Vintage is always in fashion

What is the most overlooked part of crafting a cocktail... The vessel. The glassware plays an integral part not only is presentation, but also helps with dilution, or to emphasize sensory aspects.

Yeah, there's plenty of new stuff on the market that has laser engraved ____ points. But a vintage piece of glassware can generally accomplish the same statement, while still looking timeless. As for shopping for glassware, it's not easy and takes time. In Chicago, Brimfield and Urban mischief in the Andersonville neighbourhood are two of the best places I've found to procure my wares. Brimfield has an enormous selection of vintage glassware and trinkets in smaller quantities. While Urban Mischief on the other hand has a very large vintage playboy/burlesque selection of cocktail sets (shakers, glassware & stemware) while not being offensive; perfect for the entertainer... No pun intended!

Should you need any awesome
Barware in the future. Check out either place. I have yet to find any place with better options.

Happy Hunting!!!

Cocktail of the Week #16

Gearing up for the fall menu at Elixir. I've been mixing up some drinks using samples of Perfect Purée's Beverage Artistry Series that I obtained from
a new friend I made. I've worked with some of the mixes before, so I'm pretty comfortable with the amazing quality and the variety of ways to use the product.

Paradise Found
2 oz. Plantation 5 yr. Barbados Rum
3/4 oz. Perfect Purée, El Corazon
1/2 oz. fresh squeezed lime juice
1/4 oz. fresh squeezed orange juice
1/4 oz. Luxardo Maraschino
2 dashes Rhubarb Bitters

Build in shaker glass, add ice, shake, strain into a coupe. Garnish with a swath of lemon oil.

Taste of the Nation

One word... Awesome! I can't wait to do it next year.

Cocktail of the week #14

This is one of my recent recipes from the pop-up bar I did with my pal Adam Seger. Savour the sumptuousness.

South American Sour

2 oz. Machu Pisco
1/2 oz. Perfect Purée Chipotle Sour
1/4 oz. Lemon Juice
1/2-3/4 oz. Ginger Syrup
Egg white
5 drops of tobacco bitters

Build everything except for bitters in cocktail shaker, before adding ice. Shake the egg into the mixture to begin the emulsification process. Add ice and shake well. Strain into a cocktail glass through a tea strainer to create a nice microform, and eliminate any splinters of ice. Let sit and garnish with tobacco bitters (aztec chocolate bitters are an acceptable substitution) and a twist (optional). Sip leisurely until fully consumed. Repeat.

Cocktail of the Week Update

Yeah, so I've skipped the Cocktail of the Week for about 2 months now with everything going on. But I've decided to make a change to this. Now that I'm up in such an awesome city amongst many mixologists I admire. I am going to start and honour some of the best cocktails I consume by making their recipes available, mixologist/creator permitting, of course. And yes, I will still be putting my own recipes on for your viewing pleasure.

Cocktail of the week # 11

I missed a week somewhere along the line. But I have a cocktail to add to the mix. This cocktail I've actually seen before, but I chose to recreate with my own personal spin on it. In fact, I mentioned this beverage a few months back...The celery sour. Well I'm dishing out my recipe for you to savour.

Celery Sour

1 1/2 oz. Tanquerray Gin
1 dash Angostura Bitters or celery bitters (I prefer the lesser)
Celery (approx. 1/3 a trimmed stalk)
3/4 oz. Lemon Juice
1/2 oz. Simple Syrup
Smoked Sea Salt Rim

In shaker glass, build Tanquerray, celery and bitters; Muddle. Add in ice, lemon juice and simple syrup. Start with 1/4 oz. of simple syrup; adjust as necessary.

Shake well, and double strain into old fashioned glass with a smoked sea salt rim with 1 large cube. Garnish with a celery stick.

This cocktail I also enjoy with some ginger ale foam on top, too. If you want a different dynamic apart from the smoked sea salt.

Cinnamon, Cardamom & Cloves... Oh My!

So it's been a while. I've been traveling to Chicago a lot lately. And have been neglecting my poor blog. No matter I'm here now to feed you with a nice new update on bitters!

So my first batch I built was a mix-match of most of the individual flavours I had. But wanted it to focus on 2 primary ingredients, cardamom and star anise. It turned out okay, I had to dilute the final product down to a manageable proof. I created a tequila focused drink with it. That I might use as the cocktail of the week soon.

The second batch was inspired by some reading I've been doing for the Diageo World Class US. they were talking about Indian spices and Masala came up. I didn't want to make a curry bitter, but instead focus on those other spices often used in a masala. So I used some Ceylon Cinnamon, Green Cardamom, Cloves and Ginger and added it to my bitter base (gentian, licorice root, rhubarb root and wormwood). I'm very suprised how this one turned out, and I'm getting the knack of this. I built the bitters in a large snifter so I could progressively smell the product until I was happy with it, then I diluted it down. It produced about 3/4 of a cup of liquid. Which is more than enough! I'm bringing a couple small bottles to Chicago to get some feedback.

