Spirited Cocktails

Our friends at LOUNGERATI have pulled together a list of the winners of the Spirited Awards at this year’s Tales of the Cocktail. We join LOUNGERATI in expressing our pride – and our thanks – to the winners representing the New York scene: Audrey Saunders at Pegu Club, Julie Reiner at Clover Club, and Jim Meehan at PDT (finally recognized as the World’s Best Bar!) Congratulations on this well deserved recognition.

Best American Bar: Audrey Saunders’ Pegu Club, NYC
Best Hotel Bar in the World: The Merchant Hotel, Belfast, Northern Ireland
Best Cocktail Writing 2009: David Wondrich of Esquire Magazine
Best New Product: Bols Genever
Best American Brand Ambassador: Simon Ford for Plymouth Gin
World’s Best Drinks Selection: The Merchant Hotel, Belfast, Northern Ireland
American Bartender of the Year: Jim Meehan of PDT, NYC
Best New Cocktail/Bartending Book: The Essential Cocktail: The Art of Mixing Perfect Drinks by Dale Degroff
World’s Best Cocktail Menu: The Merchant Hotel, Belfast, Northern Ireland
International Bartender of the Year: Tony Conigliaro, Lonsdale, London
World’s Best New Cocktail Bar: Julie Reiner’s Clover Club, Brooklyn
World’s Best Cocktail Bar: Jim Meehan’s PDT, NYC
Helen David Life Achievement Award: Peter Dorelli, London

Special congrats as well to Dale DeGroff, winner of Best New Cocktail Book. Dale’s books were the first ones I picked up when I started to learn more about cocktails, and I finally had the chance to meet him this week in New Orleans (which was a thrill for me). This award couldn’t have gone to a nicer (or more deserving) guy.

And as much as I love all of our New York bars, I’m thinking I need to make a trip to Belfast to check out the Merchant Hotel! Right?

Cheers,

Josh

I make no attempt to hide my true love for Angostura bitters. A wonderful, proprietary blend of roots and herbal extracts, bitters are the perfect modifier to so many cocktails. They were originally used to mask the taste of quinine in tonic water. Supposedly, they’re also thought to cure a number of ailments, including the hiccups or an upset stomach. Personally though, I just love the taste, the look, and even the smell (they’re a terrific aromatic when used in cocktails such as the Pisco Sour, for example.)

The Fitzgerald, designed by Dale DeGroff, is one of the most straightforward demonstrations of Angostura bitters. This cocktail is essentially just a gin sour with bitters added. While it may sound simple, and while a gin sour on its own is great, something wonderful happens with that last little touch.

Here’s what you’re going to need:

1.5oz gin
1oz simple syrup
3/4oz lemon juice
2 dashes (a few good shakes) of Angostura bitters

Combine all of your ingredients along with ice in a cocktail shaker, shake, and strain over fresh ice into a rocks glass. Garnish with a lemon peel.

It’s as simple as that. If you’ve never tried Angostura bitters before, this is where you should start. Also be sure to check out our other cocktails featuring Angostura bitters.

Let me know what you think.

Cheers!

I’m a Philly native. I live in New York City now, but I grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, and the Cheese Whiz of Philly cheesesteaks runs in my veins (probably more literally than I’d care to know.) That’s one of the main reasons the Clover Club Cocktail caught my eye. When flipping through Dale DeGroff’s latest book, The Essential Cocktail, I noticed that the Clover Club (which is a pre-Prohibition cocktail), was invented in Philadelphia at the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel. Dale tells us that the hotel was home to the Clover Club – a social club akin to the Friars Club here in New York. What also caught my eye was a potential variation in the traditional recipe suggested by Dale, in which he uses fresh raspberries. Yum!

I’m going to present that variation first, because it’s what I made for you, but I’ll also discuss the original more below.

Here’s what you’re going to need:

1.5oz gin
1oz simple syrup
3/4oz lemon juice
6 raspberries
1 egg white

Add the simple syrup and raspberries to your shaker, and muddle the raspberries well. Then add the lemon juice, gin, and egg white, and top with ice. Seal the shaker, and shake well. Remember, cocktails with egg white require extra shaking to make sure the egg white is well emulsified.

Technically, due to the inclusion of the raspberries, this drink should be double-strained. First, strain into an intermediate glass with a Hawthorne strainer, then into your cocktail glass with a Julep strainer to remove any raspberry seeds. Personally though, I kinda like the raspberry seeds, so I just strain directly into my cocktail glass. Entirely your choice.

The result is a fresh, sweet, and somewhat tart cocktail, with a great look to boot.

Variations

-The original recipe calls for the use of grenadine as opposed to raspberries. Simply add 3/4oz grenadine in place of the six raspberries, and reduce simple syrup to 3/4oz as well.
-You can also add a sprig of mint to the cocktail shaker before shaking, in which case the cocktail is called a Clover Leaf.

Cheers!

If you do any reading at all about the art of cocktails (and I assume you do, since you’ve ended up here!), you’ve probably come across the name Dale DeGroff. If you haven’t, you need to read more! And you should start with Dale’s book, The Essential Cocktail: The Art of Mixing Perfect Drinks.

Anyway, Dale is commonly known as the King of Cocktails (rightfully so), and you really can’t go wrong mixing one of his recipes. Among my favorite is his take on the classic Gin Sling.

Here’s what you’ll need:

1 1/2oz gin
1oz fresh lemon juice
3/4oz simple syrup
1/2oz sweet vermouth (the Italian kind)
A dash of Angostura bitters
Club soda

Mix all of the ingredients except the club soda in your shaker and top with ice. Give a good hard shake. Strain into a Collins glass over fresh ice, and top off with club soda.

Generally you’ll want to garnish this with a lemon twist or a spiral lemon peel.

The end result is refreshing, and simply delicious.

Cheers!