Cocktail Recipes

Mix This: Jewel of the Nile

October 25th, 2011 — 1:22pm


You people (meaning our beloved guests) love cucumbers. It’s a fact. We can do damn near no wrong sinking a few slices into whatever you’re having so long as you weren’t in the mood for an old-fashioned. What about it’s greener country cousin, the zuchinni? Zuchinni and mint is literally an age-old culinary combo from Africa to Alabama. Spotting that in a Summer Bon Appetit Caña bartender Danielle Crouch decided to utilize it to inebriate as well as nourish.

This is one of those drinks that require a specific base spirit. The rich, petrol-ish hogo of Neisson Blanc and the 100 pf. It’s bottled at really propel the bright zesty snap of the zuchinni juice to mingle w/ the mint citrus and sugar. Tying it all together is a barspoon of that skinny little tower of obscurity itself, Galliano.

“Jewel of the Nile”
(Because Michael Douglas was a pimp back then)
1.5 oz Neisson Blanc
.75 fresh lime
.75 raw sugar simple [1:1 ratio sugar/hot water]
1.0 fresh zuchinni juice [puree and press through chessecloth if you don’t have a rotary juicer, which you can snag at a goodwill for like $30]
1 barspoon Galliano L’Autentico

Slap the mint before dropping into a collins glass.
Add everything else.
Swizzle that shit so good w/ crushed ice, then top it off w/ a lil’ more ice.
Garnish w/ sprigs of mint.
Drink while you should be working.
Repeat.

Allan Katz, General Manager, Caña Rum Bar

Mix This: Blood & Sand

October 5th, 2011 — 5:29pm


Blood & Sand
3/4 oz Blended scotch
3/4 oz Cherry Herring brandy
3/4 oz Sweet Vermouth
3/4 oz fresh squeeze OJ

Build ingredients in a mixing glass, shake with ice, strain into a coupe.  Orange twist garnish.

There are very few scotch based cocktails throughout history, but of the few out there this one is our favorite. Blood and Sand is a scotch based cocktail first seen in the 1920′s. It was named after Rudolph Valentino’s bullfighter movie “Blood and Sand”. It first appears in print in “The Savoy Cocktail Book” circa 1930.

Lauren Wong, Bartender, Golden Gopher

Mix This: Southpaw

September 21st, 2011 — 11:11am


An out of the ordinary twist on a classic Maid, softened to bring out the vanilla notes in the Jameson.

The Southpaw

1 3/4oz Jameson
3/4oz Fresh Lemon Juice
3/4oz Simple Syrup
1/2 Fresh Orange Juice
Cucumber Slices
Fresh Spearmint Leaves

Muddle around 3 slices of cucumbers.
Add all the ingredients including the spearmint leaves.
Add ice, the larger the better, and shake well.
Strain with a Hawthorne only over fresh ice.
Garnish with a cucumber slice and a fresh sprig of mint.

Andrew Abrahamson, Bartender/Assistant Manager, Seven Grand

Mix This: Basic Cooler with Plex Lowery

September 14th, 2011 — 11:44am


The heat. The Heeeeat!

For the past week, it has been close to unbearable here in downtown Los Angeles. Birds have been falling out the sky mid-flight, car radiators exploding on the 10W and humans scurrying out of the stabbing heat into shade–any shade! Luckily, things have mellowed out a bit…but don’t get too comfortable. I expect that we are not out of the woods yet, and we are not going to get out of this summer without one or two more Mad Max apocalyptic style heatwaves before fall officially makes its debut this year.

So I think there’s more than enough time to enjoy a Cooler. Basically, a Cooler is sugar+soda+a healthy dose of ice and mostly any damn liquor you want. Highballs are just fine for this, but I much prefer them to be in a collins glass. The only thing you need to keep in mind when making this is: “Will this truly be refreshing? Would I slay another man gladiator style for a goblet of this to quench my savage thirst? If the answer is yes, you did it right.

Basic Cooler

1/4-1/2oz Simple Syrup (depending on taste)
2oz your choice of Liquor (personally, I like Chambord)
Club Soda
Long citrus peel

add simple, liquor and soda to glass, add ice to the top and stir a few times. Garnish with peel, sit back, relax and drink.

Plex Lowery, Tony’s Saloon, GM

Mix This: Fancy Free

September 7th, 2011 — 3:58pm


A good one for all of us gentlemen to have in our back pockets is from Ted Saucier’s “Bottom’s Up” (1951). I highly recommend getting your hands on a copy for strewn throughout the cocktail book are pictures of saucy and scantily clad ladies in some form of cocktail erotica. Remember Gents…1951! The cocktail below is prepared in the style of an Old Fashioned.

Fancy Free
- 9 oz Whiskey Glass or Tumbler
- 2 oz Elijah Craig Bourbon or similar Bourbon
- 1/2 oz Maraska Maraschino Liqueur
- Dash of Angostura Bitters
- Ice Rocks (the larger the better)
- An Orange

step 1
Start by building all the ingredients in the glass.

step 2
Place a big rock of ice in the glass, making sure one point of the rock touches the bottom and that the top of the rock doesn’t peek over the rim. If you can’t get a big rock, use four large ice cubes, at least an inch in size.

step 3
Using a yoked vegetable peeler (not a knife), shave off a long strip of orange peel. Squeeze the peel to spray the top of the drink with oil, and then garnish the drink with the peel as if it was a long feather.

Remember!
* I always use Elijah Craig Bourbon in my bar, but if you can’t get hold of it any bourbon of choice that is in the 90 proof (45 per cent alcohol by volume) range can be used.

* Use Luxardo Maraschino liqueur if you prefer, but be careful because the Luxardo is pretty potent, floral stuff. I would use a short 1/2 oz pour of it.

Eric Alperin, co-owner, The Varnish bar

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