out. We instituted a pretty regular cocktail hour in the evenings - much needed after a day of dealing with a crying baby. My Dad loves Manhattans and Boulevardiers, so I started suggesting some other cocktails for them to try. Before long, a definite theme emerged - we were working our way through all my recipes with gin or whiskey, vermouth, and an amaro. We made Little Italys, Black Manhattans, Negronis, and Montenegronis. The Lucien Gaudin slipped in. I wish there was a general name for this formula, because this combination - specifically with bourbon and sweet vermouth - is definitely my favorite sort of cocktail.

Eventually I thought we ought to switch it up a bit, and I suggested the Teenage Riot. I first heard of this cocktail when the folks at Tipple & Nosh posted their riff on the recipe on Instagram. I didn't have the Cynar 70 and Madeira to make their version, but the original sounded right up my alley - my favorite whiskey/vermouth/amaro combo with some Amontillado sherry and orange bitters to boot.

Sure enough, I loved this drink. It has a beautiful citrus aroma. When you sip, you first get the bite of the rye, then the rich fruity, nutty flavor of the sherry and the Cynar, which stretches into a bitterness at the end. It would be interesting with sweet vermouth, but using dry keeps it lighter and balances things out. It's a beautifully crafted cocktail, and it's going on my list of favorites.

History: The Teenage Riot comes from Tonia Guffey of Dram, Flatiron Lounge, and Lani Kai in New York City. She presumably named it after the song by Sonic Youth.

Teenage Riot

1 1/2 oz. rye whiskey
1 1/2 oz. Cynar
1/2 oz. dry vermouth
1/2 oz. Amontillado sherry
2 dashes orange bitters

Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass with ice and stir until chilled. Strain into a coupe and garnish with a lemon twist.

Recipe from Gaz Regan's 2011 Annual Manual for Bartenders via Cocktail Virgin Slut.

Old Fashioneds with Maker's 46

Last week, Maker's Mark invited me to participate in their Father's Day webinar. Pamela Wiznitzer teamed up with David Shapiro of Trunk Club in Manhattan to help us make some cocktails and come up with some creative Father's Day gifts. In addition to showing us several ways to wrap a Maker's Mark bottle (my personal favorite was tying a bowtie around it and gifting them both), Pam showed us how to make a couple of different Old Fashioned recipes with Maker's 46. At first I thought, "Well, I know how to make an Old Fashioned." But then I realized that (a) my currently-posted Old Fashioned recipe is a bit old and contains a lot more "fruit salad" than I prefer these days, and (b) Pam had some pretty great ideas on how to make an excellent cocktail, all of which are below.

I'm usually 1,500 miles away from my dad, and until this year my husband could only be considered a father to our adorable but badly-behaved dog, so I was really excited that my dad was coming up to Boston this past weekend and we could have a belated Father (and Father-to-be)'s day celebration with some Old Fashioneds. I set up all the ingredients we'd need for the two recipes Pam showed us and mixed up some drinks for the two of the most important men in my life (the third being the tiny one doing somersaults in my uterus right now). My dad also brought his incredibly nice Canon 6D and all of his expertise with Lightroom, so we got some great photos of the process!

Maker's Mark can make for a very special Old Fashioned. I personally love using bourbon instead of rye, and as a wheated bourbon, Maker's is particularly sweet and rich. We made these cocktails with Maker's 46, a special bottle from Maker's Mark that is aged for 2-3 more months with additional French oak staves. It gives the Maker's a more intense flavor, rich with caramel, spice, vanilla, and toasted oak. The distillers experimented with several different barrels for the special bourbon, and the 46th was the one that worked - thus Maker's 46.

For the first Old Fashioned, Pam kept it classic with Angostura bitters and regular simple syrup (1:1 ratio of sugar and water, either simmered and cooled or - as Pam suggested if you're pinched for time - shaken together in a mason jar until the sugar dissolves). Where she surprised me was suggesting a lemon twist instead of the usual orange twist. At first I was aghast - isn't that sacrilegious or something?? But she said it could really brighten up the flavors of the bourbon, and she was completely right. It was a nice twist on my usual recipe (no pun intended).

