The Peach Tease

This cocktail doesn’t even need a name. It has its own playlist:

Prince. The Eels. The Presidents of the United States of America.

Peaches for you. Peaches for me.

And until now it’s only been available in my brain and at my kitchen table, but I’m nothing if not generous — so here’s the recipe.

The Peach Tease

As mentioned previously, Bag and String Wine Merchants gifted me a bottle of their new exclusive barrel release from Tommyrotter Distillery in Buffalo.

This is my first go at making a fun cocktail with it.

About This Drink

A perfect late summer sipper, as fresh peaches are still readily available and the depth and spice of the barrel aged gin hint at the approaching change of seasons.

It’s The Peach Tease (or Teasy P. if you’re hip and into the whole brevity thing).

Ingredients

• 1.5 oz B&S Tommyrotter Barrel-Aged
• .75 oz Peach Tea Simple Syrup
• .75 oz Contratto Apertif orange liqueur
• Peach garnish

Preparation

• Add all the ingredients except the garnish into a mixing glass and stir until well chilled and diluted (as the gin is 122 proof). Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with a fresh slice of peach.

Bag & String exclusive Tommyrotter barrel-aged gin

The flavors in this barrel aged gin are unreal!

I’m very excited to try my hand at making some creative drinks with this Bag & String Wine Merchants exclusive from Buffalo’s Tommy Rotter Distillery!

A Cocktail A Day: 4/25/18

Hendrick’s gin, cilantro simple syrup, blood orange shrub and jalapeno!

Another Simple Sunday Drink: Southern Tier Barrel Aged Gin

•Gin, lemon, strawberries & raspberry lime soda water.

Simple Sunday Drink: Southern Tier Barrel Aged Gin

Something simple for tonight:

• Gin, lemon, cilantro, grapefruit soda water

Southern Tier Citrus Gin

I went to the Southern Tier Distilling Company yesterday and bought a bottle of Citrus Gin, and made myself this cocktail with Cactus Fruit — AKA prickly pear.

I figure I’ll call it a Stoneman Circle Sour.

Happy Birthday, Lauren Bacall

Today is Lauren Bacall’s birthday and I wasn’t expecting to find a cocktail named after the actress, but then I stumbled across this gem posted by a WordPress site called Wine Cocktails.

  
We’ve got a nice rose at the bar where I work, so I’ll definitely be trying this out later tonight.

Maybe if I get time I’ll search online later to see if there’s a Dark Passage cocktail. 

  
From what I can tell from Wine Mixology’s post, this cocktail is an original drink that two of their contributors came up with earlier this year — and I hope they don’t mind if I re-post their recipe. But for anyone reading here On this blog bout this drink for the first time, please click over and check out the original post!

From Wine Mixology:

This cocktail is a play on three classics with its own distinctive twist. One classic is obviously Lauren Bacall herself – the sultry actress of the Golden Ages of motion pictures. This cocktail also puts a twist on the classical gin and tonic as well as the “Greyhound” with its splash of grapefruit. It is very refreshing without being too heavy in body. 

INGREDIENTS

• 2 oz Pol Clement Rose Sec (French Sparkling Rose Wine)
• ½ oz Uncle Val’s Botanical Gin
• ½ oz Triple Sec
• 2 oz Organic Pink Grapefruit juice
• ½ oz Honey Syrup (1/2cup honey; ½ cup boiling water, stir)
• Top glass off with Tonic
• Grapefruit and basil for garnish

PREPARATION

Fill a Collins glass with ice and add in the rose, gin, triple sec, grapefruit juice and honey syrup, and then top the remaining room left in the glass with tonic water. Garnish with grapefruit and basil.

Still Thirsty For More?

—Got a minute-and-a-half!? Here’s a cute, quick video on how to make the Lauren Bacall.

Update:

I’ll be updating this post later tonight after I take a picture of my Lauren Bacal drink I’ll be making.

A Trip To The Moon

Today marks 113 years since the film A Trip To The Moon was first shown in France!

  
The short film was written and directed by Georges Méliès and was an immediate inspiration to other directors of the era.

