Not just history of cocktails, but history through cocktails
Posts in category Monster in a Glass
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Episode 13: Going Way Back to Long Is...
Cocktails are all about crafting, sipping, and enjoying the experience. To many, creating a cocktail is equivalent to cooking a fine meal. Raw ingredients carefully mixed to generate a taste that is to be savored, to be discussed for the nuances of the flavors and the way the ingredients play off one another. And then […]
Episode 12: Moscow Mules – In the Col...
The Moscow Mule shows up in very few cocktail books for something that seems to be one of the most popular cocktails ever. This one was exciting because got some new ingredients to talk about with Vodka and Ginger Beer. Vodka as an ingredient has not shown up in many episodes, mostly due to how […]
Episode 11: Just Old Fashioned – Old ...
The Old-Fashioned Cocktail is probably one of the most famous cocktails ever, so you are almost not a cocktail bar nowadays if you don’t have some version on your menu. Researching the Old-Fashioned was a daunting idea at first, if for no other reason than being called something as non-descript as old fashioned. We can […]
Episode 10: Papa’s Poison ̵...
Don’t bother with churches, government buildings or city squares. If you want to know about a culture, spend a night in its bars. — Ernest Hemingway When we did this episode originally we focused on the Hemingway Daiquiri. In our book “Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails” there is a La Floridita Daiquiri, which apparently […]
Episode 9: The Little Lie – The Cuba ...
I learned a lot this episode. With this mixed drink I learned more about Cuba, Coca-Cola, the Spanish American War and the Cuban Revolution and I learned that the standard rum and Coke originally had a different name. The Cuba Libre is essentially a rum and Coke with lime juice added. I had no idea […]
Episode 8: Up in the Air – The Aviati...
As we have been doing these cocktails for a while, we have come to recognize several scenarios in how cocktails get their name, how their ingredients evolve and how they become popular. The Aviation follows one of these patterns so exquisitely that it serves as a perfect example to demonstrate how a cocktail with a […]
Episode 7: Pierced by a Gimlet – The ...
This is an amazing episode. Since we recorded it, I’ve flipped it back and forth in my mind considering the content. My position on the Gimlet story has changed since I first heard it, but I’m still astounded by how it all comes together. Jason started be describing how he located the recipe first in Patrick […]
Episode 6: What IS a Martini – The Ma...
The Martini is another one of those cocktails that is legendary in the world of classic cocktails. It’s so major that the glass it is served in is a symbolic archetype for cocktail round the world. That’s huge. Many other drinks try to borrow some of that presence through -tini association. The problem is that […]
Episode 5: Margaritaville – The Marga...
The first thing I learned about this cocktail is that when you tell the story of the Margarita you have to tell the story of tequila. Because tequila was virtually unheard of prior to the 1930s, there are no mixed drinks using it in the time period when most cocktails would earn their classification as […]
Episode 4: Taken for a Ride – Sidecar
This episode was really great to create. There is a ton of post WWI information that we learned and some surprising technological developments we learned of from that time. But not only that, we had a lot of fun and tried a really great, truly classic cocktail. Jason nailed the origins of this drink pretty […]
