Hurricane Minnie

Hurricane Minnie

We all love a drink with a history and an extra kick and it helps if it has something “witchy”  This drink was named after Minnie Castevet from one of our favorite movies, Rosemary’s Baby, and the inspiration for one of or more popular drinks, the Vodka Blush. Like her namesake the Hurricane Minnie is a pushy powerful drink that will leave you knocked out and wondering “ This is real, this is really happening”

1. 1 oz dark rum
2. 1 0z light rum
3. .25 oz 151 rum
4. .50 oz Strega
5. 0 oz passion fruit syrup
6. .50 lemon juice

Shake with ice and serve over ice in a hurricane glass

Strawberry Julep Punch

Strawberry Julep Punch

There really isn’t anything better than sharing seasonal delights with your friends and guests — we’ve waited through a long, hard winter for ripe fruits, fresh herbs and the warm weather to enjoy them. For summer deck parties, putting everything in a bowl and allowing participants to serve themselves is the best way to go. With all this in mind, the Cocktail Vultures have a new summer punch for you. You can take care of several steps in the process earlier in the day or the night before.

Amounts for this recipe depend solely upon how big a bowl of punch you want to make. We formulated it using equal amounts of the three major ingredients. If you and your guests are lightweights, you can cut back on the bourbon a tad, but not by more than half.

Prep: Minted Bourbon

To a large glass container (a big Mason jar works great), add a few handfuls of fresh mint. Add bourbon and muddle — don’t go crazy, just press it. If you’re using a Mason jar, you can seal and shake it a bit.

Prep: Strawberry Purée

To a large saucepan, add 2 pints of hulled strawberries, 1 cup of water and 1 cup of sugar. Heat gently to dissolve the sugar. Muddle the strawberries lightly, then let cool and place in a blender. Blenderize until smooth. Chill in an airtight container.

Prep: Tea

Brew a quart or two (depending upon your plans) of strong, black tea, such as Irish Breakfast. Chill.

To a punch bowl, add equal amounts of minted bourbon, strawberry purée and cold tea. Toss in a few scoops of crushed ice to get the chilling started. Stir to combine. Now add a mountain of crushed ice to the center of the bowl and garnish with fresh mint and whole strawberries.

Let frosty, fruity fun prevail!

Always drink responsibly; always drink well.

Old-Time Whiskey Punch

Old-Time Whiskey Punch

This is an easy way to get a large party started; the only prep work is the homemade ginger syrup which can be made days in advance. It’s also simple to cut this recipe in half for a more intimate group of happy holiday drinkers. A few floating pineapple slices and a ton of mint would make a nice presentation.

To a large punch bowl, add:

6 cups (or a large block) of ice
2 750 ml bottles of Seagram’s Seven American whiskey
2 cups homemade ginger syrup
64 ounces orange-pineapple juice
2 liters of club soda or plain seltzer

Stir thoroughly and anticipate frolicking!

Always drink responsibly; always drink well.

Homemade Ginger Syrup

Take a generous “hand” of unpeeled fresh ginger and chop it thoroughly — alternately, hack it up and throw it in a food processor. Measure the result and add it to a saucepan along with 1.5 times the same amount of water (for example: if you wind up with 1 cup of ginger, use 1.5 cups of water). Bring to a boil then simmer for 30 minutes.

Let cool for a minute or two, then strain and measure the remaining water (I strain mine into a large heat-worthy measuring bowl). Add an equal amount of sugar (1 cup water gets 1 cup sugar) to the warm ginger-water and keep stirring until all the sugar is dissolved. If you’re not going to use it right away, add a jot of white rum or vodka as a preservative and refrigerate. Keeps for about a week.

(Quickie-Cheat: substitute ginger ale
for the club soda in the cocktail above and leave out the ginger syrup.)

Parlor Pistol

 

Parlor Pistol

We love working with new ingredients, and we love it even more when those ingredients are local to the Northeast. Recently, we stumbled across Greenhook Ginsmiths‘ new gin-based liqueur made in Brooklyn with beach plums that grow in nearby Long Island, and organic wheat from the Great State of New York. http://greenhookgin.com It has an astringent flavor with notes of hibiscus and an echo of the sloe gins that inspired its creation, as well as a higher-than-average alcohol content for a liqueur.

We put this potent little number to the test and named it the Parlor Pistol.

