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.

OPEN THREAD!

Tip your bartender!

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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Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. Sometimes, I write a cocktail because I’ve found a flavor combination I want to explore. Sometimes, I talk about a classic cocktail to reconnect with the fundamentals. Sometimes, I want to explore a new mixology technique. And sometimes, I write a cocktail because Hemingway’s was gifted with a monstrosity by a well-meaning distributor, and we need to use it up. This is one of those moments. Let’s enjoy a Viva Las Vegas. Here’s the recipe.

Viva Las Vegas

1 oz Chica Chida Peanut Butter Agave Spirit

1 oz creme de banana

1 oz Peloton de la Muerte mezcal

3-4 shakes cocoa bitters

Splash of Malort

Pour the Malort into a Nick and Nora glass. Swirl until the interior of the glass is coated with Malort. Discard any remaining Malort. Shake the remaining ingredients. Strain into the prepared Nick and Nora and garnish with an edible flower.

I … have no idea what Chica Chida is. It’s labeled as an “agave spirit,” so it isn’t tequila per se. That’s not a surprise, actually — real tequila is supposed to be additive-free. It doesn’t have any actual peanuts in it. (Allergen-free, yay!) It’s pretty tasty, but the sugar levels are through the roof. I’d expect that from most sweetened liquors — Skrewball and Fireball are both sugar bombs.

I will note that the Mexican government permits distillers to craft tequila that’s 99 percent additive free and sell it as 100 percent tequila. There’s a lot of room for mischief in that one percent. Some “100 percent blue agave” tequilas out there are doctored with sucrose, caramel color, and Lord knows what else. Any tequila with a strong vanilla note makes me suspicious (looking at you, Milagro. We aren’t on speaking terms, Casamigos). If you want the real-deal stuff, stick with distillers like Tres Agaves or Lalo, who’ve made a commitment to quality. This Chica Chida stuff isn’t even pretending to be quality tequila. The honesty is refreshing. The liqueur is not.

Reviews on this product are, to put it kindly, mixed. The tequila industry isn’t fond of celebrity tequilas, like Casamigos or Teremana (tequilas backed by George Clooney and Dwayne Johnson, respectively). This stuff is sponsored by Caleb Pressley, a comedian formerly with Barstool Sports. No idea who he is. Not encouraging.

This spirit is easy to take shots with, but difficult to turn into a cocktail. That sugar has to be tamed to make the stuff drinkable. Adding some mezcal helps. Adding some creme de banana does not. Banana liqueur — any liqueur, for that matter — has a high sugar content. We need to counteract that sweetness somehow, but the flavor profile we’re building for this drink — Elvis’s classic grilled peanut butter and banana sandwich — doesn’t really cooperate with an acid like lemon or lime juice.

That’s why we’re using a very, very small amount of Malort in this cocktail. I know, I know. Malort is … Malort. The nastiest, bitterest thing you can find in the liquor cabinet. But I’ve been coming around to the notion that it has a place in the cocktail world other than as a cheap dare. Malort is unspeakably bitter. But at the end of the day, bitter is a flavor, and one that can balance out sweetness rather nicely. Most of the Malort cocktails I’ve worked with have an extremely sweet base. My own Regrettable Tattoo has passion fruit syrup as a base; one of my partners at the bar runs a “Chicago Cherry” cocktail that uses the syrup from a Luxardo cherry jar as a primary component. Many classic cocktails use lemon or lime juice to make a sour-sweet drink; why not a bittersweet cocktail?

The end result is a cocktail that starts off like a dessert, with strong peanut butter and banana notes. The agave hits in the middle of the cocktail, and you’re left with a lingering, somewhat uncomfortable bitter finish that encourages you to take another sip to clean your palate. Definitely a cocktail fit for a King, baby.

Let’s talk ingredients:

Chica Chida Peanut Butter Agave Spirit: If you can’t find this at the liquor store … well, it’s not a great loss. Skrewball is a peanut butter-flavored whiskey that’s everywhere. Use that. Note that Skrewball does include peanuts, so be mindful of allergies.

Peloton de la Muerte Mezcal: A mezcal with strong agave notes helps remind Chica Chida what it’s supposed to do with its life, and the smokiness of mezcal leans towards the bacon in Elvis’s sandwich of choice. Swap in a nice rye whiskey instead of tequila if you’re going the Skrewball route.

Banana liqueur: We use Gifard at the bar; it’s the gold standard. 99 Bananas is cheaper, easier to find, and probably more appropriate in this glass.

