"Brutal" Martini's at Naughty Nuri's

Liquid Lunch at Naughty Nuri's in Ubud Bali. Great place especially when you get the right table.

"One martini is just right. Two martinis are too many. Three martinis are never enough."

M. F. K. Fisher 

Something Bitter This Way Comes

Cheers Armen! Happy Birthday! I'm making one of these for you when you come over for your birthday cocktail.

1 1/2 oz Rye
1 oz Amaro, CioCiaro
1/2 oz Sweet vermouth, Cocchi Vermouth di Torino
1/4 oz Fernet Branca
2 ds Bitters, Bittermens Xocolatl Mole
  pn Salt (kosher)

Stir, strain, cocktail glass. Orange peel garnish.

Ranglum

This was great. Best Corn n Oil variation I've had. I'm planning on
trying and writing about a few variations soon. The Corn n Oil can be
a bit "thick". The Wray and Nephew cuts it quite a bit.

1 1/4 oz Gosling Black Seal (I used Cruzan Black Strap)
1/4 oz Wray Nephew White Overproof 63°
1/2 oz Forgotten Flavours Falernum (I used Velvet Falernum)
1 dash sugar syrup (quite a bit more, 1/2 oz?)
3/4 oz lime juice
Shake with ice and strain into an ice-filled old fashioned glass.
Garnish with two lime wedges.

Walla Walla Bing Bang (aka the Witch Doctor)

Happy Valentines Day and Happy Birthday to my sister!

2 ounces Amontillado Sherry

½ ounce Grand Marnier

½ ounce Spanish brandy (such as Cardinal Mendoza)

½ ounce simple syrup

½ ounce orange juice

3 dashes orange bitters

Stir all ingredients with ice for 2 minutes and strain. Garnish with an orange twist.

Prickly Pear Cooler

This is the first "Audition" for baby shower drinks that I can put in a punchbowl/pitcher.  The original recipe we saw used blood orange bitters. They stole the recipe from someone that used St Germain, so we tried both. Aperol was the closest thing I had to blood orange bitters and it was definitely the favorite of the official tasting commitee.

8 oz Vinho Verde (a slightly fizzy white wine)
3/4 oz Prickly Pear Syrup
1/2 oz Aperol or St Germain

Plum Whiskey Smash

To celebrate Mad Men on Netflix Instant!
1/2 plum
2 oz bourbon
1/2 oz simple syrup
1/2 oz lime juice
Muddle, shake with ice, strain over crushed ice and add three dashes bitters.

The Good Doctor

I don't drink highballs very often but I saw this recipe and gave it a shot. It's a little sweet. Next time I'll up the rye and use less amaro. It has good flavor. I used Rababaro Zucca for the amaro and it's rhubarb flavors work well with the Dr. Pepper.

1.5 oz Amaro
1.5 oz Rye whiskey
6 oz Dr Pepper
Orange slice, for garnish

Fill a glass with ice. Combine Amaro and rye, and top with Dr Pepper; squeeze orange slice into mixture, and drop the slice into the glass as garnish.

Boo Loo

It's Memorial Day weekend an we have limited ingredients at our rental house in Palm Springs. Luckily the Tiki+ app has a search by ingredient function. So far we've had Admiral Schley Punch, Cinerama Punch, and now the Boo Loo!

a few small chunks fresh pineapple
2 ½ oz unsweetened pineapple juice
1 ½ oz fresh lime juice
1 oz honey mix
1 ½ oz Demerara rum
¾ oz 151-proof Lemon Hart Demerara rum
¾ oz dark Jamaican rum
1 ½ oz club soda
Put everything—except soda—in a blender. Blend without ice until pineapple is liquefied. Add soda. Pour unstrained into a hollowed-out pineapple filled with crushed ice (use a Vacu-Vin pineapple corer), or into a 36-oz snifter filled with crushed ice. In either case, stir until well-chilled before serving.

Hai Karate

It's a big night tonight. Obama just announced the death of Osama Bin Laden. We needed a "kick ass" drink to watch the coverage. Might have two.
1 oz fresh lime juice (I used lemon)
1 oz unsweetened pineapple juice
1 oz orange juice
1 tsp maple syrup (Mr Berry says grade A only but B is always better)
1 dash Angostura bitters
2 oz amber Virgin Islands rum
Shake well with ice cubes. Pour unstrained into a tall glass. Garnish with a lime wedge and orange slice speared to a cocktail cherry.
By Beachbum Berry 1999

Aviation Cocktail

An adult lemon drop.

2 ½ oz gin
½ oz maraschino liqueur
½ oz lemon juice
Shake and strain into a cocktail glass.

Sbagliato

This is a nice and refreshing variation on a Negroni. The name means "wrong" in Italian and supposedly was created by mistake by a hurried barista in Milan.

1 oz sweet vermouth
1 oz Campari (I used Gran Classico Bitter, an excellent Swiss alternative)
2 oz prosecco
1 orange slice (or lemon twist)

Somewhere I have this recipe written down on a bar napkin from a trip to Genoa. I thought it might be a regional recipe or a bartender's secret recipe. Turns out it's fairly common, at least in Italy.

The Negroni calls for equal parts gin, Campari, and sweet vermouth and some recipes for the Sbagliato use equal parts as well but I prefer more prosecco to lighten it up.

Enjoy before your meal to stimulate the appetite.

