Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. It’s garage sale season here in Ohio. Every weekend, our neighbors spill the contents of their garages/basements/attics onto the front yard and hope you’ll pay them for the pleasure of hauling their junk away. At Hemingway’s, we’re doing something similar — we’re planning the fall menu, which entails using up bottles of stuff we don’t want taking up shelf space. In that spirit, let’s rummage through my liquor cabinet and cobble together a cocktail from bottles I need to use up. Let’s make a Garage Sale. Here’s the recipe.

First things first: I do not, in any way, shape, or form, advocate making this particular cocktail. If you comment on this post with, “I’d make this, but I don’t have the ingredients!” I will reach through the Internet and gently smack you on the wrist with two fingers. I mean, if you wanted to go pick up a bottle of Another Hendrick’s just on principle, I wouldn’t say no. It’s really good gin. But that’s not the point of this exercise.

This is a fridge-cleaning cocktail, a rummage through my (admittedly eclectic) liquor cabinet in an attempt to find ingredients that love each other enough to make a cocktail. The orange blossom and cocoa nibs Hendricks has been staring at me for weeks. It’s delicious. But you can’t make a G&T with it, and diluting it with soda water felt like a crime. Aperol is a kissing cousin to Campari — another bright red bitter Italian amaro. I infused this Aperol with orange for a cocktail competition months ago. Gin plus Campari is two-thirds of a Negroni. Orange in the gin, orange in the Aperol … we’ve got some synergy here. Do we have sweet vermouth to finish the drink? Yes, we do, and that vermouth is close to expiring. Bingo.

Pulling this stunt off requires some cocktail knowledge. As a professional, I’ve memorized most of the basic recipes, and it’s easy for me to take those templates and swap in some ingredients to make something good. But you can perform this trick with very simple recipes. Do you love Mount Gay rum and cola? What if you cook down that bottle of yesterday’s flat soda into a syrup, stick it in the fridge, and splash a little into tomorrow’s cocktail? What if you add two lime wedges instead of one? How about a pinch of salt over the rum before you add the pop? A basic drink, like a gin and tonic, can be that much better if you think a bit about how to use your leftovers.

Look at your liquor cabinet. Think about what tastes good with other things. Are you a vodka fan? Good news. Vodka goes with everything. Pick bold flavors, things that taste good together. Don’t be afraid to try something that isn’t ordinary, but uses stuff you have already. Be brave. Try something you haven’t tried yet. Raid the fridge — if I didn’t have a bag of fresh limes in the citrus drawer, I would be utterly lost at the end of the shift. You already bought the bottles of booze. Be bold.

Let’s talk ingredients:

Another Hendricks: This is an amazing gin. But if you’re building a cocktail using the Negroni as your base recipe, non-amazing gin is fine. Beefeater works. So does Citadelle Jardin d’ete, if you want a cheap citrus gin. So does vodka, if you want something that isn’t as intensely flavored. If you use bourbon, you’ve made a Boulevardier, a perfectly respectable cocktail. Tequila? Rum? Why not? Put things into a glass that taste good. There are no rules.

Orange-Infused Aperol: If you’re following the Negroni as a base recipe, this is where the rubber hits the road. I am of the opinion that you should stick a bitter Italian amaro in your liquor cabinet on principle. A flavor bomb that isn’t laden with sugar is always going to be useful. Aperol is the default — Aperol spritzes will never go out of style. But if you fall in love with Cynar or Fernet Branca, who am I to say no?

Sweet Vermouth: Use dry vermouth if you have that. Use leftover wine if you have that. Put whatever you think is tasty into the glass. Experiment. Be bold. Your favorite cocktail is waiting for you. You just have to try.

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The very first thing I do when I arrive in New Orleans is walk to Jean Lafitte’s Olde Absinthe House and order a Sazerac. And the very last thing I do when I leave New Orleans is to drink one last Sazerac at the Absinthe House. I spent all week in the city of my dreams, making friends and learning my craft at Tales of the Cocktail. I drank a lot of Sazeracs while I was there. But it’s the first, and the last, that matter the most. Here’s the recipe.

Sazerac

2 oz. Sazerac rye whiskey

½ oz. absinthe

½ oz. simple syrup

4-5 dashes Peychaud’s bitters

Fill a small rocks glass with ice. Add absinthe and swirl until the glass is cold. Dump out the glass. Add syrup, rye, and bitters to the empty glass. Swirl again. Garnish with a lemon twist.

This is a perfect dive bar Sazerac, simply for the economy of effort. At Hemingway’s, I’ll use a stirring vessel to get my Sazerac perfectly mixed and chilled. Behind the stick at Jean Lafitte’s, you’ve got one tiny dishwasher and a surly barback. No stirring vessels, no spoons, no wasted effort - just grab and go. The perfect drink for its place and time.

A perfect Mai Tai in a fancy tiki bar, an ice-cold beer in a backwater dive bar, an elegant French 75 in a bar where the writers wear white tuxedo jackets - each is the perfect drink, because they are a part of the place you drink, and sights and sounds and scents flavor every cocktail when you taste them. Taste is memory, and we are making memories with every breath we take. I love making cocktails with long, intriguing, expressive flavor profiles, because the process of tasting and making memories stretches out and gains intensity. A cold Bud in a dive bar is a power chord. A beautiful cocktail in an elegant speakeasy is a song.

We talked a lot about ideas like this at Tales of the Cocktail. I had the distinct pleasure of hanging out with thousands of the best bartenders in the world, making friends, learning, and getting shitfaced drunk together. And boy howdy, did we drink. There were dozens of tasting rooms set up all week, filled with distillers and distributors begging you to taste their booze. A 21-year-old bourbon? Don’t mind if I do. A brand new citrus gin from one of your favorite brands? Certainly. An Islay scotch finished in sherry casks? Absolutely. A gentian-flavored spirit from a brand you’ve never heard of? Why not? I didn’t spend one full hour sober on my first day at Tales. That’s nowhere near as much fun as you’d think.

As the days went on, I focused less on the booze and more on the people and the classes. I met bartenders who traveled all the way from Hawaii for a seminar. I met more rum and pirate fanatics. I met Midwestern bartenders from bars I’ve never heard of. (I now have a “to-drink” list for when I get out of town.) I took classes on making your own booze. (I made Malort! Deliberately!) I took classes on taste, and sense, and place. I took a class on how to start writing the book.

But I didn’t go to many parties at night. As big as Tales of the Cocktails was, the city was bigger. I sauntered through the Quarter in my straw fedora, nursing my bad knee with an elegant walking cane, drinking in the sights and scents and feelings of this old, elegant, battered town. I sat down in white-glove restaurants for supper. I ate chicken cracklings in skeevy dive bars on the Quarter’s edge. I made friends at the Old Absinthe House. As much as four short days would let me, I became a part of this town.

It’s not always a pretty place. Madmen argue with themselves on street corners. The pavement’s been ripped away in the name of progress. The roadside puddles... well, the locals call them “street gravy” for a reason. But this city will love you if you let it. There’s no place like it in the whole world. I’ve only begun to explore this beautiful town, and it’s gotten deep under my skin. I can’t wait to go back and have another Sazerac. That drink, that bar, that place, that time will always call me back.

Let’s talk ingredients:

Sazerac Rye Whiskey: I’m pretty sure that the Absinthe House uses a cheaper rye. But I’m snob enough to use this balanced, peppery rye that’s native to New Orleans. Visit the Sazerac House when you’re in New Orleans; the museum is elegant, polished, and more fun than a bourbon museum ought to be.

Absinthe: The Old Absinthe House is undoubtedly a dive bar. Hundreds of cards are stapled to the walls. Old sports jerseys hang from the rafters. And yet, they have one of the largest selections of absinthe in America. When you go, ask for an absinthe flight. You’ll be amazed. The House has a rail absinthe; I have no idea what it is. I was too drunk to care. Use your favorite.

Simple syrup: 1:1 sugar and water. Stir it and let it sit in the fridge until it’s dissolved.

Peychaud’s Bitters: Be generous. This brightly colored bitters has a strong anise component that reinforces the absinthe flavors and gives the cocktail its color.

I’ve got the day off from Hemingway’s; Courtney and Zane sensibly decided that my feet and liver needed a day to recover. Ask me anything in the comments. I’ll be here all night to talk about the trip.

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Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. I’m in the process of packing for and panicking about Tales of the Cocktail, a national bartender’s convention held in New Orleans every year. (So. Many. Parties.) I expect to have many, many things to tell you. This trip wouldn’t be possible without the help of Yr Editrix, so if you aren’t a subscriber to Wonkette, please join in, or at least toss some money into the kitty to help out. Seriously. I couldn’t have done this without her.

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Before I go, I wanted to bring you a very, very upscale version of a cheap cocktail served on Bourbon Street. Here’s my culinary take on a classic — the Strawberry Daiquiri. Here’s the recipe.

This recipe was inspired by a bottle of rhubarb syrup my wife found at a local farmer’s market a few Saturdays ago. Strawberry and rhubarb are a classic flavor pairing, and one I’ve never had time to explore in a cocktail. I’ve muddled strawberries into tequila for a strawberry margarita before. Muddling provided a light, subtle strawberry flavor in the margarita, which was perfect in that application. This time, I wanted a big strawberry bomb in a glass. I decided to use two different techniques to hammer the strawberry flavors home — raw muddled berries and a cooked syrup

I knew in theory that cooked strawberries and raw strawberries provided different flavors. But having the two side by side in the same glass was a revelation. Raw strawberries are tart and vegetal; cooked strawberries are sweet, unctuous, and barely acidic. I can understand why cooked rhubarb and strawberries are natural companions; the rhubarb’s tartness balances the sweetness of cooked strawberries, bringing the fruit back into harmony.

The tartness of the muddled fresh berries made the drink too sour on first taste. I didn’t want to use a sugar syrup when fresh ingredients were on hand; there’s nothing wrong with sugar, but it seemed like a missed opportunity to add more flavor to the drink. Local honey syrup rebalanced the cocktail while keeping us on point with flavors. Berries and honey love each other.

There’s already a lot going on in this glass, but the basil adds an herbaceous finish that just screams summer.

Let’s talk ingredients:

Planteray Three Star Rum: This rum is dry and refreshing, with a slight funky Jamaican undertone. It’s a “clear” rum, but it’s made very differently than Bacardi. I’m not a fan of Bacardi overall, but it’s a solid daiquiri ingredient, so use that if you can’t find this gem from Planteray.

Rhubarb Syrup: I bought this ingredient from Sage Lane Syrups, a local business out of Canton, Ohio. Please shop local — order from them or a farmer’s market local to you.

Honey syrup: 1:1 honey to water, heated and stirred until combined. If you add pure honey to a cocktail, it’ll harden up and turn into taffy.

Lime juice: Always fresh.

Strawberry Syrup: This is a thin, simple, homemade strawberry jam; if you wanted to save some for your morning toast after making cocktails, I wouldn’t blame you.

Fresh strawberries and basil: So produce is a little … iffy in America these days. I used strawberries from a market I trust and basil from a plant growing in my backyard. Use caution and good sense. I can’t promise the rum will kill any wigglies.

Rhubarb Bitters: A great addition if you have them — they smooth out the drink wonderfully. Orange bitters will do in a pinch.

