Recipes

Celebrate Season Three with the Orange Is the New Black Cocktail Recipe

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Calling all Litchfield lovers! If you’re looking for the perfect cocktail to enjoy while binge watching the latest season of OITNB, we’ve got you covered!

Orange bell pepper meets black rum: the tastiest duo since Piper and Alex.

Orange Is The New Black

Orange is the New Black

  • 3 slices of orange bell pepper
  • 2 oz. black rum
  • 1 oz. fresh squeezed grapefruit juice
  • 3/4 oz. poblano simple syrup
  • 1/2 oz. fresh squeezed lemon juice

Muddle two slices of orange bell pepper in the bottom of a cocktail shaker. Add rum, grapefruit juice, poblano syrup, lemon juice and shake with ice. Double strain into a coupe, garnish with your remaining bell pepper slice.

The End of An Era: 3 simple cocktail recipes to toast the series finale of Mad Men

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We’re just hours away from the series finale of Mad Men. Whether you love it, you hate it, or love to hate it, the Emmy-award winning AMC series has undoubtedly contributed to the resurgence of cocktails in recent years. Here are three simple recipes to help you celebrate the end of an era:

Gimlet

Gimlet
Betty Draper-Francis’ go-to beverage, whether entertaining as Don’s wife or drinking alone at the bar.

  • 2 oz. vodka (or gin)
  • 3/4 oz. lime juice

Betty prefers it with vodka, but gin is perfectly acceptable. Shake with ice and strain into a chilled coupe and reminisce about the early years of Don and Betty’s marriage.

7 & 7

Although I don’t recall anyone actually drinking a 7 & 7 on Mad Men, we did catch a glimpse of Seagram’s Seven Crown whiskey in Don’s apartment.

  • 1.5 oz. Seagram’s Seven Crown American Whiskey
  • 6-8 oz. 7 Up

Start with a highball glass with ice and add whiskey. Fill with 7 Up, stir, and toast to the last 7 episodes.

Roger & Peggy’s Last Hurrah

If your liquor cabinet is looking a little light, you can always take a tip from Roger and Peggy and grab what’s available. Bonus points if it’s vermouth!

  • 1 bottle of whatever’s handy, such as Vermouth
  • 1 or more friends

Roller skates optional.

Between an Old Fashioned & Manhattan: She Likes it That Way

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She Likes it That WaySomewhere in between an Old Fashioned and a Manhattan lies this concoction, which I refer to as She Likes it That Way. While on occasion, you may be able to skip the orange peel & bitters, the two cherries are non-negotiable. Because she likes it that way.

  • 1.5 oz. bourbon
  • 0.75 oz. sweet vermouth
  • 0.75 oz. Luxardo maraschino liquor
  • 3 dashes of Angostura bitters
  • sprinkle of Sugar in the Raw
  • orange peel
  • 2 maraschino cherries

Drop an orange peel skin side down into an old fashioned glass. Sprinkle the raw sugar and bitters and muddle into the peel. In a mixing glass or tin, stir the bourbon, vermouth and Luxardo with ice. Put an oversized ice cube into the serving glass and strain the chilled liquid over the frosty cube. Garnish with an orange peel and two cherries.

Cheer on the Seahawks with a “12th Man Gimlet”

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gimletJust in time for Superbowl XLIX, get ready to cheer on the Seattle Seahawks with this hawktail recipe for a 12th Man Gimlet. Add a few drops of blue food coloring to your simple syrup- it won’t affect the taste but looks great next to a lime wedge.

  • 2 oz. gin
  • 0.5 oz. fresh squeezed lime juice
  • 0.5 oz. blue simple syrup

Combine all ingredients in a shaker with ice. Strain into a coupe glass, garnish with a football lime, and Go Hawks!

A Lazy Hike

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Lazy Hike

I was inspired by the Camden Hike, a recipe from Maine bar manager Tom Laslavic, featured in Imbibe’s The American Cocktail. I’m not a huge vodka fan, but was intrigued by the use of blackberries and lemon. I took a few shortcuts on the original recipe- hence the name A Lazy Hike- but the result was still delicious. If I ever have the energy to puree blackberries again, I might try this with gin.

