:: fred's picks for the top cocktails of 2025 ::

At the end of 2010, someone asked what my favorite drink of the year was, and I lacked an answer at first for there were so many good options to chose from. My choices were influenced by two factors – tastiness and uniqueness; it had to be both memorable and worth repeating. In past years, I did one post for drinks that I had out at bars and one post for drinks that I had at home; however, as I found myself going out less due to my work schedule and other factors, I cut it down to one post back in 2018. Each month here was selected for when the drink post appeared and not when it was enjoyed (unlike my real time Instagram account, I have a two week delay here before it goes live to give myself an ample window to write). Without further ado, here is the sixteenth annual installment of my best drinks for the year with a pair of runner ups.

January: The month with its cold, blustery winds was matched by a lot of stirred instead of citrusy cocktails. It was tough to pick a top drink, but I gave the award to Elayne Duff's Bienvenidos, an agave bitter-banana number from the updated The Tequila Ambassador from Wonk Press. Given the nod for second and third was Rosewater in Houston's Road to Ruin, a big, burly, and bitter number that came with an intriguing warning that was close to the top spot, and the Fireside Chat that was a maple-tinged Old Fashioned with the 1910's mezcal-Cognac base from Clyde's in Alexandria, Virginia.

February: The top choice for February went to the most gentle Malört drink I had all year with a solid ounce and a half – namely, the Wake Up Call at Shame & Regret in Colorado Springs. Bronze and silver in no particular order are the bitter Mane of Needles by Jason O'Bryan at URBN in San Diego as a Boulevardier riff on The Violet Hour's Autumn Negroni, and the Sidewinder, an apple-maple take on the Rattlesnake – the rye-sugar egg white Sour from The Savoy Cocktail Book. March: For March, a rather elegant Martini riff that spun in touches of Jamaican rum and banana liqueur, the Portorico from the 1000 Misture book from 1936, was a favorite, and I enjoyed serving it to my regulars who went off-menu with dealer's choice at the C-Side Bar. Honorable mention to Backbar's Right Paw of Destiny as a sherry and Montenegro twist on the neo-classic Right Hand, and to Butcher Chef's Patty O'Cann as a Scotch-Irish whiskey mashup of a Preakness and a Little Italy.

April: The Mohu as a Scotch-Bourbon Creole variation of sorts from the private members-only club The Poodle Room in Las Vegas caught my attention for the month. Urban Grub's dual amari Black Manhattan, the Spaghetti Western and Butcher Chef's apple-tinged Prospector Cocktail-style drink, the Forbidden Forest, were solid sippers too. May: I really enjoyed the Anyone's Shadow from Portland's Rum Club so much that it inspired me to riff on it with the Souls of the Mountain a few days later. May is also the month when my mint patch returns, so second tier mention went to Craig Herman's cribbage-Tiki (And) Knobs is Thirteen redux of the Ward 8, and also tropical but not citrussy with Brian Maxwell's Right Hand riff, Save the Last Dance.

June: I'll call June a draw with one shaken: an apple brandy-rum Swedish punch number called the Lost Generation at Bygone in Baltimore, and one stirred: a bitter fruity tequila drink dubbed Isla Bonita at Good Company in St. Louis. July: July was a winner of tropical-tiki month with top pick to Raine's Law Room's Bright Side as a banana-Armagnac Rye-Tai. Also delicious were Erick Castro's tequila-based Tiger's Claw at Gilly's and the complex Mistah Bittah Hai by Jacoby Morciglio at Adrift Tiki Bar in Denver.

August: August was a rather tough month to choose with a lot of tropical winners (as well as a few stirred ones as well). However, the Samson Swizzle by Samson Miller at the Zombie Village took the Queen's Park Swizzle into the tiki waters got my attention. Close second and third (in no order) were one of the many Coco Lopez drinks that I made, the Barrio Tropical at Good Company in St. Louis (the Piña Verde might have gotten the mention but it is already well known and Green Chartreuse is too difficult to source right now to promote an ounce and a half at a time), and a Meaghan Dorman's Averna for curaçao Mai Tai riff called Across the Pacific. September: The simple elegance of the Mexico Navy by Jordan Valls at Palomar in Portland read like a ginger Infante gets top merits for September; a few weeks later in October, I had a chance to get a drink from Jordan at Palomar during Portland Cocktail Week. A cool coffee-chile liqueur Coco Lopez number, the Aztec Warrior by Chad Austin in his Pandemic-era Everyone Has a F*cking Cocktail Book, and a great nightcap called the Essenza Vintage at Jacksonville's Cataluna were definitely notable.

October: The most memorable drink of the month was at a Ford's Gin-sponsored seminar at Portland Cocktail Week where they served a 3 Martini Lunch; riffing on my favorite Martini riff, the Tuxedo #2, to yield the Velvet Tuxedo No. 2 with the added fruit complexity and richness of sloe gin was a winner. Tavolota's bitter-tropical tequila Golden Eagle and the over-the-top Death Daiquiri with pineapple syrup from Rosewater in Houston need pointing out too. November: I may have been skewed by the fact that the Elected Official was created by my Instagram friend Tim Kirkland as a tribute drink inspired by my style, but it was an complex sipper with a split base, two modifiers, and bitters. November did keep tropical going with Lost Lake's No Bye/No Aloha that seemed like a Saturn gussied up in a variety of ways, and also worth mentioning was La Factoria in Puerto Rico's Hijos de Borinquen as a complex Daiquiri of sorts that fell between the Cuban Anole and the Periodista.

December: Another Saturn-inspired recipe caught my attention to place first for December with the Beyond the Solar System with rye whiskey, cinnamon, and an apple garnish to mix things up. Nick Mallia's Day For Night as a cucumber riff on the White Negroni at Bar Lunette and the Buffalo Soldier at Nineteen at TPC Sawgrass in Florida as a tequila-Bourbon Old Fashioned played good supporting roles for the month.

Some of my favorite creations not mentioned in yesterday's year end round-up: There were some drinks that I did not mention in my other roundup that got attention on Instagram including my Lion's Tail taken through a New England lens called the Bobcat's Tail, my Overpowered by Funk that I crafted for The Clash cocktail biopic, the Montebank as a Scotch-apple-amaro number, and my St. Mark's Street tribute of Save the Robots. It was great seeing other people in my feed taking the time to give my recipes a try this year! And below is a photo of my Doctor Yah-Yah as a Drink of Laughter and Forgetting meets a Nui-Nui. 2025 was definitely a great year for cocktails even if the trend of not going out on the town as much is still a thing for me. My job last year did not provide a lot of spare spending cash, and many of the bars in town are still making drinks too complicated to write up (still a hold over from the Pandemic as folks are wanting something they cannot make at their elevated home bars). Overall, I was able to narrow down the 12 months into 35 recipes that ranged from bitter stirred drinks to garnished up tropical ones, and that is around the top ten percent of posts on here for the year. Best wishes for 2026 both in your glass and in your life. Cheers!

:: fred's top 10 cocktail moments of 2025 ::

Back in 2010, someone asked what my favorite cocktail that year was, and I decided not only to start a list of my favorite drinks, but I decided to list the top moments of the previous 12 months. So to continue with the tradition, here is the 16th annual installment:

