Sultry Peruvian

These days i’m on the look for cocktails including pisco, and the F&W magazine website is always a great start. I chose some nice sounding recipe: Vermouth Sin Nombre for tonight but Wegmans had only blood oranges. I hesitantly picked one but actually it was a perfect choice!
With just one more change – cinnamon infused [...]

Read Full Post »

Love Unit 405

My variation on the Ryan Magarian’s Love Unit theme resulted in a truly great concoction: after careful consideration of different basic formulas i modified his recipe using yellow bell pepper instead of red, creme de cacao instead of vanilla rum, changing some ratios and skipping sugar syrup altogether – creme de cacao is sweet enough…
Now [...]

Read Full Post »

Donna Corleone

A while ago i was infatuated with making various infusions. One of the results was grappa infused with chamomile and dried apricots.
So when i stumbled on a recipe that sounded nice and involved grappa i decided to give it a try.
Well this was one of the tastiest drinks i ever made! Crazy aromatic… Intoxicating… Over [...]

Read Full Post »

Tarragon Snap-Pea irinha!

As one might notice i’m into unusual ingredients in cocktails. And what can be more unusual than snap peas! Introducing tarragon snap-pea irinha: a smart riff on caipirinha:

The original recipe didn’t call for any herbs but to me pea just called for either mint (classic) or tarragon. Here is my formula but all credit [...]

Read Full Post »

Sangre de Frambuesa

Still in a state of fascination with basil-flavored drinks.
Also a sudden urge to use some raspberry vinegar (artisanal no less!), half-empty bottle of it collecting the dust in my pantry (well, how many beet salads one can make).
The point of departure was Sangre de Fresa from the excellent Art of the Bar book. And it [...]

Read Full Post »

Backyard Delight

ok so the truth is that lovage is not the only herb that survives in my backyard – basil does well too and here’s the proof:

now somewhere along the way i got tired of basil as a ubiquitous salad herb: that’s why it was such a relief to discover its great flavor value in cocktails!
I’ve [...]

Read Full Post »

Lovagely

I’m a poor gardener: and the only plant that hasn’t failed me is lovage. It comes back year after year, just begging to be used more.
So here’s to you lovage!

A simple gin and tonic base. Dash of Peychaud bitters. A muddled celery stalk. Lovage straw adds its subtle anise/celery flavor. Quite an elegant drink.

Read Full Post »

Flowers of Sunset

Wrapping up a great Sunday: a small elegant Aperol drink that miraculously matches the color of the sunset.
Audrey Saunders christened her cocktail the Aperol Sunset, a wordplay on the well-known Tequila Sunrise…
My variations on her theme became Rita Sunset

and Rosa Sunset

Read Full Post »

Kamikaze Sunrise

i can’t bring myself using vodka in cocktails; there are so many interesting base spirits out there that vodka seems like a waste… I know – empty canvas and stuff, but my palette (pun not intended) is limited…
So i worked from the classical kamikaze formula but made it with tequila. And some lemon thyme.

nice [...]

Read Full Post »

Poquito Picante

A great list of ingredients and a clever name. Add to this a
recommendation from a friend and the drink of the night is pretty much sealed.

The original recipe calls for Tanqueray but Hendricks works well considering its obvious cucumber background. The drink is a bit sweet but so pleasantly so…
Ingredients in my version:
6 to [...]

Read Full Post »