Cherry Bomb (Original Recipe)

 

I wanted a rich Manhattan that would strike you as a winter-into-spring type of drink. My idea was to mash up a perfect Manhattan with a brandy cocktail similar to the KGB but with black cherry as the dominant flavor. 

It works really well with 99 Black Cherries and my homemade cherry blossom bitters (Yes. Made with steeped cherry blossoms.) There's no trick to this drink. Make it like a perfect Manhattan and add the additional ingredients.

• 3 oz. rye whiskey (Founding Spirits Rye used)
• 1/2 oz. sweet vermouth (Punt E Mes used)
• 1/2 oz. dry vermouth (Dolin used)
• 1/2 oz. 99 Blackcherries
• 3 dashes of cherry blossom bitters
• Luxardo cherry garnish
  

Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass with ice. Stir and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Drop the cherry and a little of the syrup into the drink.

Satan's Whiskers (Enroulee)

 

This Difford's Guide recipe changes the replaces Grand Marnier in the classic Satan's Whiskers with Mandarine Napoleon. It's not a major change, but the effect is a lighter orange note in a fortified wine and gin cocktail. 

Mandarine Napoleon is similar to Grand Marnier in that it is an orange cognac spirit, but while Grand Marnier has chocolatey and singed orange peel notes, Mandarine Napoleon has a grape spirit and juicy mandarin flavor with hints of baking spice. I consider this a drink of necessity--the necessity being that you want it but you don't have Grand Marnier. I also don't have Mandarine Napoleon except that I made a knock off spirit by infusing real mandarin in cognac. 

• 1 1/2 oz. dry gin (homemade used)
• 1/2 oz. dry vermouth
• 1/2 oz.  sweet vermouth
• 1/2 oz. Mandarine Napoleon (homemade used)
• 1/4 oz. orange juice
• 2 dashes Angostura bitters
• orange twist rolled up like a curly mustache. 

Combine liquid ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Twist the orange zest tightly and lay it on the rim like a twisted whisker. 

Crazy Crossing

 

This beauty of a cocktail is intentionally French. It calls for Dubonnet rouge, which is an aromatized wine from Paris, but having none, I intentionally went with another French aromatized wine that fits the bill--Byrrh.

I've mixed with Byrrh before and found it a little softer than Dubonnet, and a little less fruity. All the fuss about it being made with many kinds of quinine botanicals seems overplayed. Byrrh is mild and floral and adds a lovely rouge color as well.

This is the first time I've mixed with Citadelle gin from France, and I have to say it has such a fresh botanical scent and flavor. Eighteen botanicals puts it in league with the Botonist from Scotland or Glendalough gin from Ireland, and it has that same kind of freshness I associate with the UK gins. I don't know if Citadelle is unfiltered, but I would assume that its brightness comes from not filtering away the brightest juniper and citrus notes.

The cocktail? This is a very French version of a Martinez. An impressive gin and several kinds of sweet and dry vermouth as well as Mandarine Napoleon to give it rich cognac and spiced mandarin orange notes instead of using orange bitters. In fact, it is a Martinez down to the maraschino liqueur, which I love.

• 1 1/2 oz. gin (Citadelle used)
• 3/4 oz. Dubonnet rouge (Byrrh used)
  
• 3/4 oz. dry vermouth (Dolin used)
• 1/3 oz. maraschino liqueur (Luxardo used)
• 1/12 Mandarine Napoleon (homemade used)
• maraschino cherry (Bada Bing used)

Combine liquid ingredients in a mixing glass with ice. Stir and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a speared cherry. 

Grand Slam

 

I can't believe I've never tried this cocktail before, much less heard of it. Given how much I like Swedish punsch, you'd think the idea of a perfect punsch Manhattan would be way up on my to-drink list. 

This cocktail as I experienced was very close to a Manhattan because I used a Swedish Punsch recipe that I came up with on the fly. It is basically a cup of dark rum and a half cup each of MurLarkey distillery three tea whiskey and lemon whiskey. This mix sits on lemon slices and cardamon and cloves for three days and is later sweetened with a quarter cup of sugar syrup. 