For the second recipe, Pam used two really excellent ingredients: Cocktail & Son's Spiced Demerara Syrup, which I've tried before and loved, and 18.21 Barrel Aged Havana & Hyde bitters, which were new to me but are going to quickly became a favorite in my bar. This Old Fashioned was an entirely different experience, full of spice and smoke. An orange twist and star anise were the perfect garnish.

The dads had a great time catching up and enjoying the Old Fashioneds. I'm really lucky that my son is going to grow up with two such wonderful men in his life!

Simple Old Fashioned

2 oz. bourbon (Maker's 46 recommended)
2 dashes bitters
2 barspoons simple syrup
Lemon twist

In a mixing glass, combine bitters, simple syrup, and bourbon. Fill the glass with ice, stir briefly, and strain into an Old Fashioned glass over one large ice cube. Twist a lemon peel over the glass, rub it along the sides, and drop it in. Alternatively, you can build the drink in your glass.

Spiced Old Fashioned

2 oz. bourbon (Maker's 46 recommended)
9 drops 18.21 Havana & Hyde bitters (or other barrel-aged bitters)
1 barspoon Cocktail & Sons Spiced Demerara Syrup
Orange twist
Star anise

Combine bitters, syrup, and bourbon in a mixing glass. Add ice and stir briefly. Strain into an Old Fashioned glass over one large ice cube. Squeeze an orange peel over the glass, rub it along the sides, and drop it in. Garnish with star anise. Alternatively, you can build the cocktail in your glass.

Mixology Monday: Wake the Dead

This is a sad post to write - my contribution to the very last Mixology Monday. As Fred writes in his announcement post, participation has been flagging in recent months, and the MxMo website locking him out seemed to be a sign that it was time to end the online cocktail party's 11-year run. I'm really glad I got to participate in so many of these events and even host one last month. It's been fun, inspiring, and a great way to connect with other cocktail nerds.

And so, fittingly, the theme for the final Mixology Monday is Irish Wake. Fred has encouraged us to make a cocktail using Irish Whiskey and/or to talk about a time in our lives where drinks helped with the grieving process. I'm quite lucky to have had few friends or family members to grieve in my adult life, so I don't really have a story to share. But I will happily pull out a bottle of Irish Whiskey and help give Mixology Monday a proper sendoff.

I don't use Irish Whiskey much, reaching instead for rye, bourbon, or Scotch. The only bottle I have is GrandTen's South Boston Irish Whiskey, which is really lovely but tends to go overlooked in my bar. I mostly pull it out when recipes specifically call for Irish Whiskey, such as in the Cooper Union or a classic Irish Coffee, and I've never used it in a recipe of my own.

That Irish Coffee was still fresh in my mind when I mixed up this simple Irish Whiskey cocktail. Some coffee liqueur, a dash of Allspice Dram, and a bit of Demerara syrup made for a spirit-forward tribute to the winter staple. It's rich and sweet and strong, with enough coffee in it to - maybe - wake the dead.

I recommend reaching for a coffee liqueur that's not very sweet for this recipe - two I definitely recommend but that might be tough to find in most places are Durham Distillery's Damn Fine Coffee Liqueur and Seymour's Coffee Liqueur from Boston Harbor Distillery. I haven't tried St. George's Nola Coffee Liqueur, but since everything they make is top-notch, I bet it would be quite good as well. If you must use Kahlua or something similarly sweet (nothing against Kahlua, I actually quite like it), reduce the Demerara syrup accordingly.

So here's to 116 months of Mixology Monday. Fred, thanks for keeping the party going so long.

Wake the Dead

2 oz. Irish Whiskey
1 oz. coffee liqueur (Damn Fine Coffee Liqueur)
1/4 oz. Allspice Dram
1/2 oz. Demerara syrup*

Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass with ice and stir until chilled. Strain into a Nick & Nora glass and garnish with star anise. Raise a toast to Mixology Monday - may it rest in peace.

