There are many was to toast the holiday season—scotch, champagne, cognac—and serving a lovely holiday cocktail is certainly one of my favorite ways to welcome guests on a cold, wintry night. If you’re searching for holiday cocktails, here’s a list of our favorites.

Skål!

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It is no secret that SLOSHED! HQ has a deep and abiding love for Beachbum Berry; his books are practically a religion around here, and we make drinks from them more than any others on our shelves (except possibly Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails, the book that started it all). But for those of you who are unaware, the Bum also keeps a very neat blog wherein he chronicles his adventures and many previously uncharted recipes like this one.

The Ghost Ship comes from a fella named Dave “Basement Kahuna” Wolfe, a tikiphile and accomplished carver of Oceanic art. As the Bum recounts it, Mr. Kahuna “spent a restless night ‘screwing around looking for a spicy, creamy alternative to the Deep Sea Diver or the Painkiller.’” The result is a surprisingly delicious treat based on pot-stilled rum, a style which presents not a few challenges to a mixologist working with it. For Halloween, it offers a sweet and not especially boozy option for the menu—with the added bonus of a stellar garnish that takes the presentation of this drink over the top.

1 oz Smith & Cross Jamaican rum
¾ oz Trader Tiki Don’s Mix
¼ oz Barenjäger
½ oz Licor 43
½ oz fresh lime juice
½ oz orange juice
½ oz half & half
¼ oz orange bitters

Pour all ingredients into a blender with with ¾ cup (6 oz) crushed ice. Blend for 5 seconds and pour into a double old-fashioned glass. Garnish with a “ghost ship” and serve.

To make the garnish: put a toothpick through half of a spent lime shell, making a ship-like shape. Spear two circles of lemon or orange peel with a toothpick through the top and bottom, making a double bow shape. Repeat with a second toothpick, and secure both into the bottom of the lime “hull,” with the “sails” sticking out above the lime shell. Orange peel pirate colors optional.

The original recipe calls for a ½ oz of Stirring’s Blood Orange Bitters; though we have about eight different kinds of orange bitters in the house, none of them are by Stirring’s. If you haven’t tried their Blood Orange Bitters, they aren’t especially bitter—they’re more of a blood orange tincture than what we commonly use as cocktail bitters, so I used The Bitter Truth’s orange bitters and cut the portion back to ¼ oz. With that caveat, this drink is surprisingly delicious. I had a hard time anticipating what the flavor would be like with so many ingredients, but the overall effect is sweet, rich and mellow, very much like the Painkiller would be. There is more depth of flavor here, thanks to the Smith & Cross, but the citrus brightens it up while the liqueurs add sweetness and even out the rum’s characteristic funkiness. The Don’s Mix adds the spiciness usually accomplished by a grating of nutmeg or cinnamon, bringing all the flavors together into a rich, sweet treat.

And that garnish! I’m not much on garnishing in general; if it is more complicated than a sprig of mint or a citrus peel or it isn’t strictly necessary to the flavor of the drink, it ain’t happening. But I couldn’t resist the lure of building a ship out of citrus peels—call it my inner child, yearning for arts and crafts time. Making the garnish is a bit time-consuming but not so much so that it should deter you from giving it a try. Yo-ho-ho, and happy trick-or-treating!

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Post tags: bitters, cocktail, cream, honey, lime, orange, tiki

Some kind of convergence happened this year and a whole bunch of snake-themed drinks have appeared on our radar for Halloween. Not exactly a classic symbol of Halloween, but they certainly inspire plenty of dread. I recall, as a child, being enamored of the brave Rikki Tikki Tavi when he challenged Nag and Nagaina—what sane person (or mongoose) would fight down two cobras?

Though we are all familiar with the hooded snake who came face-to-face with Indiana Jones, cobras are part of a larger (and scarier) family of snakes called Elapidae, which makes them kin to death adders, copperheads, mambas, corals and sea snakes. Being in such abjectly terrifying company would certainly earn them a fearsome reputation without their intimidating hoods, large fangs and fatal neurotoxin. Some species of cobras even have the ability to spit venom at their prey via small holes in the tips of their fangs. Yikes.