Ice Distillation... Beer or Spirit?

I'm also gonna take a minute and talk about some beer. In specific, BrewDog's Tactical Nuclear Penguin, and Sink the Bismarck! or Sam Adam's Utopia. In recent, there has been great debate in the brewing industry about high proof beers, 18% ABV and upwards. More specifically those that have been frozen and water removed concentrating the alcohol in a process called Ice Distillation. This process brings one question to light...whether they should be classified as a spirit or a beer. It's interesting when a beer is no longer meets the modern definition of beer... How things change.

Cocktail of the Week #9

I had guests return to the hotel last weekend. And they were excited to see me and thanked me again for the Hendricks Cup recipe I had given to them months earlier. We proceeded to have a great, very in-depth conversation about cocktail culture. They were ready for something different, and were open enough of give me artistic licensing to create a cocktail and challenge their palates. Of course I rose to the challenge, and over the course of 2 visits. I had made them quite a few cocktails. Well this recipe is one special request.

Ginger Manhattan

2.5 oz. Woodford Reserve
1 tsp. fresh ginger root
1/4 oz. sweet vermouth (perhaps white vermouth)
1/2 oz. ginger simple syrup
2 dashes Angostura bitters (perhaps orange)

Muddle fresh ginger, bourbon and bitters. Add simple syrup, vermouth and ice. Stir and strain into chilled cocktail glass. Flame orange onto drink. Garnish with cube of fresh ginger.


Thanks Andrew and Sid for the opportunity to be creative in a not do creative environment. Cheers!

Cocktail of the Week #7 & #8

So your patience reaps double the reward this week. Things are starting to warm up here. I wanted some refreshing drinks to share this time around. So first I have a drink I constructed while challenging myself not to use anything lemon-lime, but still make a great well-balanced tasting tequila cocktail.

The Bartlett Tequila Daisy

1 1/4 oz. Cazadores Blanco Tequila
1/4 oz. golden raspberry simple syrup
3 Tsp. bartlett pear
1 oz. grapefruit juice
1 dash peach bitters
2 oz. soda

In a shaker glass muddle pear with simple syrup. Add liquor, juice, bitters, and ice. Shake and strain into highball filled with ice. Fill with soda. Garnish with a pear slice if desired.


The word margarita comes from the word spanish word "marguerite" meaning Daisy in English. A daisy is a cocktail with sugar, a citrus juice, and a raspberry syrup or grenadine. In this case I used some golden raspberries from a bush I've been growing in a simple syrup.

And next we have a buck. A buck is any drink, typically served in a highball with lime juice added.

The Crimson Tarragon Buck

6 Blackberries
2 sprigs of fresh Terragon
2 oz. soda water
1 1/2 oz. Hendricks or Millers Gin
Squeeze of lime

Mix blackberries, Terragon and soda in a shaker. Muddle. Add gin, strain over ice, and squeeze lime into highball. Garnish with a blackberry wrapped In a Terragon leaf.

Happy Drinking!

Cocktail of the Week #6

This cocktail doesn't need much of an introduction. Its only my background photo of my blog...The GINger Orange Crusta. Cheers!

2 oz. Martin Millers Reformed Gin
1/2 oz. ginger infused simple syrup
1 dash Angostura Bitters
3/4 oz. fresh orange juice
1 tsp. fresh ginger root
3/4 oz. Tuaca
1 orange slice

Muddle orange slice, ginger and simple syrup in shaker glass. Add Tuaca, gin, OJ and ice. Stir. Strain into old fashioned glass with raw sugar rim. Garnish with candied ginger and orange slice.

Bringing It All Home.

I haven't posted much this past week, solely because I was in Chicago. It's that place where I can find pretty much anything I want in the liquor world. And if my good friends at Binny's Beverage Depot don't have it they'll find it for me! Well this time I have brought back 3 spirits for your tasting pleasure (well I brought more, but 3 is plenty for now). Velvet Falernum, Hum, and some Batavia Arrack.

Taylor's Velvet Falernum is a sweet rum based liqueur from Barbados; with some very delightful aromas and tastes. At first smell you get cloves, and it really dominates the fragrance of the liqueur. But when one tastes the beverage you immediately taste sugar, lime and then the cloves at the finish. It's only 11% ABV so it certainly makes an ideal replacement for a simple syrup with spice notes. It's probably one of my favourite liqueurs to work with. Its one of those liqueurs that is extremely versatile. I look at it like a Maraschino or Tuaca.