1. Changed jobs.
After helping to open the C-Side Bar in October 2024, I decided to leave in November 2025 to seek out adventures that would give me more hours, more money, and more purpose. Too many of the shifts were solo ones (not the original plan, but it was rarely busy enough for duo shifts which put a crimp into the number of hours I got scheduled for). It never felt like a team and more like a solo sport (save for the fact that all my night efforts to make money were split with the day time bartender). When it was time to leave, I reached out to my contact at the local tiki wonderland Wusong Road after seeing a job ad for a bartender there. That was countered by an offer to help open up their new space, the Mexican-themed Gato Exotico, on the otherside of the mall from the C-Side. I started there at the latter half of November to help set the place up and to do training, and we opened on Black Friday and are rounding out our 5th week in a few days. It is great to be part of a team again and feel part of growing a community of regulars. Here is a photo that a friend took during our soft opening during the Boston Tiki Society event: 2. Did some writing.
Since my job at the C-Side Bar was not paying the bills, I sought out freelance work for a bit. I wrote two more articles for Men's Journal and would have written more but my editor left for another magazine that was not liquor related; I wrote a history of Bock beer with bottle suggestions for each of the styles, and a piece on my favorite Canadian whisky: Lot 40 Rye. I wrote another article for Edible Boston that began with a pitch on rhubarb drinks for Spring that ended up being an article on local amaro options for the Summer issue (included a rhubarb-root liqueur). The biggest honor was getting my name in the bylines of Punch with the Georgetown Club that I remastered from the work of Charles H. Baker Jr.'s South American Gentleman's Companion for the menu at Loyal Nine years ago. Besides my Men's Journal editor leaving, I got stalled out when one publication accepted my pitch and later the article I submitted, but continuously delayed publication with mumblings that the photos were not good enough. This was a band retrospective and a collection bartender-submitted recipes and photos for a The Clash cocktail biopic. I ended up requesting the right to publishing it elsewhere since they had never delivered payment to own the piece. In addition, while I did not get the byline for these three articles, I was either the only or one of the two or three people quoted extensively in these articles in The Manual on best Bourbons for beginners, debunking cocktail myths, and what makes a winter beer. Also, I had my Hot Buttered Cider recipe published in issue #1 of the local 'zine The North of the Charles Revue.
3. Gave talks and wrote essays. I had two opportunities to speak in public this year. The first was in January when a bar guest at Josephine had invited me to give a talk in Colorado Springs for a historic preservation society that was a year and a half in the making. I presented a 44 slide Powerpoint for a 75 minute session at altitude (I practiced the talk at 60 feet above sea level and did not realize how much less oxygen there is at 6000 feet) on the intangible heritage of cocktails. I also made two drinks from the talk, namely Jerry Thomas' Saratoga and Brother Cleve's Ward Nine, at the happy hour afterwards. The second opportunity was in September when I participated in a Boston Rum Week panel discussion on "The Anatomy of Rum Cocktails: Choices, Trends and Culture in a Glass" with moderator Garnett Philip and co-panelists Shannon Mustipher and Katie Stryjewski. Speaking of rum, I finished up a historical piece on the distillery in Somerville, Massachusetts, about a mile from my house that lasted from the early 1880s until Prohibition. The publication of historical maps online gave the last bits to a story that began for me around 16 years before. I also wrote an essay on how to talk to your bar hero after returning home from Portland Cocktail Week this year. 4. Traveled a little
As I alluded to above, I ventured to Colorado Springs for two nights to give a talk. The first night, I visited a few local breweries (check out the ornate historic bar by clicking on the photo in my Untappd check-in at Phantom Canyon Brewing Company). After my talk on the second day, I hit 3 cocktail bars after dinner starting with Shame & Regret where I had this Malört drink. That bartender convinced me to go to Cocktails After Dusk where she introduced me (after doing a shot with the bartender there). And my final stop (which had been recommended by multiple people) was Chiba, a Japanese cyberpunk bar where I later met up with the bartender from the second bar after their shift. Wearing a Fernet Branca shift might have helped usher in that level of hospitality. In May, I traveled to Atlanta for the United States Bartenders' Guild (USBG) national meeting where I sat in on a number of great talks including a history of absinthe and its many uses in mixology by Darian Everding and Theodore Breaux that I wrote about in the Wide Eyed after being gifted the cocktail in an airline-friendly container. There were some great night time events with one of my favorites being at a hunting lodge-themed speakeasy called the Ranger Station for a Sazerac-sponsored event where I had the Tiger's Tale. Since the conference center was so far away from everything, I only hit one brewery on the way to the airport, Monday Night Brewing. My final bit of travel was in October for my third Portland Cocktail Week (2012 and 2022 were my other two). As a student, I had a full week of classes and great night time events including an over-the-top haunted house and yard done up by Campari. I also gave back by signing up to provide mentoring sessions; it started as 9 official ones that folks reserved in advance, and 3 more happened either on the fly or by messaging. It was also a great feeling to connect that week with folks in their 20s to remind me of the aspects of that time in my life including music and literature.

5. Created some drinks. I wrote up around 28 drinks created in 2025 in a variety of styles. There were Old Fashioned ones like the Devil's Disciple, Illegal Dance Moves, and Souls of the Mountain. Tropical ones like the Cobra's Tail, Bucking the Tiger, and The Nameless City. Manhattan- or Martini-like numbers like Mexico City Blues and Dream of the Lava Beds. Unusual Sours like the Black Hand Society, the Angostura-heavy Rogue's Romance, Ghost Rider, and the Lechuza. I even created a potential cocktail for Gato Exotico that got workshopped and improved upon called the Aztec Death Whistle. 6. My drinks got featured in videos, databases, articles, and books.
I think the most amusing of these was being featured on Spike's Breezeway Cocktail Hour on YouTubewhere they made fun of my name and mixed up my Jungle Grog (my 2018 recipe). My Cantinflas Mustache based off of Chris Elford's Sharpie Mustache with base spirits inspired by Phil Ward's Oaxacan Old Fashioned was featured on Difford's Guide -- my fourth drink to make it there but my first to earn Simon's 5 star rating! That recipe was also published in Bar & Restaurant News renamed as La Calavera Catrina for a Day of the Dead article. Also in Bar & Restaurant News, my Bornean Spiderhunter with Cynar for an article on low ABV drinks, my Horror Hotel for Halloween, and my Army Navy Grog for Memorial Day. Horror Hotel was also published in Clair McLafferty's Spooky Cocktails book in late Summer. Many of my recipes and recipes gathered from my site found their way into five of J.E. Clapham's books this year, including ones on Benedictine, Chartreuse volume 2, Cynar, Suze, and Smith & Cross.

7. Read a bit.
I finished 20 books this year. My favorites include The Tequila Ambassador by Tomas Estes and associates and republished in a grand larger format by Matt Pietrek's Wonk Press, and also a cultural, historical, and scientific overview in Agave Spirits: The Past, Present, and Future of Mezcals by Gary Paul Nabhan and David Suro Piñera. Wayne Curtis' The Great Walk was an intriguing treatise on social changes that also highlighted to me how good of a writer he is and how he has other interests besides cocktails and spirits. I rather enjoyed the cultural overview in Marni Davis' Jews and Booze: Becoming American in the Age of Prohibition and the hops-worthy overview in Breandan Kearney's The Hidden Beers of Belgium. And despite misreading this as "forager" when I first heard about it, I ended up purchasing it after a high school friend messages me to pick it up, namely The Absinthe Forger: A True Story of Deception, Betrayal, and the World’s Most Dangerous Spirit by Evan Rail. 8. Got over my dislike of competitions. Back in November 2014, I was beaten four times, twice in person and twice online, by the same bartender in 30 days especially with the Dipolomatico one where I was told that I had the best cocktail but the other bartender was more marketable. Competing in person costs money for ingredients and travel (and sometimes hotels), time off whether from relaxation or in giving up work shifts, and more. While there were positive aspects, I had also experienced a bit of negativity at competitions including trash talking that I really have no desire to be a part of. I laid off of competing save for email or web-based ones that did not require video submissions or canvassing for votes for almost 11 years. This Fall, I was tempted by the Mai Tai competition at Wusong Road and even schemed up a great recipe, but alas, I could not pull the trigger to submit a drink. However, when the Malört competition reared itself, I decided I wanted to do this to hang out with folks sick enough to love Malört that much and also for the t-shirt and other swag. I presented my Swedish Paralysis and did it up in tropical style. My goal was to make a good showing and a good drink all without nerves, and I succeeded. The judges also noted that and awarded me third place! I earned enough prize money to break even with the cost of my ingredients that included freshly made syrups and fruit juices. While second and third places were really close with a point difference, first place was awarded to the disciple of that 2014-era bartender. That part of the game did not change, but my attitude towards competitions did change and perhaps I will compete again if the theme and guidelines speak to me.

9. A good year for beer. Besides writing an article for Men's Journal on Bock and being quoted about winter beers, I visited 153 different breweries in all 6 New England States plus New York, Georgia, Oregon, and Colorado. Some memorable visits included a trip to Sasanoa Brewery on Westport Island in Maine after hearing an interview with the brewer on the All About Beer podcast about how he includes botanicals from his farm into his saisons; it was the furthest north in Maine that we had traveled for a brew. We did travel pretty far north in New Hampshire to hit Schilling, Wildbloom, and Rek-Lis. A few in Vermont like Bent Hill, Foley Brothers, and River Roost and a few in Connecticut like Fox Farm were gems. Some great first time visits were to Rejects (a punk-themed brewery), Canterbury Ale Works (with a Monty Python and British theme), Witch Doctor (where I bought Andrea a handmade voodoo zombie doll) and Dead Language Project in Connecticut, and Belleflower and Allagash in Portland. We got last beers shortly before a few closed including at Honest Weight, Smug, and Flying Dreams. I also volunteered and drank at the NERAX Cask Festival this Spring that I have worked for many seasons since my first in 2014, and I have also been enjoying cask beer at my local, the Olde Magoun Saloon, that has three cask engines flowing. 10. Bits and bobs.
The previous nine went so quickly, so here are a bunch of random things to fill the last slot. The above is the image produced by the Bartenders podcast for the session we recorded in mid-November for broadcast in mid-late February 2026. A discussion of moments in bartending, being a natural introvert and professional extrovert, and more. In USBG news, after I finished my second three year term in December 2024 with the Boston USBG chapter, I took a break due to burn out. Unfortunately, without me there, the chapter stagnated and the remaining leadership fell apart. I still went to the yearly national meeting as the only representative of the chapter (the other was Geo Thompson but he is considered part of the national board more than our chapter these days) and have been active in the national education committee. Eventually USBG National reached out if I could be on the chapter's board of directors as a placeholder and a mentor in case local leaders want to step up and guide the chapter. To kick-start things, I have organized a pair of early afternoon coffee sessions, a tour and tasting at a local distillery, and gin and aroma blending education class with Silent Pool Distillers at Darling. In addition, I had a great time giving back to the community by volunteering to work the Campari Day of Service this year at a women's shelter here in Boston and to assist at Speed Rack to help breast cancer charities. Overall, 2025 turned out to be a rather interesting year. I look forward to seeing where my new restaurant can take things, and I am anticipating a few adventures over the next 12 months. Cheers!