All of which is a long way of saying that a cobra’s fangs are no joke, and the sting delivered by this drink is serious business. As with most tiki drinks, the genesis and exact recipe for the Cobra’s Fang are unclear. There are a few primary sources: the Cobra’s Fang recipe found in Hawaii Tropical Rum Drinks & Cuisine by Don the Beachcomber written by Phoebe Beach, Donn’s wife at the time of his death; and two related recipes unearthed by Jeff “Beachbum” Berry, the Cobra from the Kon-Tiki in Chicago and the Sidewinder’s Fang from The Lanai in San Mateo. Both recipes date from the early 1960s. And, of course, our beloved Tiki-Ti serves the Cobra’s Fang (but good luck getting them to divulge the recipe). In digging through all of this backstory, I found an interesting mash-up recipe posted on Tiki Central by a user called arriano; this recipe incorporates elements from all three recipes and substitutes passion fruit syrup for fassionola (a defunct fruit punch-like ingredient). It sounded intriguing, if not wholly historically accurate—but if it’s delicious, does the accuracy truly matter?

½ oz lime juice
1½ oz orange juice
½ oz passion fruit syrup (B.G. Reynolds’ or homemade)
1 oz dark Jamaican rum (Plantation Jamaica, but Appleton 12 or V/X would also be good here)
1 oz 151-proof Demerara rum (such as Lemon Hart 151)
6 drops Pernod (or Herbsaint)
dash grenadine
dash Angostura bitters

Add all ingredients to a blender along with 4 ounces crushed ice and blend at high speed for five seconds. Pour into a tall glass and, if necessary, add ice to fill. Garnish with an orange spiral and serve.

Tiki drinks don’t exactly spring to mind when considering Halloween but this one certainly fits the bill for the holiday, beginning with its lovely burnt orange color. The tart of citrus and sweet of passionfruit and rum play very well here, with just a hint of a fresh herbaceous flavor from the Pernod. The delicious clove and allspice notes of Angostura tie all the flavors together, teasing out a hint of the tastes and scents of fall. Be careful, though—the equivalent of three ounces of 80-proof liquor are in this drink and you can’t taste them. Too many of these and the Cobra’s Fang will definitely bite back.

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Post tags: bitters, cocktail, grenadine, lime, orange, passion fruit, tiki

There are many wonderful perks about living where we do—it’s very quiet and suitably far from the city, so we can see stars and hear crickets at night. We have a garden and raise our own chickens but aren’t so far away from town that we miss out on interesting activities. There are, however, a few downsides; foremost among them, at least for me, is rattlesnakes. We find a few every year—especially in my garden—and it never becomes more fun. I am not generally fearful of snakes, but that whispery, papery rattling noise sends a shiver down my spine every time I hear it.

Fortunately, this drink isn’t nearly so menacing as an actual Diamondback. I found this cocktail via Paul Clarke, who in turn discovered it through Chuck Taggart, who was sent the drink by Murray Stenson (which he found in Ted Saucier’s Bottom’s Up). If you’re a cocktail nerd (and you probably are), I’m sure your drink antennae are twitching by now. That’s a pretty great pedigree of recommendations for any drink, and the fall-ready flavors of rye whiskey and applejack make this the perfect time to give it a try.

1½ oz rye whiskey
¾ oz applejack (such as Laird’s Bonded)
¾ oz Chartreuse (yellow or green)

Add all ingredients to a mixing glass filled with ice. Stir well, strain into a chilled cocktail glass and serve.

This cocktail is a bit deceptive; it’s body and color are very light, which don’t necessarily belie the fact that this drink is solid, potent liquor through and through. The spicy character of the rye is a natural companion for the sweet and fiery applejack, and the herbal notes of the Chartreuse round out the rye and applejack with herbal and floral flavors. (I used green Chartreuse here because it’s my favorite but I hear that the yellow is equally good, though different.) Overall this is a robust, delicious drink that would be perfectly at home at any Halloween gathering—offering just a little whisper of danger alongside a hefty thrill.

