Cocktail Recipes Tonight

[Wilfrid]

Join da club. 

[StephanieL]

Frosty the Merman.

 

[small h]

A (low alcohol) screwdriver with fresh squeezed orange juice, because H found a bag of oranges.

[StephanieL]

Apple Sidecar

• 1 1/2 oz. apple brandy (I used a mix of Calvados and Laird’s Applejack)
• 3/4 oz. Cointreau
• 3/4 oz. Meyer lemon juice
• Cinnamon sugar

Rim a cocktail glass with cinnamon sugar. Shake the brandy, Cointreau, and lemon juice with ice and strain into the rimmed glass. Garnish with an apple slice.

[StephanieL]

Reindeer's Tail, courtesy of the East Bay Times:

• 2 oz. dark rum (I used Gosling's Black Seal)
• 1/2 oz. fresh lime juice
• 1/2 oz. allspice dram
• 1/4 oz. Demerara syrup
• 2 dashes Angostura (or other aromatic bitters)

Shake over ice and strain into an ice-filled rocks glass. Garnish with a lime wheel.

[hollywood]

White Negroni

1.5 oz. gin

1 oz. Lillet blanc

.5 oz. Suze

Prepare like a standard Negroni with maybe a lemon slice in lieu of orange.  Tastes slightly smoky.

[small h]

I make white Negronis with Cocchi Americano, gin and dry vermouth.

[MitchW]

The Pegu Club recipe (Phil Ward's) is/was:

2 oz. Plymouth

1 oz. Lillet Blonde (Blanc)

.75 Oz. suze

Lemon twist

Dante's is quite different...https://imbibemagazine.com/recipe/dantes-negroni-bianco/

[small h]

I probably got my recipe from https://www.seriouseats.com/white-negroni-cocktail-recipe. The first time I had Cocchi Americano was at a brunch somewhere in Brooklyn a few years ago, with (among others) Koharu from Bar Goto. So I would've started making white Negronis after that.

Edited March 30, 2025 by small h

[small h]

Enzoni (sort of - grape juice and no syrup). Not bad! Trying to make use of the grape juice my neighbors gave me for Purim.

[StephanieL]

Pink Gin, using up the last of our Plymouth gin.

[Wilfrid]

Wild improv. Sudden craving for a Cosmopolitan. No vodka or cranberry juice on hand.

Okay, meet the NoCosmo: gin, Cointreau, lime juice and squeezed blackberries. The latter a messy business, but gave me the pinkness.

[bloviatrix]

Have you ever considered using jam?

 

[Wilfrid]

I absolutely did. Guess what? No jam. The blackberries were the only contender. 

[small h]

Our yard upstate was full of violets last weekend, so I made violet syrup. Then I used it in a Southside, to make a Violet Southside. It doesn't taste appreciably different, but it sure is pretty!

Edited May 31, 2025 by small h

[small h]

The time has come for a Byproduct.

 

[StephanieL]

Coronation No. 1--nice if you don't want something too strong:

• 1 1/2 oz. dry vermouth
• 3/4 oz. fino sherry
• 1 barspoon maraschino liqueur
• 2 dashes orange bitters

Place all ingredients in a mixing glass, add ice, and stir.  Strain into a chilled coupe glass.

Edited July 7, 2025 by StephanieL

[Wilfrid]

Anyone heard of the Abu Hamed? Apparently a refreshment adopted by British journalists as they embedded themselves in military expeditions to the Sudan in the 1890s. Who knew?

A kind of sub-Saharan highball. Gin, dry vermouth, lime juice, Angostura and soda.

I have all of those so was planning to make it tonight, but it depends how many of PB Brasserie's delicious cucumber martinis I drink.

[StephanieL]

The Matador: equal parts tequila, Curacao, and dry vermouth, shaken and strained into a cocktail glass.  What tequila to use is up to you.

[MitchW]

This week was the 20th anniversary of the opening of Pegu Club.

The Joy Division is a dry and bitter cocktail created in 2008 by Phil Ward for Death & Company.

    •    2 oz Beefeater London dry gin 
    •    1 oz Dolin dry vermouth 
    •    ½ oz Cointreau 
    •    3 dashes of absinthe, like Vieux Pontarlier or Lucid 
    •    Lemon twist garnish

Stirred.  And back when Phil created this drink, Beefeater was 94 proof - now it's 80, so maybe this drink would be better with a different gin at this point.

[StephanieL]

I'll give it a try with my Sipsmith gin, which is 83.2 proof (not a typo).

[plattetude]

On 8/30/2025 at 8:40 PM, MitchW said:

This week was the 20th anniversary of the opening of Pegu Club.

The Joy Division is a dry and bitter cocktail created in 2008 by Phil Ward for Death & Company.

    •    2 oz Beefeater London dry gin 
    •    1 oz Dolin dry vermouth 
    •    ½ oz Cointreau 
    •    3 dashes of absinthe, like Vieux Pontarlier or Lucid 
    •    Lemon twist garnish

Stirred.  And back when Phil created this drink, Beefeater was 94 proof - now it's 80, so maybe this drink would be better with a different gin at this point.

At 90 proof, Ford's has become my go-to for a Beefeater stand-in. (Though I do have one handle left of 88 proof Beefeater.)

In a similar vein, and same provenance, I'm a fan of Phil's Yeoman Warder.

• 2 oz Beefeater London dry (I mean, yeah, one would want it to be Beefeater, but Ford's is the way to go now)
• 3/4 oz Dolin dry 
• 1/4 oz Cynar
• 1/4 oz Luxardo Maraschino

No garnish.

[MitchW]

18 hours ago, plattetude said:

At 90 proof, Ford's has become my go-to for a Beefeater stand-in.

Yes - here too!  And I think I have a bottle or two of 94 proof Beefeater at the top of a closet somewhere.

18 hours ago, plattetude said:

I'm a fan of Phil's Yeoman Warder.

That looks good. And a bit more funky and bitter.

[cinghiale]

On 8/31/2025 at 2:40 AM, MitchW said:

This week was the 20th anniversary of the opening of Pegu Club.

 

Slightly OT, but looking back, how do you rate that first wave of the "bar revival"? I liked Pegu Club, but thought it was a bit swanky. I preferred Death and Co. I was living in Philly at the time, so I was more of a tourist than a regular, but I visited both multiple times. I never made it to PDT.

Edited September 3, 2025 by cinghiale

[MitchW]

2 hours ago, cinghiale said:

Slightly OT, but looking back, how do you rate that first wave of the "bar revival"? I liked Pegu Club, but thought it was a bit swanky. I preferred Death and Co. I was living in Philly at the time, so I was more of a tourist than a regular, but I visited both multiple times. I never made it to PDT.

In that wave, let's not forget Angel's Share and Milk & Honey, which both opened well before Pegu, D & C, PDT.

I was lucky enough to attend Cocktails Over Canal any number of times.  That took place in the great Don Lee's apartment, atop 1 Ludlow Street, at the intersection of Ludlow, Division and Canal Streets. I wouldn't have called it a speakeasy, but you did have to know someone to get in. Both Don and John, who were the opening bartenders (along with Jim Meehan) at PDT, honed their craft up those rickety stairs.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/f3MLFXDfgYcerBJC6

All that having been said, I thought it was a great time in NYC's cocktail revival era. Bartenders were tending bar and mixing cocktails, as opposed to some of what I see going on now (though to be honest, I really go to the fancy cocktail places any more).

@plattetude - I was informed today that Phil is basically using Hayman's London Dry for his gin based drinks these days.