Chartreuse Swizzle

"The only liqueur so good they named a color after it!"
Quentin Tarantino as "Warren" in Death Proof

I've heard about this drink for quite a while but rarely have Chartreuse in the house. Recently at Barkeeper in Silverlake (http://www.barkeepersilverlake.com/) I saw a small bottle for a decent price and picked it up.
I think it's a bit odd to use something as distinctive and bold as Chartreuse as the base in a cocktail. I've used it mostly as a modifier in the past. Usually with gin.
This is my kind of Tiki drink!

2 oz green Chartreuse
1 ½ oz pineapple juice
1 oz fresh lime juice
¼ oz falernum
Build in a Collins glass. (Or in this case an empty jam jar from a couple of blueberry seasons past)
Add crushed ice.
Swizzle until outside of glass frosts.

Caprioska

... 11pm After a bunch of food and wine

Armen: What do you have that's a traditional spanish after dinner drink?
Waiter: hmmmm, a lot of people like gin and coke
Armen: No, anything more traditional like sherry or some liqueur made in Spain?
Waiter: The Caprioska is pretty traditional here I think it's originally from Brazil
Armen: No, I don't want that, how about some grappa or anything from Spain
Waiter: Some draft beer?
Armen: hmmmm, no that sounds pretty filling after all of that food
Waiter: you should try the Caprioska I think you'll really like it it's very refreshing it's got vodka and lime...
Armen: I don't really want... Ok I'll take the Caprioska

Caprioska:
Vodka
Lime Juice and lime wedges for garnish
Sugar
Soda water and crushed ice

Build in glass and enjoy after some delicious spanish food for a traditional end to your meal.

Attention Cocktail

This one is from Jamie Boudreau. It's not bad. A little wimpy though. I think it needed a little bite. Maybe a bar spoon of the modifiers instead of 1/4 oz.

2 oz gin
¼ oz absinthe
¼ oz dry vermouth
¼ oz creme de violette
2 dashes Regan's orange bitters
Stir with ice.
Strain into an iced cocktail glass.
Garnish with a lemon twist.

Brooklyn vs. Manhattan

It's the season premiere of Gossip Girl so I decided to recreate the battle of Blair Waldorf and the other socialites of Manhattan against the Humphrey's of Brooklyn.

OK, I'm a little embarrassed that I know that much about GG. (That's what I call it.) However I am excited about doing some comparative tasting between two classic cocktails.

I thought for sure I was going to prefer the Manhattan, and I "knew" Wendy would. Oddly enough we were torn.

Here are the recipes:

Brooklyn
2 oz rye whiskey (Wild Turkey)
3/4 oz dry vermouth (Martini & Rossi)
1/3 oz Torani Amer
1/3 oz maraschino liqueur
Stir and strain and garnish with a cherry.

Manhattan
2 oz rye whiskey
1 oz sweet vermouth (Carpano Antica)
2 dashes Angostura bitters
Stir and strain and garnish with a cherry.

Montego Bay

• 1½ oz Smith & Cross Jamaican rum
  
• 1 oz 1:1 honey syrup
• ½ oz grapefruit juice
• ½ oz lime juice
• ¼ oz pimento dram
• 4 dashes absinthe
• 2 dashes Angostura bitters
• Shake well with ice and strain in to a glass filled with crushed ice. Garnish with an grapefruit zest twist.

I'm stepping up my garnish game. I received a bottle of Smith and Cross as a gift and have been experimenting with tiki and other rum drinks. This one was great! This rum is crazy. Really strong. 114 proof! Not a sipper but it has some great flavor. It stands up to the pimento dram which can really overpower a drink.

The crushed ice is key. The glass is all frosty and slippery. Great on a hot SF Valley evening.

Pan American Clipper

I picked up a glass with the old mexicana airlines logo on it so I went looking around for a good aviation drink (but not an aviation). I'm a pretty big fan of grenadine and lime together, and adding calvados sounded pretty delicious too. From Around the World with Jigger, Beaker, and Flask.

1.5 oz Calvados
1 oz Lime Juice
1 tsp Grenadine
dash Absinthe

Shake/Strain/Drink

Peach Old Fashioned

I have some peaches and have been trying to incorporate them into a drink for a few nights now. The Whisky Peach Smash by Dale Degroff was what I wanted to make but I had no mint. Instead I came up with this simple twist on my simple favorite.

Muddle a slice of peach coated in four or five dashes of grapefruit bitters with a teaspoon of simple syrup.
Add 2 ounces of bourbon and stir with an ice cube until it begins to dilute.
Add one more slice of peach and another ice cube.

Ramos Gin Fizz

Another good breakfast drink from the pages of Jigger, Beaker, and Flask.

1 tsp. sugar

3-4 drops orange flower water

Juice of 1/2 lime

Juice of 1/2 lemon

1.5 oz dry gin

1 egg white (to be safe, use pasteurized eggs)

1.5 oz. milk, half and half or cream

Shake with crushed ice for at least a minute and pour over finely crushed ice and top with 1 -2 oz seltzer water.

Donuts and Coffee

This was for a TDN Kahlua night. I thought it was pretty good, but a little generic.

1.5 oz Espresso
1 oz Steamed Milk
.75 oz Kahlua
2 dashes Absinthe
Top with Donut Infused Whipped Cream (I used Original Krispy Kreme Donuts)