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Post tags: applejack, chartreuse, rye, whisk(e)y

I found this bewitching little number while I was hunting for a cocktail I bookmarked once upon a time on Trader Tiki’s old site…before tradertiki.com went the way of the dinosaurs. Obviously I deserve what I get for not making note of the recipe before now, but instead I had to take some time hunting around the Google and doing some Facebook stalking to find said formula, which was couched rather cosily near The Devil’s Own. The ingredient list of The Devil’s Own was intriguing, to say the least, and since I had the ingredients on hand I set about making it (instead of the drink I had been looking for in the first place).

Created by Jason Schiffer, bartender and owner of 320 Main in Seal Beach, California (also known as the place where RumDood bartends), this drink might raise a few eyebrows. Not everyone shares the SLOSHED! crew’s love of Fernet Branca, but if you like it even a little bit this drink makes beautiful use of its very particular flavors. And aside from the perfectly apropos name, the mahogany shade of the finished cocktail certainly sets a very Halloween-y mood.

1½ oz Zaya Trinidad rum
½ oz Fernet Branca
¼ oz Gran Gala
1 tsp vanilla syrup (homemade or B.G. Reynolds’ Vanilla Syrup)
absinthe, Pernod or Herbsaint (to rinse glass)

Rinse a cocktail glass with absinthe or pastis and set aside. Add all ingredients to a mixing glass filled with ice and stir well to combine. Strain into the absinthe-rinsed glass and squeeze over a twist of lemon, discarding the lemon. Serve, sans garnish.

As previously alluded, you will taste Fernet in this drink. It does not overwhelm—at least in this reporter’s opinion—and is balanced quite gorgeously by the strong vanilla flavor of the Zaya accented subtly by the vanilla syrup. Anise rounds out the flavors in the Fernet and adds a touch more sweetness, while the lemon oil expressed at the end teases out the citrus notes of the Gran Gala and adds brightness to keep the drink from being bogged down in sweeter flavors. Overall, this is an interesting, complex and rather rich drink that perfectly captures the essence of autumn—and Halloween.

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Post tags: absinthe, cocktail, fernet, halloween, lemon, rum

Most readers of this site have, I’m sure, surmised that Halloween is a big. effing. deal. around here. It is my favorite holiday by a wide margin, and I spend a lot of time getting myself geared up for spook night—watching horror films, decorating, carving pumpkins, making holiday-appropriate cocktails.

But this year there was a little wrench thrown into the works, in the form of a two-plus-week trip to Thailand at the beginning of October. While it was amazing (the food! the people! the scenery! the food!), unfortunately I have also been behind on my Halloween preparations. Never fear—I have some fun Halloween cocktails in the works!

To keep all you wee ghouls occupied until those go live, however, there is a long list of Halloween cocktails past for your imbibing pleasure. Revisit some old acquaintances and get yourself geared up for the main event.

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Post tags: cocktail, halloween

Which, probably, is a good thing.

(Oh, and if you’re interested in rum, check out this great article on saveur.com by Jeff “Beachbum” Berry, a perennial favorite in our house.)

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To get everyone warmed up for the main event, here’s a modern classic that will be served during Ladies’ Choice: Women Behind Bars, the panel featuring some of the brightest female stars behind the stick including this drink’s creator, the awesome Audrey Saunders. The Gin-Gin Mule is a now-legendary staple in bartending repertoires—sort of a gin mojito, jazzed up with spicy ginger beer—that is a perfect summer refresher…especially if you’re facing some NOLA-style humidity.

6 mint sprigs
½ oz lime juice
½ oz simple syrup
1½ oz gin (London dry)
¾ oz ginger beer

Place mint, lime juice and simple syrup in your shaker and muddle gently. Add gin, fill with ice and shake. Strain into a double old-fashioned or Collins glass filled with fresh ice and top with the ginger beer. Garnish with a lime wedge and a spring of mint, and serve.

Note: If you, like Audrey Saunders, make your own homemade and non-carbonated ginger beer, add the ginger beer with the gin and shake. Once you’ve strained the drink into a glass, top with a splash of chilled soda water and serve.

