With the East Coast and Midwest awash in unseasonably gorgeous weather, our taste buds believe we’re in full-on spring. Who are we to dissuade them? It’s a perfect time to recreate – with subtle differences, naturally -- a classic cocktail from our favorite bar in a springtime destination that’s beautiful all year round. I’m speaking of Mexico City’s Hanky Panky.
We start with a gin base, as they do at Hanky Panky. But we wanted something with an orange tinge, so we split the sweet vermouth and instead of the traditional 1.5 ounces used 1 ounce of Punt e Mes, which has a slightly more orange taste. The remaining ½ ounce was replaced with a local Argentinian triple sec. Of course we kept the Fernet Branca; I don’t think you could call it a Hanky Panky variation without the Fernet. But this rendition is a little drier than your typical classic.
Ingredients In The La Naranja Amarga:
1.5 ounces gin
1 ounce sweet vermouth
½ ounce triple sec
¼ ounce Fernet Branca
1 cup ice
Grapefruit twist (garnish)
La Naranja Amarga Directions:
Combine all ingredients into a mixing glass
Stir gently for around 1 minute
Strain into a coupe
Garnish with grapefruit twist
Tuesday, March 21, 2017
Tuesday, February 21, 2017
The Lillet Rose Spring Cocktail
This cocktail comes to us by way of Martha Stewart. Not only is the drink delicious, it also features a floating flower, which ups the Instagram-ability big time.
12 ounces Lillet Rose
12 ounces Ruby Red grapefruit juice
6 ounces gin
6 edible flower blossoms
Combine all the ingredients minus the flowers into a pitcher full of ice and stir until chilled. Strain and divide cocktail among 6 stemmed cocktail glasses, such as Champagne coupes. Float a flower in each.
12 ounces Lillet Rose
12 ounces Ruby Red grapefruit juice
6 ounces gin
6 edible flower blossoms
Combine all the ingredients minus the flowers into a pitcher full of ice and stir until chilled. Strain and divide cocktail among 6 stemmed cocktail glasses, such as Champagne coupes. Float a flower in each.
Thursday, January 19, 2017
Cocktail of the week: lemon fizz recipe
This is one of our new “twisted” wine cocktails, made from spirits derived from grapes. Serves one.
25ml limoncello
25ml ginger liqueur (we use Giffard Ginger of the Indies)
2 tsp finely grated fresh ginger
20ml fresh lemon juice
Champagne, to top
Pickled ginger (pink, ideally), to garnish
Shake the limoncello, ginger liqueur and pulp, and lemon juice over ice, and strain into a chilled flute. Top with champagne and garnish with pickled ginger petals scrunched up into a flower shape.
25ml limoncello
25ml ginger liqueur (we use Giffard Ginger of the Indies)
2 tsp finely grated fresh ginger
20ml fresh lemon juice
Champagne, to top
Pickled ginger (pink, ideally), to garnish
Shake the limoncello, ginger liqueur and pulp, and lemon juice over ice, and strain into a chilled flute. Top with champagne and garnish with pickled ginger petals scrunched up into a flower shape.
Friday, December 23, 2016
How to Use Red Wine in Your Cocktails
At first, mixing red wine and hard alcohol might not seem like the best idea. At best, it’s a souped-up sangria. At worst, it’s a dreadful hangover, the high school kind caused by drinking half empty bottles of whatever’s leftover in your parent’s liquor cabinet. But for the enterprising bartender willing to experiment, red wine can be a delicious and secretly versatile addition to cocktails, enlivening your bar menu with new flavors, aromas, and colors.
There are two directions you can go in when crafting a wine cocktail: one where wine is the base ingredient, or one where it’s in a supporting role. A predominantly wine-based cocktail has its advantages — for one, it’s an easy, familiar way to build a lower-alcohol drink.
But it’s when wine is used as a cocktail ingredient that the possibilities really start to open up. The incredible variety of red wines means that you’re only limited by the pairings you can come up with: almost any flavor you want to complement can be highlighted by wine. Want a fruity, jammy flavor? Want to incorporate a bolder tannic taste? Want to add acid in a way that’s not citrus? Bring in the wine.
That adaptability means red wine works with spirits across the board. At last year’s Tales of the Cocktail, Washington winery Ste. Michelle Wine Estates held a contest called “Shaking The Vine,” where bartenders came up with cocktail incorporating their company’s wines, including a tempranillo blend. There were over 300 entries, mixing red wine with everything from gin to bourbon.