:: fred's picks for the top cocktails of 2024 ::

At the end of 2010, someone asked what my favorite drink of the year was, and I lacked an answer at first for there were so many good options to chose from. My choices were influenced by two factors – tastiness and uniqueness; it had to be both memorable and worth repeating. In past years, I did one post for drinks that I had out at bars and one post for drinks that I had at home; however, as I found myself going out less due to my work schedule and other factors, I cut it down to one post a few years ago. Each month here was selected for when the drink post appeared and not when it was enjoyed (unlike my real time Instagram account, I have a two week delay here before it goes live to give myself an ample window to write). Without further ado, here is the fifteenth annual installment of my best drinks for the year with a pair of runner ups.

January: The winner for the month was an easy pick with the Solomon Grundy by Los Angeles bartender Dan Long – it reminded me of Backbar's Scarecrow with a touch of Fernet shaping a gentle amaro, and it made my chef at Josephine rather happy when I made it for him as his nightcap. For runners up, one old and one new. The old is the New Victoria from the Café Royal Cocktail Book with a rye-apple brandy mix accented with passion fruit and banana that seemed like it would be more like 2017 than 1937. And the new is Lobo Saldado from Lion's Share in San Diego as another split-spirit drink of tequila-Cognac with maple and Benedictine; the tequila-maple combination fondly reminded me of drinks like Debbie Don't.

February: For top honors in February was the On the Avenue at Equal Measures as a Boulevardier of sorts with the rye and Campari split with Cognac and Cynar, respectively. Getting a nod were two elegant recipes: an Old Fashioned Besitos de Abuelita by Raised by Wolves with Pedro Ximenez and Sfumato as accents and Pouring Ribbon's Flip Little Gem Diner. March: I rather enjoyed the De La Louisiane-Remember the Maine mashup Louisiane and Maine by Todd Yard of Concocktails. For secondary mention with a great name was Plausible Deniability that reads like a Rusty Nail meets a Campari Sour; also, Teardrop Lounge's Hell or High Water that reminded me of a Clover Club in structure but with Irish Whiskey, peach, honey, and Benedictine.

April: Top pick for April was the Burrows in Disguise as a weird Scotch Boulevardier with a Drambuie in the mix at Blyth & Burrows in Portland, Maine. Two mezcal recipes also caught my attention that month – namely, Gasoline Boots at the Patterson House with Punt e Mes, Cynar, and Bendictine, and Castaneda's Companions with dry vermouth, Cynar, and Yellow Chartreuse. May: A 2016-era Eastern Standard recipe called After Midnight that reminded me of their Coup d'Etat crossed with Chuck Taggart's Hoskins (that appeared on one of their early menus) had a comforting familiarity. Two falernum drinks deserve some mention for May with Pyre of Minerva as a Laphroaig Toronto of sorts by Jacob Mentel while at Wormwood in San Diego, and Apropos Barbados as the Dorrance's rum egg white Sour with apricot.

June: Thieves in the Night as a mezcal-gin Julep sweetened by Braulio and maple from Death & Co.'s Welcome Home book was a delight. Two other drinks in June worthy of merit were the walnut banana bread Old Fashioned, The Man in the Yellow Hat, from Devon in NYC, and bitter fruity stirred drink, Ghosts of Graceland, fromPolite Provisions in San Diego. July: One of the most enjoyable drinks of the month was the Famous on Paper at The Violet Hour that read like a Naked and Famous made friends with a Paper Plane. July also offered up Ivy Mix's mashup of sorts of a Red Hook and Green Point with the Perfect BQE and Trick Dog's Baby Turtle as a delightful Tequila Sour from their Pantone menu.

August: I purchased Amaro Pasubio this past year, and Palomar's El Presidente riff used the blueberry wine-based amaro rather well. Two drinks that made my bottle of Ancho Reyes shine got seconds for August: Smith & Cross, honey, and Cynar in the No Woman, No Crime from Shameful Tiki in Toronto and mezcal, Punt e Mes, and bitter things in the Comanche Club from Raines Law Room. September: September had me appreciating both the name and ingredients of the Clever Visual Metaphor by Winnipeg bartender Nicole Cote that had a similar feel to January's Solomon Grundy. For honorable mention, Bourbon & Branch's Laphroaig Project still holds up, and Beckaly Frank's spicy Negroni, My Name Is Nobody, that she offered up to the A Quick Drink: The Speed Rack Guide to Winning Cocktails for Any Mood book (there are other variations out there that I did not make though) got my attention.

October: This was a tough month with more heavier hitters throughout. My pick is Daiquiris & Daisy's Chili Southside that displayed how Ancho Reyes at 80° proof could hold its own as a base spirit. Dutch Kill's Becherovka-containing Velvet Revolution and their quirky Hitman with Batavia Arrack were tasty. November: Liz Pittari's Halloween menu tribute to Hellraiser at Backbar called Pin(heads) and Needles was quirky yet delicious with mezcal, Braulio, and Zirbenz. For silver and bronze for the month in no particular order was the agave bitter stirred drink with a great tip of the hat to history of the Mina Loy from the now closed Park in Harvard Square; also, the cuteness of the name matched the flavor punch of the Stregasaurus from Smith in Seattle.

December: My pick of the month was Alcove's Negroni's transformative adventure to the Czech Republic called the Bullfinch Trio. For December's nod of approval, two good uses of Lustau's East India Solera Shery – namely, Baldwin & Son's Trading Co.'s Bluecollar/Brooklyn riff, Good Luck Grin, and Clover Club's rum Old Fashioned spiced with falernum and cinnamon, Lei'd to Rest.

Some of my favorite creations not mentioned in yesterday's year end round-up: I mentioned yesterday 7 of the drinks that I created that were hits on Instagram and KindredCocktails, so here are a few that I was proud of that might have gotten overlooked. The Devil's Kitchen was one that I crafted after looking over all of the Ancho Reyes Chile Liqueur pairings on the blog that turned out rather well. The agave-based This Is Not Berlin complemented the spirits with Cynar, grapefruit, and cinnamon flavors. The Opera Comique was essentially a Trident meets the Drink of Laughter and Forgetting, and the orange liqueur-Cynar duo from one drink inspired the Papa Was a Rodeo using the 1910's Cognac-mezcal base. Finally, the Cutty Sark crime tour of Boston that I helped organize led to the Jolly Jane named after one of the creepiest serial killers in our city. Overall, 2024 was a great year of recipes although I wish that time and finances made going out for drinks something that I could do more often. Regardless of the creeping prices, drinks out on the town are frequently too complicated to put into a blog post with all of the acidification, clarification, fat washing, batching, and other advanced techniques not to mention fewer off-the-shelf or commonly made ingredients. I understand that it is a trend prompted by awards and making places more unique (drinks only available there or when the bar does pop-ups elsewhere), but it does not translate well to a blog like this one. Luckily, there are still some places keeping it old school. Here, I was able to narrow down the 330+ recipes from others down to the top 12 and the top 36, so think of the above as the best 3% or 10% that I had this year. Indeed, I look forward to what 2025 brings to my home bar and bars across town. Cheers!