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Sometimes, you write a cocktail because you’re trying to find a vehicle for a clever flavor combination that you’ve just discovered. Sometimes you want to try a recipe you’ve read on social media and end up riffing on it to create a brand-new cocktail. Sometimes you write a crowd-pleaser to welcome the start of a new season.

And sometimes you write a cocktail because one of the owners of Hemingway’s drops a bottle of carrot juice in front of you at the beginning of a shift and says, “Make a cocktail out of this.”

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Well, like they say, necessity is a mother. Let’s make a Silly Wabbit. Here’s the recipe.

I don’t hate carrot juice. I can’t recall ever having tasted it on its own before this; most of the time I’ve had it in a nine-ingredient juice cocktail from a “healthy” smoothie bar. That’s pretty much consistent with its history. Carrot juice was first promoted as a health food by Norman Walker in 1936 at the dawn of the fresh juice movement. Ever since, carrot juice has been recommended as a natural, healthy beverage that promotes well-being. No one has ever claimed that it’s tasty.

It’s not bad. Honest. Sweet, a little creamy, vegetal, but not “green” tasting. My first impulse was to lean into the vegetable flavors and make something with a mezcal base. A little genepy, some lemon, and some other odds and ends, and I had … something. I offered it to the hostess and owner for tasting. They nodded, smiled, and said it tasted “nice.” Not what I was hoping for.

I called my wife and asked her to pull one of my reference books off the shelves — The Flavor Bible (Wonkette cut link) by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. This book is worth its weight in gold when dealing with a new ingredient. It’s a “cookbook” with no recipes; just a list of what flavors go well with specific ingredients, an endless list of flavor pairings and inspiration. According to Karen and Andrew, carrots have a cooling flavor that pairs well with soft, round flavors like butter and cream. Lemon was a solid pick. So was maple. I kept looking.

I stumbled across a recipe from Robbie Dow from Bespoke in Wilmington, North Carolina. He’d written a version of the Surfer on Acid — a banging ‘90s cocktail featuring Jaegermeister, rum, and pineapple — and elevated it using some broad rum choices and lime juice to balance things. A splash of coconut rum intrigued me. Carrot and coconut had great potential. The idea of building a shell of a tiki drink, with multiple rums, pineapple, and citrus, to surround and elevate a problematic ingredient had potential. Could I use the core of this drink to make something special?

The answer was a resounding “yes.” When I offered a “carrot and coconut” drink to my audience, there were a lot of oohs and ahs over the notion. The final flavor profile was rich, smooth, comforting, and funky all at once. A parsley garnish for brightness and color completed the drink. Who says carrots have to be good for you?

Let’s talk ingredients:

Planteray 3 Star: This clear rum doesn’t taste a thing like Bacardi. Not all clear rums taste the same, or are made the same. Bacardi is an aged rum; it’s filtered for clarity, sort of like cristallino tequila. Planteray 3 Star is an unaged rum with mildly funky Jamaican notes. Find this rum and try it. It’s a real eye-opener.

Pineapple Juice: Pineapple and rum provide a stable base for this drink, a platform to tame and smooth out unfamiliar flavors. It worked for Jaegermeister in the original Surfer on Acid, and it works here. I use canned pineapple juice; fresh pineapple is too acidic.

Carrot Juice: All-natural, obviously. If you can juice your own, more power to you.

Maple Syurp: Carrot and maple play together wonderfully. I tried a turmeric syrup out of curiosity, but it didn’t add much to the cocktail.

Lemon Juice: Some acid to brighten the drink. Always use fresh.

Planteray Cut and Dried Coconut Rum: One of the advantages of working in a craft bar is that I’ve got access to wonderful, pricey ingredients like this. It’s an indulgence. Use coconut syrup at home; be ready to add more lemon juice to balance the cocktail.

Leblon Cachaca: Wray and Nephew would be even better here, if you’ve got some lying around.

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If there’s one thing everyone knows about Great Britain, it’s that we still have a Royal Family, and even though their role in these modern days is purely ceremonial, they’re still very involved in public life. The Royal family have also had a considerable influence on British food, with dishes such as Coronation Chicken invented for special events such as the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, or the granting of Royal warrants to popular UK food production companies, such as Kellogg’s UK, or Walkers Shortbread. The Royal family have become intrinsically linked to certain foods throughout history, from the Victoria sponge cake to the crustless cucumber sandwiches associated with the garden parties of Queen Elizabeth II.

The dish I am providing for you today was reputed to be a favourite of Queen Victoria, from whom it gets its modern name. It’s a pretty simple dish using bread, custard, jam, and meringue to make an easy to eat dessert that is surprisingly filling; it’s also delicious served with cream or ice cream. This dish is known as Queen of Puddings. It is considered a little old fashioned now, and you won’t find it on the menu in many restaurants, but it’s a creative and tasty way to use up the remains of a loaf of bread and a bit of leftover milk. That’s another thing us Brits are good at — using whatever is lying around the kitchen to make delicious desserts.

A Slice Of History

Queen of Puddings has gone by this name since the late 19th century after Queen Victoria expressed delight when it was served to her during a trip to Manchester. The dish itself predates this Royal encounter by several hundred years, and had previously been known as Manchester Pudding, and Monmouth Pudding. Delighting Queen Victoria in Manchester is not its only link to the Royal family, it is also connected through James Scott, the first Duke of Monmouth, eldest illegitimate son of Charles II. Following the death of Charles II the ascension of his younger brother James II (also known as James VII of Scotland) to the throne of Great Britain caused a few problems. James was a Catholic and refused to renounce his faith, causing unease amongst the Protestant nobility. Onto this stage stepped James Scott, first Duke of Monmouth, freshly returned from exile following his implication in a plot to assassinate his father, Charles II, in order to prevent the ascension of James II to the throne in the first place. Despite strong support from the South West of England and Wales, and fielding a larger military force than James II, the Duke of Monmouth was defeated at the Battle of Sedgemoor on the 6th July 1685, and our friend the Duke was subsequently parted from his head just nine days later. This is where the link to the recipe that became the Queen of Puddings comes in. Apparently, Monmouth pudding became so known because of the red stripe through the centre formed by the layer of jam; forever linked to James Scott, first Duke of Monmouth, and the reported eight blows of the axe which were required to separate his head from his body.

It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows for James II after that though, as he was deposed in 1688 and replaced by another nephew, William of Orange, a Protestant, who was married to James II’s daughter Mary. The British monarchy really did like to keep it in the family.

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The recipe I’m giving you today is the classic one, I have since had an idea for my own variation (see the end of the recipe for details), it consists of a layer of breadcrumbs soaked in custard and baked until set, topped with a generous layer of jam (I’ve opted for strawberry, but choose whatever flavour floats your boat), and a final layer of meringue. The measurements I’m giving you will comfortably serve 4. For fellow members of the Dead Pancreas Society, that’s 50g of carbohydrate per portion, plus whatever you serve it with, or 200g for the whole pudding.

Your Equipment

Digital kitchen scales

Saucepan

Wooden spoon

Mixing bowl

Pie dish

Deep sided baking tray

Electric hand whisk or stand mixer

Piping bag and star shaped nozzle (optional)

Your Ingredients

For the custard layer:

600 ml (1 pint) whole/full fat milk

25 g butter, plus extra to grease the pie dish

zest of ½ lemon

3 egg yolks

50 g sugar

75 g fresh white breadcrumbs

For the jam layer:

6 tbsp of a jam of your choice (I went with strawberry)

For the meringue layer:

2 medium egg whites

137 g sugar

pinch of salt

The Important Bit

The first step is to make your custard. Gently heat your milk (600 ml/1 pint) in the saucepan until almost boiling. Add your butter (25 g), sugar (50 g)and the lemon zest and stir until the butter has melted and the sugar has dissolved.

In your mixing bowl, whisk the 3 egg yolks until they are pale and fluffy. Now take a ladle of the milk mixture and slowly add it to the egg yolks, whisk the egg yolks vigorously while you do this as you don’t want to cook the eggs. Carefully add the egg yolk mixture back into the remaining milk mixture and mix it well.

Grease the pie dish with a little extra butter, then place the breadcrumbs in the pie dish. Pour in the custard mix, and leave it for 15 minutes to allow the breadcrumbs to soak up the custard. This is the perfect time to preheat your oven to 340F / 170C.

Place the pie dish containing your custard mix into your deep sided baking tray, carefully fill the baking tray halfway up with hot water. Now place the baking tray and its contents into the oven and bake for 30 minutes.

Give your mixing bowl and other equipment a wash — it’s important to try to keep a clean and organised workstation.

After 30 minutes, remove the baking tray from the oven and carefully remove the pie dish from the tray and turn the oven down to 270F / 130C.

Spread 6tbsp of your chosen jam across the top of the custard, which should now be perfectly set. The heat from the custard should be enough to soften the jam enough that it is easily spread using the back of a spoon.

Take your 2 medium egg whites and a pinch of salt and whisk them using your electric hand whisk or stand mixer on the highest speed setting until they form stiff peaks. Remember, you know they’re done when you can hold the bowl upside down over your significant other/friend/child’s head and they do not end up wearing an egg white hat and needing a shower.

Add the sugar (87 g) a little at a time, whilst continuing to whisk the egg whites on the highest speed setting. You should end up with a thick, glossy meringue.

Pipe or spoon the meringue over the top of the jam layer, and place the pie dish back into the oven for another 30 minutes, or until the meringue is a very pale golden colour.

Serve your Queen of Puddings immediately with cream or ice cream. It would also go nicely with some shortbread biscuits for an added element of texture.

After making this recipe, I’ve decided an interesting variation would be to remove the breadcrumbs within the custard and add a biscuit or pastry base instead, topped with the custard , jam and meringue. It’s something I intend to explore at a later date.

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For now, I hope you enjoyed your trip through British baking history. Join me next month, when I plan to get Foolish in the summer heat with another classic British recipe. Until then...

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Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. I was recently given an exceptionally good bottle of Puerto Rican rum and asked to make a cocktail out of it. I came up with an extremely minimalist take on a Cuba Libre, or a maximalist take on a ‘Ti Punch. Either way, this rum is an utter delight. Let’s grab a cigarillo, sit outside in the scorching heat, and enjoy a ‘Ti Libre. Here’s the recipe.

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‘Ti Libre

3 oz Ron del Barrilito Three Stars Puerto Rican Rum

1 barspoon cola syrup

Thin lime wedge

Squeeze the lime wedge into a chilled double rocks glass. Add the rum and cola syrup. Swizzle the rum and syrup until the syrup has fully dissolved. Add ice and sip gently.

Cola Syrup

1 cup Boylan Cane Syrup Cola

Pour the cola into a saucepan over low heat. Bring the cola to a low simmer for 30-45 minutes, until it’s reduced by ⅔. Let cool to room temperature. Keeps 1 month in the fridge in a sealed bottle.

I associate Puerto Rican rum with Bacardi simply because of volume and experience. But Ron del Barrilito is the real deal, dating back to 1880. The Bacardi family are relative newcomers to Puerto Rico, abandoning Cuba when Castro had some very bad ideas about who should be in charge of Bacardi. (I absolutely must stop and recommend Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba, by Tom Gjelten (Wonkette affiliate link). It’s an astonishing history of rum, Cuba, and modern Caribbean history.)

