Another pic from New Year’s Day:
Pictured above is my Scarlet Witch cocktail.
This drink has been going over really well.
I’ve sold it to a few different people who were debating between wine or a Cosmo or Vodka/Cran.
It’s a nice little twist on those flavors — with Ramazzotti, Chambord & Cabernet lending extra dimensions to the taste:
Filed under BAR NOTES, COCKTAIL RECIPES, CUSTOMER PHOTO, ORIGINAL COCKTAIL RECIPE
This is a follow-up to the photo I posted last Wednesday, which showed two drinks, a candle and a Scarlet Witch comic.
The next day I was inspired to create a Scarlet Witch cocktail, and this is what I came up with:
The Scarlet Witch Cocktail: 
The instructions for preparation are included below, copied from the post I made on my BarNotes page!
Ramazzotti: 
This drink was a surprise stroke of genius that came as a result of a little back-and-forth with a customer.
Most times, as a bartender, I’ve got a couple different drinks on my mind in case anyone wants something but doesn’t know what they want. When someone wants me to pick for them and surprise them with something, I’ll still work with ’em to either direct ’em to a classic or one of the slate of drinks I’m holding onto in my brain — I’ll ask a couple of questions and try to read ’em and make sure they get a drink they’re going to like.
Then there are those moments when a little back-and-forth banter leads to a collaboration you would’ve never thought of on your own — which happened to me Tuesday night.
I’d served a friend a Manhattan after his dinner and then we were discussing where to go next. The idea of rum was raised and the possibility of a banana daiquiri was discussed, but then I brought up the Revolver.
The Revolver is a bourbon drink with coffee liqueur and orange bitters. It’s a simple three-ingredient cocktail, but it’s surprisingly easy for essentially being all booze.
And as I explained all this, my friend nodded in agreement and then said something like: “Yes, but banana.”
So, into the drink went banana rum — which definitely made a sort of sense. I mean, the coffee liqueur we were using in the drink was Kahlua, which is a rum-based coffee liqueur that tastes like vanilla.
And so it was settled and we made the following, a Revolver with all the typical ingredients of the traditional drink plus banana rum — making it a Banana Gun:
Banana Gun
•2 oz Woodford Reserve
•.75 oz Kahlua
•.75 oz banana rum
•2 dashes orange bitters
Thirsty For More?
— Read here about the Revolver.
— Liquor.com’s page about the cocktail.
Filed under BOURBON, BRANDS, COCKTAIL RECIPES, CUSTOMER PHOTO, MODIFIED DRINKS, ORIGINAL COCKTAIL RECIPE
The Sunset Rubdown:
About This Cocktail
A Campari drink with rum and citrus:
Ingredients
Preparation
Shake all ingredients over ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
Last night I tended bar at the Athenaeum’s Farm-To-Table Dinner.
Although I was tending bar, I was only making three specialty cocktails — all from a limited menu of drinks which used locally-sourced ingredients:
The meal was prepared by Chef Travis Bensink of the Athenaeum Hotel’s Heirloom Restaurant and Chef Julie Scheira of Forte in Jamestown.
I feel really lucky today to have been a part of the event yesterday. I learned a lot and met a lot of great people. The chefs helped me throughout the process, from the first brain-storming sessions to the last-minute details of setting up. My wife was super supportive and helped me throughout the several hours of set-up yesterday afternoon.
There are a lot of great local businesses which specialize in certain food items, and it was nice to see the spotlight on them. For myself, I was just really happy to have a chance to challenge myself and work within a different set of parameters doing stuff that’s a little atypical of traditional bar service.
But enough blathering. Here are a few more photos from the event:
One of the courses came paired with a beer from Five and 20 Spirits & Brewery:
In addition to the theee cocktails I was making before the dinner, I did create a cocktail to pair with the chicken & waffles course.
I’ve got to give a big thanks to the Southern Tier Brewing Company for giving us a firkin of their one-off kettle sour beer, which used all local ingredients.
The beer was so tart and funky that I wanted to use it in a rum sour, which I made with blackstrap rum, lemon juice, lime juice, falernum syrup, simple syrup and, of course, a hefty pour of the kettle sour beer from Southern Tier Brewing Company.
•DRINK NOTES•
Did I Leave The Straightener Plugged In!?
•1/2 oz cognac
•1/2 oz Grand Marnier
•1 oz Bombay Sapphire
•1/2 oz lemon juice
•1/2 oz lime juice
•1/2 oz falernum
•Splash simple syrup
•Splash orange juice
•Orange wedge garnish
CORTO MALTESE
•1 oz Knob Creek
•.5 oz Campari
•.5 oz Dark Rum
•.5 oz lemon juice
•.5 oz falernum
•.5 oz simple syrup
•.5 oz strawberry syrup
•6 mint leaves
•Orange wedge garnish
Filed under ORIGINAL COCKTAIL RECIPE
My name in lights… Sort of:
Filed under BOURBON, BRANDS, ORIGINAL COCKTAIL RECIPE, PITTSBURGH BARS
Tonight I’ll be having a bottle of Brooklyn Lager and a shot of Jameson in remembrance of Douglas Corrigan’s flight from Brooklyn to Ireland.
On July 17, 1938, Douglas Corrigan filed a flight plan for a return trip to California from Brooklyn.
He ended up in Ireland.
The story’s really quite fascinating. Some say he pulled the stunt intentionally, after having been denied permission to cross the Atlantic.
The following is from History.com:
After arriving in New York, Corrigan filed plans for a transatlantic flight, but aviation authorities deemed it a suicide flight, and he was promptly denied.
Instead, they would allow Corrigan to fly back to the West Coast, and on July 17 he took off from Floyd Bennett field. After takeoff, he made a 180-degree turn and vanished.
Twenty-eight hours later, Corrigan landed his plane in Dublin. He stepped out of his plane and exclaimed: “Just got in from New York. Where am I?”
Seems like the sort of thing that should be remembered with suds and spirit.
As I said at the outset of this post, I’ll be having a bottle of Brooklyn Lager and a shot of Jameson tonight. Still, I think the old boy deserves a drink named after him.
I was thinking something along the lines of a Manhattan made with Irish whiskey (plus a few other little additions):
Wrong Way Corrigan
•2 ounces Irish whiskey
•1/2 oz sweet vermouth
•1/2 oz dry vermouth
•Splash lemon juice
•Dash orange bitters
Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass or serve in a lowball glass with fresh ice.
Thoughts? It’s essentially just a a perfect Manhattan with Irish whiskey and some citrus (lemon juice and orange bitters).
If this drink already exists and has a name just let me know in the comments section.
Of course, any occasion such as this is a perfect time for an Aviation Cocktail:
•Liquor.com
•Imbibe Magazine
•Cold Glass
Frontier Mixology 