:: fred's top 10 cocktail moments of 2024 ::

Back in 2010, someone asked what my favorite cocktail that year was, and I decided not only to start a list of my favorite drinks, but I decided to list the top moments of the previous 12 months. So to continue with the tradition, here is the 15th annual installment:

1. Changed jobs.
I started 2024 still working at Josephine as the lead bartender since May 2023. I got a few drinks on the menu, created written recipes for things like our pickled onions (our chef did them for a while but never had ingredients, measurements, or protocol written before he left), trained some servers into bartenders, and more. When I was going away to Denver for the USBG national conference in June, I decided a month before that it was a good time to part ways, and I took the summer off. While I did not find a new role in September that I liked, I ended up joining the opening team at the C-Side Bar in Cambridge in October with the cocktail program being run by Ran Duan. Working a beverage-only bar in a food court taps into my volume experience at places like River Bar as well as the aesthetic-forward programs of Our Fathers and Josephine. A photo (below) of me making our signature C-Side Sling appeared on the front page of the Boston Globe and in a Boston-dot-com article. Hopefully, the finances work out to make it a worthwhile job situation. 2. Did some writing.
My brother forwarded me a Tweet for an editor of Men's Journal looking for articles on bargain whiskeys, and I pitched the idea of talking about the history and my appreciation of Old Grand-Dad Bonded and it got published in November. I just squeaked in a second article in that magazine (published late on December 29th) with this piece on Old Potrero, a curious single malt rye whiskey made by Fritz Maytag then of Anchor Brewing (Anchor Distilling has become Hotaling). Moreover, I reached out to Edible Boston earlier this year and got the opportunity to work with them for the Winter issue by talking about my love of hot buttered rum that I broadened into non-alcoholic options like hot buttered coffee and cloudy cider. Hopefully, I can expand out to a few other magazines in 2025 with this freelance work. Other than that, I got quoted in VinePair about the cult of Mellow Corn whiskey.

3. My drinks got featured in videos, databases, and articles.
While I do not currently have any input on the drink menu at my new job, my cocktail creations have been circulating on Instagram, Reddit, and more. Some of the notable one have been Bar & Restaurant News featuring my Queen of the Lava Beds for Valentine's Day and Algiers Point for their article on brandy and Cognac recipes. Robert Simonson included my Atta Boy meets Hank Panky mashup Atta Girl on his Substack's Gin Week. Difford's Guide also added Atta Girl to their recipe database along with my Our Fathers-era Gustin Gang with Simon Difford giving both recipes 4 1/2 stars out of 5. While a few of my drinks were included in Instagram reels and posts, I did not keep track of them, but I did note that Coach Vino included my Devil's Staircase, Painted Lady, and Sex Lives of Cannibals in his YouTube video series, Giulio's Bar featured my Devil's Own Mistress, and the Educated Barfly did a segment on drinks found in my second book Boston Cocktails: Drunk & Told. Finally, many of my recipes were featured in five of J.E. Clapham's books about Chartreuse, Fernet Branca, Amaro, Dubonnet, and Campari. 4. It was a big year for beer.
This year, we visited 173 unique breweries plus 4 secondary taprooms for a brewery we had already visited. All of the breweries were in the 6 New England states save for my June trip to Denver where I made it to 11 including TRVE, a metal-themed bar that made me miss the departed Bone Up that closed at the end of 2023, and Our Mutual Friend that might have made the best and most unusual beer of the year, Stjørdalsøl – a Norweigan-style alder wood-smoked dark beer. This summer, we had planned one trip to northern Vermont that ended up turning into two when Andrea bought art at Rock Art Brewery, and we had to return to pick it up after the show was over. The first trip was to visit Hill Farmstead and we hit 5 others including the Alchemist and Freak Folk Bier. The second trip two months later included Lawson's, Bent Hill, and River Roost. In state, we welcomed Murder Hill and said goodbye to River Styx and Cambridge Brewing Company; unfortunately we did not have a chance to return to Brick & Feather to have a farewell beer but visited them this earlier in the year, and we did not realize that our visit to Outrider in early December was two weeks before they announced their closure at the end of the year. There were many first time visits such as Doctor's Island, Prodigal Brewing, WHYM, Rustic, Frost Heaves, Sacred Profane, and more.

5. Read a lot this year.
Last year, I had an eye issue that made it hard to read, and it took a while to get an appointment to get it taken care of. After reading only 8 books in 2023, I declared last year, "Hopefully 2024 has me hitting the two books per month mark I was reading at one point." And I far exceeded the goal of 24 by finishing 41! I started off the year with the semi-fictional The Bartender's Cure by Wesley Straton that I recommended to the server-turned-bartender that I was training. I read some history including Dusty Booze: In Search of Vintage Spirits by Aaron Goldfarb and Burn the Ice: The American Culinary Revolution and Its End by Kevin Alexander. Flavor and aroma science in Flavorama: A Guide to Unlocking the Art and Science of Flavor by Arielle Johnson and Cocktail Theory: A Sensory Approach to Transcendent Drinks by Kevin Peterson. Cultural food and drink history in The Way We Eat Now: How the Food Revolution Has Transformed Our Lives, Our Bodies, and Our World by Bee Wilson and The Cocktail Parlor: How Women Brought the Cocktail Home by Nicola Nice. Spirit history with Malört: The Redemption of a Revered and Reviled Spirit by Josh Noel and A Most Notable Water by Anistatia Miller & Jared Brown. All about beer with Craft Brewing May Not Be For You by Charlie Cummings from Remnant Brewery and The Anchor Brewing Story: America’s First Craft Brewery & San Francisco’s Original Anchor Steam Beer by David Burkhart. And psychology with Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know by Malcolm Gladwell and The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi & Fumitake Koga. 6. We lost a cat named after a drink book author and gained one.
Sadly, we had to say goodbye to Embury, our Russian Blue who had a double hit of liver cancer and the cancer pushing on his other organs to exacerbate his kidney failure (photo above shortly before he started his decline). He left behind his brother Boothby and sister Coley (named after Ada Coleman). Boothby was definitely lonely, so in early October, we ended up adopting another catch-neuter-(not)release cat from the same program that Boothby came from out of Fall River. He got named Duffy after Patrick Gavin Duffy who wrote the cocktail book that was in my parents' home bar (and I have two other editions from him), and he has been quite the project to socialize since he had very little human contact. The three are getting along well together, and Duffy has been seeking out human contact on his own without being bribed by treats.

7. Kept busy with the United States Bartenders' Guild.
I already mentioned attending the national conference in Denver that I attended in June, but locally, I helped to organize a bunch of events. These included GrandTen and Bully Boy distillery tours, a tasting and luncheon with Boomsma Cloisterbitter, and a crime tour of Boston with Cutty Sark. Moreover, I organized the Campari Day of Service at the East End House's food pantry and the Negroni and snacks afterwards at Shy Bird, and I also set up one of the four classes for our chapter's Ed Week that was entitled "Tequila Production Techniques, A Comparative Tasting Seminar". I wrapped up my second three year term as secretary, and I may take on a similar or different role on the board for next year. In addition, I am still an active member of the national education committee that I joined back in 2020. Regardless, I have already bought tickets for the 2025 national conference in Atlanta.

8. Attended some cool events.
Besides the USBG events that I already mentioned, I attended or participated in a wide variety of seminars, classes, and events including The Bartender's Pantry book launch party, the Planteray Mr. Fogg Rum release event, and Nick De Soto's "Flavor & Technique Master Class" all sponsored by Maison Ferrand. I also went on a foraging and nature walk class with Chartreuse, attended both a Calvados masterclass and Robert Simonson's book launch party at Equal Measure, learned a lot at Monkey Shoulder's Monkey Business Academy with Anna Mains and Danil Nevsky, and attended "Cocktails & Stories" hosted by Equiano Rum & Uncle Nearest at Shore Leave. Finally, I took the Edinburg Whiskey Academy class this Fall sponsored by Ardbeg and Glenmorangie and acquired a Certificate in Scotch Whisky for my efforts. 9. Created some drinks.
My records show that 26 of my posts this year were my own original creations. I would say that the three that got spread the most around Instagram by other content creators were the Why Don't You Do Right, Delores del Rio, and Streets of Crocodiles. The three that got both a good number of reviews and high votes on KindredCocktails were the Oaxacan Lady, Dead Man's Alley, and The Man Who Was Marked For Death. While some of the drink names were sourced from songs, books, movies, and more, the most content was derived from people and places described in Herbert Asbury's The Barbary Coast about 19th century San Francisco such as the Hell Haggerty.

10. Some cool things coming in 2025.
I already alluded to some travel next year to Atlanta for the national bartenders' guild meeting. I spent a lot of time in 2024 preparing a PowerPoint slide deck for my 75 minute talk in Colorado Springs at the end of January on the intangible heritage of cocktails for the Colorado Preservation Society's conference. I will also be presenting two cocktails at a happy hour there after that session. Moreover, I have a bunch of books lined up that I am excite to read in 2025 and a bunch of recipes to make as well.

I usually stall out at 9 and punt with number 10, but this year it was not a problem. So I guess it was a good year. Hope yours was as well!

