Morning Joy

This cocktail belongs in the cannon of breakfast drinks. The Morning Joy is strong, sweet and tropical and accompanies a lot of sweet or savory breakfast dishes. I'll take it over the Mimosa any day.

The recipe relies on banana liqueur and orange juice for flavor and gin for strength. In actuality it is a very strong morning drink. Three ounces of orange juice simply mitigates the alcoholic burn and covers any unpleasant flavors. A creme de bananes will do here, but I used the natural banana flavor of MurLarkey banana whiskey.

There's no sweetness other than orange juice, though. So it might be helpful to sweeten this cocktail to taste. A teaspoon of sugar will help.

• 2 oz. gin (MurLarkey ImaGination gin used.)
• 1 1/2 oz. creme de bananes (MurLarkey banana whiskey used)
• 3 oz. orange juice
• (optional sugar to taste if using unsweetened banana whiskey.)

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

Prairie Oyster

This is the most awful drink I've ever made! Really! And I knew it would be. It must be a bit of a joke or perhaps a hangover cure.

The joke is that there are no oysters on the prairie. The substitution here is egg yolk. Why brandy is even an ingredients, I don't know. I can think of many other spirits that would go down better, but that doesn't seem like the point of this drink.

Take it all down in one gulp and that egg yolk slides down your throat. Then you get vinegar and Tabasco sauce burn. It's a sensation drink, and almost none of them are good.

• 2 oz. brandy
• 1/2 oz red wine vinegar
• 1/2 oz. Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tsp. ketchup
• dash Tabasco sauce
• ground cayenne pepper
• egg yolk

Combine all ingredients except egg yolk and cayenne pepper in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a chilled Old Fashioned glass. Float egg yolk on top and dust with cayenne pepper.

Suffering Bastard

It's a hangover cure, a gin drink, a brandy drink and a ginger beer cocktail. But we should note that Angostura bitters is the main ingredient when it comes to taste. A tablespoon of bitters has an outsize effect on a drink.

My new ginger beer is Cock and Bull, a funny label that indicates that this product is a Moscow Mule mixer. What about a Bastard mixer?

• 2 oz. gin (Strange Monkey used)
• 1 1/2 oz. brandy
• 1/2 oz. lime juice
• 1 tsp. sugar syrup
• 1 tbsp. Angostura bitters
• ginger beer
• cucumber slice
• mint sprig
• lime slice

Coat the inside of a Collins glass with Angostura bitters. Combine gin, brandy, lime juice and sugar in a shaker with ice. Shake and pour into the highball glass and top with ginger beer. Garnish with cucumber, mint and lime.