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Flowers, Chocolate and… Wormwood? February is that one month of the year when we are often reminded that we take things for granted. You didn’t spend enough time outside last summer when it was sunny and 80 degrees, did you? Your New Years’ resolutions that were set in stone …
AMERICANO COCKTAIL The Americano is one of the simplest cocktails with the most complex taste. This cocktail is composed of Campari, sweet vermouth, and club soda. It was created by Gaspare Campari in the 1860s. The original name for this drink was “Milano-Torino” because of its ingredients. Campari is from …
ORANGE BLOSSOM SPECIAL For this month’s featured craft cocktail we take a closer look at vermouth and its roll in craft cocktails. Historically, in cocktails, vermouth was used to cut the harsh flavors of unrefined spirits. Today, both spirits and liqueurs are superior to what they use to be. For …
Skeleton Key In celebration of Halloween, I revisited one of the most successful cocktails I’ve ever placed on a menu. Although the cocktail wasn’t originally inspired by Halloween the name as well as the appearance caters to both fall and Halloween. Last year the Skeleton Key was voted best …
Boulevardier A cousin of the Negroni, the Boulevardier simply substitutes bourbon in place of gin with slightly different portions. This cocktail is from Harry McElhone’s 1927 Barflies and Cocktails. For years I’ve selected the Negroni cocktail as the perfect balance of bitter sweet. The Boulevardier is slightly more spirit forward …
Yes that’s a really horrible use of an old grammatical technique to catch your attention: alliteration. Use so many words that start with the same letter and the human eye is tricked into reading what is written below…or maybe it’s just a wicked tongue twister. Either way, you’re reading this …
Yes, it’s cliché. Great rivalries are not born; they are made over years and decades and centuries. Local? Michigan vs. Ohio State (sorry Sparty). National? Lakers vs. Celtics. British? One word – Manchester. The list goes on and on, but when it comes to great booze there is no better …
Subtle Smoke Subtle Smoke is a cocktail I created years ago in an attempt to get non-scotch drinkers drinking Scotch whisky. These types of drinks I refer to as Gateway Cocktails. I’ve way liked watching patrons enjoy spirits they normally don’t through tasty drinks. This Cocktail is essentially a gin …
Blood & Sand Blood and Sand is one of the few classic cocktails that includes scotch and it is certainly one of my favorites. This drink was named for Rudolph Valentino‘s 1922 bullfighter movie Blood and Sand. The red juice of the blood orange in the drink helped link it …
While beginning to create this month’s cocktail I was staring at a bottle of The Scarlet Ibis Rum from Trinidad that was sitting at my desk. Typically, rum isn’t the first spirit I gravitate toward but when this fantastic complex yet delicate rum crosses my path I had all the …
When Mt. Etna was ‘rediscovered’ 20 years ago, there was an eruption of activity which continues to flow today Geek is old enough to remember when there were semi-regular new ‘discoveries’ in the wine world. New Zealand comes to mind as a hot ‘new’ category in 1980 (even though they’ve…
When Mt. Etna was ‘rediscovered’ 20 years ago, there was an eruption of activity which continues to flow today Geek is old enough to remember when there were semi-regular new ‘discoveries’ in the wine world. New Zealand comes to mind as a hot ‘new’ category in 1980 (even though they’ve been making wine there since the 19th century and ramped thing up seriously in the early 60’s). Likewise, we remember when $15 old-vine Cabernet from Chile was all the rage as they aggressively went after international markets with their best wines which were priced well below similar quality wines from elsewhere. Ditto Argentina and their ‘new’ grape called Malbec which took the world by storm in the 90’s & 00’s. Fast forward to today, and…
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