  • 2 oz. vodka
  • 1 oz. blackberry puree (throw berries into a food processor, then use a fine mesh strainer. 1/2 c. blackberries yields roughly 1 oz. of puree)
  • 0.75 oz. lemon juice
  • 0.5 oz. honey
  • 0.5 oz. creme de cassis

Combine all ingredients in a shaker with ice. Strain into a double old fashioned glass with ice. Garnish with lemon peel and blackberry.

The Papillon

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The Papillon, presumably named after “butterfly” in French and not the toy dog, is a fall favourite that comes to us from Sava’s in Ann Arbor. As it combines bourbon, black rum and a dash of scotch there are infinite variations one can explore.

  • 1.5 oz. bourbon (Buffalo Trace)
  • 0.5 oz. black rum (Barbancourt 8 Year)
  • 0.5 oz. autumn syrup
  • 0.25 oz. scotch (Glenmorangie)
  • 3 bourbon-soaked raisins

Combine the bourbon, rum, syrup and scotch in a shaker with ice. Strain into a chilled coupe and carefully drop in 3 raisins.

Autumn Syrup:

1 part water and .75 parts maple syrup; simmer and stir until mixed; cool to room temperature then store in a sealed glass container for up to 2 weeks in the refrigerator.

 

 

Bourbon Maple Cider

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Celebrating the first official day of Fall with fresh apple cider from a local Michigan orchard. I suppose a more patient person would have made an autumn simple syrup but I took a chance that the acid in the lemon and natural sugars in the cider would help tame the splash of raw maple syrup…it worked!

  • 1.5 oz. bourbon (Maker’s 46)
  • 2 oz. fresh apple cider (Wasem’s Fruit Farm)
  • 1/4 oz. fresh squeezed lemon juice
  • 1/8 oz. dark amber maple syrup
  • dash of cayenne pepper

 

Combine all ingredients in a shaker with ice and strain into a coupe. Sprinkle a dash of cayenne pepper.

Much Too Much

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Inspired by the Elvis Costello song New Amsterdam, Much Too Much adds a bitter herbal twist to a Gimlet. The raspberries provide a brilliant red hue to this tart cocktail.

  • 2 oz. New Amsterdam gin
  • 0.5 oz. fresh squeezed lime juice
  • 0.5 oz. simple syrup
  • .25 oz. Cynar
  • 2 fresh raspberries

Muddle the 2 raspberries in a boston shaker. Add the rest of the ingredients and shake with ice. Strain into a chilled coupe.

muchtoomuch

For the truly brave, cut the simple syrup in half (using only 1/4 oz. instead of 1/2) and let the Cynar dominate.

 

 

His Father’s Eyes

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A twist on the whiskey sour with fresh lemon juice and a rosemary-infused simple syrup. Named “His Father’s Eyes” as a nod to the 1968 film Rosemary’s Baby, referencing the climax where the true identity of the father is revealed.

  • 1.5 oz. Grass Widow bourbon, Two James Distillery
  • 0.75 oz. fresh squeezed lemon juice
  • 1 oz. rosemary syrup

Shake an strain over a rocks glass; garnish with a fresh rosemary sprig.

from the Criterion Collection.

from the Criterion Collection.

His Father’s Eyes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I submitted this to the first Two James Distillery contest- although it was not selected I still had fun putting it together.

Goose in Spring

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I wanted to start experimenting with botanical infusions and was thrilled to find a recipe that uses both elderflower liqueur as well as lavender-infused vodka. St. Germain, a French apertif derived from elderflower blossoms, comes a bottle that looks like it was just plucked straight from Jay Gatsby’s liquor cabinet. If you can make iced tea, you can easily infuse vodka with dried lavender. While the recipe’s namesake calls for Grey Goose, I suspect any vodka will do. We sprinkled a generous handful of dried lavender into a bottle and let steep for a few days.

Goose in Spring comes from Elijah Venanzi, who won the May 2012 Vodka Cocktail Contest:

  • 2 muddled raspberries
  • 2 oz. lavender-infused vodka
  • 0.75 oz. St. Germain elderflower liquer
  • 0.25 oz. fresh lemon juice

Shake with ice and double strain into a lavender-rubbed coupe. Garnish with lemon peel.

Goose in Spring: easily infused