Cocoa Bitters: Chocolate plays well with peanut butter, banana, and tequila, and the bitters help meld the disparate flavors in the glass.

Malort: There is no substitute for Malort. Be grateful.

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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Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. Last week in Ohio, we had an epic bar crawl. Then we had 70-degree weather. Then we had wind, snow, 20-degree weather, and an asteroid. I should know better than to hope for an early spring by now. Ohio takes a perverse joy in raising your hopes for good weather before crashing back to earth. I got mad, I sulked, I wrote a cocktail about it. Let’s enjoy a False Spring together while it lasts. Here’s the recipe.

False Spring

2 oz Another Hendrick’s Gin

1 oz Creme de Cacao

¾ oz fresh lime juice

1 dash cocoa bitters

Orange blossom water

Splash a small amount of orange blossom water into a Nick and Nora or small coupe glass. Swirl the orange blossom water until the inside of the glass is thoroughly coated, then discard the excess. Shake the remaining ingredients in an iced cocktail shaker. Double strain into the Nick and Nora glass. Garnish with a mint leaf.

I know that some of you out there are still gin-averse. I’ve tried explaining that we’re well past the age of Beefeater and Tanqueray. Gin does not resemble drinking Pine-Sol anymore. Lesly Gracie cracked the formula in 1999 when she distilled the original Hendrick’s Gin. This cucumber and rose concoction opened everyone’s eyes. Gin didn’t need to be about juniper and sadness. Citrus gins roamed the planet. Hendrick’s kept releasing astonishing herbal concoctions. Good things happened. It’s okay to move on from your formative drinking years. Gin’s safe to drink. I promise.

But if none of that convinces you, this bottle will. Hendrick’s has released another Hendrick’s. It is called: “Another Hendrick’s.” (Clearly, the lads at Hendrick’s are Monty Python fans.) It is, to be blunt, completely different from Hendrick’s. Hendrick’s features rose and cucumber. Another Hendrick’s features orange blossoms and cacao. Yes. Cocoa gin. We’ve come a long, long way from the bottle of Gordon’s gin that made you sick in college.

To be clear, this isn’t “chocolate gin.” It isn’t brown, thick, or sweet. The cocoa shows up late in the tasting notes, with floral notes and enough juniper to brighten the drink without becoming “pine” flavored. It’s as much a texture as a flavor, a base layer that supports the floral notes Ms. Gracie’s woven together in this wonderful bottle.

I firmly believe that Ms. Gracie is a rock star among distillers. When a guitar virtuoso steps onto your stage, you don’t try to compete with them. You strap on the bass guitar, listen closely, and do your best to support their artistry. This cocktail is basically a gimlet, one of the oldest gin cocktails in the world. The structure is the same as a daiquiri or a lemon drop martini. The power move comes from using creme de cacao instead of sugar as a sweetener. Creme de cacao, in moderation, doesn’t taste like chocolate. It adds sweetness and earthiness to a drink, but it doesn’t provide Hershey-bar notes. In this glass, it draws the gin’s cocoa finish to the middle of the flavors, where it meets the orange-blossom aromas of the prepared glass. The cocoa bitters smooth out some of the drink’s bumps, harmonizing the taste. It’s a very different sort of gimlet, floral and earthy in places where you’d expect crisp, spiced notes. There are worse ways to endure a last gasp of winter.

Let’s talk ingredients:

Another Hendrick’s: In a pinch, use a citrus gin like Citadelle Jardin d’Ete. But don’t pinch. Treat yourself. This gin is unusual; you don’t want to make a G&T with it. But with soda water, this is an absolute treat. Go ahead and indulge here; Lord only knows, we could use a little treat right now.

Creme de Cacao: Gifford’s is best. Paramount is a lot easier to find. Don’t use the brown stuff. Brown gimlets are bad.

Lime juice: So help me if you *dare* sully Ms. Gracie’s beautiful work with lime juice from a plastic squeeze bottle, I will give you such a pinch. Fresh squeezed. Please. I’m asking nicely.

Cocoa bitters: One shake only. We don’t need the flavor of the bitters anywhere near the limelight.

Orange blossom water: Be very, very sparing here. I’d strongly consider using an orange blossom water mister to spritz the glass. Rinsing the glass is a rough-and-ready way to achieve the same effect without breaking out another tool.

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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Tip your Wonkette!

Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. St. Patrick’s Day is, functionally, tomorrow. We’re bracing for an epic bar crawl, with a bevy of Midori-fueled emerald cocktails on the menu. It’s going to be epic. Before the green stuff hits the fan, I thought I’d take a little time off from doomscrolling and sip something comfortable. Let’s crack open some Irish whiskey and stop worrying for a while. This bottle’s a fun little find that illustrates what makes The Water of Life so special. Let’s have a sip and relax.