:: fred's picks for the top cocktails of 2023 ::

At the end of 2010, someone asked what my favorite drink of the year was, and I lacked an answer at first for there were so many good options to chose from. My choices were influenced by two factors – tastiness and uniqueness; it had to be both memorable and worth repeating. In past years, I did one post for drinks that I had out at bars and one post for drinks that I had at home; however, as I found myself going out less due to my work schedule and other factors, I cut it down to one post a few years ago. Each month here was selected for when the drink post appeared and not when it was enjoyed (unlike my real time Instagram account, I have a two week delay here before it goes live to give myself an ample window to write). Without further ado, here is the fourteenth annual installment of my best drinks for the year with a runner up or two listed.

January: There were several solid bitter-herbal winners from the Bartender's Choice app and related sources, and I gave the nod to the Maravilla at Raines Law Room for it reminded me fondly of Misty Kalkofen's Low Rider at Brick & Mortar. For a close second, Michael Madrusan's .38 Special at Little Branch was a delight; for the other runner-up, the Varnish in L.A. is in that same school, but with an mezcal Bee's Knees feel and a pinch of spice in the Dahlia's Revenge.

February: My pick for February was an old Franklin Mortgage & Investment Co. drink called the Cowboy Killer by Colin Shearn that was a Scotch Red Hook with Peychaud's Bitters; it was given new life by his old co-worker publishing it in Epicurious. Getting the nod this month was Rafa Garcia Febles' dark Puritan vibing Suffragette and a bitter-herbal Old Fashioned, the African Flower, by Becky McFalls at Little Branch. March: March was a tough call for there were lots of amaro-driven delights that I sampled. Toby Maloney's Pocket Square at the Violet Hour as perhaps a Ciociaro and citrus version of his Eeyore's Requiem gets the nod though. For runners-up were a drink with a similar vibe – Chuck Taggart's Something Bitter This Way Comes inspired by a trip to the Varnish, and a Paper Plane-like number called Lost & Found from the Dandelion Cocktail Bar in Florianópolis, Brazil.

April: The two stand outs for April were a pair of rum-herbal-up drinks that share the top spot: El Ratón by Matt James at Seattle's Bathtub as a tribute a deadly bull in the ring, and Julie Reiner's Bridgetown Stomp that she created for Toby Maloney when he visited Lani Kai and that soon became the bar's house Negroni. May: Top dog for May was Maison Premiere's Old Tom gin and mezcal Black Manhattan called Future Days featuring Amaro Abano (which was a new addition to my liquor shelves this year). The two runners-up were Amaro Nonino concepts: Phil Ward's West of East India at Mayahuel perhaps named after the Lustau East India Solera Sherry component and Franklin Mortgage Investment Co.'s Harry Rag with its Scotch base and Chartreuse flair.

June: There were a good number of amaro-accented drinks in June, so it was a tough call, but I'm giving the top spot to the Indecent Proposal from the sadly departed Pouring Ribbons in Manhattan with its Nardini, Cynar, and mint combination. Getting the nod were the dark tropical gin drink, the Blue Plate Special from Atlanta's Paper Plane, and the delightful Benedictine-walnut liqueur combination flavored by Meletti in the Pine Tavern Road at Seamstress in NYC. July: My new purchase this month was a bottle of Amaro Braulio, and the winner of the batch of recipes that I made using this new toy was the Amaro Daiquiri where Stephanie Andrews at Billy Sunday in Chicago paired Braulio with Sfumato and lime. For runners up in July, Backbar's F.R.D. created by Jenifer Anastasi to protest Florida's governor's actions with this Rum Runner Old Fashioned pictured above and Erick Castro's Professional Courtesy at Raised by Wolves as a bitter Marconi Wireless riff were notable.

August: My pick for August was the quirky Cognac-rhum agricole Liberal dubbed the Partisan at Dutch Kills. Also delightful were the tequila Manhattan accented with Braulio and Yellow Chartreuse, namely the Inside Job by Zac Pease at Manhattan's Attaboy, and the rye-mezcal Manhattan riff, namely the Tito Puente at Blossom Bar pictured below. September: September was a challenge to sort out with so many great nightcaps that I had after my bar shifts. I gave the top honor to the Critical Mass created at the Burritt Room since it reminded me fondly of a Prospect Park with Chartreuse. Also great were the three part Staggerly from Zig Zag in Seattle and Telling Phoebe with smoky and bitter notes from Chantal Tseng at her literary-themed drink series.

October: Another difficult choice to make, but I selected A Good Man is Hard to Find at Dram for being really quirky yet delicious. Matt Robold's Jon Hamm's Briefcase at 320 Main as a riff on Chris Hannah's Bywater and the Dead Man's Handle by Tiffany Kirk at Miss Carousel as a spicy take on a Pinky Gonzalez (also to show that I did indeed make drinks with citrus is 2023) get honorable mention. November: I decided to make November's picks all about shaken drinks, and the top dog was the Doctor's Orders as Jillian Vose's Bourbon-apple brandy Tiki-inspired drink at Dead Rabbit. Tyson Buhler's La Trinité at Death & Co. with rhum and apple brandy balanced by Suze and honey in a Sour and Finding Rose by Lucinda Sterling at Little Branch with Cognac, honey, and passion fruit notes were also noteworthy.

December: The drink that I enjoyed enough to make for my chef the next night was the Dogs Playing Poker by Carter Wilsford at Analogue as a mezcal-fruity-bitter number with a great name. Respect given to Kyle Marshall's Hard Times as a tribute to Ray Charles who loved Genever and espresso and Blazing Saddles at the Eddy in Providence with its smoke and Montenegro-cinnamon accents in Old Fashioned format. Some of my favorite creations not mentioned in yesterday's year end round-up: I decided to feature six more recipes that I created in 2023 that I either look back fondly on and/or were well received on Kindred Cocktails or Reddit. There were two inspired by the 100 Year Cigar: the Painted Lady that took things in a Pink Lady direction and Day Old Bread utilizing the rye-aquavit combo. The Club Garden inspired by Eric Alperin's Skid Row and named after a Boston speakeasy and the Right Place Wrong Time as a mezcal-Cynar take on Chris Hannah's Night Tripper were delights. During my second bar shift in Oaxaca, I did a Ferari (Fernet-Campari) Penicillin of sorts that I dubbed the Body Shop that I have made for folks at work. And my Saucy Sue's apple-apricot take on Ran Duan's Father's Advice called the Listening Room was in my opinion one of the most elegant of my creations this year. Overall, it was a good year of drinking even if most of my cocktails were at home instead of out on the town or in distant cities. I was able to narrow down this list of over 300 drinks into 13 bests and 22 runners-up, so in a way, above was my top 10% of 2023. I can't wait to see what 2024 brings. Cheers!

:: fred's top 10 cocktail moments of 2023 ::

Back in 2010, someone asked what my favorite cocktail that year was, and I decided not only to start a list of my favorite drinks, but I decided to list the top moments of the previous 12 months. So to continue with the tradition, here is the 14th annual installment:

1. Did some writing.
Besides coming in at just over 360 posts this year (it adds up to under a post a day due to my week away in Oaxaca), I finished up my fourth and final article for Edible Boston and Edible Worcester with a tribute to a Spring-time generated ingredient that is often associated with Fall and Winter flavors with my treatise Love and Maple Syrup. I included tales of our adventures to local maple syrup farms, a mention of Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass that I read for Camper English's book club, and three cocktails of mine using that very New England sweetener. Overall it was not only an honor but a fun one to take a trip around the sun and think about seasonality in what we drink as I covered herbs and Smashes, apples, and hearty egg drinks in the prior three seasons.

2. Gave some talks.
In January, I traveled to Oaxaca, Mexico, to spend a week with the Convite brand. One of the requirements besides doing two guest shifts at their bar was to give a master class. The class I gave was on Mindful Bartending based off of things I learned from Gary Regan, life experiences, and other resources, and I gave this to a room full of 30 young bartenders (and translated into Spanish by Chicago bartender Jorge Vallejo who joined me on this adventure). I also took questions and transcribed my response to one I fielded on how new bartenders can feel less nervous at work. The second talk I did was for Boston Rum Week in September entitled "Rum Choice for Cocktails: How to classify rums, understand their flavors, and use what you've got". I covered the history of rum classification systems, what it means for cocktails especially as rums change over time and islands diversify their products, how to utilize your collection to make the best drink, and advice on pairing rum with different spirits. Here is a promotional interview I did, and I uploaded my slidedeck onto Google Drive. 3. Appeared on podcasts.
In February, the Bartender at Large episode that I recorded with Erick Castro late last year finally aired. Erick's description was, "Join us as we sit down with Frederic Yarm, renowned bartender and author from Boston, as we discuss the realities of achieving a work-life balance while managing bars & restaurants. Yarm shares his experiences and insights on how to deal with burnout in the industry. Whether you're a bartender or simply curious about the hospitality world, this episode offers valuable perspectives on balancing work and life." I mentioned some of this in last year's edition of this wrap up. There's also a bonus episode on Patreon that covers cocktail blogging and some other topics. And in April, I appeared on an episode of My Tiny Bottles where I talked about the history of the (Old) Mr. Boston distillery and recipe books, my personal history in cocktails and spirits, and finally tasting some vintage schnapps bottles from said distillery. The valuable lesson is don't collect vintage spirits in plastic bottles that allow for evaporation (of liquids and aromatics) not observed nearly as much in glass ones.