There’s only one major rule when it comes to building cocktails around red wine, said Ryan Pennington, the winery’s Director of Communications: “Try to see the characteristics of the wine as complementary to the spirits, and use it less with spirits that have similar characteristics,” he said. “If a red wine has a smokiness from the oak, [like] barrel aging, I wouldn’t mix that with a mezcal. It’s too much. But beyond that, there are really endless combinations of how you can use red wine in a cocktail.”
H. Joseph Ehrmann, who owns San Francisco’s Elixir, first discovered wine cocktails in 2008, after a winery commissioned him to build cocktails with their varietals. He approached the task like he did every new ingredient — isolating the flavors and aromas of the ingredient, and testing what cocktail components paired well with it — and a whole new world of cocktails opened up for him and his bar. Since then, he’s featured several wine cocktails on the menu, and has used wine in every form he can: cooked down as syrup, an infusion in the style of a vermouth, and even atomized to create a vodka, Cabernet Sauvignon, and lemon sparkling cocktail.
The teeth-staining properties of wine also make it an ideal way to add some color to a clear cocktail. Even just a small amount can color a drink: Ehrmann recommends it as a substitute for a claret atop a whiskey sour.
“Ever since that first time playing with it, I consider it as viable an ingredient as an herb, fruit or liqueur,” Ehrmann said. His one rule? “Use good wine. If you're using wine that’s not fresh and of decent quality, you’re downplaying the quality of your end result.”
Wine-based drinks are also a natural fit for holiday menus. From Sweden's glögg to Turkey’s sicak şarap, people associate batches of wine simmered with warming spices with cozy winter nights. And if you're going to make a traditional mulled wine, get the most mileage out of it that you can: Ehrmann suggests adding small amounts of mulled wine to cocktails to add a wintery kick to any drink.
But don’t think that you can’t put a red wine cocktail on the menu year round. That atomized wine cocktail? Ehrmann came up with it while developing ideas for a Fourth of July barbeque. “It’s all in the marketing,” he said with a laugh.
That kind of creativity has been a boon for wineries like Chateau Ste. Michelle, but they weren’t always convinced that putting their wine in cocktails was a good idea, Pennington said. “To be honest, one of the other things we wrestled with in the beginning was, would it be seen as degrading to the wine?”
But the success of Shaking the Vine — and the hundreds of excited entries — convinced them otherwise, and they now serve wine-based cocktails at their winemaker dinners.
“People are paying so much more attention to the ingredients in their drinks, where they’re coming from, who’s making it, that there’s no negative connotation to having a wine in a cocktail,” he said.
“If anything, it helps elevate the wine as another artisan, craft ingredient that bartenders can use to make a special drink. It’s an area in the cocktail world that’s still up and coming, and I think more and more places are going to see wine-based cocktails as deserving of a permanent place on their menu."
There are two directions you can go in when crafting a wine cocktail: one where wine is the base ingredient, or one where it’s in a supporting role. A predominantly wine-based cocktail has its advantages — for one, it’s an easy, familiar way to build a lower-alcohol drink.
But it’s when wine is used as a cocktail ingredient that the possibilities really start to open up. The incredible variety of red wines means that you’re only limited by the pairings you can come up with: almost any flavor you want to complement can be highlighted by wine. Want a fruity, jammy flavor? Want to incorporate a bolder tannic taste? Want to add acid in a way that’s not citrus? Bring in the wine.
That adaptability means red wine works with spirits across the board. At last year’s Tales of the Cocktail, Washington winery Ste. Michelle Wine Estates held a contest called “Shaking The Vine,” where bartenders came up with cocktail incorporating their company’s wines, including a tempranillo blend. There were over 300 entries, mixing red wine with everything from gin to bourbon.
There’s only one major rule when it comes to building cocktails around red wine, said Ryan Pennington, the winery’s Director of Communications: “Try to see the characteristics of the wine as complementary to the spirits, and use it less with spirits that have similar characteristics,” he said. “If a red wine has a smokiness from the oak, [like] barrel aging, I wouldn’t mix that with a mezcal. It’s too much. But beyond that, there are really endless combinations of how you can use red wine in a cocktail.”
