Glassaholic: Old Fashioned
November 15, 2015
The Old Fashioned is a classic cocktail ruined by many a bad bar. There are two schools of Old Fashioned making out there. Here at NPS, we’re from the muddling school as you will see. This is a fantastic drink for a Fall day. You’ll need a muddling stick.
The Old Fashioned
2 oz bourbon (we’re using Bowman’s Small Batch here)
orange wheel slice
2 luxardo cherries
4 dashes Fee Brothers Old Fashioned bitters
2 t simple syrup
soda water
Slice an orange wheel and put it into your glass. Add two cherries, the bitters and the simple syrup. Muddle. Add 2 oz of bourbon. Stir. Add ice. Top with soda. Put in an extra cherry if you like cherries!
A delicious drink for the Fall in front of a fire.
Glassaholic: Moscow Mule
April 29, 2015
The Moscow Mule is very easy to make. About the only difficult bit is finding some copper Moscow Mule cups. That’s where Cardinal Spirits comes in. They provided me with some first run Vodka and some Moscow Mule cups last trip out to Bloomington.
So Moscow Mules it is!
Moscow Mule
1.5 oz Cardinal Vodka
1 wedge of lime
real ginger beer (barritts or home made)
pour the vodka over the ice, squeeze in the lime, add ginger beer. if you’re feeling adventurous, stir!
Cardinal Spirits, Bloomington, Indiana
Glassaholic: Old 48
April 19, 2015
The Old 48 is a cocktail that I came up with on the cusp of my 49th birthday. The heat from the hellfire bitters is a great blend with a not too sweet bourbon. I sometimes use Blanton’s bourbon and have also used Rye in variations. The hint of chocolate in this drink blends beautifully with the often cloying cherry to make something better than the sum of its parts.
Old 48
2 oz bourbon (basil-hayden)
1 oz blue Dolin’s vermouth (neither sweet nor dry!!)
.5 heering
1 dash chocolate bitters
6.5 drops Bittermen’s hellfire habañero bitters
Stir down. Strain over large cube. Lemon peel garnish (express and drop in).
Serving this on an ice sphere is far from necessary, but what the hell. Definitely do use a large piece of ice and not a pile of rocks if you can.
Glassaholic: Sexual Chocolate
January 30, 2015
This is a drink discovered in Denver, Colorado at the Williams and Graham bar (quite a fantastic place). This cocktail was invented by Chad Michael George one evening with a gaggle of geeks—a delicious beverage that runs hot and a little sweet with a bitters kicker.
Sexual Chocolate
2 oz Rye (barrel proof)
.75 oz Cocchi Torino vermouth
.5 oz Cynar
teaspoon of cherry liqueur (heering or luxardo)
7 drops chocolate bitters
stir. strain over big cube. add a luxardo cherry on skewer
Glassaholic: Seelbach
November 30, 2014
The Seelbach is one of our favorite time-warp inducing cocktails. Named after either a Kentucky hotel or an upstate NY hotel depending on who you ask, this drink has been around since 1917.
The delightfully dangerous thing about a Seelbach is that you get an instant champagne buzz when you start drinking it, and when you’re done, you’ve just had a shot of bourbon.
We shot this episode of glassaholic at Nother’s Day.
The Seelbach
1 oz bourbon
.5 oz cointreau
7 dashes Angostura’s
7 dashes Peychaud’s
stir with a sterling silver spoon then top with dry champagne. Add a lemon twist to fancy it up.
Glassaholic: Mojito
September 3, 2014
The Mojito is a popular drink that you can find all over the place these days, even in bars that otherwise suck. The key to a good mojito is simplicity: fresh mint, fresh lime, simple syrup and a good muddling stick.
We make mojitos around here in the summertime when the mint is growing like crazy.
The Mojito
3 oz dark rum (my gay eclipse)
8 mint leaves (and the top of a sprig to garnish)
1/2 lime quartered
1 t simple syrup 1:1 (cane sugar)
Muddle the mint, simple syrup, and lime in the bottom of a sturdy glass. Add 3 oz of rum and stir. Fill glass with ice and top with sparkling water. Top with a mint garnish.
Delicious and summery.
Glassaholic: Nevada
April 20, 2014
The Nevada is a drink I found in the book Art of the Bar. It’s a great summertime rum drink that differs from the usual rum punch variety of drinks by not being overly sweet. If you make one at sunset at the beach, you can admire the beautiful color as you sip it on the deck.
We just got back from Salt Cay in Turks and Caicos, where we discovered some Salt Cay Rum. I’m using that here just for the heck of it, but a better rum would be Mount Gay Eclipse (or even Extra Old if you’re feeling adventurous). You definitely want a rum on the vanilla/syrupy side of the rum range for this drink. Turns out that Salt Cay rum is more like a central American rum (it is modeled after Zacapa), but we’ll ignore that distinction for now.
The Nevada
1.5 oz dark rum
.5 oz fresh grapefruit juice
.3 oz fresh lime juice
.25 oz simple syrup 1:1 (cane sugar)
dash of Angostura bitters
mix in an ice filled shaker. strain. serve up in a cocktail glass. garnish with a lime wedge.