Next, Hum, a botanical spirit predominantly of hibiscus, ginger, cardamom and kaffir limes. The latter two are of my favourite scents, so I may be just slightly partial, well that and a friend turned me on to it. The liqueur itself is pretty potent, and a little goes a long way. But i discovered you can bring out certain characteristics of the beverage by pairing it with a different ingredient. Apples for example bring out the ginger in the liqueur, where as I find ginger ale itself seems to make the cardamom pop more. It's 70 proof, so enjoy responsibly.

Finally, Batavia Arrack Van Oosten. Some people have seen the words Arrack and Arak, and often confuse the two. Arak is an anise spirit from the middle east. Arrack (arak in some parts of indonesia, it's not confusing at all!) in this case is a relative of rum! It is created in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), on the island of Java. What makes this spirit unique is the Javan red rice that is added to the beer (fermented sugar cane juice) and distilled. It still maintains the fiery sweetness you find in rum, with an approachable dryness. But has a nice almost floral aroma to it. This one sits at 100 proof. It going to make a great base spirit for some summer drinks, I almost prefer it over rum itself.

Hope you enjoyed my spirited reviews for the month! Cheers!

Cocktail of the Week #5

A day late, this cocktail is a special request from my friend Dan. He asked me if I had any cucumber based cocktails in my arsenal of beverages. Well yes! I gleefully responded. This beverage was created to fill the void in my life when I had no access to Pimm's #1 (a gin based spirit with some secret botanicals). Without further ado... The Hendrick's Cup.

2 oz. Hendricks Gin
1/8 cup Peeled cucumber
1 dash of Fee Bros. Rhubarb Bitters
Ginger ale

In a shaker tin, muddle the gin, the cucumber and bitters. Add ice, shake well. And double strain (both a Hawthorne and a fine mesh strainer) into a glass cordial coffee mug, fill the mug with ice, top off with ginger ale and garnish with a cucumber slice, or two. Sip, relax, get a spa treatment and repeat.

Cocktail of the Week #4

Ok, so this is the drink that I created, we will actually be serving this at Ballard's Bar at West Baden Springs Hotel for a week, starting Monday Feb. 13. I have since improved this cocktail and thats the recipe you're getting here. Don't get me wrong. The other recipe is better, this just adds a different element. This drink is sort of inspired by something my Dad can't have! Figs.

The Fig Tree

2 oz. Bacardi White Rum
1/2 oz. Lemon Juice
1 oz. Fig Infused Simple Syrup
2 dashes Fee Bros. Black Walnut Bitters
Splash of Ginger Ale
A very tiny amount of vanilla bean, less than 1/16 tsp.

In a shaker glass, build rum, lemon juice bitters and simple syrup with ice (add vanilla beans, optional). Shake well, double strain into highball glass filled with ice. Add ginger ale. Garnish with a brandy preserved fig, and a vanilla bean pod (for stirring purposes).
Enjoy!

Cocktail of the Week #3

It's Wednesday! So time for the cocktail of the week! This cocktail was created just last week, when I was playing around with the ever-so-popular G&T (Gin & Tea) combinations. I ended up going off on a tangent, surprised!? Albeit a good tangent, the inspiration came to me through some herbal teas I commonly see out in the market. Peach & Ginger. Well, sorry to say this isn't a G&T cocktail. But it's pretty darn good. Without further ado, La Pêche Blanche.

1 1/2 oz. Hendrick's Gin
2 oz. Goslings Ginger Beer
1/2 oz. simple syrup
Dash of Fee Bros. Peach Bitters
Grapefruit Oil/Garnish

Build gin bitters and simple syrup in an old fashioned glass. Add ice, then ginger beer. Garnish with a grapefruit peel & oil. If you like it sweet, place a sugar cube with peach bitters on the side.

Recipe of the Week

This week I picked one of the first cocktails I added to my book. You're going to ask what's a shrub? Well, it stems from an English term for a pre made mix of fruits/fruit juices, and usually a compounded liqueur. Often sugar is added into the mixture. It is intended to hold for a period of time, for ease of making drinks later on.

Juniper Citrus Shrub

4-6 dried juniper berries
1 orange slice
1 1/2 oz Korbel brandy
1 oz Tuaca
2 oz soda

One would typically prepare the mixture of brandy, Tuaca, orange, and juniper berries in a large quantity (batched) in advanced, with plenty of time for the mixture to rest. Thus making it a true Shrub. If not, Muddle juniper and orange together. Add brandy and let sit/steep for one minute. Add ice to Collins glass or highball, Tuaca, and top off with soda. Garnish with a lemon twist. Enjoy!