H. Joseph Ehrmann, who owns San Francisco’s Elixir, first discovered wine cocktails in 2008, after a winery commissioned him to build cocktails with their varietals. He approached the task like he did every new ingredient — isolating the flavors and aromas of the ingredient, and testing what cocktail components paired well with it — and a whole new world of cocktails opened up for him and his bar. Since then, he’s featured several wine cocktails on the menu, and has used wine in every form he can: cooked down as syrup, an infusion in the style of a vermouth, and even atomized to create a vodka, Cabernet Sauvignon, and lemon sparkling cocktail.
The teeth-staining properties of wine also make it an ideal way to add some color to a clear cocktail. Even just a small amount can color a drink: Ehrmann recommends it as a substitute for a claret atop a whiskey sour.
“Ever since that first time playing with it, I consider it as viable an ingredient as an herb, fruit or liqueur,” Ehrmann said. His one rule? “Use good wine. If you're using wine that’s not fresh and of decent quality, you’re downplaying the quality of your end result.”
Wine-based drinks are also a natural fit for holiday menus. From Sweden's glögg to Turkey’s sicak şarap, people associate batches of wine simmered with warming spices with cozy winter nights. And if you're going to make a traditional mulled wine, get the most mileage out of it that you can: Ehrmann suggests adding small amounts of mulled wine to cocktails to add a wintery kick to any drink.
But don’t think that you can’t put a red wine cocktail on the menu year round. That atomized wine cocktail? Ehrmann came up with it while developing ideas for a Fourth of July barbeque. “It’s all in the marketing,” he said with a laugh.
That kind of creativity has been a boon for wineries like Chateau Ste. Michelle, but they weren’t always convinced that putting their wine in cocktails was a good idea, Pennington said. “To be honest, one of the other things we wrestled with in the beginning was, would it be seen as degrading to the wine?”
But the success of Shaking the Vine — and the hundreds of excited entries — convinced them otherwise, and they now serve wine-based cocktails at their winemaker dinners.
“People are paying so much more attention to the ingredients in their drinks, where they’re coming from, who’s making it, that there’s no negative connotation to having a wine in a cocktail,” he said.
“If anything, it helps elevate the wine as another artisan, craft ingredient that bartenders can use to make a special drink. It’s an area in the cocktail world that’s still up and coming, and I think more and more places are going to see wine-based cocktails as deserving of a permanent place on their menu."
Tuesday, November 22, 2016
Give Your Wine a Cocktail Makeover!
Want to dress up your glass of wine? For a tasty treat, try making simple champagne and wine cocktails!
Wine: Ruffino Prosecco
Turn it into: Sparkling Sunrise cocktail
Add 1/4 teaspoon of sweet balsamic vinegar (ones from MODENA Italy are best as they’re sweetest) to the bottom of a flute.
Pour in 1/2 teaspoon of St. Germain (elderflower liqueur)
Add a twist of orange
Wine: Moschofilero (a Greek white wine)
Turn it into: Herbal Delight
Start with 4-5 ounces dry white wine
Add a splash of tonic water
Add chopped fresh basil
Add chopped fresh mint
Serve on the rocks
Wine: Shiraz (We like 2010 Penfolds Koonunga Hill Shiraz Cabernet)
Turn it into: Shiraz Sangria
4 to 5 ounces wine
Add a splash of cognac
Add a dash of orange juice
Add muddled raspberries and blueberries
Serve on the rocks
Sip and savor as you enjoy the last few weeks of summer!!
Turn it into: Sparkling Sunrise cocktail
Add 1/4 teaspoon of sweet balsamic vinegar (ones from MODENA Italy are best as they’re sweetest) to the bottom of a flute.
Pour in 1/2 teaspoon of St. Germain (elderflower liqueur)
Add a twist of orange
Wine: Moschofilero (a Greek white wine)
Turn it into: Herbal Delight
Start with 4-5 ounces dry white wine
Add a splash of tonic water
Add chopped fresh basil
Add chopped fresh mint
Serve on the rocks
Wine: Shiraz (We like 2010 Penfolds Koonunga Hill Shiraz Cabernet)
Turn it into: Shiraz Sangria
4 to 5 ounces wine
Add a splash of cognac
Add a dash of orange juice
Add muddled raspberries and blueberries
Serve on the rocks
Sip and savor as you enjoy the last few weeks of summer!!
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