This is a drink that is so good that whenever I share it, most bars pick it right up and add it to their list. Some magic happens and a banana-like flavor emerges from the mix.
Glassaholic: Boris Karloff
April 6, 2014
This is my friend Pooh’s favorite drink (well, actually he likes whatever drink is currently in his glass best, but no quibbling). From the fun and mostly accurate book Boozehound.
This is a classic gin fizz derivative with some fun features. Get your ingredients together before you make this one. It takes confectioner’s sugar and an egg white. (The egg you use must be ultra fresh, laid the day of mixing.)
Boris Karloff
0.75 oz gin (we recommend Sipsmith for this drink)
0.75 oz St-Germain Eiderflower liqueur
1 oz lime juice
1 T confectionner’s sugar (10X)
1 egg white (FRESH)
club soda to top
lime zest (small pieces)
fresh ground pepper
Combine gin, st-germain, lime, sugar. shake well. add egg white and shake to foam (20+ seconds). strain into glass with ice. add soda to top. sprinkle lime zest and pepper on top.
Hotel Marlowe (Cambridge, MA) Ends the Shift with a Flourish
March 25, 2014
It’s like coming home—with a telescope.
Telescope in 621
GM Joe Capalbo is known for reaching across the country to make a guest feel special. It’s much easier when you’re in his domain! Boston is Joe’s domain. We were greeted with the special makings of a Shift Ender (as recently featured on Glassaholic). See, at least somebody reads this blog!
Cocktail-related amenities? We approve. Heartily. Lets make this a trend.
The Shift Ender before construction.
The Shift Ender post construction
So we start with a Shift Ender and lots of delicious snacks. That should tide us over before we hit Sportello and drink and a late evening of fun and games. Hopefully, no phones will be sacrificed.
Snacks include this gorgeous charcuterie plate.
Anyway, thanks Joe. You rock.
Amongst all of the goodies was a note from GM Bill McKinney who runs not only the Bambara downstairs but also the shiny new Highball Lounge where barman Shaher Misif presides. A visit is on the docket for Wednesday (after dinner at Journeyman, no wait, strike that, dinner is slated for EVOO).
621 is a very nice executive class room at the Hotel Marlowe. The key to this room category is the glass shower cube. That’s what we do all this for!
621 has a glass shower.
Once again, I am utterly unlikely to get into the gigantic tub thing. What is it with these huge tubs and underuse?
Bedroom portion of 621.
Living room portion of 621.
And the best news? I get to spend two nights in Boston this time.
This just in from our excursion to drink, here is the inestimable Ezra Star wearing google glass. Sportello was great and so was drink. John Gertsen runs a tight and highly entertaining ship.
Ezra wears glass.
Ezra does her thing.
Somehow we managed to rally for a second evening out. Started with an OK dinner at EVOO, the highlight of which was some Slovakian stew made by a talented student chef. The bar at EVOO tried to make a good drink they call the Bleeding Heart:
3 oz grapefruit juice
2.5 oz Tequila
1 oz orange liqueur (use something not too sweet)
splash of lemon
dash of salt
Shake, serve over crushed ice, float a teaspoon of grenadine, throw in a luxardo cherry
The only problem with EVOO’s version was fake grenadine and a red dye number 5 fake cherry (plus middle quality booze). This drink has enough promise to do it properly at home.
After dinner it was off to the Highball Lounge where barman Shaher Misif presides. Shaher is a dangerous man. I repeat, Shaher is a dangerous man.
Shaher Misif is a dangerous man.
We were joined by a flamboyantly gay mexican architect who really would not keep himself to himself as well as the good man Robert Gonzales, brand Ambassador from Zacapa rum. Robert was super fun. He caused this flaming cocktail to appear.
Things became fuzzy. Liberals were served (with house amaro consisting of 26 ingredients). Alcohol rained from the sky? I believe we even got into the Pappy 23, which escalated the bill nicely into the stratosphere. Oh well, you pay what you get for (or something like that).
Eventually even the bar ceased to act as a barrier. This is Roberto on the wrong side of the bar.
Shaher is a dangerous man. But we think he’s fun anyway.
The Highball Lounge is a great place to drink. Shaher Misif is a dangerous man. Bring your bag of bitcoins. But watch out, Shaher Misif is a dangerous man.
Five showerheads and a tip of the shaker to the Hotel Marlowe.
Glassaholic: Shift Ender
March 21, 2014
Here’s a great drink invented at Annbelle’s Bar and Bistro in San Francisco by barman Scott Campbell. We came across this one in our noplasticshowers travels. Every year during the RSA Computer Security Conference, we have one or seven of these.
This drink is complex but really good, and takes some ingredients that may be a bit hard to gather up.
Shift Ender
1.5 oz Malt whiskey (irish)
.5 oz Canton
3 dashes of orange bitters
stir in a Collins glass with ice. top with 1.5 oz ginger beer.
float with .5 oz Fernet Branca on top
top the drink with two cherries on a skewer and a generous slice of lemon peel expressed and dropped in
See a picture of Annabelle’s version in a previous posting.
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