Tommy's Old Fashioned

Recently, I bought myself a nice-looking decanter set, so of course I had to come up with a pre-mixed cocktail to fill it. Such concoctions, much like my now-standard mix-it-yourself party punch trick, are great for gatherings (or laziness) because they can be self-served, freeing up yourself as the host to mingle and partake yourself. This sort of thing is arguably even better because it can sit on the bar indefinitely and be simply poured to serve.

This one is named after my newborn son, because it's based on the three-part blend of spirits that I packed away in a flask for our stay in the hospital (because fold-out couches are horrifically uncomfortable and I needed some help getting to sleep after the first night). The liqueurs and bitters are bolt-on additions, but solid ones that I stand by.

The following will just about fill up a clean 750 mL bottle of your choice, because I'm assuming that you have such a bottle available. Dig an empty wine bottle out of the recycling and rinse it out if you don't. That will make for somewhere between 10 and 16 drinks depending on how liberally you pour them.

8 oz Cabin Still bourbon (another basic bourbon of your choice would be acceptable)

8 oz Laird's Straight Apple Brandy (no substitutions)

8 oz Mellow Corn (ditto)

1/2 oz maraschino (Luxardo, naturally)

1/2 oz Casoni 1814

1/2 oz cinnamon syrup

12 dashes Regan's No. 6 Orange bitters

12 dashes Angostura bitters

Combine in a decanter or empty bottle of your choice, stopper, and store on your bar indefinitely. To serve, pour over a large ice cube and stir to your desired dilution and temperature.

And yes: twenty-one years from now, I'll gladly serve him one of these, assuming that both I and the recipe survive to that day. At this point, that seems quite a long way off.

Antonin's Black Heart

Here's a commemorative drink, in the grand tradition of bartenders naming cocktails after memorable people. The person in question is one who I disagreed with on almost everything, but he was certainly influential and he seemed like a guy who would enjoy a stiff drink.

And I think we all need one of these now that an already insane election season just got crazier.

1 1/2 oz Laird's Straight Apple Brandy
3/4 oz Cynar
3/4 oz red vermouth
1/4 oz ruby port
1/4 Islay scotch (or similarly peaty, briny monster)
2 dashes Bitter Truth Jerry Thomas' Own Decanter bitters
2 dashes Fee Brothers Black Walnut bitters

Stir and strain into an old-fashioned glass over a single large cube. Garnish with a large coin of orange peel (I used blood orange, appropriately enough) and a few grains of sea salt.

The Waiting Game

My wife suggested this as a cocktail name a few days ago, inspired by our current situation involving a baby who refuses to emerge on schedule. I haven't been drinking a ton of cocktails lately (being on call and everything) but this spontaneous variation on a simple scotch & soda fits the bill. The fact that it's fairly strong doesn't hurt.

1 3/4 oz blended scotch
3/4 oz Laird's Straight Apple Brandy (a product that I absolutely love)
1/4 oz blueberry syrup
2 dashes Bitter Truth Xocolatl bitters
2 dashes Angostura bitters

Combine in a highball glass with large ice cubes and 3-4 oz of soda water to taste. Stir gently, drink slowly, and be patient.

Cedar & Gold

Here's another fun Ampersand riff for you, this one closer to traditional than our last.

We've dealt with this Boreal Cedar Gin before - I like it, but think it works best when paired with another spirit. It's pretty cedar-y (to coin a word) and richer flavors help bring it into balance. The term unique applies, but that's not a problem.

1 oz Vikre Boreal Cedar Gin (I'm gonna have to make the drive and see the distillery soon!)
1 oz Laird's Applejack (in lieu of proper brandy)
1 oz sweet vermouth (Cocchi Torino)
1 dash Regan's No. 6 orange bitters

Stir (using a chopstick if you're classy like me) and strain into a cocktail glass. Eschew garnish in all its forms.

Very Old Fashioned

This isn't actually especially old - it's just the best name I could come up with on short notice.

1 1/2 oz Plantation 20th Anniversary Rum
1/2 oz Laird's Apple Brandy
1/4 oz mezcal (Vida)
1/4 oz pineapple syrup
3 dashes Bitter Truth Celery Bitters

Stir over a large ice cube in an old-fashioned glass.  FUCK GARNISH.  That's the kind of mood I'm in.  Booze in a glass, dammit, and fast!

Applewood

The highly-effective pairing of scotch and apple brandy in that last drink got me thinking about other options.  I'm pretty sure I've combined tequila and applejack before, so why not mezcal?  In fact, why not all three?

3/4 oz scotch (Dalmore 12 Year this time)
3/4 oz Laird's Straight Apple Brandy
1/4 oz mezcal (Del Maguey Vida Mezcal Joven)
1/2 oz sweet vermouth (Cinzano again)
1 dash Regan's No. 6 Orange Bitters
1 drop orange blossom water

Stir briefly over ice and strain into an old-fashioned glass.  I don't understand this "garnish".

I tried this originally as a scaffa-style unchilled drink, but the dilution (more than the chilling) really seems to help take the edge off.  I might try this with a bit of chilled water rather than ice next time.

Back To Normal

We had a few friends over yesterday for an evening of food and drink, including some couples that haven't joined us before.  I got to sling drinks all night, and at one point I assembled this one as a change from our pitcher of punch and the mostly bourbon-based cocktails I'd made up to that point.