Uais The Triple Blend Irish Whiskey

Serve neat. Sip Slowly. Relax. Enjoy. Take a few deep breaths. Put down your phone. Watch the fire. Listen to some Gaelic Storm. It’s going to be okay.

I’m going to start off with a bit of heresy from an American bartender: I don’t like bourbon. It’s boring. To qualify as bourbon, a spirit must be at least 51 percent corn, made in America, and aged for at least three years in charred American oak casks. I’ve tasted so many bourbons by now. Some are made with care and craft; some are made by get-rich-quick schemers looking to make a buck. After a while, they all taste the same.

Irish whiskey is a lot looser with its definitions. Irish whiskey must be made with some malted cereals, fermented with yeast, and aged in Ireland in wooden barrels. There’s a ton of wiggle room in that definition, and the variety of Irish whiskeys proves the point. The only consistent factor is the need for malted grain, which is hardly a great sacrifice. (Malted grains are cereals that have been partly germinated, then toasted to stop them from sprouting. I’ve snacked on malted barley at a distiller’s before, and it’s incredibly tasty. Pretzels use malted flour; so does a chocolate malted shake at the ice cream parlor.)

This particular bottle is everything you can do to Irish whiskey, all mixed together in a glorious smorgasbord. Uais whiskey is 25 percent pot still whiskey — mostly barley, some malted, some not. The English, being English, started taxing malted barley in the 1800s. The Irish cut their whiskey with unmalted barley, found the end product tasted better, and kept on making the good stuff. It’s 25 percent single malt whiskey, made with nothing but malted barley. And the rest is “grain whiskey,” made with oats, corn, whatever’s tasty. The end results aged in wood — some charred ex-bourbon casks, some virgin oak. It’s definitely an “everything but the kitchen sink” whiskey, the sort of thing you almost never see in America.

But Lord, is it ever tasty. I get pineapple and honey on the nose of this spirit, plus some of the funkiness I associate with top-notch Jamaican rum. It is so very, very smooth. You don’t need water, or ice, or anything to enjoy this liquid gold. All you need is time, and space to breathe.

Okay. We’ve decompressed from the news a bit. Time for something a bit more … robust to get us up and moving.

Jameson Triple Triple

Put an ice cube in this one, it’s a bit more robust. Savor the nut and apple notes at the front of the whiskey. Grab an Irish ale to wash down the burn. When you’re good and ready, pop some Dropkick Murphys into your headphones. Stand up, stretch, and get ready to fight the next round. We aren’t down for the count yet.

Jameson’s is going to flow like water on St. Paddy’s Day, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t make some good stuff. This whiskey’s been aged in oak, sherry, and chestnut casks. You’ll never find a combination like that in American bourbon. It’s nutty, complex, and sweet, and it’s a bit hot going down, but we deserve this. It’s only a buck or two more than regular Jaymo, and so much nicer. I have determined, after scientific experimentation, that shots of Jameson are smoother on St. Paddy’s Day than on any other day of the year. You owe it to yourself to determine the veracity of that theory. A few beers would help the process. Guinness is cliché. It’s also really good. Drink what you like. I won’t judge.

And then pop in some Dropkick Murphys. This band is so very, very much on our side. If there was ever a Celtic punk band that has our corner, this is the one. Listen here if you don’t believe me. Or here. We aren’t done yet. We got this. Take a deep breath. Stand up. Call out the Black and Tans one more time. We aren’t done fighting yet. If I’ve convinced you to toss a sawbuck down at the liquor store for a bottle of good Irish whiskey, toss one more into the kitty for Wonkette. This is one of the last, lonely fronts in the war for sanity and goodness in America. It’s St. Patrick’s Day. We’re all Fighting Irish now.

Wonkette kitty

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. If you try to get on Saturday during the bar crawl, God help you. 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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Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. And dear Lord, THIS WEEK. I had planned to talk about a nice, light, airy champagne cocktail for spring, but I’ve been doomscrolling way too much to entertain such ethereal notions. Let’s talk about my daily medicine instead. I need something strong to get through all this. Time for a Jet Pilot. Time for several Jet Pilots. Here’s the recipe.

Jet Pilot

1 oz Gosling’s Bermuda Rum

¾ oz Planteray Special Dark

¾ oz Planteray OFTD

½ oz grapefruit juice

½ oz lime juice

½ oz falernum

½ oz cinnamon syrup

3-4 shakes Angostura bitters

Pour all ingredients into an iced shaker tin. Shake and strain into an iced rocks glass. Garnish with a cherry and a small paper airplane.