Ron del Barrilito is a fantastic sipping rum; tasted neat, I find sherry, raisin, oak, toasted molasses, and green banana flavors in the spirit. There’s so much going on in this glass that I hesitated to do much with the liquor. Some bottles are meant to be used in cocktails; some are meant to be curated. This spirit could easily do both.

Initially, I tried making a ‘Ti Punch with the Ron del Barrilito. ‘Ti Punch is a Jamaican classic — cold rum, a pinch of sugar, and the tiniest wedge of lime imaginable, stirred together and drunk neat. The result wasn’t satisfactory. Puerto Rican rum isn’t Jamaican rum; the flavor profiles are very different, and the touch of sugar wasn’t doing the sherry-cask-aged rum any favors. But I loved the minimalism of the ‘Ti Punch recipe. It’s the rum equivalent of the Old Fashioned in some ways — a supremely minimalist cocktail, just a little “salt and pepper on the steak,” a tiny amount of flavor to draw out the best qualities of the core spirit. But the Ron del Barrilito needed something that respected the bottle’s Puerto Rican origins. Plain sugar wasn’t cutting it.

I love Cuba Libres, aka a rum and Coke. I usually pour one for myself after a long shift at the bar. Spanish-style rum and cola are fantastic together; the cola’s subtle bitterness and citrus combine with the rum’s subtle Puerto Rican spices like nothing else in the world. I decided to make a super-minimalist version of a Cuba Libre by reducing my favorite all-natural cola down to a syrup. A whisper of cola, a tiny amount of lime juice, and a beautiful American rum. What could be better on a hot summer day?

Let’s talk ingredients:

Ron del Barrilito Three Stars: I cannot begin to tell you how beautifully this spirit hit when I tried it “in terroir” — on my back porch, in the sweltering heat of July, with good tobacco smoke curling around me. It stops becoming a drink and becomes an experience. Take the time to find this spirit. It’s the best bottle I’ve ever tasted out of Puerto Rico, and well worth your time.

Cola Syrup: Please use an all-natural cola like Boylson’s for this. I don’t know how artificial flavors will react to heat; I’ve got more faith in natural oils. Keep reducing the cola on a low simmer until it starts to bubble.

Thin Lime Wedge: A “true” ‘Ti Punch uses a lime “coin” — a slice of lime from the side of the fruit, more rind than pulp, more lime oil than juice. I wanted a touch more lime juice in this glass to balance the sweetness. Use what you like; there are no wrong choices.

Presentation: A chilled glass is a must. ‘Ti Punch is often served neat, but I like a little dilution with this rum (and in this heat, we need all the chill we can muster).

My home bar is Hemingway’s Underground, the hottest cocktail bar in pretty little Medina, Ohio. I’m behind the stick Wednesday-Saturday, 4-10. Last call’s at midnight. Swing on by, and I’ll make a drink for you… or anything else from our little Happy Hour here at Wonkette. We’ll make it through this together.

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Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. It’s summer. Do you know what I love about summer? Tiki drinks. I haven’t done a tiki drink in ages. And I absolutely love tiki. Let’s talk about this little number I pulled together for Hemingway’s summer menu. I’ve wanted to make a coffee and banana-flavored cocktail for ages, and this one fits the bill wonderfully. Time to make a Gorilla Monsoon. Here’s the recipe:

Gorilla Monsoon

1 ½ oz cold espresso

1 ½ oz Gosling’s Bermuda Rum

1 oz banana liqueur

¾ oz pineapple juice

½ oz lime juice

½ oz coconut syrup

2 dashes tiki bitters

Shake all ingredients and pour into a tiki mug. Garnish with pineapple fronds and dried banana chips.

This is a riff on a cocktail written by Tim Harnett, aka Tonga Tim, one of the mentors at Tiki Underground. Tim will still teach classes about the versatility of the Mai Tai recipe or the evils of vodka. I learned a lot about the balance and joyful excess of tiki drinks from him; I’m hoping to take one of his classes again someday.

The cocktail itself is named after Robert Marella, aka Gorilla Monsoon, “the savage former Asiatic Champion hailing from Manchuria,” terror of sports entertainment. I can remember watching Gorilla Monsoon on Saturday morning wrestling as a kid. He was extremely hairy, extremely scary, and would literally eat the turnbuckle in protracted matches. He was a pretty good mentor in his later years; the producer’s closet just behind the ring at a wrestling match is called the “Gorilla Position” after him.

Coffee is astringent, but it’s not exceptionally acidic; orange juice has higher acid levels. When I first attempted this cocktail, I skipped the pineapple and lime, thinking the coffee would supply enough acid. The result was flat and lifeless — even the coffee flavors were muted. Rebalancing the cocktail with the right tropical flavors boosted every other taste in the glass, including the banana and coffee.

The biggest problem with coffee in cocktails is its volatility. If you’re a fan of a good cup of joe, you know the disappointment that comes from a mug of day-old coffee. Commercially bottled cold-brew coffee is a pretty solid substitute, but it doesn’t behave in a glass like true espresso. The difference between an espresso martini made with espresso and one made with cold brew is profound. Espresso cocktails, when you give them a good, hard shake, produce a frothy head of foam that just can’t be duplicated by cold brew. Use what you have, but espresso is best.

I’ve revised my recipe for this cocktail a few times this month. (I wrote down an earlier version of the drink at 10 PM on a Friday. Or at least, I think I did. Aside from the title, my notes were completely illegible. Too much field research.) The last adjustment I made to this drink was to swap out some coconut rum for coconut syrup. The acidity of the drink was too high with the rum involved; with the syrup, the ratio of sour to sweet was more balanced, and other flavors could express themselves.

Let’s talk ingredients:

Cold Espresso: If you want to make the best version of this drink possible, chill some espresso from a moka pot. We use liters of cold espresso from a local barista. Cold-brew coffee is acceptable but not as good.

Gosling’s Bermuda Rum: This rich caramel and spice rum complements the coffee and banana flavors of the drink beautifully. Bacardi 4-year would also be a great choice in this glass.

Banana Liqueur: Giffard Creme de Banana is best. 99 Bananas will do in a pinch.

Pineapple Juice: Fresh pineapple juice is a little too acidic for most cocktails. I use the little cans from Dole at home.

Lime Juice: Always fresh. One of my fellow bartenders comes into Hemingways on Tuesdays just to squeeze limes for the week. You can make the effort to squeeze a lime at home.

Giffard Coconut Syrup: Giffard is the gold standard, but Torrini will do in a pinch. Don’t use creme de coconut; it’s basically coconut frosting. Canned cream of coconut isn’t sweet enough, and it separates in the can.

Tiki Bitters: I’m currently using this brand of bitters at work. When time permits, I’m going to make up my own batch of pirate bitters and compare it to the commercial stuff.

My home bar is Hemingway’s Underground, the hottest cocktail bar in pretty little Medina, Ohio. I’m behind the stick Wednesday-Saturday, 4-10. Last call’s at midnight. Swing on by, and I’ll make a drink for you… or anything else from our little Happy Hour here at Wonkette. We’ll make it through this together.

OPEN THREAD!

Feeling generous?

Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. And I’ve just come off a double shift with a deadline approaching for this article, so bear with me if we ramble a bit. I’m working on rum, three shots of Fernet, and spite. Fortunately for all of us, I’ve been thinking about this cocktail for a while. Let’s make a Dry Margarita. Here’s the recipe:

Dry Margarita

1 ½ oz Milagro Blanco tequila

1 oz fresh lime juice

1 oz dry curacao

¾ oz honey syrup

¼ oz Del Maguey Clásico mezcal

Pinch smoked sea salt

Shake all ingredients and strain into an iced rocks glass. Garnish with a dehydrated lime.

It’s summer. It’s margarita season. But honestly, when isn’t it margarita season? Margaritas are delicious, easy to make, and incredibly flexible. A margarita, at its core, is tequila, orange liqueur, and lime. That’s tasty on its own, but there’s space in the recipe for more sugar. Tweak the amount of lime juice — or just commit to making a sweet margarita — and you can add all sorts of flavors. Agave syrup is the standard add-in. I prefer honey syrup. But dive bars will go nuts with that extra space. Any sugary fruit-flavored glop can go into that basic margarita recipe, and something pretty drinkable will come out. The Mexican joints here in town have a dozen margaritas on the menu, and they’re all margarita and syrup concoctions. Passion fruit margaritas, blood orange margaritas ... It’s all just different frostings on the same layer cake.

We don’t have a solid margarita on the menu at Hemingway’s right now. I wanted to add a margarita for summer, but I didn’t want to fall into the same “marg and a fruit” trap. Instead, I decided to push the limits of the core recipe and see if I could make a tart, dry margarita that was still recognizable. I started by boosting the lime juice in our drink to a full ounce. Then, I replaced the triple sec in a standard margarita with dry curacao. Triple sec is made with a neutral spirit and a ton of orange flavor. The dirt-cheap triple sec used by the taco joints in town tastes like Orange Crush. Curacao uses brandy as its base. Dry curacao has less sugar than triple sec by a country mile. Everything I thought I knew about balancing a margarita went out the window. Life was good.

Smoky, acrid mezcal made our margarita even drier. Some extra sugar was needed to make the cocktail drinkable. Agave syrup was an easy answer, but I’m really fond of honey in my tequila drinks. Agave syrup and tequila are kissing cousins, but honey and tequila complement each other. Tequila also loves salt. A pinch of smoked Malbon leaned into the mezcal’s smokiness while enhancing the drink’s flavor. The result is a unique margarita that defies convention, tasting unique without leaning on sticky-sweet fruit syrup.

Let’s talk ingredients:

Milagro Blanco Tequila: Milagro is our rail blanco tequila at Hemingway’s. It’s fairly mild as blanco tequilas go. I prefer a big hit of agave flavor at my home bar; El Jimador is still my cheap blanco of choice. Use what you like best. Bear in mind that a subtle, layered blanco tequila is going to get swamped by the other flavors in this drink. Patron might not be the best choice here.

Lime Juice: Fresh. No exceptions. Especially not in this drink. Limes are small and dry this season, but do your best.

Ferrand Dry Curacao: This orange liquor uses the bare minimum of sugar; it’s not dry, exactly, but it is far less sugary than triple sec. It’s really interesting to use this as a substitute for a sugary liquor and see what happens to the balance of a cocktail. I put a lot of thought into the balance of tart, sweet, and bitter when working behind the stick. Challenging my core assumptions about what works in a “normal” drink like the margarita is a lot of fun.

Honey syrup: 1 part honey, 1 part water, heated until the honey dissolves. Undiluted honey is too thick to use in a cocktail. It’s hard to portion and turns into taffy when it hits ice.

Del Maguey Clásico mezcal: Del Maguey is a balanced, earthy mezcal that doesn’t taste too strongly of smoke or iodine. It’s the rail mezcal for summer at the bar. I like something a little rougher, like Peloton de la Muerte, for the home bar. Taste some options and find what you love. Mezcal is much less consistent in flavor than blanco tequila. Finding a good one will be a bit of a project, but it’s nice to have a hobby over the summer.

Smoked sea salt: Use plain sea salt if you can’t get a smoked salt you like. We use Malbon sea salt at the bar because we’re snobs, and it dissolves easily in cocktails.

