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.

Content © 2011 Marleigh Riggins Miller / Daniel Miller / SLOSHED!. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
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.

Content © 2011 Marleigh Riggins Miller / Daniel Miller / SLOSHED!. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
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.

Content © 2011 Marleigh Riggins Miller / Daniel Miller / SLOSHED!. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: cocktail, halloween

The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad

This particular recipe comes from Beach Bum Berry Remixed, one of the many fine punches that Jeff features. Blood of the Kapu Tiki can also be found on the menu at the Tiki-Ti, which is where I first encountered it (though it was in a single-serving form). It’s a pretty mellow punch, so it’s great for parties and you really can’t beat the color for drinking on Halloween. (...) Continue reading Blood of the Kapu Tiki

Content © 2010 Marleigh Riggins Miller / Daniel Miller / SLOSHED!. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: bitters, cocktail, grapefruit juice, grenadine, lime juice, orange juice, punch, rum

Because Halloween has come to be one huge masquerade, there’s plenty of room for both axe murderers and people dressed up like Grauman’s Chinese Theater. After all, Halloween evolved from Samhain, the festival that celebrated harvest; it was a time to enjoy the bounty of the season, all the while peering into the ever-increasing dark of winter. Impish and light on one hand, moody and dark on the other—Halloween is all of these things, and there’s plenty of room to enjoy the lighter side of the night as well.

This drink comes from Vessel in Seattle, created by talented barman Jim Romdall. I first met Jim at Tales of the Cocktail, though I had heard his name many times before. Vessel is well-known and loved by all who have been there, and Jim is part of the reason why—as this drink demonstrates. (...) Continue reading Captain Handsome

Content © 2010 Marleigh Riggins Miller / Daniel Miller / SLOSHED!. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: cherry, cocktail, gin, lime juice, limoncello, violette

Though the name “black friar” sounds ominous enough, it is merely a reference to a Dominican friar of the Catholic Church, commonly recognized by their black cloaks. Blackfriar as a name is primarily found in areas where Dominicans are or have been concentrated—giving rise to placenames like Blackfriars Bridge and Blackfriars Station in London. Every order has a past, though, and one of the nicknames given the order is Domini canes—Hounds of the Lord. That seems sufficiently Halloween-ready to me.

This cocktail comes from Jacques Bezuidenhout, published in Food & Wine Cocktails ’09. Jacques is a familiar face in LA, making the occasional appearance here from his homebase in San Francisco. He created the Black Friar’s Pint to bridge his past work building pints of Guinness with his present work with cocktails, preserving creativity and tradition in one glass. (...) Continue reading Black Friar’s Pint

Content © 2010 Marleigh Riggins Miller / Daniel Miller / SLOSHED!. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: agave nectar, beer, bitters, cocktail, gin, sherry

It was such a good idea, in fact, that a publisher thought it would make a great book—the kind with glossy photos that you find on the shelf at Borders. The brother called Ted decided to take on the re-imagining of the wee LCL and refined the concept: a book of recipes by the best bartenders from cities up and down the west coast. Naturally, this meant that all the sad, misshapen gnomes who live in caves and write cocktail blogs could not submit recipes for the professional book, and so were relegated to working as spies for Ted, ferreting out the brightest talents to be featured.

One such gnome from Los Angeles (coughcough) suggested John Coltharp, bartender extraordinaire at Seven Grand and Caña downtown and now Copa d’Oro in Santa Monica. John is a very talented and supremely knowledgeable bartender; he consistently creates drinks that showcase but don’t overwhelm their base spirits. He has long been one of my favorite hooch-slingers in town and I was excited to try the drinks he submitted to the new Left Coast Libations, including this loverly fall cocktail. (...) Continue reading Seven Sins

Content © 2010 Marleigh Riggins Miller / Daniel Miller / SLOSHED!. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: cocktail whiskey rye applejack lemon grenadine cinnamon

Starring Béla Lugosi as evil voodoo master Murder Legendre, the plot revolves around the transformation of a young, beautiful woman into his zombified slave. More faithful to the original folklore about zombies being the living, rather than reanimated, dead, it is never-the-less considered the earliest example of a genre that has spawned countless excellent (and absolutely terrible) re-workings of the subject. Though relatively little known on its own merits White Zombie influenced a number of filmmakers and artists, and aside from inspiring the name of this cocktail it is also where Rob Zombie got the name for his eponymous band.