The Jet Pilot was created in 1958 at the Luau by Stephen Crane, Lana Turner’s ex-husband. Donn Beach had created the prototype for this drink — the Test Pilot — but Stephen’s version removed some extraneous ingredients and added more rum. The Jet Pilot is dark, spicy, and laser-focused on upping your blood alcohol content. It’s a concentrated, simplified version of a Zombie. I upsell these to customers at Hemingway’s who ask for a rum and Coke. They’re universally impressed and intimidated. It’s become my post-shift cocktail of choice, a painkiller and muscle relaxant par excellence. I am very, very lucky to be living within walking distance of Hemingway’s.

When I first wrote about the Jet Pilot in 2023, I suggested that it should be a special treat at your local tiki bar, a bit too strong for everyday drinking. Things have changed. The version I’m writing today isn’t quite as strong as the one I posted a few years ago, but the need for potent spirits is mighty these days. Buying three different rums and a fairly obscure liqueur seems like a big ask, but let’s get real. Making and drinking potent tiki libations is more relaxing than reading the news, and marginally better for your health. At least with the tiki drinks, you get your daily Vitamin C from all the juice.

The tiki revival of the early 2000s was nurtured in garage bars. Punks who decided the scene had gotten stale went shopping at garage sales and thrift stores, and in the process found the amazing cocktails that had been forgotten with the advent of boat drinks, fern bars, and cheap vodka. Before Smuggler’s Cove and Three Dots and a Dash opened, cocktail fans were experimenting and entertaining friends in garages decorated with palm fronds and upcycled wicker furniture. I’m not saying that you should turn your garage into a rum-soaked tropical escapist fantasy from the daily news. I’m just saying that no one’s stopping you. If you can’t find a peaceful beach getaway, make your own.

Let’s talk ingredients:

Gosling’s Bermuda Rum: My Bermuda rum of choice. Cruzan blackstrap rum is a bit too molasses-forward. Meyer’s is a Jamaican rum, a very different animal from rich, caramel-forward Gosling’s.

Planteray Special Dark: My favorite rum of all time. A blend of Jamaican and Demerara rum, expertly blended in France before being shipped to the States. If you’ve never tried this rum, do so.

Planteray OFTD: Technically, OFTD stands for “Old Fashioned Traditional Distillation.” The team of distillers and rum snobs who created this rum all agreed that it actually stands for “Oh F**k That’s Delicious.” Dark, rich, and very, very strong. If you use this to make a rum and Coke, be very, very careful.

Grapefruit Juice: Juicing your own is pretty ambitious and probably a bit too acidic. A decent bottled brand is fine. Just make sure it’s 100 percent grapefruit juice, and not a “cocktail” that cuts the grapefruit with cheap white grape juice.

Lime juice: Always use fresh. Plastic limes produce plastic juice.

Falernum: Falernum is one of the secret ingredients of tiki cocktails. It’s a liqueur that features lime, ginger, and cloves, and getting the good stuff is a bit tricky. Here in the Midwest, it’s easiest to use Maggie’s Farm Falernum. Maggie’s Farm hails from Pittsburgh, and their falernum is pure magic. For the rest of the country, I’d recommend John D. Taylor’s falernum — it’s the gold standard. Don’t use a “falernum syrup”; it’s not the same thing.

Cinnamon Syrup: Two parts sugar, one part water, and a cinnamon stick. Simmer on the stovetop until the sugar melts and it smells like cinnamon deliciousness. It’ll keep in the fridge forever.

Angostura Bitters: Be generous with your shakes. The Angostura spices add dimension to the drink, and some bitterness is needed in this 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.

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Don't forget to tip Wonkette!

I read a lot of historical fiction as a teenager, and I still do now, although I tend to lean more towards fantasy for the escapism factor these days. One thing that I always wanted to know — but never bothered to look up — was what this “posset” was that ailing people and young children were given before bed in all these historical stories. My mind always pictured some sort of medication or warm drink to help with sleep. Imagine my surprise then, when I began to hear the word “posset” on cooking shows. A few months ago, I found a recipe for a lemon posset tart with raspberries by Queen of Cakes Dame Mary Berry. Researching it fascinated me, and inspired me to take Dame Mary’s recipe and adjust it so that it is more closely linked to its past, whilst still being every bit as much of a delicious treat.