*For Demerara syrup, combine 2 parts Demerara sugar with 1 part water in a saucepan and simmer, stirring, until sugar is dissolved. Let cool before using.

Devil's Backbone

Before I talk about today's cocktail, some shameless self-promotion: a couple of weeks ago I submitted my Mediterranean Gimlet recipe to Nautical Gin's Gimlet contest, and now voting has begun. Check out all the entries on Nautical Gin's Facebook page and vote for your favorite by giving it a "like." You can find my recipe here - I'd appreciate your votes!

Whenever I'm feeling uninspired or I'm not sure what cocktail to make, I head over to Fred Yarm's blog Cocktail Virgin Slut. It's an incredible database of recipes - Fred posts at least one basically every day - and each one is accompanied by historical details, expert tasting notes, and often good suggestions for substituting the more unusual ingredients. A clickable list of spirits on the side of the page allows you to pick at least one thing you definitely want in your drink, helping to narrow down the vast number of recipes on the blog.

I was using this feature, browsing through the recipes that used amaro, when I came across the Devil's Backbone. It was really too intriguing to pass up. Two bitter liqueurs (Averna and Gran Classico) and a whole half ounce of peaty Scotch promised for a pretty intense cocktail. It seemed right up my alley.

The Devil's Backbone smells intensely smokey with citrusy undertones. It's sweet and citrusy at the beginning of your sip, and then all the bitterness hits you, blending with smoke and peat at the end. It's big and complex and really wonderful - one of the best new cocktails I've made in a while.

If you're lacking some of the ingredients in this recipe, don't despair! You've got some options. For the Scotch, anything with a lot of smoke and peat will do - some examples are Laphroig, Lagavulin, Caol Ila, and Ardbeg. I used Compass Box's Peat Monster, which is a blended Scotch that I got for my peat-crazy husband - it's quite good. You could try subbing Amaro Montenegro or maybe Ramazzotti for the Amaro Averna. And Campari is a decent substitute for the Gran Classico; Fred used Campari when he made this drink.

History: Fred got this recipe from The Complete Cocktail Manual by Lou Bustamante, but it was originally created by Chris Lane at Lolinda in San Francisco. The idea behind the recipe was to use two whiskeys, two amari, and two types of bitters.

Devil's Backbone

1 oz. rye whiskey
1/2 oz. smoky single malt Scotch
3/4 oz. Averna
1/2 oz. Gran Classico
1 dash Angostura bitters
1 dash orange bitters

Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass with ice and stir until chilled. Strain into a coupe and garnish with an orange twist.

Recipe from Cocktail Virgin Slut.

Little Italy

Howdy from Texas! If you didn't already know, my day job is working as a postdoc in ornithology and evolutionary biology at Harvard. My lab is doing a little collecting trip near Lubbock this week to get some bird specimens and tissues for the museum. We're staying at a lovely ranch outside of town. No cocktails here, so all I can do is wistfully look at these photos. But we've seen some great birds. :-)

If I had to choose a cocktail to drink right now, it would probably be this one. Whiskey + sweet vermouth + amaro is one of my favorite cocktail combinations. The Boulevardier is the best known example of this I can think of, and every now and then I'll come across another "established" recipe that uses a similar formula, like the Black Manhattan. But for the most part it seems like a very DIY sort of thing. I love trying different amari with my favorite bourbon or rye and sweet vermouth. There's no perfect recipe, because the flavor is going to be different every time - I usually have to tweak the proportions a bit to get it right. So I do appreciate when someone else does the work for me, as Audrey Saunders did with the Little Italy.

Like my other whiskey/vermouth/amaro cocktails, the Little Italy is basically a riff on the Manhattan, this time with Cynar instead of the usual Angostura bitters (Cynar is an Italian liqueur, thus the name). Not too sweet or too bitter, Cynar adds a wonderful complexity to a classic cocktail. The flavor is reminiscent of a Manhattan but slightly smoother and more herbaceous. I'd personally prefer one of these any day!