I’m in shock, folks. You helped raise $1,000 for my trip to Tales of the Cocktail next month. In addition to a generous contribution by Yr Editrix, I’m fully covered for the trip. Thank you. I’m humbled. I’m also thinking very hard about where my journey as an author will go next. Needless to say, there will be stories to share. And they will be epic. You deserve no less.

My home bar is Hemingway’s Underground, the hottest cocktail bar in pretty little Medina, Ohio. I’m behind the stick Wednesday - Saturday, 4 -10. Last call’s at midnight. Swing on by, and I’ll make a drink for you … or anything else from our little Happy Hour here at Wonkette. We’ll make it through this together.

OPEN THREAD!

For the tipping of the keep

Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. Old Fashioneds will always be one of the top-selling cocktails at Hemingways. Many of our regulars are veterans of the Bourbon Trail in Kentucky; we go through a ton of Buffalo Trace behind the bar. But in the depths of summer, Old Fashioneds aren’t quite as appetizing. No worries. With a few tropical ingredients, the Old Fashioned can become a great summer sipper. Let’s make a King Kong. Here’s the recipe.

King Kong

2 oz. Sazerac Rye

½ oz. Appleton Estate

½ oz. Creme De Banane

3-4 dashes tiki bitters

Add all ingredients to a cocktail vessel. Stir with ice until the outside of the vessel is cold. Strain into a rocks glass over a large ice cube. Garnish with an orange twist.

Sam Ross, one of the legendary mixologists of New York, first created the King Kong at Attaboy in 2015. Sam is the genius who gave us the Penicillin and the Paper Plane; when one of his cocktails crosses my feed, I pay attention. Sam’s taken a smidge of my favorite tiki ingredients and slotted them into the classic Old Fashioned formula to create this particular drink. It’s a testament to the versatility of the Old Fashioned that this cocktail works so well.

The Old Fashioned is a “mother sauce” of cocktail recipes. Old Fashioneds aren’t just tasty; they’re foundational, a core blueprint that can be endlessly tweaked, rearranged, and reassembled to create something new. I’ve written scores of Old Fashioneds during my time behind the stick, from the blockbuster Ranger to the classic Maple Bacon Old Fashioned. But an Old Fashioned doesn’t need to be a bourbon drink. Tequila Old Fashioneds are totally a thing. You can go totally off the rails and make a Champagne Cocktail or Sherry Cobbler if you want a low-proof option. Booze+sugar+bitters is an Old Fashioned. The details are irrelevant. Taste is everything. Drink what you like.

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Feed The Kitty

With that injunction in mind, there’s no reason not to unload with some hardcore tropical flavors and tiki ingredients to make this Old Fashioned into a summer cocktail. I originally used Buffalo Trace as the core spirit in this drink, but it was too smooth and mellow to stand up to the other ingredients. Dark, peppery rye provides a much better contrast to the sweeter tropical flavors in the glass. Appleton Estate is a smooth Jamaican rum that’s easy to find at most liquor stores. The Jamaican flavors of ripe tropical fruit nicely support the banana. The crème de banane is present in small enough amounts that it reads as “gently tropical” rather than “this is a banana drink”. The tiki bitters are tricky to acquire for your home bar, but they’re worth ordering. I find that they do all the work of falernum, but in a balanced, concentrated format. They’re turning into a “secret sauce” for a lot of my cocktails. Easily worth the investment.

Let’s talk ingredients:

Sazerac Rye: This cocktail taught me why rye whiskey is used in the Sazerac cocktail. A dark, peppery rye whiskey will provide backbone against sweet, flavorful ingredients. Bourbon just isn’t flavorful enough to make this cocktail work. Rittenhouse Rye is a perfectly acceptable substitute. Old Grand Dad Bottled-in-Bond will also work. Both of those are 100 proof, so don’t mix up this cocktail with substitutions unless you’re done with the weekend.

Appleton Estate: I’m pretty sure Sam Ross had something ferocious like Wray & Nephew in mind when he wrote the original King Kong. Wray & Nephew is 126 proof. It tastes of overripe bananas and feet. I love it in small doses, but it’s overkill in this cocktail. Appleton Estate works fine here. If you have any Smith & Cross lying around the house, use that, and God bless you for having more self-control than me in not consuming it all immediately.

Creme de Banane: Giffard is the gold standard for flavored liqueurs behind the bar. It’s delicious and refined, but a touch pricey. If you want to break down and buy a 50ml mini of 99 Bananas to make this cocktail, I won’t stop you.

Tiki Bitters: Use orange bitters if you want to make this cocktail right now and you don’t have any tiki bitters. But go ahead and order those tiki bitters if you love summer cocktails. You won’t be disappointed.

I’m going on a new adventure! I’m attending Tales of the Cocktail, a national bartender’s convention, from July 19-24. The classes will be amazing. The drinking will be astonishing. The heat will be brutal. The stories will be epic. If you’re willing to chip in to help defray my costs, I’ve got a link set up - check my Substack thread for details.

My home bar is Hemingway’s Underground, the hottest cocktail bar in pretty little Medina, Ohio. I’m behind the stick Wednesday-Saturday, 4-10. Last call’s at midnight. Swing on by, and I’ll make a drink for you… or anything else from our little Happy Hour here at Wonkette. We’ll make it through this together.

OPEN THREAD!

It’s good to be back on my feet again following my fall down the stairs and the resulting injury to my ankle. I’m not yet fully recovered, I still need to wear a support boot for another four weeks and I’m awaiting my first physiotherapy appointment. In the meantime, I’m able to spend a limited amount of time standing in the kitchen, which allows for a partial return to baking. The limits to my ability to stand for prolonged periods have presented the perfect opportunity to provide you all with a couple of simple, speedy recipes which are great for enjoying during the hot months of summer. Think strawberries and cream, with the sweet crunch of meringue, or as the filling for cones of flaky puff pastry. These recipes make extensive use of shortcuts to reduce the effort required on your part, but the results are guaranteed to impress anyone you serve them to. Read on for recipes for Cream Horns and a very British dessert, Eton Mess. These are both classic summer treats over here in the UK, and I hope you will love them as much as I do.

A Little Slice Of History

The origin of Eaton Mess is a tangled web of myth and fact, but what is known for certain is that it is a fairly new creation, first appearing in the 1930s. Eton Mess was first created at Eton College, the prestigious private school which boasts such illustrious former students as most of the male members of the British Royal Family, George Orwell, Hugh Laurie, Tom Hiddleston, Ian Fleming, and former Prime Ministers Boris Johnson and David Cameron. I can almost forgive them for the latter two of these alumni in light of how much joy Eton Mess brings me.

My favourite story concerning the origin of Eton Mess is that it was created by accident as a result of the antics of a labrador retriever who sat on a picnic basket containing a raspberry pavlova at a school cricket match. Legend tells us that after the cricket match had ended and the crushed dessert was discovered, the hungry boys decided that they didn’t care that the dog had ruined dessert and ate it anyway. After which they declared that they preferred the crushed and mangled version over the original pavlova and requested it be added to the school’s regular menu.

Sadly, the picnic story is a complete fabrication and Eton Mess was first created in the kitchens of Eton College by one of the cooks, although another legend tells that this was a result of said cook dropping a raspberry pavlova and deciding they couldn’t be bothered to make a new one and would just serve what remained of the one they dropped. This story cannot be confirmed either, however what is certain is that Eton Mess has been a fixture of the summer menu at the prestigious school ever since its creation.

These days, strawberries tend to be the favoured fruit for inclusion in an Eaton Mess, but any summer berry is acceptable. Regardless of the fruit used, an Eton Mess must always contain whipped cream, and broken pieces of meringue. It is a favourite method for using up leftover meringue (store bought or homemade is fine) and berries in kitchens all over the UK. If you plan to make your own meringue, you’ll have to start early, as it will require at least 3 hours to bake and then needs to cool completely before serving. You may be better making the meringue the day before you intend to serve it.

Recipe 1: Eton Mess

For those of us who are pancreatically challenged, the carbohydrate count for this recipe will vary depending on the fruit used. For the meringue, the carbohydrates are 200g for the entire meringue, or 25g per portion when serving 8 people. A serving of whipped cream and 3 strawberries will add around 3g of carbohydrates to this total.

Your Equipment

Stand mixer with whisk attachment, or an electric hand whisk and mixing bowl

Deep sided baking tray

Baking parchment

Your Ingredients

4 egg whites

200 g sugar (superfine / caster sugar is best, but regular sugar will work)

Approximately 24 strawberries, or 3 per person (or summer berries of your choice)

300 ml heavy cream

The Important Bit

The first thing to do is make your meringue. Ideally, this should be done the day before you intend to serve your Eton Mess, as it requires a long baking time.

Start by preheating your oven to 210 F / 100C.

Using your stand mixer, whip the egg whites until they form stiff peaks. They are done when you can hold the bowl upside down over your spouse, friend or child’s head and they do not have to go and wash their hair.

Take the sugar and add it to the egg whites 1 spoonful at a time, whilst whisking continuously. The resulting mixture should be thick and glossy. If you wish to be a little bit more creative, you could add a little food colouring gel to your meringues at this stage – just whisk a little bit into the meringue mixture.

Line your deep sided baking tray with baking parchment and spread your meringue across the baking parchment in a layer that is around 0.5 inches thick.

Place the meringue into the oven and leave to bake for 3.5 hours.

Remove the meringue from the oven and allow to cool completely before breaking it into pieces and storing in an airtight container until it is needed.

When you are ready to serve your Eton Mess, whip the heavy cream until it forms stiff peaks, then slice your strawberries.

Place the meringue and strawberries into serving bowls, add the whipped cream, and give it a gentle mix to combine the different elements.

Enjoy.

Recipe 2: Cream Horns

A delicious, summertime treat made with puff pastry, strawberry jam (not the smooth kind) and whipped cream. If you’re feeling fancy, consider topping it with a chocolate dipped strawberry. You can buy the puff pastry from the grocery store, I won’t tell a soul. You could even use store bought jam if you don’t want to try making your own.

For my fellow members of the Dead Pancreas Society, this recipe makes 10 Cream Horns with a total of 33g of carbohydrates per portion.

Your Equipment

Stand Mixer with whisk attachment, or electric hand whisk and mixing bowl

Sharp knife

Baking tray

Baking parchment

Pastry brush

Aluminum foil / Tin foil

Bain Marie (or a heat proof bowl, wire rack and a pan of simmering water) / Microwave and microwave safe bowl

Piping bag and piping nozzle (star shaped is perfect)

Your Ingredients

A little cooking oil or spray oil

300g ready rolled puff pastry

1 egg, beaten

3 tbsp brown sugar

300 ml heavy whipping cream

300g strawberry jam

10 strawberries

50g dark chocolate

The Important Bit

Preheat your oven to 420F / 200C. Line your baking tray with baking parchment.

Use your aluminum foil / tin foil to make 10 cones, each roughly 4 inches (10cm) tall. The easiest way to do this is by crumpling up the foil and fashioning a cone shape out of it. Then coat this foil cone with another piece of aluminum foil so that it has a smooth surface. Lightly coat the cones with oil and set aside while you prepare your pastry.

Cut your pastry into 10 equally sized ribbons along the longest side, each ribbon should be a little under an inch wide. Wrap each ribbon of pastry around one of your foil cones , starting from the thick end of the cone and working your way towards the tip. The pastry should just overlap itself as you wrap it around the cone.

