Death By Aperitif

This was a brunch cocktail I threw together for the spring/summer menu for my old job at Royal Boucherie. I was actually quite proud of this at the time. That particular restaurant cited the cocktail's creator on their menu, and it was great saying, "That's my drink," when people would come in and order it. And it's great to see your name in print.

0.5 oz. London Dry Gin, Tanqueray

1 oz. Aperol

0.5 oz. Lillet Blanc

0.125 oz Absinthe (about 1 barspoon)

2.5 oz Sparkling Wine, Prosecco if available

Add all the ingredients aside from the sparkling wine to a mixing vessel. Fill a small wine glass with ice and add the sparkling wine. Dump the rest of the cocktail over the top and garnish with an orange twist. 

The cocktail combines a Death in the Afternoon and an Aperol Spritz with a little dash of French 75. Both utilize sparkling wine and are delicious midday cocktails. The herbaceous character of the liqueurs and fortified wine compliments the botanical nature of classic gin. The sweetness is light but present. This might differ from that traditional bottomless style cocktail people are used to with brunch, but a slow burn works with many brunch dishes. 

What a Pear

I don't rightly recall the occasion I first made this drink. But it remains absolutely delicious, and any time I have all the ingredients on hand, this is one of my go-to martini builds. It's a beautiful fruity martini with notes of white flowers and pear. 

1.5 oz. Ford's Gin

0.5 oz. Grey Goose La Poire

1 oz. Alessio Bianco Vermouth

2 dashes Hella Co. Orange bitters

Add all of the ingredients to a mixing tin with ice. Stir until well chilled, approximately 18 seconds. Strain into a chilled coupe. Garnish with a lemon twist.

The inspiration for this cocktail came from my dear friend Catherine Manning. Her drink of choice is always a 50/50 martini with Bianco Vermouth. Alessio recently came to our shelves in Pennsylvania and has been gaining notoriety. I wanted to highlight the flavors, bringing a bit of pear and notes of white flowers with the vodka and gin. A bit of citrus oil balances it out, and we have a martini that stays bright and playful any day of the week. Cheers.

Photo Credit: Micah Messinger

Brian's Smokey Pineapple "Margarita"

This is a little number I whipped up for the launch of Red Brick's newest product, Obsidian. Our bar program has always tried to incorporate cocktails that would be easy for consumers to go home and make on their own. Buy our product, swing by the corner store, and you'll have all you need to make more delicious drinks. Clever, keep it simple. 

1.5 oz Red Brick Obsidian White Whiskey
0.5 oz Fresh Lime Juice
0.5 oz Pineapple Juice
0.5 oz Simple Syrup

Rim a cocktail glass with a spice mixture. Shake all the ingredients with ice and double-strain into the rimmed cocktail glass.

To make Cinnamon Spice Mixture:
Mix 2 parts turbinado sugar with 1 part salt and 1 part smoked paprika

It's a margarita spec. Instead of tequila, we are using our new white whiskey. The white whiskey was partially aged in ceramic, a practice done by some mezcal. Our malt house also started producing some smoked grains, and our mash bill incorporated quite a bit. I won't give away all the trade secrets, but this whiskey had many mezcal characteristics. The smokey flavor pairs classically with the pineapple. The lime acid keeps it all in balance. Sweet, smokey, and delicious. 

Strawberry Margarita Jell-O Shots

Here's another one of my quarantine Jell-O shot recipes. It does balance the quality of craft cocktails with the fun, levity, and nostalgia of Jell-O. It's super easy to make and makes a huge difference. I'm never going back in terms of my own creations. Fresh juice and quality spirits always beat out vodka and powder. 

6 oz Jose Cuervo Tradicional Tequila Plata

2 oz Fresh Lime Juice, strained

1 oz Orange Curacao, Pierre Ferrand

1 pack Strawberry Jell-O

8 oz Water

Boil water and add the pack of Jell-O. Stir until dissolved and uniform. Add the remaining ingredients and stir again. Pour into serving cups. 15 to 18 should give you decent portion sizes. Chill in the fridge overnight or until set.

Jell-O has quite a bit of sugar and sweetness, so I tend not to add sugar to Jell-O shots. Acid from fresh juice does really help bring out the potential of Jell-O shot cocktails. It's still classic fun but way more elevated than you got in college. 

Command of Color

This was my first entry into the Van Gogh Art of the Cocktail competition for Chilled Magazine. It's a fantastic competition where they encourage you to explore the art of making drinks. It's clever in the era of Instagram. I won a weekly prize for this submission. We'll see about the finals.

1.5 oz. Van Gogh Pineapple Vodka

0.75 oz. Strawberry infused Campari

1 oz. Acid Adjusted Orange Juice

0.25 oz. Orange Blossom Honey Syrup

Mango Habanero BBQ Sauce

Shake all the ingredients together with ice. Brush a coupe with a couple strokes of Mango Habanero BBQ Sauce. A squeeze bottle will also do the trick. Double-strain the cocktail into the painted coupe. Serve. 

To make Acid Adjusted Orange Juice:

Mix 1 liter of freshly squeezed and strained orange juice with 32 grams of citric acid and 20 grams of malic acid. Stir until mixed and uniform.