So the Grand Slam is that Sweet Manhattan experience we are looking for in the winter, but anytime you have some Swedish punsch around, you should try it. 

• 1 1/2 oz. Swedish punsch (homemade with MurLarkey products version used)
• 1 oz. sweet vermouth
• 1 oz. dry vermouth

Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass with ice. Stir and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. 

Boomerang (Swedish Punsch Version)

The Boomerang that I know is a Martini variation with a dash of Angoastura bitters and maraschino liqueur. This is more of a Manhattan variation. There's rye, dry vermouth, and Swedish punsch, which is a rum-based spirit with spices and citrus. (Note: the bottle pictured is actually my own recipe for Swedish punch, not the name on the lable.) The punsch added a sweetness that I was not accustomed to in a dry Manhattan, and it was a welcome change that made this cocktail unusual and more international than the standard New York drink. This is another cocktail recipe that I came across in researching Swedish punch and does not appear in any recipe book I've used.

• 1 oz. rye (North Fork rye used)
• 1 oz. dry vermouth (Dolin used)
• 1 oz. Swedish punshc (homemade used)
• 1 dash lemon juice
• 1 dash angostura bitters

Combine all ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Bourbon Rose #2

 

Rose cocktails are numerous. I'm a little surprised that this is my first Bourbon Rose variation. The majority of Rose cocktails are a combination of a spirit, grenadine and lime juice. They have a brilliant red color that is cloudy from juice and the color of whatever spirit you chose. The Bourbon Rose #1 is one such drink. This is a deeper rouge colored Rose owing to the creme de cassis and there is (quite contradictory to typical Rose recipes) dry vermouth. 

Another unusual thing about this cocktail, and it is fitting that it is a bourbon drink, is that it is served on the rocks. Bourbon drinks are often re-worked recipes designed to appeal to southern drinkers. It's unlikely that southern men, for instance, would find a long-stemmed glass an appealing way to consume their favorite spirit. 

• 1 1/2 oz. bourbon (Evan William's bonded used)
• 1/2 oz. creme de cassis (G.E. Massenez used)
• 1/2 oz. dry vermouth (Dolin extra dry used)
• 1/4 oz. lemon juice

Combine all ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake and pour into an Old Fashioned glass. 

Swiss Manhattan

 

 

I love a good Manhattan, but sometimes they are too rich for summer sipping. This Swiss version has the dry vermouth of a summer Dry Manhattan with equally dry cocoa whiskey. Kirschwasser and a cherry suggest a chocolate covered cherry, but there's none of the sweetness you associate with chocolate drinks. 

That is because MurLarkey cocoa whiskey is white whiskey rested on bitter cocoa nibs. It is just as strong as whiskey with a bitter chocolate finish. 

I was disappointed with the New American Bartender's Guide recipe that not only didn't have chocolate, but included such a small proportion of whiskey. I've simply upped the size of the drink by adding cocoa whiskey, but kirschwasser does not add the sweetness that this old recipe anticipates--not the real kirschwasser, anyway. A few drops of sugar is preferable in the large size recipe. 

• 1 1/2 oz. bourbon
• 1 1/2 oz. MurLarkey cocoa whiskey
• 1/2 oz. dry vermouth
  
• 1/2 oz. kirschwasser
• several dashes aromatic bitters (Hella used)
• maraschino cherry

Combine all liquid ingredients in a mixing glass with ice. Stir and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with the cherry. 

Rue de Rivoli

The famous street in Paris that runs beside the Louvre and Sainte Chapelle and offers views of the Cathedral Notre Dame is the namesake of this cocktail. I don't know what that has to do with oranges, but there's plenty of orange in this cocktail.