4. The beer world.
In April, I had the chance once again to volunteer for the NERAX cask beer festival for the first time since 2019. My April 2020 volunteer date along with a trip to Kentucky for the Angel's Envy national Whiskey Guardian gathering and to Pittsburgh for the USBG regional meeting were a trio of canceled plans, so it was good to spend time drinking and serving cask beer amongst fellow beer nerds. Over the course of the year, my beer app tells me that we checked into 97 breweries and 1 cidery taproom. Some noteable visits include a goodbye session at Bone Up who lost their lease, two in Oaxaca: La Santisima Flor de Lupulo and Oaxaca Brewing Co., and great first time visits to spots like Czar's Brewing, the Brewery at Four Star Farms, Brockton Beer Co. (pictured below), Kettlehead, Vulgar, and Independent Fermentations. One of my bar guests asked if I request Sundays off to go to church, and I replied that no, my Sunday vibe is brewery tap rooms and Cribbage. Yes, this year, I learned how to play Cribbage, bought a board, and taught my wife. 5. Was quoted a bit.
The year started with an article on the Appetizer à l’Italienne in Imbibe Magazine – a Fernet-laden recipe that found a home at Drink in Boston over a century after being published in William Schmidt's The Flowing Bowl in 1892 and not served at many other places. Al Sotack included my Fleming Fizz of a Penicillin crossed with a French 75 in his Epicurious article about Scotch cocktails (the drink was published on that site in December 2020). UPROXX used me as a bartender voice in their articles on Spring bock beers, Spring Lagers, double dry-hopped IPAs, East coast IPAs, "light" beers, desert island pilsners, underrated breweries, desert island IPAs, sour beers, and Oktoberfest beers. My opinion was utilized for best muddler for WineEnthusiast, and I was quoted in part 1 & part 2 on VinePair's "Two Hundred Years Trending: A Definitive History of the 'Drinks of Summer'".

6. Read a little but not as much as I would have liked.
For much of 2023, my vision was impaired by a blocked oil duct that caused an eyelid bump and thus an astigmatism that made reading a chore. Eventually, I was able to get an appointment to get it taken care of, and it took me a bit to get back into the reading rhythm. Before it became too tough to read, I made my way through Robert Simonson's Modern Classic Cocktails, Peter Friendlier's "21": Memoirs of a Saloon Keeper, and Philip Greene's A Drinkable Feast: A Cocktail Companion to 1920s Paris. Afterwards, I read Will Guidara's Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect, Kevin Quigley's New England Tiki, and Stephanie Schorow's Inside the Combat Zone. Hopefully 2024 has me hitting the two books per month mark I was reading at one point. 7. Involved in the USBG.
This was my 11th full year of being a member of the USBG (joined in October 2012) and my 5th year as the chapter secretary. I organized two tasting events with distillers, namely Kuleana Rum and Westward Whiskey. Moreover, I organized two distillery tours which gave folks a great behind the scenes view of Privateer and Chattermark distilleries. The bartenders guild also afforded me to sit in on classes on Woodford Reserve, Old Forester, Highland & Speyside Scotches, and pot still Irish whiskey with Teeling. Moreover, the guild organized our local Campari Day of Service at Community Servings where we spent the day helping prep and assembling meals to go to folks in need due to medical conditions in our community (see photo above).

8. Created some drinks.
2023 yielded 31 drinks posted onto the blog that I created (two were created during my time at Loyal Nine but I never posted them during my two and half years there between 2015-2017). Some were influenced by my delving into the Milk & Honey family of recipes via the Bartender's Choice app such as the Kilted Flower, Anchor-Faced, and Lupe Velez. Others, I can track back to Cure and Rogue/Beta Cocktails such as the Devil's Staircase and A Kidnapped Drink. There were plenty of other influences like the old Green Street with The Five Elements, Stan Jones and a mezcal bartender competition with the Bar Boss, and even the Savoy Cocktail Book with the As I Lay Dying. Hopefully, I find more inspiration in 2024 to savor and learn from to continue my understanding of cocktails. 9. Expanded my social media outlets.
Besides the blog and my cocktail Instagram, I also use Twitter under @cocktailvirgin. With Twitter's uncertain future, I have also expanded to Mastodon with fredericyarm@better.boston, BlueSky with @fredericyarm.bsky.social, and Threads with @fredericyarm. I wish that I could be centralized into one platform like in the golden years of Twitter, but it has not become apparent what platform will become the most useful. Even with all the issues with Twitter, I have been on there long enough and have amassed a great number of connections (some of whom are still using it) to keep cross-posting my thoughts and links despite the site's issues.

10. I need to make 2024 more exciting and vibrant so I do not have a problem coming up with a tenth year end list item.
While I did travel in January as part of my post-working at Drink break, I pretty much stayed put for the rest of the year save for day trips. The job search took up the early part of 2024 where I interviewed and staged at a number of places, joined one for a few days before realizing that it was a horrible fit, and eventually landed at Josephine under a mile from my home. When Portland Cocktail Week came around, I turned down my acceptance for it was not a good time for our bar program given some turnover that was happening. There were some cool events that I did go to in town like attending the Hendrick's Floradora launch party at the Herb Lyceum, learning about Drambuie and coffee at the Wig Shop, judging a Daiquiri competition at Shore Leave during Boston Rum Week, hearing Dale DeGroff talk at Equal Measures about his new amaro and apertivo followed by drinks at the new Eastern Standard, and celebrating at Trina's Starlite Lounge's Prohibition Repeal Night event hosted by Josh Childs. There were also some sad ones like saying goodbye to The Boston Shaker store. Finally, there were also some proud moments like the time that a co-worker called out on a Saturday night leaving me to do the busy shift solo, so we brought a server behind the bar to help out, and over the course of a few weeks I trained her into a full time bartender with a bright future ahead of her. I am definitely curious to see what 2024 has in store for me. Cheers y'all!

:: fred's picks for the top cocktails of 2022 ::

At the end of 2010, someone asked what my favorite drink of the year was, and I lacked an answer at first for there were so many good options to chose from. My choices were influenced by two factors – tastiness and uniqueness; it had to be both memorable and worth repeating. In the past years, I did one post for drinks that I had out at bars and one post for drinks that I had at home; however, as I found myself going out less due to my work schedule and other factors, I cut it down to one post a few years ago. Each month here was selected for when the drink post appeared and not when it was enjoyed (unlike my real time Instagram account, I have a two week delay here before it goes live to give myself an ample window to write). Without further ado, here is the thirteenth annual installment of my best drinks for the year with a runner up or two listed.

January: The theme for the month is love, and both of these recipes saw some action getting remixed at Drink this past year. For a winner, Love & Murder as Nicholas Bennett's oddball Chartreuse-Campari Daiquiri of sorts at Porchlight in New York City named after a Broadway play. For a runner up, Death & Co.'s Clover Club riff, Love Bug by Sam Penton, took things in an agave and pineapple direction that was a crowd pleaser.

February: The theme here seems to be Manhattan riffs, and they were rather close. I guess for a winner, The End is Nigh communicated by Cure's Neal Bodenheimer in Lift Your Spirits had a great bitter backbone of Amaro Sibilla to bolster the Bonal. I did get a lot of traction at work from the Little Italy-esque Last American Hero that I sourced on Reddit's cocktail forum from an user I only know by their handle 1000YearOldStreet. March: Both of March's drinks got a bit of play at Drink this year. When a guest asked for a Holland Razor Blade, I knew how to make one but had never made one before; researching that drink from Charles H. Baker's adventures led me to the NYC update called the Mexican Razor Blade that swapped the Genever for tequila or mezcal and added in some vegetal touches. For a runner up, I enjoyed the Knight from David Embury as his Sidecar with Chartreuse that turned out to work superbly with other spirits besides Cognac.

April: April was the first challenging month, but I decided upon Kelsey Chase's Ground Control to Major Tom on Backbar's space-themed menu. For runners up were two NYC drinks: Joaquin Simo's Charming Man at Pouring Ribbons akin to a mezcal Negroni and Al Sotack's Dial 'M' at Death & Co. that got me thinking about maple syrup (see yesterday's year end wrap up). May: May was also a difficult choice, but I narrowed it down to the theme of Boston drinks. I gave the top nod to the one that I had where it was invented, namely Brian Callahan's Smoking Section at Coquette that utilized an elegant and complex Armagnac that I went out and purchased for home. The other two were Ryan Lotz's Fernet Flip at the Hawthorne that mollified the Fernet with two other herbal liqueurs and The Accent created at Backbar and influenced by a Ran Duan drink at the Baldwin Bar.