A Slice of History

The modern posset is a luxurious dessert, made from cream which is boiled with sugar and citrus juice. The cream based posset has been around since the days of William Shakespeare, and is mentioned in many of his plays including The Merry Wives of Windsor, Hamlet, and MacBeth (where it is used as a vessel for the delivery of poison). These Shakespearean possets were either cream-based and thickened with biscuit by the rich, and with bread by the poor, or a milk version which continued to exist alongside the newer version despite predating it by at least two centuries. This early version of the posset was a sweetened drink made from hot milk which was curdled using wine or ale. The milk-based posset was considered medicinal and was frequently recommended as a treatment for colds and fevers. One of the most famous patients to be prescribed a posset as a remedy was King Charles I (before he lost his head). Interestingly, the posset seems to be a dish that never really gained popularity outside of England and the Netherlands; its early form may well have helped to form the myth that English food is flavourless and uninspiring.

The posset of my childhood literary adventures was most likely the cream variety, thickened with biscuit or bread, its association with children and the elderly being a result of the dish’s soft texture, which made it perfect for those who were deficient in the dental department, or who suffered from sensitive stomachs and required soft, bland food. It was only in the 20th century that the citrus element was introduced and the modern posset was created. Even so, it remains a fairly uncommon dish, unlikely to be found in restaurants and on the tables of most home cooks. Despite this, it is a rich, tasty dessert which is very easy to make and is well-suited to being used as a filling for a tart, or as a citrusy alternative to the pudding you Americans seem to enjoy so much.

This recipe uses Limoncello, alongside grated lemon zest and a little bit of lemon juice, harking back to the old practice of curdling the posset with alcohol.

For fellow members of the Dead Pancreas Society, the carbohydrates for this recipe are 348g for the whole tart. I’d suggest serving it as either 6 or 8 portions at 58g or 43.5g of carbohydrates per portion.

Your Equipment

Digital kitchen scales

Mixing bowl or food processor

Pie dish (8 inch)

Baking parchment

Rolling pin

Saucepan

Cheese grater or other tool for finely zesting lemons (I have a very nice hand held one I picked up at a local Food Festival several years ago).

Wooden Spoon

Your Ingredients

For the pastry:

175 g All-Purpose Flour / Plain Flour

75 g Cold Butter, cut into cubes

1 tbsp Confectioner’s Sugar / Icing Sugar

1 Large Egg, beaten

For the posset filling:

600 ml Heavy Cream / Double Cream

150 g Sugar

2 Lemons (juice and zest)

25 ml Limoncello (replace one lemon’s juice with another 25ml of Limoncello if you want a more alcoholic dessert).

To serve:

200g fresh raspberries

A little extra confectioner’s sugar / icing sugar for dusting (optional)

Pouring cream (optional)

The Important Bit

You’ll need to fully bake your pastry case and allow it to cool to room temperature before it even sees the posset filling.

The first thing to do is combine your flour (175 g), confectioner’s sugar (1 tbsp), and butter (75 g) in your mixing bowl and rub between your fingers until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs. Alternatively put them into the food processor and use the pulse setting until you achieve a breadcrumb-like texture.

Add your beaten egg and mix (using a wooden spoon or the food processor) until the mixture forms a stiff dough.

Tip the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead it lightly until it is smooth.

Place a square of baking parchment which is more than big enough to completely cover the top of your pie dish onto your kitchen counter. Lightly sprinkle a little flour over the top, and place the pastry dough in the centre. Use your rolling pin to roll out your pastry until it is big enough to cover your pie dish.

The easiest way to line your pie dish without breaking the fragile rolled pastry too much is to use the baking parchment to position the pastry over the pie dish, then turn it upside down and gently push the pastry into place. Trim the pastry to fit the dish, and use the trimmings to fix any tears or gaps.

Prick the pastry base with a fork and put it into the fridge to chill for at least 30 minutes.

Pre-heat your oven to 350F / 180 C.

Line your pastry case with baking parchment and fill it with baking beads or dried rice or lentils.

Bake the pastry case in the oven for 15 minutes, then remove it from the oven and take out the baking parchment and whatever you have used to fill it.

Return the pastry case to the oven for another 5-7 minutes, until the pastry is fully cooked and is a pale golden colour. Leave it on the counter to cool to room temperature.

In your saucepan, place your heavy cream (600 ml), sugar (150 g) and lemon zest (from 2 lemons). Heat on a medium-low heat until the cream is just boiling, stirring constantly until the sugar has fully dissolved.

Remove the cream from the heat and let it cool for 5 minutes.