More and more, I'm deciding that some whiskey drinks, especially when they are mostly wine or juice-heavy ingredient lists, do not need rich or characterful whiskies. Instead, you can assume that the point of the cocktail is the juicy flavors and that the whiskey you use can bolster those. In this case, I added MurLarkey orange whiskey to go with the orange juice and citrus in the wine spirits.

• 1 oz. whiskey (MurLarkey orange whiskey used)
• 1 oz. dry vermouth (Carpano dry used)
• 1 oz. Dubonnet Rouge
• 1 oz. orange juice
• orange slice

Combine liquid ingredients in a mixing glass full of ice. Stir and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with the orange slice. 

Bal Harbor Cocktail

This cocktail's name refers to the harbor with its twin islands off the cost of Miami. The combination of dry vermouth, rye and grapefruit juice is as dry as a Miami beach. Grapefruit juice appears in other Miami cocktails as well, including the Miami Beach!

Catoctin Creek makes this single barrel rye that is very traditional--you can taste the organic grain with no wine barrel finish like many ryes are doing lately. You notice the rye's dryness when the other ingredients are similarly dry.

• 1 1/2 oz. rye (Catoctin Creek Roundstone rye)
• 1/2 oz. dry vermouth 
• 1 oz. grapefruit juice
• maraschino cherry

Combine liquid ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Drop the cherry into the glass. 

Washington Cocktail

You can tell the colonial style of this cocktail with its use of brandy and its outsized proportion of dry vermouth. Our founding fathers liked their brandy and fortified wines, and they combined them often. This still manages to be a lower ABV cocktail if that is your thing. It doesn't lack in flavor, though, with Angostura bitters and herbal vermouth.

• 1 oz. brandy
• 2 oz. dry vermouth
• 1/2 tsp. sugar syrup (demerara used)
• dash Angostura bitters

Combine all ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. 

Beadlestone

I can appreciate such a vermouth heavy cocktail since I returned from Europe, where a Martini is just vermouth on ice. It was savory to enjoy dry vermouth in such a large quantity with just hints of oak and peat coming through to sweeten it up in the finish. Vermouth takes some getting used to, but once you start enjoying it like wine, than you think of vermouth cocktails as wine cocktails and taste them for their grape flavors.

• 2 oz. scotch (Barrelhound used)
• 1 1/2 oz. dry vermouth

Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass with ice. Stir and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. 

Delmonico

Carpano Antica Formula made for a very rich rendition of this cocktail named after Delmonico Steak in New York, which was a cocktail haven a century ago. It's basically a Perfect Martini with the addition of brandy, which makes it richer and more of a treat than a spicy dry drink. I was surprised how much I could taste both the grape flavor of the dry vermouth and bitter bite of the Antica vermouth.

• 1 1/2 oz. gin
• 1 oz. brandy
• 1/2 dry vermouth
• 1/2 sweet vermouth
• 2 dashes angostura bitters
• lemon twist

Combine all ingredients except twist in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Darb

Darb is a drink I've been looking forward to trying for a long time. It's spicy and sweet with lots of wine and apricot brandy flavors. I don't know where it gets its name, but it is similar and yet better than most gin and apricot brandy cocktails. Very enjoyable.

• 1 1/2 oz. gin
• 1 oz. apricot brandy
• 1 oz. dry vermouth
• 1/2 oz. lemon juice

Combine all ingredient with ice in a shaker. Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. 

Zanzibar

I like that the most tropical thing about this drink is the relaxed recipe. You can use two ounces of dry vermouth, but use three if you feel like it. I mean, what difference does it make when you are having a dry gin drink in Tanzania? I really like how the cocktail has a lot of grape flavor from so much vermouth. It's like the lemon juice, gin and bitters are all additional flavoring for the wine in a very wine-heavy drink.

• 2 or 3 ounces of dry vermouth
• 1 oz. gin
• 3/4 oz. lemon juice
• 1 tsp. sugar syrup or to taste
• several dashes of bitters (use a little or a lot. Or none at all. It's up to you. Whatever.)
• lemon twist

Combine all ingredients except lemon twist in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon.