A companion thread to the wine and beer threads, this one's for cocktails.

I used to drink mostly vodka martinis but I've been mixing it up a lot over the last year or two. I've been drinking these a lot over the past couple of months:



Four Aces

NGREDIENTS:
4 basil leaves
6 seedless white grapes
1½ shots vodka
½ shot Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur
juice of two limes
¼ shot simple syrup
equivalent of 1 shot club soda

METHOD:
In a mixing glass, lightly muddle 3 basil leaves and grapes. Add the vodka, ginger liqueur, lime juice, syrup, and ice. Shake and strain into a double old fashioned glass filled with ice. Top with the club soda and garnish with the remaining basil leaf.

Jameson, neat.


INGREDIENTS:
Jameson whiskey
Glass

METHOD:
Pour the Jameson into the glass. Drink.

This is ridiculous.

I like to stop by this Nicaraguan place to get drinks and really like something they call a Rontarindo, equal parts Nicaraguan rum and tamarind juice.

Also, as it is starting to cool off outside and I have a cold clogging up my head something terrible, I like a good Hot Whiskey drink, basically a Hot Toddie but with brown sugar instead of honey...

Boil water with a spoonful of brown sugar
add a circle of lemon with a clove stuck in each segment
pour in a shot or more of Irish whiskey

Best cold medicine ever.

I only do this with the lower-end bourbons. Diluting a $50+ bottle of reserve with soda is unacceptable.

This is what I need. Been looking for some hot drinks ever since the weather started to cool off.

That sounds really good. Damn. And I have basil growing in the kitchen windows now too. No ginger liqueur though. Maybe fresh ginger...?

I suppose you could substitute some watered down non-alcoholic ginger syrup or increase both the simple syrup and club soda and add some fresh ginger to the shaker? I get the Domaine de Canton Ginger Liquor for about $30/.750ML bottle so it's not that pricey. I like the drink enough that i've gone through a bottle of it even though this is pretty much the only drink I use it for and it only calls for 1/2 shot of it.



The thread in general or Todd's contribution right above your comment? I don't see why this is any less worthy of a thread than beer and I like the beer thread fine.

four aces. i must have one now.

What are some good cocktail bars around the country? I'd say if you're in Austin, Haddington's is a must. In Houston... Anvil.

Haddington's does a duck fat sazerac that's outstanding.

There is a place here called The Royale that does Cocktail Museum Sundays where they hunt down old cocktail recipes and make a few of them for the night or sometimes just drinks inspired by old recipes depending on availability of ingredients. If I go back, I'll have to try to remember what I have. I recall last time I made it up for that night I had something they said was popular around 1910. Seems people drank more gin in the past...and more drinks with eggs in 'em. Anyway...here's a link to a blog some of you may enjoy that documents a bunch of the drinks served on these nights:

http://www.cocktailmuseum.blogspot.com/

I can't decide if a duck fat sazerac sounds wonderful or disgusting. What do they actually do with the duck fat?

Craft cocktails with farm fresh ingredients are really big in LA now. There are probably at least 10-15 cocktail bars here that send bartenders to national competitions and a few more restaurants that are also well-known for their cocktails. About half of them focus on a particular spirit (whiskey, vodka, rum, tequila) while others just make good cocktails with any spirit.

I don't spend a whole lot of time in bars anymore and have probably only been to about a 1/3 of them. Some of them cater to the velvet rope crowd which I try to avoid and others are just in neighborhoods that I don't frequent very often.

That Four Aces cocktail is one I stole from the Rogers Room. They make great albeit very expensive cocktails ($15-20 a pop), the bar itself isn't very exciting either, but it has the benefit of being next door neighbors with Largo so I always try to grab one drink there before or after a show and chalk up the high price to R&D cost for my home consumption.

That you didn't capitalize this thread title but did for the wine thread.

Actually, I'd probably contribute more to this than the wine one because I don't like wine at all.

Didn't we already have a drink thread? It's probably lost in the ether so it's fine if there's a new one.



I went apple picking a couple weeks ago and drunkenly decided to throw a bunch of vodka into a mason jar along with some apples, cinnamon sticks and nutmeg. It's probably more drinkable than the vodka was alone but I think I put too many apples into it and they're going to soak up all the vodka and I'll be left with a pulpy mess.

Funny I noticed that too and was a tiny bit bothered by the lack of symmetry but didn't do anything about it. Fixed.

If we had a cocktail/drink thread I'm not recalling it. I do remember a Jameson thread which evolved into an Irish Whiskey thread and then into a general whiskey/bourbon/scotch thread. I don't remember a thread all about cocktails though. It wouldn't be that surprising if there was one I guess.

I've been mixing this one up a lot lately. It's a bit more labor intensive than Todd's rec, about the same as billy g's.

The Merchant:

2oz bourbon
1/2oz lillet blanc
splash Grand Marnier
2tsp jalapeno simple syrup
3 mint leaves
10 cilantro leaves
squeeze 1/2 lime
3 dash bitters

Muddle the mint and cilantro with the lime juice, syrup and bitters. Add the bourbon, lillet blanc and Grand Marnier. Shake and strain into cocktail glass.

i made a bunch of mint juleps when there was fresh mint in the garden

i had a mojito for the first time last week

I've been making the wife a concoction of Tito's Vodka, St. Germain elderflower liqueur and San Pelligrino Limonata.

Shake the first two with ice, add soda, stir, strain into martini glass.

baby is asleep, commence to fuhin

That sounds pretty good. A couple of questions: do you make the jalapeno simple syrup or buy it? if you make it, care to share the recipe? what bitters do you use for this one? just angostura or something special?

I had a drink last week called the tavern on the green which also used cilantro and jalapeno. I'd never seen cilantro in a drink before that.

I haven't been able to find an exact recipe and haven't tried to make it myself yet but it used these ingredients:

10 cane rum
basil
cilantro
jalapeno
limes

Probably wouldn't be that hard to figure out but might need to make a few before I get the ingredients to balance out properly.

i dont think id enjoy most drinks with pepper flavor...not really sure about basil either. the four aces sounds pretty good. fan of drinks with ginger.

The duck fat was infused into a rye, i believe bulleit's small batch rye. There's no fat floating around or anything, it's just a rich, complex, balanced drink.

My favorite vodka drink is still my bloody mary. Probably because i can't taste the vodka. Maybe i'll try infusing some vodka. Maybe i'll infuse some vodka with garlic, peppercorns, and habaneros for a bloody mary.

Any other favorite vodka drinks?

The Tavern on the Green doesn't have a pepper flavor. The jalapeno just gives it a little spice and kick. It's not for everyone though. I let fem g try it and she didn't really like it. I thought it was pretty great though.

The Four Aces is really good. Even better after the ice melts a little to cut down on the sweetness.



I used to make infused vodkas but got tired of having big batches of flavored vodkas around that I felt like I had to drink rather than really wanting to. I usually just did citrus vodka as it seemed the most versatile. I'd drink it on the rocks, in screwdrivers, with club soda, or with ice tea as a kind of spiked arnold palmer. I thought about doing a pepper, garlic, or even bacon one for bloody marys but I didn't really see the point of it after I thought about it. why add those ingredients to the vodka when you could just add them to the bloody mary?

Other than bloody marys and the four aces, I mostly drink vodka on the rocks or in martinis. The moscow mule (which is basically a dark n' stormy with vodka substituted for black strap rum) is a pretty good drink though.

there's a bar by me (http://sidecarpdx.wordpress.com/drink-menu/) that has some good cocktails, and they have a vodka drink I enjoyed a couple times:

- bruiser: vodka, canton ginger & black currant, layered over sweet and sour

Worst drink in the world to me is this thing called a Sandinista a lot of my friends drink at a little dive around here. Tequila, lime juice, a dash of Worcestershire Sauce and Sirracha. Fucking disgusting but I know people who love knocking the things back.

I used to drink those shots that were 50% tequila, 50% tabasco. This sounds similar and maybe not bad as a shooter but terrible as a sipper.