History: The Little Italy was invented in 2005 by Audrey Saunders of Pegu Club in New York. Two other favorites of mine that she created are the Old Cuban and the French Pearl - she really has a way of developing simple, elegant recipes that are instant classics.

Styling Notes: the cocktail pick is from Muddle & Stir and the Nick & Nora glass is from The Boston Shaker.

Little Italy

1 1/2 oz. rye whiskey
3/4 oz. sweet vermouth
1/2 oz. Cynar

Combine ingredients in a mixing glass with ice and stir until chilled. Strain into a Nick & Nora glass and garnish with two* brandied cherries on a pick.

*I recently learned that it's an Italian superstition that an even number of garnishes is bad luck. But the Little Italy recipe specifies two cherries. Maybe it's tempting fate; add a third if you want to be sure.

Recipe from Imbibe.

Mixology Monday: The Innocents Abroad

Hello from Louisiana! GarnishGuy and I are back home until Christmas, spending time with family and eating far more than we ought to. We're hoping to sneak away to New Orleans later in the week to celebrate our anniversary (eight years!) and check out some bars. Until then, we've been having fun experimenting with the contents of my parents' liquor cabinet, which has definitely grown since I started this blog! Last night's cocktails were, appropriately, the De La Louisiane and the Vieux Carre - both big hits.

Since we were pretty busy leading up to our trip, I didn't have much time to experiment with cocktails for this month's Mixology Monday. Luckily, the theme of this month's challenge, hosted by Stacey Markow, is digestifs. And I've had an absolutely fantastic recipe for a digestif that I've been looking forward to sharing. It's not an original recipe, but it's so good I can't resist sharing it for this challenge.

There's an excellent new restaurant in Boston's South End called SRV. It's a "Venetian-style Bacaro and wine bar" from the folks behind The Salty Pig and Canary Square, two of our favorite spots. We first went there for a drink while we waited for a table at Toro. We ordered a couple of cocktails and several of their bar bites, and we were really blown away. The bar snacks were ridiculously good: salt cod brandade on black bread with herbs, soft boiled quail eggs with white anchovies and a crunchy garlic pangrattato, grilled octopus with pine nuts and preserved lemon... I need to stop talking about this, I'm making myself really hungry right now.

The cocktail menu at SRV is heavy on amari and vermouth, which I love. They have a vermouth of the day ("We always drink to world peace") and some really great cocktails. One of these is The Innocents Abroad: Fighting Cock bourbon, Amaro Nonino, Gran Classico, and Kina L'Aero D'Or. It's been a while since I was so blown away by a cocktail that I thought, "I HAVE to make this at home," but that was what I thought about The Innocents Abroad, and I didn't really care how many bottles of liquor I needed to buy (three, it turned out - four if I wanted to use the same bourbon). On our second visit, I worked up the courage to ask the bartender for the recipe, which he happily shared. I hope they won't mind me re-posting it here, so that others can know the joy of this wonderful drink.

The Innocents Abroad is a perfect digestif. We recently made it after dinner for a couple of friends, and it was wonderful: sweet with just enough bitterness. It has an almost syrupy texture, thick on your tongue. It's one of those cocktails where the ingredients knit together so perfectly and tightly that it's hard to pick them all out. It's nutty, citrusy, and herbal, with the lovely flavor of the Amaro Nonino in the middle of your sip and the distinctive bitterness of the Gran Classico and Kina L'Aero at the end. It's definitely one of the best cocktails I've tried this year.

History: This cocktail was created for SRV by David Spielburg. According to this article, it's a something of a riff on the Paper Plane. I imagine it must have been named after the book The Innocents Abroad, or the New Pilgrim's Progress by Mark Twain, which tells the story of his travels through Europe and the Holy Land on a retired Civil War ship.

The Innocents Abroad

1 1/2 oz. bourbon (Fighting Cock recommended)
3/4 oz. Amaro Nonino
1/2 oz. Gran Classico
1/2 oz. Kina L'Aero D'Or

Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass with ice and stir until chilled. Strain into an Old Fashioned glass and garnish with a lemon twist.

