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I saw a post recently asking what everyone’s favorite liqueurs were. But there are so many amazing choices out there- how can I settle for a single favorite?! Or even ten?! That said, Benedictine is absolutely up there on the top of my list! In 1510, the Benedictine monk Dom Bernardo Vincelli created the recipe for this amazing French liqueur. It called for 27 plants and spices, the three main ingredients being Angelica, Hyssop, and Lemon Balm. It tastes like an herbal, honey brandy and can be drunk neat or mixed in some great cocktails. This is one of those great cocktails! The Rye and Benedictine perfectly compliment each other. The sweet vermouth gives it just a bit of sweet bitterness and emphasizes the botanical flavors present in the Benedictine. Bitters are often used to balance or enhance a particular flavor in a cocktail and in this case the Angostura bitters help provide that balance. This is essentially a Manhattan with Benedictine but damn adding the liqueur really changes the tone of the drink!

Barware

Bar Spoon

Mixing Glass

Jigger

Hawthorne Strainer

Ingredients

2 oz Willett Rye Whiskey

.75 Carpano Antica Sweet Vermouth

.25 DOM Benedictine

2 dashes Angostura bitters

Directions

Combine ingredients with a cup and half ice and stir for 30-45 seconds

Strain into a coupe glass.

Garnish with a Luxardo Maraschino cherry.

I love a good Rye – based cocktail. I mean what’s not to love, right?! And we used one of my favorite Rye whiskeys, Sazerac Rye, in this one. The cocktail is balanced and spirit-forward with a smooth finish. An easy cocktail to slip into the week with. Happy Monday, my friends! Cheers!

Barware

Cocktail Shaker

Hawthorne Strainer

Jigger

Knife

Juicer

Cutting Board

Ingredients

1.5 oz Rye Whiskey (Sazerac)

.75 oz Dry Vermouth (Carpano)

.75 oz fresh lemon juice

.5 Grenadine from Cam Lee Crafted

2 dashes orange bitters

Directions

Cut and juice .5 oz of lemon juice

Shake all ingredients with a cup and half of ice for 10-15 seconds

Strain into a pre-chilled coupe glass.

Garnish with orange peel.

Let’s talk Rums. Or more specifically, let’s talk Zacapa Rum. This delightful rum is crafted in Guatemala and has become a favorite in our house. Bryan’s family is from Guatemala originally and so wayyy back when he first raved about Zacapa, I thought maybe a bit of bias was showing. After all, Guatemala isn’t exactly known for rums, right? But well…they are now because this rum is everything! Seriously, these bottles go fast in our house! When we were deciding on a cocktail to make, we had a craving for Zacapa and wanted to build the cocktail around the rum. For inspiration, we turned to the PDQ Cocktail Book and found the Professor recipe. The only change made was that we substituted Zacapa 23 for the rum and Carvalhas 10 year for the Tawney port.

Barware

Bar Spoon

Mixing Glass

Jigger

Hawthorne Strainer

Ingredients

2 oz Zacapa 23 Rum

.75 Quinta Das Carvalhas Tawny Port 10 year

.5 Carpano Antica Sweet Vermouth

1 dash Angostura bitters

1 dash Orange bitters

Directions

Stir all ingredients with a cup and half of ice for 30 seconds

Strain into a pre-chilled coupe.

Garnish with an orange twist.

Sit back and enjoy as this is a tasty sipper indeed!

When made with good, fresh ingredients and a beautiful gin, the gin smash is such a lovely refreshing, crisp sip that really can’t be outdone. As a result, that’s what we were going for – to get back to basics, highlight the gin and the fresh ingredients and enjoy this delightful cocktail. Sipping it made me smile.

Barware

Cocktail Shaker

Hawthorne Strainer

Jigger

Knife

Juicer

Cutting Board

Mesh Strainer

Muddler

Ingredients

2 oz Gin (Fords Gin)

.5 oz fresh lemon juice

.5 oz simple syrup

6-8 basil leaves to muddle and 1 to garnish

1 long cucumber slice and 4 round slices to muddle

Indian Tonic (Fever-Tree)

Directions

Cut and juice .5 oz of lemon juice

Muddle the cucumber and basil with the lemon juice in your shaker.

