You Can Also Make Your Own Cocktail Easily

There's a ridiculous secret underlying the current revolution in cocktail culture: it's actually almost impossible to make a bad drink (especially if bourbon is involved). All that's really required is balance: a strong, tactile, clean note of alcohol, finished with interesting side currents of bitterness, sugar, or salt. A successful drink should land loudly but end quietly on the palate.

While it's good sport to go out specifically for cocktails, it can be even more fun to experiment with their creation and host cocktail parties at home. There are three basic approaches to take when looking to improve one's drink repertoire. You can keep your liquor shelf stocked with expensive liqueurs and other enhancers. You can also dig up obscure recipes that are no longer in general use, such as those that date back to before Prohibition. Or you can use basic cocktail recipes as a starting point, then freestyle off of them with simple syrups made in your own kitchen.

The basic approach for making syrups is to dissolve sugar into water and then flavor the solution with herbs or other aromatics. Since the herbs can come from your garden, enhanced syrups are a great way to make drinks with exceedingly local ingredients. Keeping your fridge stocked with a few different flavors invites endless experimentation and spontaneity.

The basic formula for each of these simple syrups is a one to two ratio of sugar to water, and then the addition of an ounce of fresh or dried aromatics. Included below are recipes using shiso leaves, lemongrass, mint, dried rosebuds, and dried hibiscus to create five different cocktails: a Dark and Stormy, a Rose Sidecar, a Hibiscus Vodka Tonic, a Lemongrass Cider Manhattan, and a Sake Martini with Shiso.

All of these ingredients can be found in a garden, your co-op, or your grocery store. Check the bulk section for dried ingredients, they are also available online.

Creating cocktails can be a communal event: keep your bar stocked with at least one of each of the basic liquors and a few syrups, and invite a bunch of friends over. The only limit to the number of potential drinks is your and your friends' livers' imaginations.