[jimmy lane swizzle]

Leaves 2 sprigs Mint
1 1/2 oz Barbancourt 8 Year Rum
3/4 oz Spiced Simple Syrup
3/8 oz Lemon Juice
3/8 oz Lime Juice
1 barspoon Allspice Dram

Muddle mint at the bottom of a highball glass. Add rest of ingredients and crushed ice, swizzle to mix, and top with Angostura, Peychaud's, and housemade citrus bitters. Garnish with mint sprigs and a straw.

For my second drink of the evening at Eastern Standard last Monday, I offered bartender Jim Lane possible directions of a swizzle or an egg white drink. Jim seemed more excited by the swizzle option and went off to create this mint and spice one. With the muddled mint on the bottom and bitters on the top, the drink looked very much like the Italian of Ghanaian flag before the mint garnish was added. That garnish imparted a rather robust mint nose, while the muddled mint added a large quotient of flavor on the sip. The other strong note in the drink was the spice from the flavored simple syrup on the sip and the allspice dram on the swallow.

[carrol ironwood]

2 oz Rittenhouse 100 Rye
1 oz Mirto Liqueur
1/2 oz Cinnamon Syrup

Stir with ice and strain into a coupe glass.

On Monday last week, Andrea and I went over to Eastern Standard for a late night dinner after my DJ set was over. We had to wait a few minutes for seats to open up at the bar, but when they did, bartender Hugh Fiore greeted us and soon began discussing drink options. When I mentioned that I had not had any rye in a while, Mr. Fiore already had a drink idea queued up.
Hugh selected Mirto, a bitter liqueur made from the myrtle berry plant, and a housemade cinnamon syrup to go with the whiskey. I was surprised at how well the Mirto and cinnamon notes not only complemented each other but paired with the spiciness of the rye whiskey. Moreover, I was impressed at how the liqueur and syrup balanced the rye for intensity, as Rittenhouse can often be pretty domineering. The drink had almost no aftertaste at first; however, after a few sips, the cinnamon notes began to build on the swallow.

illuminations

1 1/2 oz Reposado Tequila (Lunazul)
1 oz Lemon Juice
3/4 oz Lustau East India Sherry
1/2 oz Grade B Maple Syrup
1/2 oz Egg White (1/2 Egg White)

Dry shake, add ice, and shake again. Double strain into a coupe glass.

Two Sundays ago, we finally got around to making a drink out of the new Left Coast Libations cocktail book that was finally released last month at Tales of the Cocktail. Subtitled "The Art of West Coast Bartending: 100 Original Cocktails," the book does a rather good job portraying the Washington, Oregon, and California craft cocktail scenes through fifty bartenders who each present two recipes. The book is not laden with a lot of hard to find seasonal ingredients like many West Coast recipes are, but includes some of the more modern trends in bitters and spirits with a West Coast flare and a decent respect for the classics.
The drink we started with was the Illuminations by Daniel Shoemaker of Portland, Oregon's Teardrop Lounge. The drink started with a very rich sherry and tequila aroma. The egg white, sherry, and maple syrup donated a richness of flavor to the drink and thus did a decent job in mellowing out the tequila. Moreover, the lemon donated a decent amount of crispness to balance out the sweetness of the sherry and maple syrup and helped to make a delightful and complex Tequila Sour.

[starboard tack]

1 1/2 oz Ragged Mountain Rum
1 oz Lustau Amontillado Sherry
1/2 oz Vanilla Syrup
1/2 oz Lemon Juice

Shake with ice and strain into a rocks glass. Garnish with an orange twist.

For my second drink at Lineage, bartender Ryan Lotz wanted me to test out his work in progress. When I heard that it was Berkshire Mountain's rum paired with sherry, I was excited to give it a try. The rest of the drink was a sour mix of fresh lemon juice and vanilla-infused simple syrup.
The orange aroma from the twist worked well with the rum and sherry flavors on the sip. The lemon appeared a little later in the sip followed by a lingering vanilla note and nuttiness of the Amontillado sherry. When I let Andrea have a taste, she commented that it was a "really good dessert cocktail."

honeymoon cocktail

2 oz Calvados
1/2 oz Benedictine
1/2 oz Orange Curaçao
1/2 oz Lemon Juice

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.