Place the wrapped cone on its side on the baking tray. Repeat until you have used all of your pastry ribbons.

Brush each pastry cone with a little of the beaten egg and sprinkle lightly with the brown sugar.

Bake the pastry cones in the oven for 12 -15 minutes, or until the pastry cones are golden brown. You may need to bake the cones in 2 batches, depending on the size of your baking tray.

Remove the cones from the oven and allow to cool completely before gently removing the foil cone from inside the pastry cone, it should slide off fairly easily when gently wiggled.

Melt your dark chocolate in a bain marie, or by microwaving on medium-low in 30 second bursts, stirring after each burst, until the chocolate is fully melted. Dip each strawberry in the chocolate and shake off the excess chocolate. Put aside to allow the chocolate to set.

Using the stand mixer, whip the cream until it forms stiff peaks. You could add a little confectioner’s sugar and vanilla essence to the cream to make Chantilly cream if you wish. Fill a piping bag with the whipped cream.

Place a generous tbsp (30g) of strawberry jam inside each pastry cone, then pipe in the cream.

Top each Cream Horn with a chocolate dipped strawberry. Serve to anyone you wish to impress.

Join me next month for a trip back in time as I bake a truly Royal dessert — the Queen of Puddings.

Until then ...

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Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. A few weeks ago, I had a somewhat confused customer ask for reassurance about her drink. She wanted to make sure there was no cucumber in her pina colada. Rest assured, we do not put any cucumber in our pina coladas. There is no cucumber in our espresso martinis, either. And I will jump out of a window before I put cucumber in eggnog. However, we do put cucumber in a very nice gimlet, and this is the perfect weather for a cooling, refreshing drink. Let’s make a Cucumber Gimlet. Here’s the recipe:

Cucumber Gimlet

2 oz Hendrick’s Gin

1 oz St-Germain Liqueur

1 oz lime juice

Sprinkle of sea salt

2 slices English cucumber

Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker. Gently muddle the cucumber slices. Shake and double-strain into a Nick and Nora glass. Garnish with a cucumber slice.

“Smell is important to me because it transports me back to a certain place or time. When I smell lavender, I always think of my nana. Smell triggers all sorts of memories and ideas.”

— Lesley Gracie

I have mentioned her in passing before, but I want to take a moment to genuflect at the feet of Ms. Lesley Gracie, the master distiller and driving force behind Hendrick’s Gin. A Yorkshire scientist who was tasked in the 1990s with creating a new gin for the distillery, Ms. Gracie reshaped gin as a category with Hendrick’s. She proved, definitively, that gin did not need to taste like floor cleaner. A whisper of juniper was all that was needed to provide a bright, clean palette for a masterpiece of flavor. The industry hasn’t looked back since.

Ms. Gracie hasn’t looked back either. Her Orbium gin, influenced by the herbal profile of absinthe, was another stunning entry into the gin category. Her Midsummer Solstice gin was created specifically for the brand ambassador’s wedding; she incorporated his fiancée’s favorite flowers into the recipe. While staying with a native tribe in Venezuela to learn about local botanicals, she set up a still to capture the taste of scorpion-tail plants. She continues to toil away at her greenhouses in a remote corner of Scotland, producing magical liquors like Another Hendrick’s, an astonishing orange blossom and cocoa nib creation. The people she works with are convinced she is a witch. They are correct. This woman’s alchemy is utter magic.

There is a special version of Hendrick’s, Sunspell, that is only available at duty-free stores. Ms. Gracie, much like Anthony Bourdain, believes that travel is necessary for becoming a well-rounded person. While I agree in principle, international travel and a life measured in tipped hourly wages don’t mix. If any of you discover this bottle, please contact me. I’d do a great deal to acquire a taste.

To summarize: Ms. Lesley Gracie — I’m a fan.

Adding cucumber to Hendrick’s is a complete no-brainer; reinforcing Ms. Gracie’s work makes sense. St-Germain’s pedigree is significantly less inspiring than Hendrick’s, but the “bartender’s ketchup” fits into this flavor profile beautifully. Cucumber, rose, and elderflower … it sounds like a poem. The lime juice provides the acid needed to balance the cocktail. This is, fundamentally, a daiquiri — one of the core recipes and an absolutely fundamental cocktail worth mastering. There’s no room to hide with a simple drink like this. Ms. Gracie’s masterpiece has all the room it needs to shine. Enjoy it.

Let’s talk ingredients:

Hendrick’s Gin: No, you may not use vodka here. I don’t care if gin made you sick in high school. If I haven’t managed to convince you that Hendrick’s is something special by now, skip this recipe and go get a White Claw.

St-Germain Liqueur: I don’t actually love this spirit, but it does pair up with Hendrick’s extremely well. I might be tempted to try using honey syrup (50/50 honey and water, heated until dissolved) as an alternative. Note that St-Germain and honey syrup are sweet, but less sweet than simple syrup. You’ll want to use more sugar and less acid than your ideal daiquiri.

Lime juice: If you dare use bottled juice in a cocktail this delicate, we will have words.

Cucumber: Use an English cucumber for this drink. Salad cucumbers have too many seeds, and their pulpy core makes for a lousy garnish. Use a light hand when muddling the cocktail. You aren’t making pulp. You only need to break up the slices a little.

Sea Salt: A little salinity to make the sweet less of a shout and more like a conversation in the glass.

My home bar is Hemingway’s Underground, the hottest cocktail bar in pretty little Medina, Ohio. I’m behind the stick Wednesday-Saturday, 4-10. Last call’s at midnight. Swing on by, and I’ll make a drink for you… or anything else from our little Happy Hour here at Wonkette. We’ll make it through this together.

OPEN THREAD!

Tips for Wonkette!

Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. I turned 55 on Wednesday. You know how it sucks to work through your birthday? Yeah, that was totally not me this week. I sincerely, absolutely, love my job. And to make it even better, I spent the day teaching tableside classes on The Filthiest Martini Ever, one of the most popular sellers at Hemingway’s. I’m happy to share my class notes with you. Let’s get down and dirty.

Filthiest Martini Ever

2 ½ oz Luksusowa vodka

1 oz olive brine

2 pitted green olives

Pinch smoked sea salt

Extra virgin olive oil

Stuffed olive (for garnish)

Add the vodka and olive brine to a cocktail shaker. Gently muddle the green olives. Add the sea salt. Shake and double-strain into a martini glass. Garnish with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and a stuffed olive.

When I started working at Hemingway’s, I deliberately chose to create some cocktails that were familiar, but just a little bit better than anything else in town. The Ranger, my take on the Old Fashioned, was one of those drinks. This was another intentional crowd pleaser. Everyone knows what a dirty martini is, but this version attacks the idea of “dirty” from multiple angles. Olive brine and vodka in a glass weren’t going to cut it if we wanted repeat customers. This iteration on the classic keeps them coming back.

For the class, I used a classic American gin from Towpath Distillery, a sponsor for the event. A classic juniper-forward gin can cut through the brine and olive to bring some crispness to the cocktail. Behind the bar, I use Luksusowa vodka, a potato-based vodka that adds earthiness and body to the drink. Use whatever spirit you like. I have used an extra-virgin olive oil-infused vodka for a version of this drink in the past, but that infusion carries a bitter finish I can’t quite get rid of. I tried the dirty martini at another very respectable local bar before writing this. They used EVOO-infused vodka. They hadn’t figured out how to kill the bitter finish, either. I felt disappointed, but smug.

We use a commercially jarred olive brine for this cocktail. In the earliest days of my bartending career, I had a customer who insisted on a specific brand of brine for his martinis. He was far, far too picky. Most jarred brines are the same. Use what you like.

The original 1901 recipe used muddled olives. John O’Connor is credited with creating the first dirty martini at the Waldorf Astoria in upstate New York. When I took the recipe back to its roots, I discovered that the muddled olives provided a huge boost to the cocktail’s umami flavor. Umami is a slightly mysterious fifth flavor, more of a texture than a taste. Beef broth, soy sauce, and MSG are all rich in umami. I’ve long held that the dirty martini isn’t really about saltiness or olive flavor; it’s the rich mouthfeel that makes this drink a natural with shrimp cocktails or prime rib.

A pinch of smoked sea salt adds some smokiness and extra brininess to the drink. Last, but not least, the extra-virgin olive oil provides sweetness, extra olive flavor, and even more umami. I had a blast talking about the drink all through this week. It was the best birthday present ever.

Let’s talk ingredients:

Vodka: Tito’s is a really popular vodka in the suburbs. (Someone in my Instagram feed described it as “Hennessy for white people.” No comment.) It’s not my vodka of choice in this drink. Tito’s is light and sweet, which runs counter to the rest of the cocktail’s flavor profile. Stick with something a little more grounded.

Olive Brine: Don’t tip the olive jar and use the brine from your olives. Professionally speaking, it’s unsanitary. It also makes for an inconsistent cocktail – the juice from the bottom of the jar will be murkier than the stuff at the top.

Muddled Olives: I’m not picky about the type of olives here. Kalamata would make a weird-looking drink, and probably taste too bitter. But feel free to experiment and report back.

Sea Salt: Use regular sea salt if smoked salt is too pricey. Don’t use Morton’s. This drink doesn’t need the iodine, and neither do you if you’re eating healthy.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil: The nicer the oil, the better the drink. Use what you love.

Stuffed Olive: Traditionally, an olive stuffed with bleu cheese garnishes a dirty martini. At Hemingway’s, I use an olive with feta (we’re Greek at Hemingway’s).

My home bar is Hemingway’s Underground, the hottest cocktail bar in pretty little Medina, Ohio. I’m behind the stick Wednesday-Saturday, 4-10. Last call’s at midnight. Swing on by, and I’ll make a drink for you… or anything else from our little Happy Hour here at Wonkette. We’ll make it through this together.

OPEN THREAD!

Tips for Wonkette!

Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. Sit down and grab a beer, friends — preferably a cheap one, definitely one made in a brewery instead of a factory. One of the icons of American beer died this week, and the epic crash and burn that brought this brewing empire down deserves a proper wake. Friends, Americans, Wonketeers. I come to bury Schlitz, not to praise it. Here’s the … recipe? Whatever. No reason to break with tradition.

Beer

Open a can or bottle of classic American beer. The colder the better. Pour into a glass if you’re feeling fancy. Drink.

I want to begin this article with a firm caveat: American beer, as a style, is not a bad thing. It’s a very mild style of beer, with a slight malt taste and not much else, but not every beer needs to be a chewy flavor bomb. An ice-cold American beer on a hot day is refreshing, pleasant, and laden with nostalgia. If it’s made by a brewer who cares what he’s doing and makes beer that tastes good, it’s a treat. Trouble happens when a corporation cranks out as much beer as possible, as fast as possible, and actual flavor becomes an afterthought.

Such was the case with the Schlitz Brewing Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, once one of the largest breweries in America. From the onset, Schlitz was more of a marketing concept than a beer. The brewery was founded in 1849 by August Krug, a German immigrant to the newly minted state of Wisconsin. In 1858, Krug’s bookkeeper, Joseph Schlitz, bought the company and renamed it after himself. A combination of solid distribution and ruthless marketing practices kept Schlitz riding high until the 1950s.