To make Homemade Mango BBQ Sauce: 

Brown 1/4 cup of chopped onion in a pan with 2 minced garlic cloves and olive oil. Stew 1/2 tsp grated ginger, 1 1/4 cups peeled, chopped mango (1 whole), 1/2 cup peach nectar, 1/4 cup tomato paste, 2T dark brown sugar, 2T honey, 3T cider vinegar, 1 T molasses, juice of 1 lime, 1.5 t Worcestershire, 1.5 t mustard, and 1 finely diced habanero chile until mango is soft. Blend everything together until creamy and uniform. Store in the fridge for up to 10 days, or boil the sauce to 190 degrees Fahrenheit and store in sterilized jars indefinitely. 

I studied Art and Art History in college but never much cared for the art that came from Van Gogh. His realism and perspective were always completely out of sorts. The Doctor Who episode "Vincent and the Doctor" drilled home a bit about the artist himself. If you haven't seen it, watch it. You will weep. The color orange was used prominently in Van Gogh's work, from the sunflowers to his own hair in self-portraits. As a hobby during quarantine, I took up hot sauce making, and that mango habanero balance works beautifully. Bringing out that sweetness of tropical fruits with a light tingle of heat has been a joy at every step. 

Loaded Dice

This was my entry for the Patron Perfectionists Tour. It is about consistency in the culinary and beverage world and how fresh ingredients are inconsistent. This cocktail was my attempt to help flatten the curve. 

1.5 oz. Patron Reposado

0.5 oz. Amaro Sfumato Rabarbaro

0.75 oz. Acid Adjusted Pineapple juice

0.75 oz. Orange Blossom Honey Syrup

Add all the ingredients to a shaker tin. Add ice and shake thoroughly. Double strain into a large rocks glass with a large carved cube.

To make Acid Adjusted Pineapple Juice:

To every 100g of pineapple juice, add 4.5g citric acid and 0.7g malic acid. Stir vigorously to dissolve the powder. Shake the solution lightly before each use.

To make Honey Syrup:

Mix Dutch Gold Orange Blossom Honey with an equal weight of boiling water and stir until uniform.

This drink was inspired by every molecule's randomness or lack of predictability. The fermentation tanks of the Patron distillery are open and surrounded by countless varieties of plant life that produce different strains of wild yeast. Each strain will create a different character. Even every piece of fruit will be unique. Two pineapples from the same tree can have wildly different sugar contents and acidity. This just won't do for a competition called Perfectionist. I aim to erase chance and balance flavors as I see fit. Craft comes from taking what nature gives you and using it to create a consistent quality product.

The Dutch Gold Honey comes from a local apiary as well.

New Blood

This is a cocktail I made for the Make It Exotico Competition. It's a lovely balance of sweet, bitter, and sour. It's fairly low alcohol by volume compared to a lot of my other cocktails. Nothing too complicated or fancy. All the ingredients are readily available at any liquor or grocery store. cheers. 

1 1/2 oz. Exotico Blanco

1/2 oz. Cynar

1/2 oz. Grapefruit Juice

1/4 oz. Fresh Lemon Juice

1/2 oz. Agave Nectar

3/4 oz. Blood Orange Soda

Add all the ingredients aside from the soda to a mixing tin with ice. Shake until well chilled. Double strain into a large rocks or collins glass with ice. Top with the blood orange soda. Garnish with a quarter slice of grapefruit.

Upon recent reflection, I'm starting to see why this kind of cocktail doesn't garner much attention. It's not incorporating some exotic juice or homemade syrup or liqueur. That said it's actually pretty tasty and very easy for a home bartender to whip up at home or even batch into a punch.

"They drew first blood!"
- Frank Reynolds

Garden of the Butterflies

This was the first cocktail I got on the menu at my old job at Royal Boucherie in Old City, Philadelphia. It was a staple on the summer cocktail menu and stayed there for a bit over 3 months. It was a lovely, refreshing floral take on a margarita. 

1.5 Tequila

0.5 Lemon Sage Shrub

0.5 Fresh Lime Juice

0.5 St Germain

Butterfly Pea Tea

Add the tequila, shrub, juice, and liqueur to a shaker tin. Shake with ice and strain into a highball glass filled with crushed ice. Top with butterfly pea tea.

To make Butterfly Pea Tea:
Add 24 flowers to a quart container. Fill the container with boiling water. Let that sit for 3 minutes. Strain out the flowers and press them to extract all the tea.

To make Lemon Sage Shrub:
Slice a series of lemons into a fish tray with the skin on. Cover the lemons with white sugar equal to the weight of the lemons in layers, making sure to thoroughly coat the lemons on all sides. Toss in one sprig of sage for every 2 lemons. Let that sit overnight to extract the oil from the lemon skin. Add champagne vinegar to the mixture in equal weight to the lemons and sugar. Muddle the lemons slightly to extract the juice. Add the mixture to a pan on low heat. Muddle and mix until the sugar is dissolved and the liquid is uniform. Run through a chinois and mash the solids to extract all the liquid possible. Store in an airtight refrigerated space.

The inspiration for this really came out of nowhere. My fiance loves very citrusy cocktails. I wanted a citrusy floral cocktail. I played with gin at first, but tequila or sotol really made the drink pop a bit more and stand out from some other generic floral gin cocktails. The pea tea adds a bit of tannin, but the real selling point is the color. We had some St. Germain branded glassware, which made this cocktail look just like a flower and its stem. It happened a lot where I would make one of these, and it would catch the eye of someone at the bar, and then that's 3 more drinks to make.

"We must cultivate our own garden. When man was put in the garden of Eden he was put there so that he should work, which proves that man was not born to rest."

- Voltaire