June: I rather enjoyed the London recipe Mind Maps created by Will Meredith at Lyaness and based off notes he found in certain blended Scotches. For runner up, I went old school with Robert Vermeire's Yellow Parrot; I had a collection of Drink regulars who came to me for absinthe-laden drinks, and this was a great one I pulled out from 1922 that held up. Moreover, for name alone, I need to acknowledge the Pineapple Death Squad. July: With my mint patch at its peak and with my copy of The Bartender's Manifesto in hand, I selected the tropical-Scotch mint Julep Riki Tiki Tavi for July. The runner up was Tom Richter's Post Modern given the fascination with sloe gin at Drink (regulars requested the Charlie Chaplin all the time) and my interest in the Modern and Ted Haigh's sloe gin-free riff the Modernista this past year.

August: Despite it being rather warm, I opted for a dark spirits stirred number called The Upstart by Jim Betz at Eleven Madison Park since dark rum, rye, sherry, and Cynar can do no wrong. For a runner up, Jon Mateer's The African Queen at TPC Sawgrass in St. Augusteen was a complex and herbal Old Fashioned; it reminded me of Death & Co. recipes from their new book; during my trip to Ireland, Jon was one of the fellow bartenders on the adventure, and I learned that he had spent some time at one of the Death & Co. outposts. September: The Brown Bittered Stirred read as an orange-tinged Little Italy, and this recipe from Jason Schiffer at 320 Main did not disappoint. Also getting a nod for the month was Backbar's Hummingbird off of their bird-themed menu with its chocolate-floral notes on top of a funky rum Daiquiri.

October: The Roaring 50s from Declan McGuirk at the American Bar in London was an elegant stirred tequila drink. For runners up, I went with two older Drink recipes: John Gertsen's Caesar Cardini now on the menu at the Wig Shop, and the Andrew Square bitter Manhattan variation that I found in the "Drinks of Drink" notebook. November: For top honors this month, I opted for the Dark in the Corner by Turk Dietrich from the new Cure: New Orleans Drinks and How to Mix'Em book as a Cognac nightcap. For honorary nods, two drinks from Portland need to be mentioned: the mezcal-based In Absentia at Teardrop Lounge and the rum-mezcal Vieux Carre Piano Hands by Mike Treffehn at Rum Bar.

December: Another challenging month, but the smoky whisky nightcap with an orange finish of Coffee & Cigarettes by Chad Austin was quite enjoyable. Andrew Rice's Don't Give Up the Shift mezcal riff at Attaboy called All Hands on Deck and Matt Robold's Cognac-rum Obstructed Vieux were two stirred numbers that were worthy of mention.

Kindred Cocktails: As a side note to yesterday's list of drinks that I created and was proud of, the top 5 drinks that I did not mention before but were highly rated on the Kindred Cocktails database by scoring plus number of folks who rated it there were: The Drink of Insignificance as my hybrid of Cure's The Drink of Laughter and Forgetting and the Red Hook. Broadway Nights as cross of David Embury's Knight with a rye-mezcal Manhattan. Fleur Carre as a request at Drink for a flowery De La Louisiane. Vaquero which worked both as an Old Fashioned as well as an up drink of an herbal rye-mezcal concept (the idea progressed into the Devil's Highway and other recipes). And Songs My Mother Taught Me as a mezcal take on Brick & Mortar's Khartoum crossed with Backbar's Scarecrow.

Overall, it was a good year of cocktailing with the exception that I did not spend much time at other folks' bars across town. Mathematically, I was able to cut down my list of 300-something drinks this year to 12 best drinks of the month, 17 runners up, and 1 honorable mention for name. Good luck to all of your imbibings in 2023!

:: fred's top 10 cocktail moments of 2022 ::

Back in 2010, someone asked what my favorite cocktail that year was, and I decided not only to start a list of my favorite drinks, but I decided to list the top moments of the previous 12 months. So to continue with the tradition, here is the 13th annual installment:

1. Worked at Drink.
Back in November 2021, I helped to re-open Drink after it had been closed for several months to do some repair work to the leaky foundation (see #2 on the 2021 year end wrap-up). When it came time for the director of operations to pick a general manager in early 2022, I turned it down three times with the reply "I don't know what I'll tell you the fourth time that I haven't told you the three times before." I wanted to keep things simple and focus on making cocktails (see #10 on this list). One of the other bartenders had some management experience and stepped up. By mid-March, he needed some assistance and I was asked if I would like to be the bar manager to do staff training, produce ordering, and inventory. Soon I was doing two of the closes per week once we went to five shifts per week (generally only working four long shifts though). Once the liquor ordering was handed off as well, I began to be suspicious; and I was right, for the GM gave notice. We were without a GM for two weeks, and I decided to step up. I was then the GM, bar manager, and bartender all at the same time unless I was the doorman or a barback (or one night I was both barbacks) as needed. Depending on whether it was inventory week, this was 54-61 hours plus time spent at home such as doing the liquor ordering, hiring phone calls and correspondences, etc. We had a system on Sundays where one of the bartenders would send me numbers and I would do the books and time sheets from home so I could spend one full day with my wife (part of my demands when I stepped up to GM). Pre-pandemic, this was all split up between a GM, a manager, and two primary bartenders. Eventually, in a perfect week, I was working two bartending shifts and then two floor manager shifts on the busier nights (although some weeks, it dropped to one bartending shift I needed to fill in another role). Unfortunately, some of the bartenders were coming in on their days off on Sunday and one of them caused an incident. The director of operations said that a manager should have been there, and I was the manager, so now I need to work Sundays. Since this would add 11 hours and take away the one full day I got to spend with my wife (I would still have Saturday and Sunday mornings and Monday and Tuesday nights with her), I gave notice. My life-work balance would be completely off otherwise. On my last night which was a full year after joining the team to re-open, I gave advice to the two barbacks, "Just like no one gets promoted at a company Christmas party, no one gets promoted going to their bar on their day off." Unfortunately, I was the casualty here (but one where I would not have to put out a job ad and restart the process of interviewing, hiring, and training). That last night was the day before Portland Cocktail Week, so I treated myself to a vacation, but more on that later. Overall, 8 of my 12 months were spent in a management role. I ended up taking the end of November and all of December off. I will begin to consider new directions in January 2023, so who knows what the future holds. 2. Did some writing.
Besides writing for the blog where I had just shy of 360 posts in 2022, I also began a year long residency with Edible Boston and Edible Worcester. I began with a Summer issue that centered around garden herbal delights in the article with three recipes called Make this Summer a Smash. Fall went back to my interest in Johnny Appleseed who was born north of Worcester with my article and three recipes for Fall into Apple Season. The third for Winter focused in on hearty egg drinks – one hot: my favorite of Tom & Jerry and one cold: Eggnog! – for Liquid Sweater Weather. Finally, I have just finished up my fourth one for Spring 2023 with three recipes (posted here this week in advance) on maple syrup production and maple's use in cocktails. Other than that, I wrote an essay here on The Ego and the Bartender about how humility leads to better hospitality.

3. Got quoted or mentioned in a book and in the press.
Towards the end of the year, Philip Greene's Cheers!: Cocktails & Toasts to Celebrate Every Day of the Year came out where he chose to feature my Tin Can Telephone for one of the calendar days (Alexander Graham Bell's birthday, I believe) which was a pleasant surprise. As for magazines and websites, in forward order: I was quoted on my favorite underrated Bourbon in VinePair, in a somber article about agism in the drinks industry for SevenFifty, another VinePair article on favorite shift drinks, on the best tequilas for GQ, and my bartender origin story for Spill Magazine (article is behind a pay wall). Moreover, Total Food Service referenced my opinion on technology and equipment to improve the beverage world, Serious Eats sought out my thoughts on coupe glasses, Robert O. Simonson wrote up my thoughts on Boston's number drinks after he bought my first book at the Boston Shaker Store where he was doing a signing and discovered the 1919 and other recipes, Mashed quoted me on how to make the best possible Gin & Tonic, and VinePair quoted me on my favorite all-around gin for mixing. One that had me shaking my head was a SevenFifty article on drink influencers which namedropped me by saying "A few, like Boston-based blogger Frederic Yarm, have even written cocktail books" at a time when I was both the bar manager and a full time bartender at Drink. 4. Still involved in the Boston chapter of the bartenders guild.
This was my 10th full year of being a member of the USBG (joined in October 2012) and my 4th year as the chapter secretary. I organized a trip to the New England Aquarium (and drinks after) with Sipsmith Gin, and ran three-fourths of Education Week. Through my industry connections at Drink, I arranged for classes on gin of the world with Hotaling, vermouth and amari with Fernet Branca, and wild agave mezcals with Del Maguey and hosted these three on two separate days at work before the staff arrived to set up for the evening. I also attended and helped to promote events with Wahaka Mezcal, Conniption Gin, Bar Hill (up in Vermont!), Dorchester Brewing (part 4 of Education Week), and the Campari Day of Service. My essay writing skills got me on the USBG-organized Wellspring trip to Dublin, Ireland, with 20 bartenders in August. Overall, I tried to stay as busy as I could given that my involvement at Drink took up a lot of my time.