On Friday night a week and a half ago, Andrea and I went down to Coolidge Corner to get dinner at Lineage. At the bar, Ryan Lotz described the two cocktails he had chosen for that weekend's selections from Ted Haigh's Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails. The one that called out to me was the Honeymoon Cocktail which was "a signature cocktail of L.A.'s Bob Cobb's Brown Derby." The Brown Derby was a small chain of Hollywood restaurants that opened in the 1920s, and while they did have a Brown Derby Cocktail, it was not one of the more famous ones made with Bourbon or dark rum.
The Honeymoon Cocktail possessed an apple and Benedictine-laced aroma. I was surprised that the drink was not overly sweet as I first suspected from hearing the proportions; indeed, the lemon juice provided a decent amount of crispness, plus Benedictine while sugarful is not incredibly sweet due to its bitter complexity. Moreover, the Benedictine's spice did a good job complementing the fruit notes in the drink. Ryan was correct in declaring that this recipe was one of the winners of Haigh's book.

bartender on acid

1/3 Fernet Branca
1/3 Smith & Cross Rum
1/3 Pineapple Juice

Shake without ice and strain into a shot glass or rocks glass using 1/2 oz or 1 oz portions each, respectively. Shaking with ice and either pouring or straining into a rocks glass (1 oz portions for each ingredient) are viable options.

For a late addition to the Thursday Drink Night: Revamped Classics, Gabe of CocktailNerd had been goading me into revamping the not-so-classic Gator Cum, a shooter that the neighborhood bar next to the Mixo House at Tales made for us. Instead, I opted to revamp a shooter that I had already given some consideration. One Sunday night at Drink, a bunch of restaurant industry folk came into the bar and one of them asked Ben Sandrof first for a Zima, then a Surfer on Acid, and lastly something with Bacardi Limon before giving up and letting Ben make a drink for him. When I spoke to John Gertsen about it later, we discussed the role of a bar to serve the drinks requested versus attempting to stick to a drink program concept. John explained that the bar did not have the proper inventory to make any of his three requests (and Zima had been discontinued for a few months at that point); however, I wondered if the bar could have made their best shot at a Surfer on Acid. I thought about the time I went to Drink for a nightcap after attending a networking event at a bar that had frozen drinks; when John heard that I had been at that bar, he brought out one of his vintage ice shavers and asked if I wanted a frozen drink old school style. I guess if that guy had asked for a 19th century version of a Surfer on Acid, Ben or John would have jumped at the opportunity.

For those luckily not in the know, the Surfer on Acid is an equal parts drink of Jägermeister, Malibu or other coconut rum, and pineapple juice. To make the Bartender on Acid, I considered the role of Fernet-Branca as "bartender's handshake" and decided it would be the perfect substitution for the herbal Jägermeister liqueur. While the pineapple juice could stay, the coconut rum had to go. What to substitute it with? The most fetishy rum of the moment: Smith & Cross. Smith & Cross packs a wallop both in proof and in flavor. Very few things can compete with its might.

When we did the BOA shot at Drink Night, Gabe commented that finally there was a drink that could put Smith & Cross in its place. Indeed, Fernet and the rum were equals in the drink and the pineapple juice functioned to add some softer notes to the tussle. The Bartender on Acid was a surprisingly good shooter as well as a decent sipper. Since Smith & Cross is modeled after Jamaican rums prevalent in the 19th century, this recipe solved my riddle from a year or so ago.