This particular White Zombie comes from the last year’s Halloween cocktail menu at The Hungry Cat in Hollywood. Last year the restaurant and bar used a South Pacific theme for the holiday and this tropical concoction was one of the featured cocktails. (...) Continue reading White Zombie

Content © 2010 Marleigh Riggins Miller / Daniel Miller / SLOSHED!. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: chili, cocktail, coconut, grenadine, halloween, lime juice, rum

The Monkey Gland was one of the first drinks from the book that we tried, primarily because we had to know what a drink called the Monkey Gland would taste like. Which “gland” was it named after, and who had tasted the thing to find out? Or was it some weird innuendo we were chronologically ignorant of? The drink turned out to be a pleasant, perky little thing, sort of a brunch pick-me-up—a far cry from the drink’s inspiration.

Credited variously to Harry McElhone of Harry’s New York Bar in Paris and to Frank from the Ritz, Paris, the drink is first codified in the 1930 Savoy Cocktail Book. Its name, however, begins ten years earlier in the work of one Serge Voronoff. A doctor in France, Voronoff had studied eunuchs and believed that the secret to male vitality was testosterone. (You won’t be faulted for picturing Jimmy Johnson in those awful Extenze commercials at this juncture.) In the years before the manufacture of artificial hormones extra testosterone was hard to come by, so Voronoff made the best of what he had to work with—he turned to the most human-like creatures he could find and began implanting slivers of monkey testicles into the, uh, glands of Frenchmen looking for a little pre-Viagra boost. Yes, you read that right. It’s amazing what people will do in the name of science and sex. Regardless, I can promise you that the drink is much, much better than the procedure sounds. (...) Continue reading Monkey Gland

Content © 2010 Marleigh Riggins Miller / Daniel Miller / SLOSHED!. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: absinthe, cocktail, gin, grenadine, orange juice, pastis

First up is a favorite cocktail around this house, created by friend, bartender and blogger extraordinaire Erik Ellestad. Erik and his lovely wife live in San Francisco, where he tends bar at Heaven’s Dog and is known online for his well-researched and exhaustive blogging of all the drinks in The Savoy Cocktail Book at Underhill-Lounge. What is not commonly known about Erik is that he is permanently in the Halloween spirit, mixing and writing from the dungeon laboratory office below his house. How’s that for a cocktail with appropriate pedigree?

Erik randomly tweeted the recipe for the Ashtray Heart one night and it immediately piqued my interest. I jotted it down; we gave it a spin and loved it. I don’t think Erik even knows how much we have enjoyed his off-the-cuff creation, as we make at least two batches of these per month. But now that I’ve outed our fascination for this concoction, I hope that this spreads the love around a bit. (...) Continue reading Ashtray Heart

Content © 2010 Marleigh Riggins Miller / Daniel Miller / SLOSHED!. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: cocktail, halloween, mezcal, rum, vermouth

“We contend that the ‘curled’ Satan’s Whiskers is more diabolic… we sip our Satan’s Whiskers curled if it’s still light outside and straight if it’s not.”

So says Paul Harrington in Cocktail: The Drinks Bible for the 21st Century, and I am not one to quibble with his declaration. The Satan’s Whiskers first shows up in the Savoy Cocktail Book circa 1930, and it appears in two variations: straight, when mixed with Grand Marnier, and curled, when mixed with orange curaçao. Since both versions appear together there is no “official” declaration of which drink is the original or correct one, so the recipe depends upon good old-fashioned personal preference. (...) Continue reading Satan’s Whiskers

Content © 2009 Marleigh Riggins Miller / Daniel Miller / SLOSHED!. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: bitters, cocktail, curaçao, gin, halloween, orange, sweet vermouth, vermouth

While a margarita is not exotic or exciting—being, as it is, pretty much the most popular cocktail ever—it is straightforward, simple and easy to recognize. There are no strange ingredients, it requires very little work outside juicing, and if you do it right it always tastes great. So spurred by the arrival of blood orange season and the intensely terrible Blood Orange Margarita my sister had at a bar last week, I tweaked and twisted a recipe until it came out delicious, deep red and perfectly appropriate for fall. If you’re intrigued by serving margaritas at your party but want something a bit more contemporary, check out Eric Alperin’s bitter margarita variation known as the Sculaccione. (...) Continue reading Blood Orange Margarita

Content © 2009 Marleigh Riggins Miller / Daniel Miller / SLOSHED!. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: blood orange, cocktail, Cointreau, halloween, lime, tequila

The Halloween jack-o-lantern originated here in the late nineteenth century, with the attendant folklore that the glowering faces distracted evil spirits lurking to harm wayward travelers (revelers?) during the early-coming autumn nights. Whether or not they deter devilish imps, pumpkins are closely tied to fall because, as a warm weather vegetable, they ripen around the turn of the season and are thus a natural emblem of harvest. As a bonus, they are very tasty. (...) Continue reading Pumpkin Cider

Content © 2009 Marleigh Riggins Miller / Daniel Miller / SLOSHED!. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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