X-Rated Old Fashioned

September is National Bourbon Heritage Month and I’ve been celebrating with flavored variations on the Old Fashioned. So are they New Fashioneds? Regardless, here’s how I mixed up an X-Rated Fashion:

About This Cocktail
An Old Fashioned made with X-Rated in place of muddled sugar.

Ingredients
2 ounces bourbon
.5 oz X-Rated
2 dashes Angostura bitters
2 dashes orange bitters

Preparation
Build right in an Old Fashioned glass. Add the X-Rated, bitters and bourbon then stir. Top with more ice and garnish with an orange wedge. Even finish it with a splash of soda water if you’d like.

Elderflower Old Fashioned

About This Cocktail
An Old Fashioned made with St. Germain in place of muddled sugar.

Ingredients
2 ounces bourbon
.5 oz St Germain
2 dashes Angostura bitters
2 dashes orange bitters

Preparation
Build right in an Old Fashioned glass. Add the St. Germain, bitters and bourbon then stir. Top with more ice and garnish with an orange wedge. Even finish it with a splash of soda water if you’d like.

Beggar’s Banquet

Another maple syrup cocktail, but this time one with beer! I found the recipe over on Liquor.com and spent most of the weekend serving ’em up to bar patrons.

About This Cocktail
A bourbon and beer drink with maple syrup for sweetener and some citrus for flavor.

Ingredients
2 ounces bourbon
2 dashes Angostura bitters
.25 oz lemon juice
.75 oz maple syrup
Southern Tier Harvest (Or Phin & Matt’s)

Preparation
Add all of the ingredients, except the beer, to a shaker filled with ice. Shake and strain into a tall glass (highball, collins) and pack it full with fresh ice. Top with beer and garnish with an orange wedge.

At my bar, we only have Southern Tier on tap. The recipe called for Old Speckled Hen, which is an English ale. The Phin & Matt’s worked alright. It’s an American-style Pale ale. For my money though, the Harvest, which is a bitter, worked really well in this drink.

The Maple Old Fashioned

About This Cocktail
An Old Fashioned with maple syrup in place of muddled sugar and orange bitters in place of fruit.

Ingredients
2 ounces bourbon
1 bar spoon maple syrup
2 dashes Angostura bitters
2 dashes orange bitters

Preparation
Build right in an Old Fashioned glass. Add the maple syrup, bitters and bourbon then stir. Top with more ice and garnish with an orange wedge. Even finish it with a splash of soda water if you’d like.

Death In The Afternoon

Ernest Hemingway’s “Death in the Afternoon” is just two simple ingredients:

ABSINTHE and CHAMPAGNE!

About This Cocktail
Absinthe and champagne! It’s surprisingly delicious, though not if you don’t like anise.

Ingredients
1.5 ounces of absinthe
4 ounces champagne

Preparation
Here’s the method of making and imbibing as per Papa Hemingway himself: “Pour one jigger absinthe into a Champagne glass. Add iced Champagne until it attains the proper opalescent milkiness. Drink three to five of these slowly.”

Halloween is fast approaching, so before the holiday arrives, take the time to read Alan Moss’s piece on this cocktail over at The Real Absinthe Blog.

For my money though, read David Wondrich’s piece on the cocktail over at Esquire.com. The man’s always got such great stories to go along with his cocktail recipes.

Limited Edition Cocktail: Choco-Strawberry Mojito

A “Limited Edition Cocktail” is something that can only be made with a certain ingredient that’s only available for a short time.

Here in this case, the “limited” ingredient is a chocolate mint that we only had a short while this past summer at my restaurant.

About This Cocktail
A mojito made with fresh local strawberries as well as organic chocolate mint from Fickle Fields Farm in Kennedy, N.Y.

Ingredients
2 ounces rum
4 to 6 chocolate mint leaves
2 tablespoons diced strawberries
1 lime wedge
Splash simple syrup
Top with soda water

Preparation
Muddle the pieces of strawberry with the chocolate mint, lime and simple syrup in a pint glass. pack the pint glass full with ice and then add the rum. Roll the drink into a mixing tin and back before finishing with soda water and/or lemon-lime soda to taste.

Watermelon Cosmopolitan

Labor Day is over and now summer’s going to start winding down.

We’ll be serving these at my bar as long as we can still get watermelon:

We add an ounce of 3 Olives brand watermelon vodka only because it adds a little extra watermelon scent and flavor. Don’t have a watermelon vodka on hand? Just double up on the muddled watermelon.

About This Cocktail
A simple addition to a basic Cosmo recipe: Just add watermelon.

Ingredients
1.5 ounces of vodka
1 ounce of 3 olives watermelon vodka
1 ounce triple sec
.5 ounce lime juice
6 to 8 pieces of watermelon
Splash cranberry juice
Garnish with a lime wedge and watermelon

Preparation
Muddle the watermelon in a mixing tin. Then shake and strain all ingredients into a chilled martini glass. Double strain if necessary. Garnish with a lime wedge and watermelon pieces.