Google “Bird of Paradise” cocktail and you will be presented with several iterations, each claiming “classic” status. Interestingly, the base spirits range from Gin to Tequila to Rum, with mixers running the gamut from lemon to lime to orange juice. Confusing at best.

After considerable research, the version that catches my fancy is actually the least common recipe. Based on equal parts Aperol and Rum, with a mix of pineapple and lime juice, this version is decidedly tropical, but with a crisp, refreshing edge that leaves the palate crying for more.

Perfect on a warm Summer’s day, this Bird of Paradise will entice your taste buds with suggestions of tropical fruits and exotic destinations.

The Bird of Paradise Cocktail:

1.5oz Aperol

1.5oz Rum (I used Goslings Black Seal)

1.5oz Pineapple Juice

.75oz Lime Juice

Shake the ingredients with crushed ice and strain into a coup. Garnish with a lemon slice.

Cin-Cin

The lore of cocktails is rich and filled with many contradictions. The challenge is that with any lore, there is a fine line between verifiable truth and entertaining story. Cocktail lore is no different.

For many, the Martinez Cocktail is the precursor to the ubiquitous Martini. Seems plausible, given the name and ingredient list, and yet there is a camp (including yours truly) that holds fast to the Hoffman House as the parent of the Martini.

After crafting a few versions of the Martinez, I am actually able to see the evolution of the Martini from this classic tipple.

Both have Gin as their primary spirit. The Martinez leverages Sweet Vermouth, whereas the Martini employs the bracing character of Dry Vermouth. The Martinez also adds a third ingredient- Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur. This nutty, fruity spirit brings a hint of almond skin and hazelnut to the game. In comparison, the two cocktails couldn’t be more different and yet, they share a common bond.

My favorite version of the Martinez Cocktail is thus:

2oz. Old Tom Gin (I prefer Haymans)

2oz. Sweet Vermouth (I used Martini and Rossi Reserva Speciale Ambrato)

1/2oz. Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur

2 dashes Angostura Bitters

Shake with crushed ice and strain into a coup glass. Garnish with either and orange or lemon slice.

Cin-Cin!

I am always adding interesting spirits to the bar. Not because I have a plan, but more often because I want options. And as you might expect, things get lost… this was the case with the Cocchi Aperitivo Americano… purchased who knows when and finally used in a cocktail!

Inspiration was taken from an Instagram post and the rest just sort of happened.

I’m dubbing this “old school” libation the Cocchi Cocktail, largely because the primary spirit is Cocchi.

Well-balanced and quite refreshing. A perfect Summer tipple when the dew point is reaching new heights.

I bring you, the Cocchi Cocktail:

2oz. Cocchi Aperitivo Americano

1oz. Aged Rum

1/2oz. Bourbon

Shake with crushed ice and strain into a coup. Garish with a Luxardo cherry.

Cin-Cin!

Back in the early 19th century, when the cocktail was in its infancy, the driving spirits were either Cognac or Rum. Whiskey was certainly produced in the colonies, primarily rye, but the tipple used most often in cocktails was Cognac. Rum was firmly ensconced in the punch bowl of your local tavern and ventured forth as a cocktail only occasionally.

Paying homage to those early days, the Classic Cocktail is a refreshing Cognac-based drink that emphasizes the key element of a cocktail – balance. Sweet must play against bitter to create a harmonious balance on the palate. The use of Maraschino liqueur softens the bite from the Cognac.

Light, but spiritous, the Classic Cocktail is perfect on a warm summer night!

The Classic Cocktail…

3oz. Cognac

1/2oz. Maraschino Liqueur

1/2oz. Grand Marnier

1/2oz. Lemon Juice

1/2oz. Cold Water

Shake with crushed ice and strain into a coupe. Garnish with a lemon peel, or a Luxardo cherry.

Cin-Cin!

All this week I have been posting Negroni cocktails in support of Negroni Week, a celebration of the classic cocktail dreamed up by Imbibe Magazine and Campari.

In Imbibe Magazine’s own words:

Welcome to Negroni Week, presented by Imbibe Magazine and Campari. Imbibe launched Negroni Week in 2013 as a celebration of one of the world’s great cocktails and an effort to raise money for charities around the world. From 2013 to 2017, Negroni Week grew from about 120 participating venues to over 7,700 venues around the world, and to date, they have collectively raised nearly $1.5 million for charitable causes.

For one week every June, bar and restaurants mix classic Negronis and Negroni variations for a great cause. To participate, each venue signs up at negroniweek.com, chooses from our list of official charity partners, and makes an immediate donation to that charity. Then they can return during and after Negroni Week to make additional donations to their chosen charity. After Negroni Week is complete, we tally up how much was raised collectively by all of our participating bars, restaurants and partners.