Stir the lemon juice (use 1 or 2 lemons) and Limoncello (25 ml or 50 ml depending on how much lemon juice you used) through the cream mixture until it thickens a little and leave it for a further 5 minutes to thicken more.

Pour the posset mixture into the pastry case and carefully place it into the refrigerator to set for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight.

When the posset has set, top the tart with raspberries, and dust with a little extra confectioner’s sugar / icing sugar, if using.

Serve cold, with a generous drizzle of pouring cream.

I’ll be back next month with potato bread.

Until then ...

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Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. And I’m panicking. In two days, I’m entering a cocktail competition sponsored by the United States Bartenders’ Guild. If I win, I might get a spot on the regional team. I’ve been working on this recipe for days. I think I’ve nailed it. And I’m going to share it with you early, because I couldn’t have gotten here without you. Let’s make a 216 Tiger Soda. Actually, you can watch me make a 216 Tiger Soda, because nobody in their right mind would make this at home. Here’s the recipe.

216 Tiger Soda

House Orange Soda:

1 cup orange oleo saccharum syrup

3 tsp citric acid

5 cups water

½ tsp bergamot

¾ tsp orange blossom water

Natural food coloring

Orange oleo saccharum syrup:

2 oranges

1 cup sugar

½ cup water

Make the orange oleo saccharum: Peel the oranges, taking care to remove as much white pith as possible. Toss the orange peel with the sugar. Let sit for 24 hours. Add ½ cup of water and stir until the sugar dissolves completely. Strain out the orange peels.

Make the soda: Combine all ingredients except for food coloring. Add 5 drops of red food coloring and 2 drops of yellow food coloring until the desired color is reached. Carbonate using a Soda Stream or other home carbonation machine. Bottle and refrigerate for later use.

Cocktail:

¾ oz Orange Tiger Orange Liqueur

½ oz Orange Infused Aperol

½ oz OYO Barrel Aged Vanilla Vodka

¼ oz Wray and Nephew Overproof Rum

¼ oz paw paw syrup

4 dashes grapefruit bitters

Orange Infused Aperol:

750 ml Aperol

2 oranges

Make the orange-infused Aperol: Peel 2 oranges, being careful to avoid the white pith.

Make the cocktail: Stir all cocktail ingredients and pour into an iced highball glass. Add orange soda to taste. Garnish with a chocolate candy.

So, let’s talk about how this complex, slightly bitter handmade orange soda cocktail came into being. Orange Tiger, a barrel-aged orange liqueur made in Toledo, is sponsoring the contest. The cocktail must include at least ¾ oz of Orange Tiger. It must be a highball — a drink with a mixer, like Scotch and soda or rum and Coke. And the drink must tell a story — it needs to tell something about Cleveland, my hometown.

In a contest like this, I don’t just obey the rules, but emphasize them. This drink had to be an “orange” drink; the judges shouldn’t have to wonder where the orange liqueur is in the cocktail. Local stories matter? Well, let’s use some extra local ingredients, like a barrel-aged vodka from Akron and some pawpaw syrup. And let’s not sleep on the soda component of the highball — an orange soda made from scratch. Commercial bottled orange soda is … not good. Can we do better?

It’s a low bar. Sunkist and Fanta have a ton of sugar in them and no orange … anything. No juice, no oil, nada. I started my orange soda base by filtering organic orange juice, but it quickly became clear that this wouldn’t provide enough soda for the competition. I decided to use the peels instead of the juice for my soda. I’ve used oleo saccharum and super juice to extract huge amounts of flavor from citrus before; the same tricks worked very well here. Some citric acid to provide that artificial-but-addictive tartness of pop, and we were in business. Bergamot and orange blossom water added some needed complexity and bitterness that no commercial soda could match. I didn’t want to use food coloring, but the soda did need some help. It was a distressing shade of yellow without the color.

So what does this drink have to say about Cleveland? I did use as many Midwestern and local ingredients as possible, but those are nouns, and the contest is asking for adjectives describing my home. Cleveland is a city steeped in nostalgia. We worship a football team that was taken away from us last century. Our biggest tourist attraction is a museum. The roots of this city run deep. A bright orange soda from our childhoods, topped off with a little chocolate treat, seems like a fine way to honor this city.

Oh, and the cocktail is orange and brown. That can’t hurt.

Let’s talk ingredients:

Orange Soda: The constraints of the competition didn’t quite permit it, but I’d certainly squeeze your peeled oranges and strain them straight back into the soda base. Buying a SodaStream for this competition felt like a splurge, but having carbonated water on tap whenever you want is pretty nifty. I’m already planning to make house cola for myself. A carbonated margarita might have some charms as well.