In 1953, 7,000 Milwaukee brewhouse workers went on strike, demanding a 25-cent-an-hour wage raise. The strike dragged on for 76 days, until the Blatz brewery finally cracked and gave in to the workers’ demands. The corporate overlords of Milwaukee were less than pleased by the end of the strike. The president of Schlitz at the time, Erwin C. Uihlein, had this to say at the company’s Christmas dinner that year:

“Irreparable harm was done to the Milwaukee brewery industry during the 76-day strike of 1953, and unemployed brewery workers must endure ‘continued suffering’ before the prestige of Milwaukee beer is re-established on the world market.”

If that sounds a bit tone-deaf, it might be because Erwin had no idea what he was doing. Joseph Schlitz died in 1875 while returning from an overseas trip to Germany, and ownership of the company fell to the four Uihlein brothers, August (father of the above Erwin), Henry, Alfred, and Edward. The Uihleins came into the Schlitz lineage via August Krug’s widow Anna Maria, who had married Joseph Schlitz. The brothers spent more time backstabbing each other than learning how to brew beer. By the 1960s, Robert Uihlein Jr. was the president of the company. He didn’t know much about brewing beer, either. (He was a dandy polo player, mind you.)

The reason that I can say so very decisively that the Uihlein family had no idea how to brew beer is that Schlitz sold literal garbage in 1976.

Anheiser-Busch had taken the #1 share of the beer market in America. To catch up, Schlitz decided to make as much beer as they could, as quickly as they could. They replaced the malted barley in their beer with corn syrup. To keep the adulterated beer from getting cloudy, they added a chemical called “chillgarde” to the brew. The chillgarde and the can liner didn’t exactly cooperate. If you were lucky, you’d open a can of Schlitz in 1976 and see a layer of white flakes floating on top of your beer. If you were unlucky, you’d get a mouthful of chemical snot.

Schlitz assured customers that the beer was perfectly safe to drink. Customers were unamused. Schlitz ended up recalling thousands of cases and suffered immense damage to its reputation. They needed to recover in the public eye, and they needed to do it quickly. The Uihlein family hired Chicago advertising magnate Leo Burnett to turn things around. Burnett unleashed a series of ads proclaiming that Schlitz was “the beer with gusto.” The public nicknamed the ad campaign “Drink Schlitz or I’ll Kill You.” The ads themselves need to be seen to be believed.

From there, it was all downhill. Market share had fallen by 75% by 1981. Shady accounting practices and another strike made things worse. True to form, the Uihleins laid off 6,000 employees and sold the whole thing to Stroh Brewery Company in 1982. The brand limped along on nostalgia until a few weeks ago, when Stroh (now owned by Pabst Brewing Company) pulled the plug. The last batch of Schlitz is being brewed tomorrow.

I really, really wish that I could point to this as a tale of corporate comeuppance, a morality story about how making shitty beer and trampling workers’ rights has consequences. But no. The Uihlein family walked away from the whole thing with a ton of money. Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein are currently worth 5.8 billion. They are, unsurprisingly, hardcore Trump supporters.

A few blocks down from Hemingway’s, there’s a fantastic brewery called Wrecking Crew Brew Works. The Velociraptor Hood Ornament IPA is pretty awesome. Come join me after a shift at Hemingway’s sometime. Let’s remember what the good stuff tastes like.

My home bar is Hemingway’s Underground, the hottest cocktail bar in pretty little Medina, Ohio. I’m behind the stick Wednesday-Saturday, 4-10. Last call’s at midnight. Swing on by, and I’ll make a drink for you… or anything else from our little Happy Hour here at Wonkette. We’ll make it through this together.

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Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. I’m writing this on Thursday, and I’m as sick as a dog. Booze seems like a horrible idea right now. I decided to make the best of things and work on a mocktail for the Wonketariat. I’m normally not a fan of mocktails, but this one hits some notes most NA cocktails don’t touch. Let’s make a Brown Derby. Here’s the recipe:

Brown Derby

1 ½ oz Lapsang Souchong tea, room temperature

1 ½ oz grapefruit juice

1 oz maple syrup

½ oz lime juice

2-3 drops saline

Pinch smoked paprika

Shake all ingredients. Garnish with an orange twist.

My major complaint with mocktails is that they lean on fruit juice and soda as their central ingredients. Don’t get me wrong, we use top-notch fresh juice at Hemingway’s, but there’s only so much flavor fruit can bring to the table. Alcohol is complex. Gin is the prime example – it is nothing but alcohol and dozens of botanicals. A gin like The Botanist or Roku is dizzyingly complex. Juice, syrup, and soda just can’t compete. It’s like trying to paint a landscape with finger paints. The fine details just aren’t there.

One of my fellow bartenders at Hemingway’s, Thomas Wines, is a huge advocate of tea as a cocktail ingredient. The Burlesque Martini is a creation of Tommy’s that uses a hibiscus syrup. It’s a fantastic drink that’s selling like gangbusters. Tea can provide layers of flavor, depth of character, and desperately needed bitterness to a mocktail.

Tommy’s approach is delicate, layered, and nuanced. I did none of that. Instead, I grabbed the smokiest tea I could find and used it as a whiskey substitute in a classic.

Per Dale DeGroff, the Brown Derby was a cocktail created in the 1930s at the Vendome Club, across the street from the Brown Derby Diner. (Yes, the Brown Derby Diner was in a building shaped like a big brown hat. No, it did not pour the cocktail named after it. Yes, bar owners can be this petty.) Bittersweet grapefruit juice seemed like a great way to reinforce the tea’s tannins with another bittering agent (furanocoumarins, for the record). Honey syrup and grapefruit are a natural pairing in cocktails, but I decided to use maple syrup in this glass. Maple and bourbon love each other. I wanted to see if the tea would yield a similar pairing.

I didn’t have to hunt too hard for the correct tea. I wanted something very dark and very smoky, and Lapsang Souchong fit the bill beautifully. Lapsang Souchong is one of the world’s first black teas, dried over pine fires in high, misty Wuyi mountains. Nothing else came close. When I shook up this cocktail, the long, smoky finish of the drink reminded me of a classic Islay scotch. Perfect.

At this point, with just three ingredients, the cocktail was a winner. I only needed a few adjustments to make it perfect. The drink tasted a touch flat. Some saline fixed that nicely. A little more acidity from lime juice sharpened the flavors. The flavor profile was almost perfect, but it wasn’t quite complex enough. A pinch of smoked paprika added another dimension to the cocktail’s smoke and some surprising richness. The end result is a mocktail that isn’t sweet and isn’t juice-forward, exactly what I was hoping for.

Let’s talk ingredients:

Lapsang Souchong tea: Make sure that the tea is cooled to room temperature before adding it to the cocktail. Do not substitute your favorite tea for the Lapsang Souchong. The recipe isn’t that flexible. It won’t work. I brewed this tea strong – ¼ oz tea, 8 oz. water.

Grapefruit Juice: Ocean Spray is making 100% unadulterated grapefruit juice, and I’m so grateful. For too long, the only grapefruit juice you could get on the market was a “grapefruit juice cocktail”, doctored with apple juice and white grape juice and whatnot. Use the real stuff.

Maple Syrup: Grade A Amber or bust. If you try using “pancake syrup” in this drink, we will have words.

Lime Juice: A touch of added acid. Use fresh.

Saline: 1:10 sea salt and water, fully dissolved. A pinch of sea salt is fine.

Smoked Paprika: Use a light hand, and make sure to double-strain the cocktail. If I had given myself more time, I would have tried brewing the tea with the paprika. Right now, I just want some OJ and bed.

My home bar is Hemingway’s Underground, the hottest cocktail bar in pretty little Medina, Ohio. I’m behind the stick Wednesday-Saturday, 4-10. Last call’s at midnight. Swing on by, and I’ll make a drink for you… or anything else from our little Happy Hour here at Wonkette. We’ll make it through this together.

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Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. Mother’s Day is fast approaching. Did you get something nice for her? No? Well, let’s make a tasty champagne cocktail for her. Lord knows, the way the news is going, the gift of booze is always welcome. Time for a Hugo Spritz. Here’s the recipe:

Hugo Spritz

1 ½ oz. St-Germain Elderflower Liqueur

½ oz honey syrup

½ oz lemon juice

3-5 mint leaves, plus more for garnish

3-5 oz brut sparkling wine

Sparkling water

Add the honey syrup, lemon, St-Germain, and mint leaves to a cocktail shaker or pint glass. Gently muddle the leaves — they should be lightly bruised, not paste. Add the mixture to a wine glass filled halfway with ice. Add sparkling wine. When the foam has subsided, add sparkling water to fill the glass. Garnish with several mint leaves.

I am a bit of a historian at heart. I love unearthing exotic, picaresque stories of how cocktails were invented. So I’m rather appalled to learn that the Hugo Spritz was created by a bored German bartender who was sick of Aperol Spritzes back in 2005. The name of the cocktail has an even more embarrassing history. Roland Gruber, the inventor of this drink, came up with “Hugo Spritz” completely at random. Originally, he was going to call it the “Otto.” Go figure. At least Mr. Gruber has the decency to use a dashing name when behind the stick. While bartending, he goes by the moniker “AK.” I use “Hooper” when I’m working. Who am I to judge?

St-Germain is only marginally more interesting, as far as I’m concerned. It was created in 2007 by Robert Cooper, owner of Cooper Spirits, a cordial company based in New York. It is not French. It is not bottled in France. Mr. Cooper isn’t French either.

If I seem a bit salty about St-Germain and cocktails that feature it, it’s because I’m not an elderflower fan. However, many of my customers do enjoy it. It is a solid way to add a light, floral note to a cocktail. It’s been used a lot, in all sorts of drinks. Death & Co., one of the greatest craft cocktail bars of all time, poured a lot of it in its early days. St-Germain earned the name “bartender’s ketchup” because it ended up on everything, and people loved it. As time went on and other options emerged, craft bartenders moved away from the liqueur. But it still gets a lot of love at smaller bars and upscale burger joints. (For the record, I’m not a ketchup fan either. Heinz 57 on my burger, please, just like Jimmy Buffett preferred.)

By extension, I prefer my Hugo Spritzes to have a bit of zing, to contrast with the sedate St-Germain. Honey and lemon are always a nice complement to champagne. St-Germain is fairly sweet, so using a dry brut sparkling wine helps keep the sugar under control. But it’s the fresh mint that really helps this drink sing. The brisk, clean mint oil cuts through the quiet floral notes of elderflower, bringing some contrast and brightness to the cocktail. St-Germain might not float my boat, but this drink will definitely brighten up the average Mother’s Day buffet.

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Let’s talk ingredients:

St-Germain Elderflower Liqueur: Don’t tell anyone, but if you’d rather make an Aperol Spritz, I won’t mind. I like them more. But if elderflower is your jam, don’t accept substitutes. I’ve used cheap elderflower liqueur, and it tastes exactly like bootleg St. Germain.

Honey syrup: 1:1 honey and water, mixed until the honey is dissolved. Pure honey is too thick to work with. It’s hard to pour and turns into taffy when it gets cold.

Lemon juice: Always use fresh. You wouldn’t use ingredients that aren’t fresh for your mother, would you?

Mint leaves: I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to be gentle with your mint. Bruise the leaves slightly. Release the mint oil. Do not make paste. Nobody wants to drink mint paste. And you certainly don’t want to strain mint paste out of your cocktail before serving it to Mom. And please, put a big bouquet of mint on the drink as a garnish. The scent will be heavenly.