Recipe courtesy of SRV.

Hotel Belvedere

I'm a little late, but I should mention that the roundup for November's Mixology Monday has been posted over at Doc Elliot's Mixology! Check it out for eight brunch-appropriate recipes that will meet all your day-drinking needs. My contribution to the list was the Bombay Sour, which was inspired by my bottle of Black Cloud Saffron Mango bitters. It was the third drink I made with my Black Cloud sampler pack, and today I've got a fourth. Only bottle to go! I found all the flavors in the pack very inspiring, but when I tasted the Charred Cedar bitters, I was really blown away. They've got an incredible woody, smoky flavor that is amazing with bourbon. They make a mean Old Fashioned, but I was looking forward to tailoring a cocktail specifically for these awesome bitters.

I definitely wanted to pair the bitters with bourbon, and I liked the idea of them with Benedictine. This put me in mind of a drink from The PDT Cocktail Book I made almost exactly a year ago called the Hotel D'Alsace, made with Irish whiskey, Benedictine, and Cointreau. I decided to work with the recipe to include the bitters and make it a bit more to my taste, as I found the Hotel D'Alsace a little too sweet. I replaced the Irish whiskey with bourbon and the Cointreau with orange bitters. The result is rich, sweet, herbaceous, and a bit smoky. I made the first one in a Glencairn glass because it was what I had clean and nearby, and I liked the way the shape of the glass brought the smell of the cedar to your nose and forced you to get a good whiff of the rosemary. I decided to keep it in a tulip-shaped glass.

Since this version of the Hotel D'Alsace has charred cedar and burnt rosemary, I started thinking about ruined hotels when it came time to name it. I was reminded of an incredible experience my husband and I had in Croatia when we were traveling after college. We were exploring the Old City of Dubrovnik (now popularized for its role as King's Landing in Game of Thrones). Looking out from the harbor, you can see how the coast curves around slightly to the southeast, forming a small peninsula. On its tip was a big, beautiful building, and we wondered what it might be. Later, we walked a ways up into the hills surrounding the city to get an aerial view of the town and decided to walk there and see what it was.

As we got closer, we realized that while the building had once been beautiful, it was now completely in ruins. We had stumbled upon the ruin of the Hotel Belvedere, a luxurious hotel that was destroyed by the Yugoslav People’s Army on October 3, 1991, during the Siege of Dubrovnik.

The Hotel Belvedere - you can see why we weren't aware it was in ruins at first. Photo from Untapped Cities.

We wandered around for a while, exploring the hollow buildings and taking photographs. The gutted buildings are covered in graffiti and stained with rust. It was such a sad embodiment of the region as a whole, a real and chilling reminder of the violence that had occurred there not so long ago.

To this day I'm surprised the ruin was so empty, and that we hadn't heard about it before stumbling upon it. It's such a prominent landmark when you look out from Dubrovnik. If you Google it, you can find a few blogs where other travelers describe exploring the ruins, and there are spectacular photos here, here, and here. Part of it was used for the battle between Prince Oberon and the Mountain in Game of Thrones. I was happy to find an article that says the ruin was recently purchased by a Russian billionaire who is going to turn it into a luxury hotel once again. As interesting as the ruins were, they were a monument to a terrible conflict, and I'm glad the region is healing and moving on.

The Hotel Belvedere's sign in the ruins. Photo from Untapped Cities by Thomas Löbig.

Finding the Hotel Belvedere was one of the more memorable parts of our time in Croatia, and I think it makes a fitting name for this cocktail. Whereas Paris' Hotel D'Alsace is bright and sweet, the Hotel Belvedere is charred and bitter - but still elegant and strong.

Hotel Belvedere

2 oz. bourbon
1/2 oz. Benedictine
1/2 dropper Black Cloud Charred Cedar Bitters
1 dash orange bitters

Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass with ice and stir until chilled. Strain into a tulip-shaped glass and garnish with a sprig of rosemary. Briefly burn the tip of the rosemary so that it is smoky and fragrant.