If you’re a fan of a good gin & tonic, or of our beloved Richmond Gimlet, this drink won’t be much of a stretch for you. The spicy flavor of ginger plays beautifully with the mint and the bubbles make this a long, tall antidote to sweltering weather. Even better, it isn’t supremely boozy so you can enjoy a few, and the ingredients are very easy to come by. My favorite store-bought ginger beer is still Maine Root, but any ginger beer you can get your hands on should do. If you absolutely can’t find any and have to use ginger ale, muddle some fresh ginger into the drink with the lime to help boost the flavor.

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Post tags: cocktail, ginger, ginger beer, lime juice, mint

Tickets for seminars, parties, dinners and events are selling out quickly, so if you have any notion of going you should get yourself in gear and start booking. Just look at this excerpt from my most recent post on the Tales Blog (full of great behind-the-scenes previews of events):

This year Iris is hosting a Spirited Dinner featuring Todd Richman, Corporate Mixologist for Sidney Frank Importing, as well as mixologists Mark Stoddard (Bitter Bar, Denver) and Spencer Warren (Embury and Firehouse Lounge, Pittsburgh), who will be mixing cocktails using Michael Collins Irish Whiskey, Bärenjäger, Gekkeikan sake and American Harvest Organic Spirit.

Dinner will be a four-course affair by chef Ian Schnoebelen, featuring guanciale on bruschetta; a salad of duck prosciutto, soft-boiled duck egg, fennel and pecans; diver scallops and wild boar bacon with edamame hummus; and 
a chocolate terrine with goat cheese quenelles and blueberries. Hungry yet?

Get yourself cracking and reserve your seats, tables and rooms—Tales of the Cocktail is always a party you don’t want to miss.

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As a bonus, we’ve been on something on an aperitivo kick—there have been many Americanos enjoyed in this punishingly hot weather, along with Cocchi Americano or Carpano Antica on the rocks. Of course, none of this is terribly blog-worthy so I’ve been keeping mum on our tremendously lazy bartending. The Lillet & Lemon, however, does require a wee bit of effort so I’m calling it a recipe.

2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 Tbsp agave nectar or simple syrup
3 oz Lillet Blanc
1 oz Fever Tree Bitter Lemon soda

In a double old-fashioned glass, stir together the lemon juice and agave nectar until well mixed. Fill the glass with ice and add the Lillet and Bitter Lemon soda. Stir to combine, garnish with a lemon round and serve.

The original drink, as published in 1992, calls for making a lemon syrup, which is mixed with half a cup (!) of Lillet Blanc per drink and topped with club soda. She has good bones, but when made that way it falls a little bit flat, tasting entirely of Lillet and losing most of the lemon essence. (Not that I mind the taste of Lillet, but if you’re going to drink it straight why bother making a syrup?) I’ve tweaked things a bit and added a little moxie, with lovely results. The resulting Lillet & Lemon is tart, mildly sweet and refreshing, perfect for sipping by the pool.

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Post tags: agave nectar, cocktail, lemon, Lillet

In that spirit, I’ve been taking stock of the stacks of cocktail related books and ephemera that I have around the house. Were there some sort of cocktail Armageddon, I have a feeling we’d be well provided for for a very long time. I don’t really think we need to keep all of this stuff to ourselves (and in fact we really shouldn’t) so I’ve decided to host a giveaway in honor of summer…and a love of presents.

The winner will receive two books—Kathy Casey’s Sips & Apps: Classic and Contemporary Recipes for Coctktails and Appetizers and Food & Wine Cocktails 2011—plus an assortment of tools and ingredients to motivate your cocktailing impulses.

To enter, simply leave a comment below describing the best present you’ve ever received. The winner will be selected randomly, and all entries must be submitted by midnight, Friday July 1, 2011. Happy drinking!

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Post tags: giveaway

Lynnette Marrero / Ada Coleman

As it does every summer, Tales of the Cocktail is making its annual appearance July 20–24 in New Orleans. Yours truly will be there, covering the seminars and events on the Tales Blog and generally enjoying the Big Easy (especially its excellent restaurants and go cups).