A couple guys joined me in the kitchen during the processed and looked overly impressed, so I started explaining to them my theory of cocktail remixing.  I'll have to put together a detailed post on this sometime soon, but in brief: you can make any number of "original" drinks simply by swapping similar ingredients out for one another.  A lot of classics were created this way: bartenders started with the Manhattan, swapped out the whiskey for gin to make the Martinez, and then swapped out the sweet vermouth for dry to make the Martini.  It happens all the time!  I actually have a pretty neat book that lays out this entire concept (they even boil it down to about 10 master ratios) which I quite like.  It's a really good pick for novices and I really wish I'd come up with the idea first.

Anyway, this one's a remix of a Manhattan, or a Rob Roy, I suppose.  It substitutes scotch as the core spirit (I'll have to do a single malt scotch post soon...) with a touch of apple brandy for character, and splits the standard sweet vermouth with Cocchi Americano.  Easy.  Assemble as follows:

1 1/2 oz scotch (I used my Macallan 10 Year Fine Oak, but a decent blend's fine too)
1/2 oz Laird's Straight Apple Brandy
1/2 oz sweet vermouth (Cinzano, which is a pretty standard example)
1/2 oz Cocchi Americano
2 dashes Regan's No. 6 Orange Bitters

Stir over ice and strain over a large cube in an old-fashioned glass; garnish with a large swath of orange peel.

The name is a hopefully-recognizable tribute to Mitch Hedberg, specifically one of my favorite one-liners: "I remixed a remix, it was back to normal!"

Up-State

I have to admit that on my last trip there, I very much enjoyed my time in New York (due in large part to my favorite bar yet - my only complaint is that it's half a continent away) but I have a real fondness for Upstate.  Reminds me of home, probably; more so than the hustle and bustle of Manhattan.  Here's a drink named in its honor (think of it as "halfway to Toronto").

1 oz rye whiskey (Rittenhouse, appropriately)

1 oz applejack (Laird's Straight Apple Brandy in this case)

3/4 oz sweet vermouth (Dolin here)

1/2 oz Fernet Branca

1 dash aromatic bitters (Angostura)

Stir and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.  Garnish?  What's that?

If you want to use a decent Italian vermouth (Carpano Antica or its ilk) you can probably back off to 1/2 oz and possibly omit the bitters, though I haven't tried it this way.

Vieille Ruelle

I have riffed on the Vieux Carré before with very pleasing results.  This time, I was prompted by a broken cap on my resident bottle of Benedictine which forced me to try and use whatever I could.  There are a lot of substitutions here, but I decided to keep the naming similar and use the French for "old alley".

1 oz white rum (I used the positively superb Plantation 3 Stars, which I cannot recommend highly enough)
1 oz Laird's Straight Apple Brandy (no substitutions, please)
1 oz Cocchi Americano
2 dashes Benedictine (~1/2 tsp)
2 dashes Angostura bitters
2 dashes orange bitters

Shake briefly or stir well and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.  Garnish with an orange peel.

Jaqueline Rose

Here's a nice, light rendition of the excellent Jack Rose cocktail:

3/4 oz applejack (I like Laird's Straight Apple Brandy)
3/4 oz rye whiskey
3/4 oz dry vermouth
3/4 oz real pomegranate grenadine
3/4 oz lime juice

Shake and strain into a small cocktail glass.  Garnish with a lemon twist if you're like that.

Just some simple experimentation, but I like the result in this case.

Peach Pit II

This is a simple rework of the Peach Pit with a more assertive peachiness.  I liked the original, but I regard this as an improvement.

1 1/2 oz peach-infused Laird's Applejack
3/4 oz Bols genever
3/4 oz Lillet Rose (Cocchi Americano would be appropriate, but reduce to 1/2 oz)
2 dashes peach bitters
2 dashes aromatic bitters

Stir and strain into a chilled cocktail glass; garnish with a slice of dried peach.

This has a lingering peach sweetness backed up by some malty spice, but it's not quite as rich as the original.  That makes the whole cocktail much fresher, akin to biting into a sour peach rather than a sweet peach.

Peach Pit

This one turned out very well.

1 1/4 oz peach-infused Laird's Applejack
1 oz Bols genever
1/2 oz orange curacao
2 dashes Peychaud's Bitters
2 dashes aromatic bitters


Stir and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

I really dig how this has a sustained peach presence (applejack helps) without being cloyingly sweet, and how it carries a nice malty bite afterward.  Very old-school, and a very fine cocktail (if I do say so myself).

The Gang's All Here

I just really like the name of this one.  The mix of different ingredients is rather unusual, but somehow manages to balance the qualities of each base against each other.  Like the Widow's Kiss, it's a drink that doesn't really look like it should work but somehow does.

3/4 oz London Dry gin
3/4 oz applejack (I like Laird's 100-proof Apple Brandy)
3/4 oz cognac (regular old brandy won't cut it here)
1 oz yellow Chartreuse (though I love it, the green stuff is too concentrated to work here)
1 dash simple syrup
4 dashes orange bitters

Stir and strain into a coupe or cocktail glass; garnish with an orange or lemon wheel and sip carefully.

Look, it's not a drink for everyone.  Not at all.  It's very much a drink for people like myself, who like weird stuff like the Widow's Kiss.  But I think it deserves a try.