It’s even said that Méliès drew inspiration from nearby Buffalo, N.Y. — specifically the A Trip to the Moon attraction at the Pan-American Exposition in 1901:

Various film scholars have suggested that Méliès was heavily influenced by other works, especially Jacques Offenbach’s operetta Le voyage dans la lune (an unauthorized parody of Verne’s novels) and the A Trip to the Moon attraction at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.

To mark the anniversary of Méliès’ short film, why not shake up an appropriately-themed cocktail like the Blue Moon.

I found the Blue Moon using my Bartender’s Choice app, which was created by Sam Ross of Milk & Honey. The drink is a simple three ingredients, gin, lemon juice and creme de violette — all shaken and strained into a cocktail glass.  

Imbibe Magazine lists pretty much the exact same drink here, but with slight scaling back of the lemon juice and creme de violette (citing Ted Haigh’s updated recipe from Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails).

Red Moon:

At Forte we make a drink called the Red Moon. It has raspberry vodka, Chambord, triple sec, cranberry juice and lime juice and though it might sound like an overly-sweet raspberry Cosmo, it is actually quite tasty:  

 

Happy Birthday, Ginger Rogers!

Today is the birthday of old Hollywood actress Ginger Rogers!

She was born on this day, July 16, in 1911!

  

Sometimes when searching a drink, I end up finding dozen different recipes from as many websites, blogs and cocktail books.

And although there are surely cocktails with more variations to their name, searching for a Ginger Rogers drink did result in a couple different recipes.

For the Ginger Rogers recipe I’m writing about today, I pulled info from Cocktailia and Post-Prohibition.

About This Drink:

A gin and ginger ale drink made extra-fancy with mint, lime juice and more!

From Post-Prohibition:

This recipe was created at Portland’s Zefiro in 1995 by Marcovaldo Dionysos. It gained its popularity at Absinthe Brasserie and Bar in San Francisco where it was one of the most ordered drinks. It’s also the cocktail that inspired the book The Art of the Bar.

Ingredients:
•2 oz gin
•1/2 oz fresh lime juice
•1/2 oz ginger syrup
•8 to 10 mint leaves
•op with ginger ale
•Garnish with a lime wedge

Preparation:

Shake all ingredients except the ginger ale over ice and double strain into a chilled Collins glass filled with fresh ice. Top with ginger ale and garnish with mint and a lime wedge.

  

Other Recipes:

1. Imbibe Magazine calls for a whiskey sour with gingerbread flavor.
2. This classic recipe calls for dry vermouth and apricot brandy, among other ingredients. Read more about it here.
3. Immediately below is a recipe from Liquor.com which uses Campari and then further on down this post is another recipe from Maker’s Mark which used mango nectar:

From Liquor.com:
Ingredients:
•1 Strawberry, sliced
•5 Clementine segments
•2 oz Campari
•3 oz Orange Juice
•1 pinch Ground ginger
•1 splash 7UP

Preparation:
In a shaker, muddle the strawberry and clementine. Add the remaining ingredients and fill with ice. Shake well and strain into a highball glass filled with fresh ice. Garnish with an edible pansy.

From Maker’s Mark:
Ingredients
•2 parts Maker’s Mark
•2 & 1/2 parts mango nectar 
•1/2 part fresh lime juice
•1/2 part ginger beer
•Dash Angostura
Preparation
Pour the Maker’s Mark, mango nectar, lime juice and bitters into a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake vigorously for about 25 seconds and strain into a cocktail glass or serve over ice. Top with ginger beer. Garnish with 3 cubes of mango spiked on a wood skewer.

Satan’s Whiskers

Following up on yesterday’s Grand Marnier post, I figured I’d share these photos of the Satan’s Whiskers cocktail I made:

  

A recipe for the Satan’s Whiskers cocktail taken from Imbibe Magazine:

•1/2 oz. gin
•1/2 oz. Grand Marnier
•1/2 oz. sweet vermouth
•1/2 oz. dry vermouth
•1/2 oz. orange juice
•Dash orange bitters

Shake all ingredients over ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

 

The cocktail first appeared in Harry Craddock’s Savoy Cocktail Book in 1930, and there were actually two versions, “Satan’s Whiskers (straight)” and “Satan’s Whiskers (curled)” — with curacao in place of Grand Marnier in the latter.

Thirsty For More?
— This post on Cold Glass has a thorough assessment of the drink.