My first Tales preview post, on the seminar “Ladies’ Choice,” is up now on the Tales Blog, but here’s a little snippet to pique your interest:

“From mold-breaking saloon owners to current day cocktail mavens, women have had a vital, though often overlooked, impact on the evolution of bars and cocktails.” Lynnette Marrero, bartender and president of LUPEC NYC, plus an all-star cast of some of the most influential modern female bartenders, will present an inspiring history of ladies like Ada Coleman, the former head bartender of the Savoy Hotel in London, and Helen David, who opened the Brass Rail Bar in Michigan during the tumult of the Great Depression. Alcohol had an especially profound effect upon social changes, among them women’s suffrage and, after Prohibition, the relaxing of mores that allowed women into bars to drink. According to the official Tales of the Cocktail synopsis: “With the spirit and wit specific to lady barkeeps, we plan to raise a glass (or more) to the women that have influenced cocktail history.”

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The cocktail called London Fog is named for the famous greenish pea soup fog of London—which was not a fog at all. The color was actually a result of air pollution, a sickly-colored smog produced by the burning of coal, which mixed with the natural fog from the Thames and so suffused the city of London during the Victorian period that people thought it was a natural atmospheric condition of the city. The phenomenon of London Fog slowly disappeared as electricity replaced coal as household fuel, and today that piece of Victoriana has passed into obscurity. At least we still have this cocktail to remind us of that long-lost color, though the flavor is significantly better.

1½ oz London Dry gin
¼ oz Pernod

Add ingredients to a mixing glass filled with ice. Stir well and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Serve.

This is a small aperitif cocktail, one best served very cold and before dinner. The flavor of the Pernod mixes in a lovely, friendly way with the herbal flavors of the gin, creating a surprisingly bright, pleasantly assertive tipple. It wakes up your taste buds and does a little dance all the way down. It’s a fun, kicky little drink and, somehow, especially perfect for cold weather.

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Post tags: bitters, cocktail, gin, pastis

Mary Pickford was the star of silent films, one of the first female media celebrities and an early power player in the Hollywood machine. Though her place in cinema history is well documented, she’s one of the few early film stars whose legacy you can still see around town. She and her second husband, Douglas Fairbanks, were two of the primary investors in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, which opened in 1927. It has been a Hollywood Boulevard landmark since it opened, which is also the year it hosted the first Academy Awards ceremony. Nearly a century’s worth of stars have stayed in the hotel, resulting in another of its claims to fame: the Roosevelt is consistently named one of the most haunted sites in Los Angeles. (Purportedly, Marilyn Monroe and Montgomery Clift haunt different parts of the hotel.) The hotel was renovated in 2005 and is once again a happening spot—the interior of the Roosevelt is absolutely gorgeous—and it now holds a number of bars, among them the cocktailian favorite Library Bar.

The cocktail named for Mary Pickford is variously attributed to a few different people, but the most likely creator is Eddie Woelke, who moved to Cuba during Prohibition and helmed the famed Jockey Bar in Havana. Though the Mary Pickford is not unknown, Woelke is better known as the creator of the El Presidente, a similarly rum-based tipple that has been enjoying a resurgence in popularity. The Mary Pickford is particularly interesting, as its composition is sort of proto-tiki, foreshadowing the tropical concoctions that would become all the rage in Hollywood (and elsewhere) after Prohibition. (...) Continue reading Mary Pickford Cocktail

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Post tags: cocktail, grenadine, maraschino, pineapple, rum

So to celebrate the thoughtful, sweet, romantical side of the holiday, I’ve compiled a list of some favorite drinks from the archives that are perfect for showing some love to someone you love. There’s a little something for everyone, so make with the shaking for your special someone.

Bubbly:

• Easy Hollywood Sparkling Sangria
• Champagne Soyeux
• Happy Hemingway

Classic:

• Marleigh’s Favorite Martini
• Cameron’s Kick
• Bumble-bee Cocktail
• Richmond Gimlet

Tropical:

• The Ginger Grant
• Lani-Honi
• Macadamia Nut Chi-Chi

Fruity:

• Mulberry Bramble
• Raspberry Ten
• Bourbon Renewal

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Post tags: gin, rum, sparkling wine, vodka, whisk(e)y