Under my desk with the Atomic Cocktail
I never knew anyone who actually built a Cold War bomb shelter, though I do recall the very useful hide-under-your-desk drills in grade school. It didn’t occur to me at the time that I was one of millions of Americans living in harm’s way with respect to our open-air atomic tests and their fallout. Read more
Drinking the French Quarter: The Vieux Carré Cocktail
The Vieux Carré is New Orleans’ contribution to the Manhattan family. More specifically, it is a Saratoga, sweetened with a splash of Bénédictine and the city’s historic Peychaud’s bitters. Read more 
Why is there cognac in my Sazerac?
The Sazerac has been one of my favorite cocktails for years, and its status as a “go-to” drink has become more entrenched as a wider selection of rye whiskies has come into my market, and especially as proper absinthe became available again. Read more
Floating through Repeal Day: the Twelve Mile Limit Cocktail
December 5 is Repeal Day in the United States, the anniversary of the December 5, 1933, end of Prohibition. (Don’t get me started on Prohibition… )
Reason enough to examine a couple Prohibition-themed cocktails.
The Metropole Cocktail
I characterize the Metropole as a brandy-based cocktail, though the original formula suggested equal parts brandy and vermouth.
Probably invented somewhere around 1890, the Metropole was the house cocktail of New York City’s Metropole Hotel. Read more
Drinking with Titans: The Atlas Cocktail
Whoever named the Atlas Cocktail knew his Greek mythology. It seems appropriate that this unusually strong apple brandy cocktail should be named after the Titan Atlas. Read more
The Scotch Saratoga
I love it when forgotten ideas return, especially the ones I’ve shrugged off as “surely doomed,” and then they reappear as great stuff.
That’s how Scotch whisky got into my Saratoga cocktail. Read more
Between the Sheets
The Between the Sheets Cocktail is a delight, much better than I expected from a cocktail with such a tacky, frat-house name. It is a very successful variant of the classic Sidecar. Read more