Parlor pistols were small, one- or two-shot guns that the Victorians used for target shooting… AT HOME! They sometimes had long rooms built into their mansions just for this purpose, hence, shooting galleries. After cocktails, dinner and wine, standing around the drawing room and taking potshots was a totally-acceptable activity for fancy society.

Oh, well. We’ll take our Parlor Pistol in a glass, please.

To an iced shaker, add:

2 ounces Greenhook Ginsmiths beach plum liqueur
1 ounce bourbon (we prefer Bulleit http://m.bulleit.com/)
.25 ounce peach liqueur (we prefer Stirrings – http://www.stirrings.com)
1 ounce freshly-squeezed orange juice

Shake vigorously and strain into a cocktail glass. Add a sprig of fresh mint, as fancy as you can find — we must be civilized when brandishing our Parlor Pistols!

Always drink responsibly; always drink well.

The Electric Screwdriver

Electric Screwdriver

What’s great about the Screwdriver? It’s easy to make, with readily-available ingredients: vodka and orange juice. But these can also prove its downfall: overly-medicinal vodka, and worse, fake OJ squirting out of a gun behind a bar, or glop-glop-glopping from a plastic bottle.

We say nay. The Cocktail Vultures like nothing more than a good home improvement.

Naturally, we turned to fresh fruit when we decided to make a better Screwdriver. We torqued it up a bit by adding zesty lemon and grapefruit. That lent it zing, along with floral notes. And we tossed in orange bitters because we just can’t leave well enough alone.

When choosing a vodka for this drink, open the bottle and take a deep whiff. If all you can think of is rubbing alcohol, chances are it will make your cocktail too medicinal and undermine all that fresh fruitiness you just squeezed into it.

To get the right amount of zest, which adds a wonderful fragrance, just grab your grater and draw it lightly a few times over the skin of the fruit, doing your best to only reap the colored part and not the white stuff.

To an iced shaker, add:

3 ounces freshly-squeezed orange juice
1/2 ounce freshly-squeezed lemon juice
1 ounce freshly-squeezed grapefruit juice
2-3 ounces vodka (adjust to your personal taste)
2 dashes orange bitters
Zest of grapefruit
Zest of lemon
Zest of orange

Shake it vigorously, and strain into an ice-filled highball glass. Garnish with a cherry and some fruit wheels.

Want to use your Electric Screwdriver at its highest efficiency setting? Make a pitcher of these for that brunch table or deck party.

To a large, ice-filled glass pitcher, add:

12 ounces orange juice
2 ounces lemon juice
4 ounces grapefruit juice
8-12 ounces vodka, to taste or the drinking habits of your crowd
4-5 dashes orange bitters

Stir this thoroughly and throw in some slices of citrus or a few fresh mint leaves.

Always drink responsibly; always drink well.

End of the Rainbow

End of the Rainbow

St. Paddy’s Day arrives just as Winter is loosening its grasp, and having survived it, we all look toward Spring, thinking a little luck may be in order. Here’s a gilded cocktail to raise in celebration; even if we didn’t get the whole pot of gold, at least we’ve got each other.

To an iced shaker, add:

3 ounces Irish whiskey (we prefer Bushmills – http://www.bushmills.com)
1/2 ounce Goldschläger
1 1/2 ounces freshly-squeezed grapefruit juice
1 dash Angostura bitters
Pinch edible gold powder

Shake vigorously and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with another pinch of edible gold powder on the surface of the drink.

Slàinte!

Always drink responsibly; always drink well.

Persephone’s Bouquet

Persephone’s Bouquet

The Queen of the Underworld and the abducted bride of Hades, Persephone has had a lot of cocktails named for her. After all, this goddess not only represents Spring and rebirth, but she famously made the trip up from Hell while munching on a pomegranate. What cocktail creator doesn’t love a myth that starts with an ingredient?

We wanted to make a drink for Persephone that included her favorite fruit, along with fragrant jasmine and ripe blood oranges. It’s a bouquet worthy of honoring her return to the Earth, as a long winter gives way again to sweet fecundity.

To an iced shaker, add:

2 ounces Pomegranate juice
2 ounces freshly-squeezed Blood Orange juice
2.5 ounces Vodka
1 ounce Jasmine Syrup *

Shake vigorously and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. We think this cocktail’s brilliant color requires no garnish, but if you’d like to add a sliver of blood orange peel, it would give us no pain.

