September 25, 2007
It’s football time here in the university town I call home, so on Saturday mornings my kitchen often becomes the epicenter of pre-game madness. I like to put out a bottle of vodka, a pitcher of my Bloody Mary mix, and a tray of fun garnishes for the fans and let people put together their | Read More
September 12, 2007
I never really venture too far outside of my comfort zone when it comes to cocktails. Sure, I’ve tried some strange combinations before, but when all is said and done I usually tend to stick to the classics. Until this evening. Maybe it was all the late-summer sun I got at the pool this afternoon | Read More
September 2, 2007
Earlier today at our little Cocktail Summit, we played with seaberries (aka sea berries or sea-buckthorn). If you haven’t tried seaberries before, they’re a small, soft fruit full of a milky, citrusy, tart juice – slightly astringent and very rich. They’re unlike anything I had ever tried. I had been messing around with some wine syrups | Read More
August 8, 2007
This is my interpretation of a classic style of Brazilian drink. Often these are blended, but variations appear here and there that are on the rocks like this one. I like to use Leblon cachaça at the bar because it’s a multi-distilled, and therefore lighter, product.
July 16, 2007
Greetings, and happy Mixology Monday! Paul over at Cocktail Chronicles is hosting this month’s get-together, and the theme is Blog Love. Yikes, what a name, huh? But it’s a great idea: we’re all going to try out recipes that we’ve seen on each other’s sites, and report on our findings. Because we’re bloggers. And we | Read More
June 18, 2007
After a brutal weekend of making drinks for what seemed like every single graduate of the University of Oregon this weekend (and their parents), I’m propping myself up at my computer to once again take part in the Mixology Monday festivities. I did some advance planning (a first) and started working on this recipe last | Read More
June 4, 2007
While working on a host of new drinks for the El Vaquero drink menu, I found several references to a Nacional Daiquiri, created at the Hotel Nacional in Havana, Cuba using apricot brandy. Never able to leave well enough alone, I fooled around with proportions and flavors until I came up with this twist on | Read More
May 13, 2007
I’ve kicked myself many times for never participating in the brilliant Mixology Mondays that Paul over at the Cocktail Chronicles put together last year, but my lack of participation has more to do with the fact that Sunday is my one day off – the one day I never seem to have a computer in | Read More
May 13, 2007
I’ve been playing with making my own bitters lately. I love bitters and have a small collection of them in my liquor cabinet, from Gary Regan’s Orange Bitters, to Fee Brothers’ Mint Bitters. After reading this article online about making grapefruit bitters, I decided to try it, with my own variations. We’ve been using these | Read More
April 24, 2007
The origin of the Bee’s Knees cocktail is lost to history, but we do know that it popped up sometime during Prohibition. The recipe doesn’t appear anywhere in my copy of The Old Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book by Albert Stevens Crockett, but my Trader Vic’c Bartender’s Guide shows two recipes, one for a Bee’s Knees made | Read More
April 18, 2007
We’ll never know if I came in fourth or dead last in the Tales of the Cocktail Drink Competition yesterday, but we can gaze longingly at the winner’s circle regardless. Congratulations to those who won, and I hope the rest of you losers will post your own recipes in the comments. Here’s mine, the Brazil | Read More
February 18, 2007
Created by bar manager James West at Marché Restaurant, Eugene, Oregon I had this drink tonight and was completely blown away. You won’t find many drinks on this blog that were created by bartenders other than me (it is my website after all) but this drink deserves to be the exception to the rule. I | Read More
February 14, 2007
Sometimes a drink idea takes days of adjusting and tasting to finalize the recipe, but sometimes it will just come to me. When someone mentioned that Valentine’s Day was coming up in a week and that I should come up with a set of special drinks for the occasion, my wee brain somehow managed to | Read More
January 8, 2007
Well, about six years later, I finally got around to making a video about my Brandy Alexander story. Click below to watch the Small Screen Network video about my dad and his first experience with Brandy Alexanders. Then come back to read the post and grab the recipe. All this talk of Chocolate Martinis | Read More
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