Brut sparkling wine: Use what you like, but sweet wine will make a sweeter cocktail. Mind your sugar levels in the drink.

Sparkling water: Don’t use club soda. It has a touch of salt to it that’s out of place here.

My home bar is Hemingway’s Underground, the hottest cocktail bar in pretty little Medina, Ohio. I’m behind the stick Wednesday-Saturday, 4-10. Last call’s at midnight. Swing on by, and I’ll make a drink for you… or anything else from our little Happy Hour here at Wonkette. We’ll make it through this together.

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Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. This week, let’s zoom out a little bit and take a look at the big picture when it comes to bartending. Instead of focusing on one drink, I’m going to talk you through the process of coming up with a bespoke cocktail from scratch. How do I make a drink for a customer based on something as simple as “something spicy” or “A bourbon drink”? How do you make a cocktail for yourself based on what you keep in the house? Let’s walk through making a bespoke cocktail. And yes, I’ll give you a recipe to play with — I wouldn’t leave you in the lurch after a week like this. Try this:

<Cocktail Name Goes Here>

2 oz bison grass vodka

¾ oz lemon juice

½ oz Canton ginger liquor

¼ oz pineapple syrup

¼ oz passionfruit syrup

Shake and strain into a Nick and Nora glass. Garnish with a rosemary sprig.

It’s 4:15 on a rainy Wednesday. We’ve got twenty reservations on the books. Not a night for walk-in traffic. Slow, but not dead. The first customers of the night are two saleswomen complaining about their territories. One woman orders a showstopper of a drink — the Burlesque Martini. Tommy wrote this as an upscale version of the Porn Star Martini, and boy howdy does it deliver. Bison grass vodka, a custom hibiscus cordial, passionfruit syrup, lemon, all served with a shot of champagne and a flaming lime wheel. (No, I don’t have the recipe. Come see me at Hemingway’s and Tommy will make one for you.)

After that one’s over, the saleswoman looks me and says, “I liked the base spirit of this drink. Can you make me something else with it?” It’s the perfect time to make something from scratch. I crack my knuckles and get to work.

I’ve been working my way through The Cocktail Codex (Wonkette affiliate link!), a book from Death & Co. The central thesis of this book is that there are only six cocktails: the old-fashioned, the martini, the daiquiri, the margarita, the highball, and the flip. Every cocktail recipe is a riff or variation of those six core drinks. I was dubious at first, but I’m coming around to their point of view. On a practical level, this approach gives me a starting point whenever I make a drink from scratch. In this case, I’m going to be making a restrained “margarita” that leans into the inherent spiciness of bison grass vodka.

Bison grass vodka has a subtle, herbaceous flavor. It’s spicy like cilantro, rather than pepper. Ginger is a good complement to that spiciness. The ginger liquor is sweet, so we need some acid to balance the drink. Lemon and ginger play nicely together. I know from experience that a 3:4 ratio of acid to sugar makes a solid margarita. So far, so good. But I don’t want the ginger to overwhelm the cocktail. What else can we use to keep the drink focused on bison grass?

One of the advantages I have at my bar is the number of syrups and acids I have at my disposal. Offhand, I’ve got syrups behind the bar and five different acidic components to play with. I love pineapple syrup as a secondary flavor in drinks. In tiny amounts, it doesn’t read as “pineapple,” but it provides a little more depth and character than plain sugar syrup. Ditto passion fruit syrup — there’s some richness there that you can’t quite identify but provides body. Two parts ginger, one part pineapple, one part passion fruit. That’s a full ounce of sugar vs. ¾ oz of lemon.

I’m tempted to add a little soda water to lengthen the cocktail, but after I taste the drink and consult with Tommy, I decide to serve it neat in a Nick and Nora glass. Garnishing a bespoke drink like this can be tricky, but a little rosemary clipped to the side of the drink works here. It provides an herbal scent that complements the bison grass. Our saleswoman loved it.

Let’s talk ingredients, but in a general sort of way. It doesn’t matter what I used so much as why I used it.

Bison Grass vodka: Bison grass vodka is a different beast from Tito’s. It’s a grassy, herbal spirit that barely resembles American vodka. The customer specifically asked for bison grass vodka, so all our decisions revolve around that choice. If you’re rummaging through your liquor cabinet trying to make a cocktail from scratch, necessity will probably dictate your choice of base spirit.

Canton ginger liquor: This is what makes this drink a margarita — if we used syrup, but no spirit, to sweeten the drink it would be a daiquiri. Orange and tequila are great together — that’s a classic margarita. In this case, bison grass and ginger paired up well. What’s the sugary stuff in your liquor cabinet? Got some creme de cacao from a chocolate margarita last Valentine’s Day? Chocolate and rum love each other. So do chocolate and whiskey. Pick a second bottle from the liquor cabinet that pairs well with the first.

Other Syrups: I’ve got a lot of sweet syrups at the bar. But then again, so do you. Maple syrup, honey, sugar that you can melt in a little water — all these work as cocktail components. Layered flavors make great drinks. Be creative. Put things in a glass that would taste good together.

Lemon Juice: I use lemon juice or lime juice in 75 percent of my cocktails. But I’ve got grapefruit juice and pineapple juice to play with as well. Use what you’ve got and see if you like it. Remember, a 3:4 ratio of acid to sugar works (but adjust to your taste). You’ve got this. I believe in you. Drink well.

My home bar is Hemingway’s Underground, the hottest cocktail bar in pretty little Medina, Ohio. I’m behind the stick Wednesday-Saturday, 4-10. Last call’s at midnight. Swing on by, and I’ll make a drink for you… or anything else from our little Happy Hour here at Wonkette. We’ll make it through this together.

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Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. Okay, you chuckleheads, you asked for it, and I’m delivering. Let’s make a bittersweet, refreshing low ABV sipper for warming weather, something perfect for late spring in 2026. Time for a Straight of Vermouth. Here’s the recipe.

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Straight of Vermouth

1 ½ oz Orange-infused Aperol

½ oz Carpano Dry Vermouth

¼ oz lemon juice

Fevertree club soda

Open the bottle of Aperol. Pour 1 1/2 oz of Aperol into a chilled Collins glass. Close the bottle of Aperol.

Open the bottle of vermouth. Pour ½ oz of vermouth into the glass. Close the bottle of vermouth.

Add lemon juice and soda. Stir gently. Sip well.

Orange-infused Aperol

3 oranges

750 ml Aperol (1 bottle)

Peel the oranges, retaining as little white pith as possible. Add the orange peels to the Aperol. Let rest in a cool, dark place for one week. Strain and keep in a cool place.

Ever since mankind began making wine, we’ve added things to it to make it taste better. Wormwood has been part of the recipe, on and off, for most of that history. Bad wine is often too sweet; a bittering agent like wormwood can balance out the sweetness and give the wine some bite. Vermouth as we know it was created by Antonio Beneditto Carpano in 1786; he decided to use some decent wine instead of cheap swill, balance out the herbs properly, and sell the wormwood wine — or “Wermut” — to the Germans. It became the darling of the Savoy aristocracy, who spoke French and translated the word to “Vermouth.” (Fun fact: In Swedish, “Wermut” translates to “Malort.” Ponder the implications at your leisure.)

I cannot emphasize this enough: Vermouth is not liquor. It is not meant to be stored at room temperature. Put it in the fridge, or it gets stale and nasty. America has rejected properly made martinis for decades because bad bars neglect their vermouth. A properly made martini is made with vermouth. Try fresh vermouth in your cocktails. You’ll enjoy it.

This particular cocktail is a riff on the Americano, an Italian drink that’s been popular with American tourists since 1860. It’s also the antecedent of the Negroni, a favorite cocktail of mine. Count Negroni replaced the soda water with gin for his namesake drink, and the world has never been the same.

There are several fortified wines out there that play differently from ordinary vermouth. Suze, Cocci Americano, and Lillet Blanc all come to mind; none of them use wormwood as a primary ingredient. I’d heartily recommend experimenting with these to build your own version of the cocktail. “The Strait of Suze” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, sadly.

Swapping the Campari for Aperol in this glass brings it fairly close to an Aperol spritz, a truly glorious summer cocktail. As much as I love spritzes, I do find them a bit sweet at times. The dry vermouth definitely adds a bittersweet note here, making it a more grown-up drink than a normal spritz.

No matter the cocktail’s roots, the drink is great for when you need to spend a leisurely afternoon ignoring your phone and soaking up the sunshine. Take life’s pleasures where you can find them.

Let’s talk ingredients:

Orange-infused Aperol: I had this ingredient hanging out in my liquor cabinet after my 216 Tiger Soda project. It seemed a waste not to use it again for the summer. By all means, use off-the-shelf Aperol for this cocktail if you don’t want to wait a week. If you are an Aperol spritz fan, however, I would highly recommend making the orange-infused stuff. It’s a serious treat.

Dry vermouth: Sweet vermouth is a solid choice here, but I found it a touch too jammy and thick for a summer cocktail. Dry vermouth cuts through the Aperol and provides a bitter backbone for a drink that would otherwise resemble an alcoholic Jarrito. If you’re sensitized to the taste of wormwood, you can pick it out in the finish of the cocktail. I’ve done far, far too many Malort shots at Hemingway’s not to notice it. Lord help me, I’m beginning to like it.

Lemon juice: ¼ ounce is optimistic. Squeeze a lemon wedge over the cocktail and you’ll be fine.

Fevertree Club Soda: I own a Sodastream, and it does the job, but Fevertree club soda has a touch of salt that makes the other flavors in the cocktail pop. Use your soda water or club soda of choice. Ideally, keep it in the fridge — it’s more effervescent that way.

My home bar is Hemingway’s Underground, the hottest cocktail bar in pretty little Medina, Ohio. I’m behind the stick Wednesday-Saturday, 4-10. Last call’s at midnight. Swing on by, and I’ll make a drink for you… or anything else from our little Happy Hour here at Wonkette. We’ll make it through this together.

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Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. Wednesday was National Painkiller Day, and I have some Big Feelings about this tasty pina colada variation. It’s a lovely drink, but there’s some nasty history behind it. And in 2026, I’m not in the mood to excuse it anymore. Let’s make a Painkiller Brain Driller and talk about Pusser’s Rum in unflattering terms.

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Painkiller Brain Driller

1.5 oz Pusser’s Rum Planteray Mister Fogg Navy Rum

3 oz pineapple juice

½ oz orange juice

½ oz Coco Real creme de coconut

Fresh grated nutmeg

Shake all ingredients. Strain into an iced rocks glass. Garnish with fresh nutmeg, a lime wheel, and a cherry.

The Painkiller was created in 1970 by Daphne Henderson, chief bartender of The Soggy Dollar, a swim-up bar in the Virgin Islands. Charles Tobias, the owner of Pusser’s Rum, sharked his way up the bar one evening and asked Daphne for the recipe. She told him no. He persisted. She told him to go jump back into the ocean. He came back. He drank many more Painkillers. He reverse-engineered the recipe. According to Mr. Tobias, he held a taste test at the Soggy Dollar, with his version being judged superior to Ms. Henderson’s by popular acclaim. Considering that the Soggy Dollar was a six-seat bar at the time, I’m dubious.