Update 7/22/26: A few weeks after posting this, Drink made a pitcher of this drink and served it as their "Punch of the Day" that I made a vague reference to in one of my 2010 year-end wrap ups.

contrabandista

1 oz Pisco
1 oz Dry Vermouth
1/2 oz Lime Juice
1/2 oz Grenadine
1 dash Orange Bitters

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

For Thursday Drink Night a little over a week ago on Mixoloseum's chatroom, the theme was "Revamped Classics." The classic I chose to modify was the non-Chartreuse Scofflaw by switching the spirit and citrus from whiskey and lemon to Pisco and lime. In keeping with the smuggling theme of the original Prohibition era cocktail, I named my version the Contrabandista to add a Spanish twist to match the spirit choice. Tequila almost got the nod as the rye or Bourbon substitute; while Tequila would keep with the story line of Prohibition better, I thought Pisco would make for a more unique drink.
The Contrabandista's citrus and grenadine aromas merged well with the Pisco on the sip. The sip started sweet from the grenadine and got more tart on the swallow from the lime coupled with the vermouth. Moreover, the vermouth added a nice degree of complexity on the swallow to round out the drink.

delores park swizzle

1 oz Amontillado Sherry (Lustau)
1 oz Tequila (Lunazul Reposado)
3/4 oz Ginger Syrup (Homemade)
3/4 oz Lime Juice
1/4 oz Velvet Falernum

Shake with ice and strain into a Collins or Pilsner glass filled with crushed ice. Swizzle to mix. Top with 4 dashes of aromatic bitters (Fee's Whiskey Barrel) and garnish lavishly with mint. Add a straw.

One of the media lunches at Tales of the Cocktail was hosted by the Secret Sherry Society. At that event, they handed out booklets with the semi-finalist recipes for last fall's Vinos de Jerez (Sherry) Cocktail Competition. Included in the listing were two Boston ones: Misty Kalkofen's Dunaway that Misty made Andrea last year, and Corey Bunnewith's Balao Swizzle which we made a few days ago and will write about soon. On Tuesday a week and a half ago, the Delores Park Swizzle, created by Thomas Waugh of Manhattan's Death & Co., matched our mood that night and got the green light.

The swizzle started with an aroma of sherry paired with mint. Sherry also appeared on the front of the sip along with a sweet lime flavor, and the swallow was a complementary dose of ginger and tequila that rounded out the drink quite nicely. After a few sips, the ginger's spice and the sherry's nuttiness pleasantly began to linger on the tongue, and after several more sips, the cinnamon notes from the floated aromatic bitters began to enter into the equation.

four flush cocktail

1/2 Bacardi Rum (1 oz El Dorado 3 Year)
1/4 Swedish Punsch (1/2 oz Homemade Ellestad Recipe)
1/4 Dry Vermouth (1/2 oz Noilly Prat)
1 dash Grenadine (1 barspoon Mulberry Syrup)

Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

On Sunday night (now almost 2 weeks ago), I reached for my new acquisition of Hyman Gale's The How and When from 1938 (well mine is a 1945 reprint). The book was recommended a while back by Ted Haigh in a DrinkBoston post, and I finally spotted it online for cheap on Amazon's used book section. Well, it was a semi-new purchase for it arrived right before we left for Tales of the Cocktail and sat there patiently until we got back.
The drink that called out to me that night was the Four Flush Cocktail which can also be found in the Savoy Cocktail Book amongst other places. The name, while sounding slightly scatological, refers to the poker hand where 4 of the 5 cards are all of the same suit and the player has a little under 20% chance of completing the flush proper. For this drink, we used a slightly more flavorful rum than today's Bacardi, namely El Dorado 3 Year, but one that might not have been as flavorful as the Bacardi of the book's era which was somewhere between a Cuban and a Martinician rum. Moreover, instead of grenadine, I used mulberry syrup which contributed to the drink's aroma besides donating a richer color than most grenadines; perhaps the grenadine's color was meant to symbolize a string of hearts or diamonds cards. The sip was sweet and lightly flavored, while the swallow was full of vermouth and the punsch's Batavia Arrack and spices which dried out the balance considerably. The Four Flush Cocktail seems like it should be more natural of a citrus drink instead of a dry vermouth one, but the vermouth did give it a degree of elegance.