5. I read a decent amount but half as much as years past.
As I took on more responsibility at Drink, my reading slowed down, and when I was GM, it nearly stopped. I still finished 13 books in 2022 (my range for the past few years has been generally 24-30 with a one-time high of 60). I can break my favorites into three categories. The first is industry with a great hospitality book being Pouring with Heart: The Essential Magic Behind Bartenders We Love by Cedd Moses which was pure fire, and two management books with the first being the brilliantly named given my situation The Surprise Restaurant Manager by Ken McGarrie and the other being The Bar Shift: 41 Management Lessons You Don’t Have to Learn the Hard Way by Nave Nitzel and Dave Domzaliski. Sadly, often when you get promoted to management, you have to figure it out yourself, and these books were great mentors. The next category was history with Doctors and Distillers: The Remarkable Medicinal History of Beer, Wine, Spirits, and Cocktails by Camper English and From Barley to Blarney: A Whiskey Lover’s Guide to Ireland by Sean Muldoon, Jack McGarry, and Tim Herlihy (became especially relevant when I scored my trip to Dublin and it became a primer of places to check out on my free time). The last is recipe-driven and drink-theory ones that were The Bartender's Manifesto: How to Think, Drink, and Create Cocktails Like a Pro by Toby Maloney, Emma Janzen, and the staff of the Violet Hour and Cure: New Orleans Drinks and How to Mix ’Em by Neal Bodenheimer & Emily Timberlake. I think that I finished up 4 of those books once I left Drink in the month of December. Hopefully, I can get back to the regular pace of two per month from my slow period of 1 per two months. 6. Traveled a little.
With a slow 2021 in terms of travel where I made it to New York City once for my Angel's Envy work, things picked up a little in 2022. My first time on an airplane since January 2020 was heading off to Dublin, Ireland, to participate in the Wellspring program. That adventure included a tour of the Guinness Brewery, a trip to the old Jameson Distillery and their special event space for bartenders a few blocks away, a Glendalough adventure that included seeing the old ruins nearby, foraging for gin botanicals, and doing a tasting at the distillery, and a trip to the top cocktail bar in the city – Bar 1661. On my own, I visited the Teeling Distillery and hit a bunch of Victorian pubs that were mentioned in From Barley to Blarney including O'Donoghue's, the Palace, Mary's Hardware, Neary's, and Kavanaugh's the Gravedigger; I also got to meet up with the family of one of the Drink bartenders and hear his dad and sister play traditional Irish music at the Cobblestone. One adventure that I applied for was Portland Cocktail Week that I had to turn down when I was accepted in a student track for my GM role did not allow me the freedom to travel. After I gave notice, the organizers wrote back to see if I was still interested, and the time frame lined up rather tightly (I left work on my last night around 4:15am and was at the airport before 10am the next morning) but it would work. I had not been to Portland or the cocktail week there since 2012. Luckily, the organizers got me back into the student track despite missing the deadline to sign up for things and scored me some cool classes. When I had not seen my wife as much, we talked about visiting the other Portland – the one to the north in Maine – for an overnight getaway on a Monday-Tuesday when I had off. After I left Drink, we took off for a Wednesday-Thursday adventure visiting a bunch of breweries (see #7), getting cocktails at Portland's Hunt & Alpine Club and The Danforth, and sampling beers at the Novare Res Bier Café and the Blind Pig Tavern. There should be more travel in 2023 with two trips lined up already. In early January, I will be going to Oaxaca to visit the Convite Mezcal facilities, teach a class, and bartend for a shift or two. And finally, in May, I will be traveling to San Francisco to be a judge in the Bartenders Spirits Awards.

7. Visited brewery tap rooms.
Besides running the beer program at Drink which got me more in touch with the industry, I got to visit breweries in four parts of the world with the grand total being 52 with many of them on my one day off with my wife. Within one hour or so of travel, the new to-me breweries included Banded, Blaze, Agronomy Farms Vineyard, Distraction, Outlaw, Modestman, and Dirigible. My trip to Ireland of course scored me a visit to Guinness as mentioned above. Portland Cocktail Week allowed me the time to visit Living Häus, Level Beer, Brewery 26, Wayfinder Beer (although I did not realize until afterwards that I should have gotten the "cold IPA" which is a style they invented), and Steeplejack. And lastly, our adventure in Portland, Maine, had us visiting Bissell Brothers, Battery Steele, and Foundation. 8. Cool moments at work.
I might have forgotten some of these if I had not noted them on Twitter, although some of them I won't ever forget. One cool one is pictured above; a gentleman asked for a Sazerac, and he loved it so much that his wife asked why it was so good. I wrote out my recipe, and they ended up framing it and sending me said photo of it. Another great memory was having a man repeatedly trying to tell me and the other couple what his date wanted to drink which was something vodka-based. I shushed him the second time with "This is her drink, her moment, and I would like to hear what she has to say." She explained a preference for whiskey or other darker spirits, and her Cognac nightcap was perfect for her as was her look of thanks that she gave me. I frequently get asked what the weirdest drink request I got at our menu-less bar, and the answer was often a duo on their third round where one requested "when Taylor Swift got the microphone taken away from her – that drink" (I made a Swizzle because Taylor fans stole the hashtag #Swizzle on Instagram and I was taking it back) and the other "when your are standing at the beach and the waves are lapping at your feet and your feet begin to sink into the sand" (she got a Sinking Ship Swizzle). And finally, I impressed folks at the bar with this: a bar guest complains, "I lost my phone – I was only here and in the bathroom." Me as the manager replies, "Have you checked the bathroom because it's not here at the bar?" Guest, "Yes, done that." Me, "Go back and check the garbage." Guest returns with her phone and everyone looks at me astonished. I reply "Not my first rodeo."

9. New cocktail bars.
I did get to visit some of the new crop of cocktail bars that opened up this year. This included Daiquiris & Daisies, Wusong Road, Wig Shop, Birds of Paradise, and Coquette (technically opened in late 2021). During our trip to Portland, Maine, I got to see the new Death & Co. project The Danforth. As for new cocktail bars to open up in 2023, I am excited about Equal Measure and Eastern Standard that are opening and re-opening, respectively, sometime in the middle of the year. I am sure that there are others, but they have been a bit more shy about announcing their arrival to the scene. 10. Created some drinks.
Some being 59 posted here in 2022. Part of these were created at Drink and others at home, and many of them got served to guests throughout the year. The Devil's Highway was created when a guest made a request for "tequila and Scotch" in an Old Fashioned sort of format and did not mean smoky mezcal. Old Fashioned requests were pretty common, and I even crafted a tropical one called the Pickwick Club and another Scotch one called Blues from a Gun. 2022 was also a big year for Espresso Martinis, and I got creative; one of my most popular ones was preceded with a question if they're adventurous and/or do they trust me. If so, they got Coffee's For Closers named after a line from the movie Glengarry Glen Ross that also has "ABC: Always Be Closing" but here the ABC was "Averna Benedictine Coffee liqueur (+ a whole egg)!" One time during the Summer, I eventually had 10 of my 12 bar guests drinking this Flip as they communicated how great it tasted to the others. A request for "Bourbon and vanilla" made me think of Don's Spices #2 (vanilla and allspice liqueur) which sent things in a tropical direction with Cave-In-Rock. For egg white Sours, there's was the Pisco Sour riff the South American Honey Bee and the Amaretto Sour riff the Am-Am Sour (the second Am is for amaro). Two inspired by art museum visits were All of Freud's Beautiful Women and Clown Car (with overlapping structures although the second one is amari-driven). And then there's the Sazerac variation based off of a Ferrari (Fernet-Campari) and Red Hook mashup that I called the Trash Polka.

I traditionally cap off the list at 10 with that last one or two being a challenge, but not this year. Last year, I had one of the 10 being "Increased my bartender-author cat herd", and we did gain one on a year ago that broke the author pattern of Embury and Boothby with the addition Coley after Savoy bartender Ada Coleman. With 2022 wrapping up, I am curious where 2023 will bring me. I did mention two trips in the first half of the year, and I should be appearing on an industry podcast sometime in January. But other than that, it will be fun to find out.