So there you have it… Negroni Week is officially a “thing…”

In the spirit of building on this wonderful idea, I decided to ask my Musings supporters to like and comment on the Negroni, and Negroni-variant cocktails appearing in my social media feeds this week – Instagram, Facebook and Fitocracy. If you like my post, I will donate a $1 to ALS Research… a (meaningful) comment yields a $5 donation… Plain and simple… Thus far things look good for a healthy donation… And this evening I decided to offer something a bit more radical.

I was a bit tired of each of my variations looking too much like the original Negroni, so I decided – what if we could make a Negroni devoid of it’s usual crimson hue? Is this possible?

Technically, the answer is no. There is no Campari that is anything but Ferrari red… and Campari is presumably one of the required ingredients of the cocktail. What to do? Bend the rules.

Campari is in the family of Italian spirits called Amari, or “bitters.” So what if we were able to find a white/translucent bitters? Something with a taste profile not unlike Campari, but having no color. Enter Luxardo’s Bitters Bianco, a non-colored bitters with flavors not unlike Campari.

The next ingredient that we need to “clarify?” Sweet Vermouth. Traditionally, sweet vermouth is red. However, several producers make a white version that is sweet. Cinzano most notably makes a Vermouth Bianco that has a depth of sweetness and flavor not unlike traditional red sweet vermouth.

So there you have it – the ingredients to enable the creation of what I am calling a The White Count, or an Albino Negroni…

1 oz. London Dry Gin

1 oz. Luxardo Bitters Bianco

1 oz. Cinzano Vermouth Bianco

Shake the ingredients with crushed ice, strain into a cocktail glass and garnish by floating a thinly sliced orange.

Cheers!

Almost 50 years ago, hippies came together to celebrate the season of Aquarius and love, gathering in Upstate New York for an unforgettable “love-in.” In honor of those hippie grandparents, a concoction of psychedelic proportions, the Elderflower Martini. A careful balance of sweet and sour, with a perfumed essence not unlike the air at Woodstock 50 years ago… potent, but without feeling so… and safer than licking blotter acid…

Ladies and gentlemen, the Elderflower Martini…

3 oz. London Dry Gin (I actually used Plymouth to enhance the floral essence)

3/4 oz. Dry Vermouth (I used Dolan, again to emphasize flowers)

3/4 oz. Elderflower Liqueur

3/4 oz. Crème de Violette

Shake with crushed ice until very cold. Strain and garnish with an orange peel, if necessary. I added a dash of orange bitters to give the cocktail an edge.

Cheers!

*Decided to refresh a take on this noted pre-Prohibition libation…

Nothing is more appropriate as a celebratory libation than the French 75! Whether for Bastille Day, our own Fourth of July, or for any excuse to raise a glass, the French 75 is perfectly equipped for the task.

The cocktail is named for a piece of French artillery invented in 1898 known as the French 75 or Soixante-Quinze. The cannon was noteworthy in that it is considered the first “modern field artillery piece,” with a quick-firing, hydro-pneumatic recoil mechanism. It also used time-fused, shrapnel-based shells that were more devastating to personnel than fixed targets, a characteristic particularly valuable in the trench warfare of WWI. The cannon was the mainstay of French artillery until the onset of WWII.

The cocktail itself was apparently born during WWI at Harry’s Bar in New York, and consists of Gin, Lemon Juice, Simple Syrup and Champagne. The combination was said to have such a kick that it felt like being shelled by the powerful French 75 field piece. Variations of the cocktail were created through the 1930’s, with the noted David A. Embury substituting Cognac for Gin in his The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks, a seemingly more French version.

Given the many variants, the generally accepted recipe is thus:

1 oz. London Dry Gin, or VSOP Cognac

½ oz. Lemon Juice

½ oz. Simple Syrup

3 – 4 oz. Extra Dry or Brut Champagne

Add all the ingredients except the Champagne to a shaker. Shake well with crushed ice and strain into a Champagne flute. Top with the Champagne and garnish with a lemon twist.

Cin-Cin!

Edward Teach, or Blackbeard as he was more familiarly known, was one of the most notorious pirates of the Golden Age of Piracy, a period between 1650 and 1730. He was born sometime around 1680, likely in England, but records indicate that his family relocated to Jamaica shortly after his birth. It appears that he served aboard the HMS Windsor in 1706, under the name of Edward Thatch. It also appears that he may have served aboard a privateer vessel shortly after joining the Royal Navy. Privateers were state-sponsored pirates that were employed to harass enemy shipping during wartime. Many times, after their charter was revoked because hostilities ended, privateers would continue to plunder shipping because it was quite lucrative. This fact may explain how Teach came to join Captain Benjamin Hornigold in 1716 as a full-blown pirate. Hornigold gave Teach command of his own sloop and before long, the two were joined by Stede Bonnet, another fierce pirate.