Add a cup and half of ice to the shaker and shake and the remaining ingredients vigorously for 15-20 seconds.

Add a long slice of cucumber around the inside of your glass.

Double strain the drink into the glass over crushed ice.

Top off with tonic and garnish with basil.

The straw is a really cool single-use straw that is 100% biodegradable, made from wheat stems. It is a great alternative to plastic when you’re looking for something disposable. They are made by Hay Straws.

When the hibiscus in the garden starts to bloom, you know it’s time to break out the hibiscus syrup from Cam Lee Crafted. We started with a bourbon base and I have been loving this bottle of Redemption lately (maybe a little too much judging by how little is left in the bottle). The lemon hibiscus syrup perfectly complimented the bourbon adding just a touch of sweetness and floral citrus. Now we aren’t strangers to mixing bourbon and amaro…truly a favorite combo in our house! For this cocktail, we chose to use the Ramazzotti because, in addition to typical amaro herbal sweetness and bitter notes, it has an orange peel flavor that we thought would complement the citrus notes of the cocktail. And it did! Absolutely perfectly! The freshly squeezed lemon juice rounded off the cocktail, adding a sour note to balance the drink.

Barware

Cocktail Shaker

Hawthorne Strainer

Jigger

Knife

Juicer

Cutting Board

Ingredients

2 oz Bourbon (Redemption Whiskey)

.5 oz  Ramazotti

.5 oz lemon hibiscus syrup (Cam Lee Crafted)

.5 oz fresh lemon juice

Directions

Cut and juice .5 oz of lemon juice

Add all ingredients to your cocktail shaker

Shake all ingredients with a cup and half of ice

Strain into a rocks glass over large ice cubes. Garnish with hibiscus.

The gorgeous rocks glass is from Arc Cardinal

Great cocktail shaker from Borohoro Barware

Cheers!

A Cynar Negroni. I don’t know when or where we first heard about this riff on a Negroni but from the first time we tried it, we were hooked. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love a standard Negroni also but substituting Cynar for Campari gives it an added herbal complexity that I love!

If you’re not familiar with Campari and Cynar, they are both Italian aperitivi that embodies a sweet, bitter herbal flavor. The difference is primarily that Campari is an infusion of fruits and Cynar is derived from 13 herbs, and predominately from artichokes. The result of the change in a Negroni is subtle, yet fascinating.

If you are interested in pushing up the bitterness as well as giving this cocktail an extra punch, try using Cynar 70. Cynar 70 is the high proof version of Cynar with a much more intense flavor than the original.

Barware

Bar Spoon

Mixing Glass

Jigger

Hawthorne Strainer

Ingredients

1 oz Gin (Plymouth Gin)

1 oz Cynar

1 oz Carpano Antica Sweet Vermouth

Directions

Stir ingredients in a mixing glass with a cup and half of ice for 30 seconds

Pour over one large clear ice cube.

Garnish with an orange peel.

I’m totally doing my “it’s my weekend” dance in between sips of this fantastic cocktail! Bryan mixed this one up for me and I’ve told him to just keep ‘em coming! Happy weekend, everyone!

Barware

Cocktail Shaker

Hawthorne Strainer

Jigger

Knife

Juicer

Cutting Board

Ingredients

2 oz Gin (Plymouth Gin)

.75 oz St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur

.75 oz fresh lemon juice

.5 oz Creme Yvette

(Some recipes call for simple syrup also but it’s really not needed. We chose not to add it.)

Directions

Cut and juice .75 oz of lemon juice

Add all ingredients with ice to a shaker.

Shake and strain into a coupe glass.

Garnish with a garden flower for beauty.

Orange Whips or Creamsicle drinks seem to be a trend lately so of course, we had to try it! It’s a fun drink and I love experimenting!

Barware

Cocktail Shaker

Hawthorne Strainer

Jigger

Knife

Juicer

Cutting Board

Ingredients

1.5 oz Rhum Clement Martinique Rum

1 oz Fabrizia Limoncello Crema di Limoncello

1 oz half and half

3 oz freshly squeezed Navel orange juice

.5 oz Solerno Blood Orange Liqueur

Directions

Shake ingredients with ice and pour into your cocktail glass.