Orange Tiger: I’ve never found a barrel-aged orange liqueur like this before; I’ve played with it as a Manhattan component before, and it’s got a lot of potential as a Grand Marnier replacement.

OYO Barrel-Aged Vanilla Vodka: The vanilla supports the orange flavors, and the barrel aging reinforces the dry barrel notes of the Orange Tiger.

Orange Infused Aperol: Aperol is great for any orange cocktail, but I wanted to amplify the orange notes even more. I steeped some orange peels in the Aperol before vacation, and the resulting bittersweet fruit bomb is a glorious addition to the drink. I hope there’s some left after the competition; if not, I’ll make more for my home bar.

Wray and Nephew Overproof Rum: This Jamaican rum reeks of overripe tropical fruit. It’s a monster of a rum that loves bitter citrus like grapefruit. A small measure of this adds complexity and sourness to a cocktail that could get lost in orange and sugar.

Paw paw syrup: Paw paw is tricky to harvest and doesn’t age well. But it’s a delicious addition to this cocktail — a little bit of mango, a little bit of banana, a little tart from some paw paw vinegar added for preservation. It’s a bit pricey, but a wonderful local treat.

Grapefruit Bitters: Some bitterness and added dimension to round out the drink.

Wish me luck!

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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Tip Wonkette!

Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. I’m back from my pirate vacation and thrilled to be back in the world of soft beds and indoor plumbing. Let’s mix up a breakfast-style espresso martini - a perfect “wake me up and fix me up” kind of cocktail. Time to make an Espresso Sunrise. Here’s the recipe.

Espresso Sunrise

1 ½ oz vodka

1 oz espresso

½ oz Mr. Black coffee liquor

½ oz orange shrub

Licor 43

Pour a small amount of Licor 43 into a martini glass. Swirl the Licor 43 in the glass until the inside of the glass is coated, then shake out the excess. Shake the remaining ingredients in a cocktail shaker until the outside of the shaker is cold to the touch. Double strain into the prepared martini glass. Garnish with espresso powder, orange zest, and three espresso beans.

Orange Shrub

3-4 organic navel oranges

1 cup sugar

1 cup apple cider vinegar

1 cup water

Zest the oranges into a large bowl, avoiding the white pith as much as possible. Juice the oranges into the bowl. Add sugar and water. Let sit in the fridge overnight. Add vinegar and strain into a sealable glass bottle. Keeps in the fridge for 3-4 weeks.

Espresso martinis are still wildly popular at the bar. They’re our number one bestseller at Hemingway’s, and I’m pretty sure that’s true for most bars in the area. My basic espresso martini is pretty darn good; I attribute that to my insistence on following Dick Bradswell’s classic recipe. Vodka, fresh espresso, coffee liqueur, and just a touch of sweetness make this recipe work. Bailey’s has no place in a proper espresso martini. And there simply must be a proper head of foam on the top of a good espresso martini. If you’re served a flat espresso martini at a bar, run. They’re making their martinis with cold-brew coffee, or worse. It’s not the same, trust me.

We entered this cocktail into a recent espresso martini contest here in Cleveland. A standard espresso martini uses a sugar syrup or creme de cacao as a sweetener. This drink replaces the sugar with orange shrub, a tart-sweet citrus elixir that’s a joy to work with at the bar. Citrus shrubs make your average springtime cooler or spritz dance at the bar. Shrubs have been popular in America since the 17th century. An orange shrub with a little soda water makes a terrific non-alcoholic cocktail. One of my fellow bartenders has a cocktail recipe in her back pocket that uses bourbon, orange shrub, maple syrup, and a touch of lemon that’s a showstopper.

I know that waiting a full day to make a cocktail ingredient isn’t much fun, but patience pays off. If you simply must have a drink right now - trust me, I get it, it’s 2026 - replace the orange shrub with fresh pulp-free orange juice. But go ahead and make the orange shub anyway. This handy little drinking vinegar will get you through mimosa season with flying colors - a splash in your champagne is so much better than bland grocery store OJ. I give the shrub 2-3 weeks in the fridge, but you’ll use it up well before then.

Let’s talk ingredients:

Vodka: I’m not picky. A light, sweet vodka like Tito’s works; I prefer an earthy potato vodka like Luskoya in cocktails to give me more control of sweetness. It’s a minor detail that won’t be a big deal at your home bar.

Espresso: Good espresso makes for a good espresso martini. Cold brew is okay - barely - but if you love espresso martinis, you need to use the real deal. I swear by my little moka pot and some Cafe Bustelo at home.

