I first encountered the Negroni during my junior year of college when I was studying abroad in Italy. I was in Siena for a long weekend away from my program in Rome, and while my friends and I sat on the ground of the clam-shell shaped Piazza del Campo in the center of town enjoying …
Sweet vermouth
There are few cocktails as enduring as the Manhattan. If the original early 19th-century meaning of the word “cocktail” referred to a mixture of spirits, sugar, water, and bitters (what we now think of as an Old Fashioned), the current meaning includes all manner of ingredients from syrups to liqueurs to mixtures of many different …
The Vieux Carré is what it would look like if the Manhattan had an eccentric, worldly, New Orleanian great aunt. It’s rich and spirit forward with a split base of rye and cognac. Like the Manhattan it also gets rounded out with sweet vermouth. But unlike her straight-laced nephew, the Vieux Carré has an unruly …
The Boulevardier is a regular around these parts. It’s a drink that straddles the line between Negroni and Manhattan. Depending on how you frame it, it’s either a Negroni with whiskey swapped in for the gin or a Manhattan with half of the sweet vermouth swapped out for bitter Campari. It’s welcome cocktail, especially in …
It’s been too long since I’ve shared a cocktail recipe around here. This one, with Cynar (pronounced chee-nar), Cognac, and Punt e Mes, is a keeper. In recent months, Dan and I have been spending lots of time with the herbaceous, bitter, primarily-Italian amaro section of our liquor cabinet. (And if you’re interested in learning …
A few years ago, bartenders went crazy for barrel-aging cocktails. The idea is simple: make a large batch of a cocktail, put it in a barrel (preferably one that’s been used for aging bourbon or wine) and let the cocktail age, mellow, oxidize a bit, and take on the flavor of the wood. It’s basically …