Spirited Cocktails

Today is Memorial Day in the US. Certainly above all else, a day to remember those who are no longer with us, and to pay special recognition to the men and women of our armed forces. Coincidentally though, it also happens to be the generally accepted opening day of the summer season. Shutters fly open on beach houses, shorts and sunglasses come out in full effect. Warm weather is here.

Of course, nothing celebrates summer quite like a “beach drink.” Beach drinks are the type you’d order at a beach bar, perhaps on some tropical island. They’re generally bright in color (pink works), sweet, and fruity. So in celebration of the opening days of summer, I bring you The Flamingo.

Here’s what you’re going to need:

1.5oz rum (preferably white rum if you have it, but no big deal either way)
1.5oz pineapple juice (always fresh squeezed if possible, but you can see here that I’ve cheated, and it turned out OK. But fresh is always better.)
1/4oz lime juice
1/4oz grenadine
A splash of simple syrup (optional, if you like your beach drinks on the sweeter side)

Combine all your ingredients along with ice in your cocktail shaker, shake well, and strain into a chilled martini glass. No garnish is required.

It’s really as simple as that.

So as your beach umbrellas go up, and the sun block goes on, give this cocktail a try. Even if you can’t make it to the beach yourself, this drink will turn your mind to sunshine and seagulls in a snap.

Cheers!

During our Brown Liquor Tweetup earlier in the week, our group eventually made its way to a wonderful cocktail bar called the Clover Club. You may remember, I’ve posted about the Clover Club cocktail in the past, and while they seemed to do a fine job mixing their namesake drink, another cocktail on the menu caught my eye: the Ward Eight.

The Ward Eight is essentially a whisky sour, but with the addition of grenadine. In The Essential Cocktail, Dale DeGroff teaches us about its historic political roots in Boston’s Eighth Ward. The story goes that it was created on Election Eve 1898 to celebrate the victory of Martin Lomasney. Historians can debate if that’s true. While they do, I’ll be pouring myself a drink.

Here’s what you’re going to need:

2oz rye whiskey
3/4oz fresh lemon juice
3/4oz simple syrup
1/4oz grenadine
Cherry to garnish

Combine all of your ingredients along with ice in your cocktail shaker. Shake and strain into a rocks glass over fresh ice. Garnish with a cherry.

The more observant among you will notice that this cocktail is remarkably similar to yesterday’s cocktail: the Jack Rose, and you’d be correct! Just like the Jack Rose, the Ward Eight follows the traditional sour recipe (2oz base, 3/4oz sweet and 3/4oz sour), and adds a touch of grenadine as well. The difference, of course, is the choice of base. The Jack Rose uses Applejack or Apple Brandy, and the Ward Eight uses whiskey. Either way, you really can’t go wrong.

Cheers!

There’s something deeply satisfying about an apple. The combination of the sweet and the tart. The crunch of that first bite, and the soft flesh inside. Apples have always been one of my favorite fruits, and I relish the idea of bringing them to one of my other favorite things – cocktails!

The Jack Rose is an absolute classic. It has appeared in hotel bars for over a century, and has even shown up in the writing of Ernest Hemmingway. It’s made in the traditional sour style, using the 2:3/4:3/4 ratio, as you’ll see below.

Here’s what you’re going to need:

2oz Applejack
3/4oz fresh lemon juice
3/4oz simple syrup
1/4oz grenadine
Apple slice and/or cherry for garnish

Combine the Applejack, lemon juice, simple syrup and grenadine in a cocktail shaker along with ice. Shake and strain over ice into a rocks glass, and garnish with a cherry and/or apple slice.

This cocktail might not give you the crunch of an apple, but it does give you that sweet/tart taste that I’m certain you’ll enjoy.

If you want to fancy things up a bit, you could (and really should) use homemade grenadine (I was just being lazy). Homemade grenadine is a simple mixture of 1 part sugar to 1 part pomegranate juice. (Correction: this post originally called for simple syrup to pomegranate juice. What you actually use is just plain sugar. Make grenadine just like you’d make simply syrup, using pomegranate juice instead of water.)

You could also use Calvados (apple brandy) instead of Applejack, though if you prefer a sweeter drink, you might want to up the simple syrup to 1oz in that case.

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!