In this episode we delve into the concept of extinct cocktail ingredients. It’s hard to put your finger on these dearly departed until you discover by happenstance, as I did, that you can’t complete the recipe. I stumbled into this circumstance by choosing the Amarosa Cocktail, another classic cocktail in the pantheon of aged beverages, […]
Was there ever any doubt that at some point in history there would be a cocktail with the name Hanky Panky, when cocktails so often have the reputation of leading to lascivious funny business? Whether the name was a reference to the cause, prevention, or embodiment of sexual activity, or completely unrelated is not […]
When it comes to consistency, the Horse’s Neck cocktail has a whole big lack of it. This cocktail started off with no booze in it, and then added really any booze you had on hand. As time went on, it was sometimes alcoholic, sometimes not. Sometimes it had alternate names like Horse’s Neck Highball, Stiff […]
For a pink drink that is nothing more than a glass of gin with Angostura bitters, Pink Gin wins the award for being the simplest cocktail with the most obvious name. With so few ingredients, it can’t be that strong though, right? Don’t let the color fool you, it is nothing more than a glass […]
The Bloody Mary is another one of those cocktails that people have been fighting over for nearly a century. Because of its age and popularity it surely is a classic, but I think part of its popularity has been earned by its shock value. I think it’s the kind of drink people suggest to […]
The Singapore Sling has a bit of a tricky history to piece out. Most recipes nowadays have pineapple juice, and attribute the Singapore Sling recipe to the Raffles Hotel in 1915. While some evidence points in that general direction, it is hard to confirm. What muddies the waters is changing ingredients from reference to reference, […]
It pleases me to present the next Monster Summoning episode wherein we feature new cocktails born from the minds of liquid genius. The Brixton is where we record our Monster in a Glass series, wherein we discuss and taste classic cocktails both popular and forgotten, and Michael Donnelly, the bartender we work with, always knows […]
The story of the Algonquin Cocktail is truly a fascinating, confusing, and possibly widely misattributed one. I had heard this story before and loved learning about Dorothy Parker and the Algonquin Roundtable. In 1919 a group of writers, actors and intellectuals began to frequent the Algonquin for lunch every day. They were known as the Algonquin […]
With this episode, we’re going back to the front of the book to a cocktail we’ve done previously, but as we continue the mission to convert all of the previous episodes to the new format, we learn a lot more about these bygone beverages and have a ton of fun in the process. The name […]
Grog sounds like the name of a caveman, but if you have any knowledge of the drink it might drum up images of being on a pirate ship. With good reason too. In the early incarnation you drank your watered-down 18th century rum from Admiral Vernon and you got back to work. Maybe a little […]