That behavior’s sleazy enough on its own. But then Mr. Tobias has the unmitigated gall to trademark the recipe. And they have been very, very aggressive in defending said trademark. PKNY Bar in New York was forced to close after Pusser’s forced them to stop making non-Pusser’s Painkillers. I’ll be fair and admit that Pusser’s does a ton of promotional work for tiki bars that sell Painkillers. They showered Tiki Underground with mugs, merch, and advertising for events like National Painkiller Day. I cranked out about 10 Painkillers at Hemingway’s on Wednesday (and we absolutely do make our Painkillers with Pusser’s Rum at Hemingway’s, please and thank you). But no matter how much goodwill Pusser’s Rum tries to buy from the tiki community, I can’t quite find it in my heart to forgive Mr. Tobias for being such a scumbag.

It doesn’t help that the Painkiller is a really, really tasty cocktail. The Painkiller takes the bones of the Pina Colada and adds some orange juice for a touch of sweetness. It’s the grated nutmeg that really takes this drink over the top. The scent of this classic baking spice on top of the rich rum and pineapple brings a whole new dimension to a drink that would otherwise be sweet and cloying.

It also doesn’t help that Pusser’s is a really tasty rum. It is, according to Mr. Vane, an authentic representation of British Navy rum. He did do the research, and Pusser’s makes an annual contribution to the charitable arm of the British Navy for the right to call it “Navy Rum.” The recipe has changed several times since Mr. Vane left Pusser’s rum, but it’s still the most accurate representation of the rum British sailors drink for the daily grog in the Age of Sail.

Or at least it was, until Planteray contacted Michael Fogg, one of the last surviving sources for information on authentic British Navy rum. A great deal of research and testing later, Planteray released its own expression of British Navy Rum. I tasted it side by side with Pusser’s, and while Pusser’s has some great caramel flavors, the Planteray Mr. Fogg explodes with butterscotch and caramel notes. Grab some and make a Not-Painkiller. Here’s hoping Charles Tobias twitches a bit in his grave when you do.

Let’s talk ingredients:

Planteray Mr. Fogg Navy Rum: Okay, this bottle isn’t easy to find, and it’s a bit pricey. Go ahead and get some Pusser’s if you must. Or use Hamilton 86, another great Demerara rum. But Mount Gay won’t do here, let alone Bacardi.

Pineapple Juice: I used canned instead of fresh. Fresh pineapple is too acidic for most cocktail making. The little cans from Dole are perfect for cocktail work.

Creme de Coconut: Do not buy canned coconut cream for this; it’s a completely different product. Creme de coconut comes in a squeeze bottle and is basically coconut frosting. It’s absolutely delicious and adds lots of thickness and body to a cocktail. At Hemingway’s, we use Giffard Coconut Syrup.

Orange juice: Fresh is great. Bottled juice is okay in a pinch. I used bottled juice because I had some in the fridge.

Nutmeg: Absolutely, use fresh. Pre-grated powder from a McCormick’s jar is nowhere near as good.

My home bar is Hemingway’s Underground, the hottest cocktail bar in pretty little Medina, Ohio. I’m behind the stick Wednesday-Saturday, 4-10. Last call’s at midnight. Swing on by, and I’ll make a drink for you… or anything else from our little Happy Hour here at Wonkette. We’ll make it through this together.

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Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. God, it’s been a week, hasn’t it? I was planning to write this column early in the week, and then … stuff happened.

The news has been cause to drink for far, far too long. I am blessed to have this column, and my job at Hemingway’s, to keep me sane. When life gets tough, I fall back on some fundamental truths. The sun will come up in the morning. I have a wife and daughter who love me. And a margarita is a really, really good drink. Let’s make some. Here’s the recipe.

Mezcalita

1 ½ oz Del Maguey Vida Mezcal

¾ oz fresh lime juice

½ oz Cointreau

¼ oz agave syrup

3-5 drops saline

Shake all ingredients over ice. Strain into an iced rocks glass. Garnish with a salted lime wheel.

The recipe for a margarita is delightfully flexible. You can add just about anything to a margarita, and it won’t falter. Pineapple juice? Sure. Blood orange juice? Awesome. Chocolate? Go for it. Tequila and agave love citrus. Add whatever floats your boat to a ‘rita. It’ll still taste great.

I’m using mezcal in my margarita for two reasons. One, I like the smoky earthiness of mezcal. The barbecue notes in front of the salty fruitiness of a margarita add dimension and body to an already great drink. Two, tequila is a hot mess right now. And it doesn’t promise to get any better.

To review: A few months ago, a coalition of agave farmers sued Diageo Spirits. They claimed that Casamigos and Don Julio tequila — spirits that had been certified as 100 percent blue agave by Mexico’s governing body — were less than pure. According to chemical tests, they might be less than 30 percent tequila, which means they aren’t tequila at all. Which is scummy but not entirely surprising to tequila fans; Casamigos blanco reeks of vanilla and additives when you know what to look for. But the idea that the Mexican government has been lying to all of us about what’s in tequila … well, they certify all of the tequila coming into America. The whole thing might be a lie.

It gets worse. The literal mayor of Tequila was arrested for extortion and cartel ties. Jalisco province, the home of tequila, is a warzone between the cartels and the Mexican government. Every time I look at the news regarding tequila, I feel worried and uncertain. On a week like this, it doesn’t help.

So: mezcal. Made outside of Jalisco. Made in small batches, by people who still love the craft. Funkier. Smokier. Edgier. And, maybe, a little less stressful. It’s a challenge to find peace in tough times, but with some care and thought, it might be possible. At least, I hope so. I’ll drink several mezcalitas and let you know how I feel about all of this after. Feel free to join me.

Let’s talk ingredients:

Del Maguey Vida Mezcal: Del Maguey breaks down its mezcal by the village where the agave originates, which gives me a little more confidence that it’s the real deal. Peloton de la Muerte is another mezcal brand that I have faith in. If you aren’t a smoke fan, I know that Lalo tequila is as pure as it gets. Beyond that … it’s all a toss-up. Drink what tastes good. If the lawsuits are correct, Casamigos is less of a tequila than Jose Cuervo, the spirit I’ve often derided as “the devil’s armpit squeezings.” I don’t know what to believe anymore.

Lime Juice: I do know that fresh lime juice is good in tequila. Plastic limes provide plastic juice. Use the good stuff.

Cointreau: A bright, solid orange liquor will always provide the backbone for a good margarita. Cointreau is the gold standard. The cheap triple sec used in the Mexican cantinas tastes like Orange Crush; skip it. Stirrings organic triple sec is an acceptable substitute at half the price.

Agave Syrup: Agave is less sweet than sugar, so balancing the sweetness levels in a margarita can be challenging. I like my margaritas tart, and this recipe reflects that. Feel free to increase the agave syrup by a quarter ounce or more to suit your palate.

Saline: Roughly 10:1 water-to-sea salt; skip the iodized stuff. Tequila loves salt. Salt rims are a sludgy, irregular way to add salt to your drink. We never do salted rims at Hemingway’s. Add your salt directly to the drink, where it belongs.

My home bar is Hemingway’s Underground, the hottest cocktail bar in pretty little Medina, Ohio. I’m behind the stick Wednesday-Saturday, 4-10. Last call’s at midnight. Swing on by, and I’ll make a drink for you … or anything else from our little Happy Hour here at Wonkette. We’ll make it through this together.

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Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. I have been yearning to write a light, delicate, springlike cocktail for this column — something gentle and festive for the season. The news and the weather have consistently crushed my dreams. No more. We’re drinking a shiny, happy champagne cocktail for Easter weekend, dammit. Let’s make a Blue Horizon. Here’s the recipe.

Blue Horizon

3-4 oz Brut sparkling wine

1 ½ oz Empress 1908 Indigo Gin

¾ oz honey syrup

¾ oz lemon juice

Stir the honey syrup and lemon juice in a cocktail shaker. Pour into a champagne flute and top with prosecco, leaving room for the gin. Slowly layer the gin over the cocktail. Top with a lavender champagne cocktail air and an edible flower.

Lavender Champagne Air

3 g sucrose esters

7 oz prosecco

3 oz creme de violette

Using a milk frother, combine the esters, prosecco, and creme de violette in a wide-mouthed beaker. Aerate the liquid with a fish tank bubbler. Scoop off the foam as needed for a garnish. Aerate the liquid as needed to generate more foam.

Yes. It’s come to this. It’s 2026, and Hooper is telling you how to make the air on top of the cocktail from scratch.

An explanation is probably in order. Many cocktails finish the drink with a frothy head. Egg white cocktails, like the infamous Ramos Gin Fizz, are a prime example. But different foams have different purposes. Egg whites add a silky smooth mouthfeel to a drink. A whipped cream topping is a treat in itself. A cocktail “air” is a light, tasteless pile of bubbles that uses sucrose esters as a foaming agent. I know, scary chemical name — it’s a palm oil derivative, it’s perfectly safe. This stuff will turn any liquid into a foam with the consistency and body of shaving cream.

Ok, but ... why? Aroma. When you bring this drink to your mouth, the scent of champagne and violets is overwhelming. It’s like having a glass of champagne with a glorious head of sparkling fizz, only the fizz never dies down, and somehow the champagne smells like flowers. The drink tastes good, but the cocktail air makes it smell like heaven, and scent is an integral component of taste.

No, you do not have to create air from scratch to enjoy this drink. Skip that bit. Seriously, I know that 99 percent of you wouldn’t even consider it. I’m showing it off because it took weeks to get the foam’s consistency right, and I’m kind of proud of it. When you go to a great cocktail bar like Hemingway’s, and you see “cocktail air” on the bar menu, you can explain it to your date with a knowledgeable smirk on your face. How the rest of your date progresses from there is up to you, but at least I’ve given you a leg up on it.

The air isn’t the only sorcery in this glass. Empress 1908 Indigo gin is infused with pea blossom tea, which changes color from purple to blue when the pH is low enough. Stir this cocktail after service, and the purple head on the drink transforms into a glass of sky-blue goodness. The gin’s quite tasty in its own right as well. We haven’t had enough pleasant surprises this year. This cocktail is probably a good place to start.

Let’s talk ingredients:

Brut sparkling wine: I like a less-sweet cocktail, so I prefer Brut here. Prosecco is perfectly fine, however. Drink what you like.

Empress 1908 Indigo Gin: You could use another gin here, but if you do, don’t bother layering it on top of the cocktail. Mix it with the lemon and honey — you’ll have a perfectly nice Bee’s Knees cocktail, and drinking it will make you happy.

Honey Syrup: 50/50 water and honey, mixed until smooth. Without dilution, the honey is too thick to be usable. An organic or single-source honey would be nice here, but I’m not convinced you could taste the difference in this drink.

Lemon juice: Always fresh. Accept no substitutes.

Lavender Champagne Air: It’s important to mix the esters thoroughly into the liquid. A battery-powered milk frother will do the trick, but in a pinch, stirring the fluid well will get the job done. I used a $30 battery powered aquarium bubbler with a stone tip to generate the bubbles; it works like a dream.

My home bar is Hemingway’s Underground, the hottest cocktail bar in pretty little Medina, Ohio. I’m behind the stick Wednesday-Saturday, 4-10. Last call’s at midnight. Swing on by, and I’ll make a drink for you … or anything else from our little Happy Hour here at Wonkette.

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