Garnish with dried orange wheels

 I love a good scotch and this Laphroaig is so perfectly layered with flavors of smoke and earth. I’ve read other reviews that talk about a seaweed flavor on the front of the sip; however, I’ve always likened it more to a mossy hillside. In this cocktail, it brings a powerful base and notes of vanilla and peat. Amaro Nonino adds a balance to the Laphroaig, giving it a slight sweetness and herbal bitterness. If you haven’t tried this Amaro before, I highly recommend it; there’s really nothing else quite like it.

The honey syrup offsets some of the bitters and smoke and brings that sweetness out just a bit more while giving it a smooth feel. There’s a slight lingering honey flavor long after the sip is finished. The cocktail is finished off with some freshly squeezed lemon juice to bring the sour and create unity and balance in the drink. This is the kind of cocktail shared amongst good friends before an intimate dinner or over late night confessions. It’s sipped and enjoyed slowly and creates a warm glow. I’m sharing it from my home to yours…and naming it the Home Warming. Enjoy, friends!

Barware

Cocktail Shaker

Hawthorne Strainer

Jigger

Knife

Juicer

Cutting Board

Ingredients

2 oz Islay Scotch Laphroaig 10

.25 oz Amaro Nonino

.25 oz honey syrup- made from Hoby’s Honey

.25 oz fresh lemon juice

Directions

You probably should shake due to the lemon juice and honey Syrup. I stirred, but for no reason other than I like to stir.

Add all the ingredients to ice and stir. Strain into a glass over a single clear ice cube.

Garnish with half a lemon slice.

There has been such great weather this week! Great weather means time for a great cocktail. Oh and then there was this awesome Spring cocktail! How is your week going? Tell me about the great drinks you have had recently.

Barware

Cocktail Shaker

Hawthorne Strainer

Jigger

Knife

Juicer

Cutting Board

Ingredients

2.5 oz Gin (Citadelle)

.75 oz fresh squeezed red grapefruit juice

.5 oz Carpano Antica sweet vermouth

Directions

Cut and juice .75 ounces of red grapefruit.

Add all ingredients with about 1.5 cups of ice into your cocktail shaker and shake vigorously for 10-15 second.

Strain into your fancy cocktail glass.

Garnish with garden flowers and a glass straw from Surfside Sips.

Sometimes I just get a craving for a specific spirit or liqueur or combination or bitter or whatever. A craving is a craving I guess! Last night’s craving was for Mezcal. Until I got home and saw the bottle of Green Chartreuse staring at me. So then I told Bryan to please make us a cocktail with Mezcal and Chartreuse because I couldn’t decide which to start with. And that’s how I found myself sipping on an Oaxaca Last Word (Sometimes known as a Mezcal Last Word)- an amazing, smokey delight that is essentially a Last Word with Mezcal as the main spirit.

I was so enjoying my cocktail that I never even noticed when Skeletor began stalking us! Thankfully his reflection in my drink gave away his position and alerted us to his presence!

Barware

Cocktail Shaker

Hawthorne Strainer

Jigger

Knife

Juicer

Cutting Board

Ingredients

.75 oz Mezcal (Montelobos)

.75 oz Green Chartreuse

.75 oz Maraschino Liqueur

.75 oz fresh lime juice

Directions

Shake all ingredients with ice and strain into a glass.

No garnish needed.

After days of rain, clouds, and chill, the sunshine is finally peeking through. It’s the perfect day for a little espresso cocktail on the porch.

Barware

Bar Spoon

Mixing Glass

Jigger

Hawthorne Strainer

Ingredients

1.25 oz Willett Rye

.5 oz Amaro Montenegro

.25 oz Homemade espresso syrup

The espresso syrup was made using  2 parts Chameleon Cold Brew and 1 part organic cane sugar reduced till it becomes a 1:1 ratio

Directions

Add all ingredients to the mixing glass with a cup and half of ice and stir for 30

It’s Monday and that requires a special kind of cocktail. For me, Monday requires something smooth, celebratory (hey making it through the day is cause for celebration!), and fun. This Monday cocktail is one we’ve been working on perfecting all week…and let me tell you, it rocks! We were building it around a bottle of blood orange flavored @fabrizia_limoncello which is amazing just by itself! Combined with some of my favorite bitter liqueurs- Amaro & Cappelletti, it really shined! Watch out Monday, we’re ready!