Mr. Black Coffee Liquor: Kahlua is garbage. Spring for a quality coffee liquor. I love Mr. Black, but there are a lot of good choices available if you browse your local liquor store shelves.

Orange shrub: I really love the interplay of orange and coffee in this glass, but don’t feel limited in your choice of fruit. A strawberry shrub would be wonderful on its own, and would be dandy in this cocktail.

Licor 43: This sweet, vanilla herbal liquor is a natural match for coffee. Licor 43 and espresso make a carajillo, one of the best coffee drinks ever. I use a tiny amount of Licor 43 here to balance the cocktail’s sweetness and acidity. If you love coffee, you won’t regret buying this bottle.

My home bar is currently a sandbar in the middle of the Atlantic. But normally, it’s 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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Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m writing this early in the week. Come Friday, I’ll be on the adventure of a lifetime. I’ve joined the crew of the Scavenger, a living history re-enactment group based in Florida. As you’re reading this, I’m sitting on a desert island four hours south of Tampa, all my modern clothes and belongings left far behind, living the life of a pirate in the year 1717 as best I can. This is easily the most pirate thing I’ve ever done — that I could even dream of doing. So while it’s Valentine’s Day for most of you lot, I’ll share the cocktail I’m drinking right now. Pour out a cup of grog for me, lads and lasses. Plunder’s on the horizon.

GROG!

1.25 oz Smith and Cross Jamaican Rum

5 oz water

Juice of 1 lime

Sugar to taste

Stir well and consume around noon. You’ll have three more of these through the course of the day.

Before I dive into the history, a brief Q&A is probably in order.

Q: You’re doing what now?

A: Two days ago, on Wednesday, I flew from Cleveland to Tampa and met up with some internet acquaintances. They drove me to our Captain’s home, where I fixed up my clothing and helped pack. On Thursday at 4 AM, we drove for a few hours to meet a charter boat. We left all our clothes from 2026 behind and dressed as sailors from 1717. We set up camp, made some introductions, and began to tell the story of our lives as sailors on the Scavenger, a twenty-gun pirate brig, currently grounded for her annual cleaning in preparation for a season of piracy. We’ll be playing dice and cards, standing watch, drinking, smoking, and debating our course of action for the year. (1717 is a high point in pirate history; Blackbeard takes command of Queen Anne’s Revenge this year. He’s hunted down and killed in the fall of 1718. The chance that we’ll all go down in a blaze of glory is real.) We’ll pack up on Sunday. I’ll be killing time in Tampa for a day and a half before flying home.

Q: Why on earth are you doing this?

Because I’m almost 55, and this is absolutely a thing for the bucket list. A weekend on a desert island eating hard tack and salt pork is a bit … spartan. But it’s the most immersive, honest exploration of what it was actually like to be one of the pirates of the Caribbean I could possibly be a part of, ever. I might do it once and be glad of the experience. I might become addicted and do this every year. No matter what, this is an experience I can’t pass up.

And yes, I’ll have a ton of pictures. It’s 1717, but we all ignore cellphones. Everyone wants pictures.

Q: Good for you. This cocktail isn’t really exciting. What gives?

This is a fairly accurate depiction of what a rum ration for British sailors in the year 1717 would receive in a day. I’m sure pirates were more liberal with their rum, but the Navy had some fairly hard and fast rules about how much rum you got for a day at sea. “Navy strength” rum is roughly 57 proof; legend has it that if you soaked gunpowder with rum and the slurry ignited, it had “withstood the proof.” (Do not try this at home.) That rum was diluted to a 4:1 ratio with some really nasty water. Lime and sugar were extras you bought on your own dime. Pirates poured it a bit heavier, but not too far off from what I’m suggesting.

Let’s talk ingredients:

Smith & Cross Jamaican Rum: Rum became the spirit of choice for the Brits around 1680, after their conquest of Jamaica. Jamaican rum remains iconic; the “hogo,” or funk of Jamaica, is unmistakable. I describe it at the bar as the taste of “overripe bananas and feet.” It’s better than it sounds, honest. Use whatever rum you like. I started with some Mount Gay here, but somehow my bottle didn’t last the weekend.

Water: A livelier mixer than water wouldn’t be out of line in 2026. I’d recommend pineapple juice, grapefruit soda, or both. Coca-Cola isn’t great with Jamaican rum.

Limes and Sugar: I have … no idea if I’ll have these available on a desert island in the Caribbean. Sure would be nice, though!

My home bar is currently a sandbar in the middle of the Atlantic. But normally, it’s 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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