Honey Bourbon Cocktail Cherries

This cocktail cherry recipe will take you about 15 minutes … and I promise you’ll like them better than those radioactive-looking “maraschino” cherries most bars and grocery stores stock. (I gave maraschino the sarcastic quotation mark treatment because the neon-red ones that are most common don’t even use maraschino liqueur or Marasca cherries, just a lot of sugar.)

Aside from garnishing cocktails like Manhattans with these, you can also use them as a dessert topping … Read more

Blackberry Smash

Wild blackberries are so much sweeter and juicier than their store-bought counterparts. In Northern California, you’ll see them growing wild on the side of the road. I grabbed some bowls, gathered wild berries, and turned them into a simple and satisfying late-summer cocktail. If you can’t find wild berries or some farm-fresh ones at a roadside stand or farmers market, you will probably need to add a little sugar to this recipe.

Ingredients

3 oz … Read more

Midnight Moon Infusions

Keep your eye out for a new product from Piedmont Distillers, makers of Catdaddy Carolina Moonshine and Midnight Moon. The next copper distilled spirits they’ll be putting out with be fruit-infused! We got a sneak peek (and taste) at the Moonshiner’s Breakfast at this year’s Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans. Strawberry, cherry and raspberry are the flavors you have to look forward to. They were surprisingly smooth and authentic tasting–no fake fruit taste … Read more

DIY Orgeat Syrup Recipe

Orgeat is an almond syrup that adds a lightly sweet, nutty flavor to cocktails.

The Mai Tai is the most well-known drink that contains orgeat–although many recipes skip it in favor of grenadine, simple syrup or other more common ingredients.

There are several fine commercial orgeats on the market, along with many too-sweet, artificial-tasting varieties.

Darcy O’Neil has a fantastic recipe for orgeat, if you want to take the time to make it right. However, … Read more

How to Calculate the Alcohol Content of Cocktails

If you’re like us, you’re more interested in drinking than doing math. However, for home mixologists who want to geek out, here’s a little simple cocktail math that can help you determine how strong those homemade cocktails actually are. You may have measured how many ounces of liquor and other ingredients you put in your drink, but that doesn’t actually tell you the alcohol content. Here’s a quick way to figure it out.
You’ll need … Read more

Taking a Flavor Trip at Tales of the Cocktail

Today is the the last day of Tales of the Cocktail 2010. Soon we’ll post the official Drink of the Week wrap-up on all the seminars, parties, tastes and general NOLA madness! But first I wanted to spotlight my favorite seminar of the event. Hendrick’s Gin wrangled up some fresh exotic fruit from around the world — ingredients you may find in your cocktails over the next few years. Some were pleasantly sweet, others messed … Read more

Whiskey and Cheese: Together at Last

If I made a list of my favorite things to ingest, cheese and whiskey would definitely be in the top five. So excuse me while I get all ooey-gooey about the whiskey & cheese session I went to at the Cheese School of San Francisco on Friday. The word “school” in the name might make you think of a classroom but it’s more like a big dinner party with 10 world-class cheeses, five diverse international … Read more

Bruschetta Appetizer

Tomatoes and basil were meant to be together. This simple bruschetta recipe will only take five minutes to make but will taste elegant and refreshing. Summer cocktail party food at its best!

I like to use a mixture of roma and heirloom tomatoes, but use the tomatoes available to you that are the freshest and ripest.

Ingredients

4 cups chopped tomatoes
8 tablespoons fresh basil, chopped
1 red onion, minced
6 tablespoons olive oil (plus

… Read more

Ginger Bell

It’s time to delve into unusual flavor combinations! This cocktail mixes ginger, citrus, honey and bell pepper for a sweet and spicy summer surprise. The ginger and bell pepper give it some kick, while the honey and orange add soothing sweetness.

Ginger Bell

1 ½ oz ginger vodka
½ oz honey-lemon bell pepper syrup*
1 oz fresh orange juice
Ginger ale to taste

In a cocktail shaker with ice, shake the vodka, syrup and orange … Read more

Berry Red Summer

Summer is here … and so are fresh summer cocktails! This one features red raspberries and red grapefruit along with Holland gin and honey liqueur for a brightly colored, lightly sweetened drink. Holland gin has less juniper flavor and more citrus notes than London dry gin, which is what we usually think of when we think “gin.”

We used Damrak gin and Barenjager honey liqueur, but feel free to use your favorites!

Ingredients

2 oz … Read more