Barware

Bar Spoon

Mixing Glass

Jigger

Hawthorne Strainer

Ingredients

1 oz Blood Orange Fabrizia Limoncello

.5 oz Cappelletti

.5 oz Amaro dell’Etna

.25 oz fresh lemon juice

Directions

Stir all ingredients with ice.

Add a block of clear ice to an old fashioned glass and strain the liquids into the glass.

Garnish with dried orange.

I’m not even gonna lie…it’s been a long week. Not necessarily bad, just long and busy. I couldn’t be happier for the weekend and finding the perfect cocktail to sit back, relax and sip. AND I was craving a little absinthe in my life. It’s been a while since I broke it out and it was definitely missed. And then I found this delightful cocktail recipe on the Kindred Cocktails Website.

Barware

Bar Spoon

Mixing Glass

Jigger

Hawthorne Strainer

Ingredients

1.5 oz Gin (Citadelle)

1 oz St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur

.5 oz Domaine de Canton Ginger Liqueur

Absinthe rinse

Directions

Stir top 3 ingredients with ice.

Add and Absinthe rinse in the glass, then strain liquids into the glass.

I’m loving clear ice lately so it was a must but the recipe calls for just using a chilled glass.

The Lucien Gaudin cocktail is named after a former Olympic Fencer. Lucien became the most decorated French medalist in Olympic history and this cocktail is the perfect tribute to him. It is sharp, crisp and delicious! Drink up, my friends!

Barware

Bar Spoon

Mixing Glass

Jigger

Hawthorne Strainer

Ingredients

1 oz gin (St George Spirits)

.5 oz Campari

.5 oz Cointreau

.5 oz Carpano Dry Vermouth

Directions

Stir ingredients with ice and strain into a coupe glass. Garnish with an orange peel.

The glassware is from Arc Cardinal

I adore Amaro so I’m always looking for new recipes, new ways to use it in cocktails and new varieties…which is why I am loving a cocktail book I picked up called Amaro by BT parsons. I saw this recipe and that it called for a maple simple syrup and knew immediately I had to try it! Omg, the syrup is phenomenal! I did have to adjust the recipe some as I found the syrup to be overpowering and I wanted to really taste the bourbon and Cynar as well. This cocktail perfectly balances bitter, sweet and sour – I will definitely be making this again!

Ingredients

1.5 oz Bourbon (I used Jefferson’s Wood Experiment Collection No.3)

.5 oz Cynar

.75 oz fresh lemon juice

.25oz Joey Sunshine’s Maple Simple Syrup (Note- the recipe calls for .5 oz but I found this too overpowering and reduced the syrup)

.5 oz St Elizabeth Allspice Dram

1 Luxardo Maraschino cherry

Joey Sunshine’s Maple Syrup

2 cups maple syrup

1 cup water

.5 tbsp black peppercorn

.5 tbsp fennel seeds (I didn’t have this so it was left out of the syrup I made)

.5 tbsp cloves

.5 tbsp allspice berries (I didn’t have berries and just added a dash of allspice instead)

.5 nutmeg

1 anise star pod

1 bay leaf

Bring all ingredients to a boil and then remove from the heat. Stir and let sit until cool.

Directions

Combine ingredients in a shaker with ice. Strain into a rocks glass over ice.

Garnish with lemon peel and a Luxardo Maraschino cherry.

This riff on a Cosmo (The Dale DeGroff Cosmo) balances the sweetness with the Cappelletti’s more herbal, citrusy, bitter notes.

Barware

Cocktail Shaker

Hawthorne Strainer

Jigger

Knife

Ingredients

1.5 oz Absolut Citron

1 oz Cappelletti

1 oz cranberry juice cocktail

.5 oz Cointreau

.25 oz lime juice

Directions

Shake all ingredients together with ice and strain into your glass.