Before the end of 1717, Hornigold retired from piracy, leaving Teach and Bonnet in charge of their growing pirate fleet. Teach captured a French merchant vessel, La Concorde, renamed it Queen Anne’s Revenge and promptly added cannon and weaponry to make it his pirate flagship. Shortly afterward, Teach blockaded the town of Charles Town (Charleston), South Carolina, requesting a substantial ransom for its release. In the ensuing conflict, the Queen Anne’s Revenge was grounded on shoals near Beaufort, South Carolina. Teach escaped and was ultimately pardoned. It was at this point that he parted ways with Bonnet and resumed his life of piracy. Teach so angered then Governor of Virginia, Alexander Spotswood, that a small force of soldiers and sailors was dispatched to capture the pirate. A terrible battle ensued and on November 22, 1718, Edward Teach and many of his men were killed, ending his reign of terror.

Teach acquired his ominous nickname Blackbeard because he wore a thick, black beard that gave him a ferocious, lion-like appearance. To further augment his terrifying looks, it is rumored that Teach tied lit fuses beneath his hat that created a smoking halo about his head.

While Teach only plundered on his own for little more than a year, his record of piracy was prodigious. Unlike most pirates of the day, Teach did not torture or mistreat his crew, nor his captives. Teach also captained his vessels with the permission of his crew, somewhat at odds with the common belief that all pirates were tyrannical in nature.

In honor of this “gentlemanly pirate,” I present a cocktail named after his flagship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge:

3 oz. Angostura 7-Year-old Rum

1 oz. Creole Shrub (Liqueur d’Orange)

1/2 oz. Cherry Herring

1 oz. Lime Juice

Shake with crushed ice and strained. Garnish with a pair of Luxardo Maraschino Cherries.

Refreshing and tropical. Yarg!

A few of my favorite cocktails are the Boulevardier and the Negroni. Both are “shoulder cocktails,” or libations that act as a transition from one season to another. Both are kindred spirits, having the same mixers, different only because of the base liquor.

Because I love to experiment, I thought about mixing a related cocktail, but one with a definite Summer bent. To me, nothing says Summer quite as firmly as Rum, so Rum had to be the base spirit. The cocktail needed to be refreshing and bright. There is nothing as refreshing as a brace of lime juice. To balance the drink, an element of sweetness was needed, but I didn’t want to make it overt. An organic, earthy sweetness was necessary. I could accomplish this in many ways, such as the selection of a Rum that was on the sweeter side, as well as opt for mixers that were somewhat sweet. I did want to maintain an element of colonial punch-like verve, so there needed to be a certain bitterness to the cocktail. Campari and Sweet Vermouth would give me those qualities. And thus, a cocktail was born!

In honor of the pirate in all of us, I present the Walk the Plank cocktail:

2 oz. Angostura 7 year-old Rum, or similar aged Rum
1 oz. Campari
1 oz. Sweet Vermouth, preferably Antico Formula
1/2 oz. Lime juice, preferably fresh squeezed

Shake with crushed ice, strain. Garnish with a slice of orange and lemon

(*The picture clearly shows a garnish of Luxardo Maraschino Cherries. This was due to a lack of fresh citrus on the bar…)

Cin Cin!

Koningsdag, or King’s Day is a national holiday in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is celebrated on April 27^th, which is the birthday of the presiding King, Willem-Alexander. Up until 2013, when Queen Beatrix abdicated and was succeeded by her son Willem-Alexander, the holiday was known as Koninginnedag, or Queen’s Day and was celebrated on April 30^th, the Queen’s birthday… You see how this works, right?

The holiday was initially observed on August 31, 1885 as Prinsessedag, or Princess’s Day, the fifth birthday of Princess Wilhelmina, heir to the Dutch throne at the time. On her accession in November 1890 the holiday acquired the name Koninginnedag, and was first celebrated on August 31, 1891. In September 1948, Wilhelmina’s daughter Juliana ascended to the throne and the holiday was moved to Queen Juliana’s birthday, April 30^th. The holiday was celebrated on this date beginning in 1949.

Juliana’s daughter, Beatrix, retained the celebration on April 30^th after she ascended the throne in 1980, even though her birthday was January 31^st. All very confusing, really…

Queen Beatrix abdicated on Koninginnedag in 2013 probably as a result of not maintaining the holiday on her specific birthday, and her son, Willem-Alexander, ascended the throne (the first king since the observance of the national holiday). As a result, the holiday became known as Koningsdag beginning in 2014, and the celebration was moved to the King’s birthday, April 27^th.

Koningsdag is known for its nationwide vrijmarkt (“free market”), which is essentially a country-wide flea market. Quite scary, actually… The day is also an opportunity for “orange madness” or oranjegekte, a frenzied celebration of the Dutch national color. Orange is everywhere on April 27^th, and I mean everywhere…

In honor of this auspicious holiday, why not create a cocktail celebrating King’s Day?

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you, The King’s Cocktail, or De Konings Cocktail:

2oz. Gin

1oz. Grand Marnier

1/2oz. Campari

1/2oz. Lemon Juice

Shake the ingredients with crushed ice, vigorously. Strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with an orange twist.

Enjoy!