Always drink responsibly; always drink well.

* Jasmine Syrup:
Brew jasmine tea and add an equal amount of sugar. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Store in refrigerator for up to one week.

Gin Dilettante

Gin Dilettante
Vegetal and Refreshing, Crisp and Bright, perfectly blends with the more herbal and floral gins. We chose Hendricks for this drink. Sometimes the fresh ingredients in your kitchen just cry out to be made into a cocktail. Who are we to deny them?

To an empty shaker, add:

3-4 slices of cucumber
Sprig of dill leaves
1/2 ounce freshly-squeezed lime juice
1/2 ounce simple syrup

Muddle well. Add ice, then 2 ounces of Hendricks gin. Shake vigorously and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with fresh dill.

Always drink responsibly; always drink well.

Old Fashioned in ChinaTown

We were comparing youthful experiences with alcohol and discovered that it was not uncommon to have your first mixed drink in a Chinese restaurant. Not a sleek, spare sushi bar or even a Szechuan café — no, it was a quasi-Polynesian Chop Suey Palace with tired décor and waiters in threadbare red jackets who didn’t ask for ID.

If we could walk back into that dark and dreamy place in the Chinatown of our youth and get behind the bar, this is the drink we’d put together. Serve it with a pu-pu platter or your next bag of take-out. Try ordering one in a good cocktail bar — we think your bartender will be intrigued when you ask for “an Old-Fashioned in Chinatown.”

To an empty shaker, add:

1 heaping teaspoon canned Mandarin Oranges
2-3 chunks canned Pineapple
2 Maraschino Cherries
1 barspoon maraschino cherry syrup
3 ounces Bourbon
1 ounce homemade ginger syrup (recipe to follow)
1 heavy dash Angostura Orange Bitters
Pinch 5 Spice Powder

Muddle well. Add ice.

Shake vigorously. Strain into an ice-filled glass. Top with club soda and stir. Garnish with a cherry and pineapple spear. Another tiny whisper of 5 Spice Powder over the top of the drink adds fragrance.

Homemade Ginger Syrup

Take a generous “hand” of unpeeled fresh ginger and chop it thoroughly — alternately, hack it up and throw it in a food processor. Measure the result and add it to a saucepan along with 1.5 times the same amount of water (for example: if you wind up with 1 cup of ginger, use 1.5 cups of water). Bring to a boil then simmer for 30 minutes.

Let cool for a minute or two, then strain and measure the remaining water (I strain mine into a large heat-worthy measuring bowl). Add an equal amount of sugar (1 cup water gets 1 cup sugar) to the warm ginger-water and keep stirring until all the sugar is dissolved. If you’re not going to use it right away, add a jot of white rum or vodka as a preservative and refrigerate. Keeps for about a week.

(Quickie-Cheat: substitute  ginger ale for the club soda in the cocktail above and leave out the ginger syrup.)

Always drink responsibly; always drink well.

Fuzzy Wuzzy

Fuzzy Wuzzy

One evening in the lab, the Vultures were discussing trendy drinks of the past and just tossing some names around. When we got to the Fuzzy Navel, silence reigned and then one of us said:

“That was a damned good drink. Let’s make one now.”

There are a lot of products available lately with fake flavoring and hideous colors and your Vultures are happy to rake them over the coals. But peach schnapps and peach liqueur have always been reliable, inexpensive ingredients. Peach is one of those flavors that remains bright and fresh-tasting even when some artificiality is involved. Enjoy your peachy cocktails in their many variations, and try this pretty new one we’ve created for you.

To an iced shaker, add:

2 ounces vodka
3/4 ounce cranberry syrup
1 ounce freshly-squeezed orange juice
1/2 ounce peach schnapps or liqueur (our favorite: https://www.stirrings.com/real-products/liqueurs/peach)

Shake vigorously and pour unstrained into glass. Garnish with orange wedge and add a straw.

Cranberry Syrup

To a saucepan, add:

2 cups fresh cranberries
3/4 to 1 cup light brown sugar
Water to cover berries

Keep stirring over medium heat until the cranberries start popping their skins. Remove from heat and let stand to cool. Strain and bottle. Store in refrigerator up to 5 days.