Red Top

 

Like Santa's red stocking cap rimmed with white fur, this cocktail is an emblem of holiday celebrations. The recipe is a simple and well-tested one--ordinarily known as the New York Sour back in the days when only New Yorkers floated red wine on top of their egg white Whiskey Sours. 

The difference here is that New York Sours are often on the rocks, while the red top really shows off its two-tone color shift in a Sour glass. The whiskey is rye, and I'm putting my bottle of Rittenhouse to good use. Cheers!

• 1 1/2 oz. rye (Rittenhouse used)
• 1/2 oz. lemon juice
• 1 tsp. sugar syrup
• 1/2 egg white
• 1/2 oz. claret or cabernet sauvignon

Combine all ingredients except red wine in a shaker with ice. Shake to chill and remove the ice. Shake again to aerate and create foam and pour into a chilled Whiskey Sour glass. Using the back of a bar spoon, pour the red win so that it floats on top of the Sour.

Manhattan Cooler

New York has so many cocktails named after it and its many boroughs. And rightly so! After all, this is one of the birthplaces of the cocktail--certainly the Atlantic coast origin of mixed drinks, if not the world's most cocktailing city.

Like all Coolers, the Manhatan Cooler attempts to make a fizzy long drink with soda. And it is fittingly New York in style with a whiskey based Sour drink. Here MurLarkey's Heritage whiskey threads the needle between Bourbon and Rye style whiskey that tastes quintessentially American.

• 1 1/2 oz. blended whiskey (MurLarkey Heritage whiskey used but any blend or straight is fine as long as it is American. 
• 1/2 oz. dry vermouth
• 1/2 oz. amaretto
• 2 oz. lemon juice
• 1 oz. orange juice
• club soda

Combine all ingredients except soda in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a chilled Collins glass full of fresh ice. Top with soda and stir. (Note: I used a classic Sour garnish of a lemon wheel and a cherry.) 

(Heritage) New York Sour

I'm revisiting the New York Sour now that I have a Sour glass and I understand how this drink is intended to be made. That means no ice cubes, with a layer of dry red wine on top. Ice cubes can screw up you wine float, as can a straw with which it is tempting to stir the drink. Using the Sour glass almost guarantees the drinking experience will be consistent with each cocktail: you have to drink through the dry wine to get to the sweetened and sour whiskey.

A typical Whiskey Sour is made with blended whiskey. You won't find peated or rich ryes in the early examples of Sours. So Irish comes to mind, and and Irish-American whiskey like MurLarkey's Heritage is perfect for this occasion.

A note about the float. It is difficult to get a wine to float on a dry cocktail. More sugar might necessary to give the Whiskey Sour beneath enough density to support the wine. I recommend a half ounce of simple syrup--which is fully dissolved--to make sure that you don't get a red Sour.

• 2 oz. blended whiskey (MurLarkey Heritage used)
• 1 1/2 oz. lemon juice
• 1 tsp. sugar (1/2 oz. simple syrup recommended) 
• 1 tbsp. dry red wine

Combine sugar, whiskey and lemon juice in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a chilled Sour glass. Use the back of a teaspoon to float red wine on top.

Manhattan Cooler

What is it with New York drinks and dry red wine? This cocktail reminds me of the New York Sour without the blended whiskey. This, then, is a low ABV cocktail that makes a red wine more palatable for summer drinking. I can't figure out why the gold rum is called for in such a small quantity. I can see using fresh-pressed cane juice rums instead for their distinctive sugar flavor that would add richness to a dry red wine. The one I picked is the Breaux Vinyard cabernet franc.

• 4 oz. dry red wine (cabernet franc used)
• 2 oz. lemon juice
• 1/4 tsp. gold rum (Cruzan 151-proof used)
• 1 tbsp. lemon juice

Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass (or in a chilled highball glass for simplicity's sake). Stir well (and strain into the highball glass if you opted for the mixing glass.) 

Fifth Avenue

Another layered drink, the Fifth Avenue is a nice and easy Pousse-Cafe style cocktail that really would be nice with coffee.

The recipe calls for dark creme de cacao, but I used white because I wanted it to stand out against the layer of apricot brandy, which is also brown. This gives it a sort of candy-corn look, too!

• 1 1/2 oz. creme de cacao (white used)
• 1 1/2 oz. apricot brandy
• 3/4 oz. half-and-half

Pour each ingredient in the order given over the back of a spoon into a Pousse-Cafe glass so that each layor does not mix.

Park Avenue

This is a typical New York cocktail that doesn't mention Manhattan in its name. It turns out that this is one of two of NY drinks use pineapple juice. I'm thinking of the Harlem Cocktail, for instance. Pineapple juice adds foam to what would be a wet Martini. It's not all that original of a drink, but it was probably invented a long time ago when pineapple juice would have seemed exotic. And the cocktail has a certain appeal, very drinkable compared to a wet Martini.

• 2 oz. gin
• 1/2 oz. sweet vermouth
• 1/2 oz. pineapple juice

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

Knicks Victory Cooler (Non-Alcoholic)

Don't know the story behind this mocktail, but it obviously has something to do with a certain New York team. It is a non-alcoholic version of a Bronx Cheer that uses apricot brandy. Apricot nectar is the substitute and the raspberry soda and raspberries are par for the course.

• 2 oz. apricot nectar
• Raspberry soda
• orange peel 
• fresh raspberries

Pour apricot nectar in a chilled Collins glass filled with ice. Top with raspberry soda and stir. Garnish with orange twist and raspberries. 

New Yorker Cocktail

I've said before that New York themed drinks need to be pink. That's a Cosmo with cranberry juice, New York Sour with red wine, and then there's the New York and New Yorker with grenadine. I'm pretty certain that the New Yorker is the blended whiskey version of the rye New York Cocktail. Both are whiskey sour like drinks with grenadine for color and sweetener and a lemon twist, not a cherry.

• 2 oz. blended whiskey (Black Velvet Special Reserve used)
• 1 oz. lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp. grenadine
• 1 tsp. sugar syurp
• lemon twist

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

New World

Something about American whiskey, pomegranate syrup and lime juice makes this drink about the American continents. It does look very modern, not a port cocktail or rum flip, but a lime sour with a ton of tartness and oak.

• 3 oz. American whiskey (Jim Beam used)
• 1 oz. lime juice
• 2 tsp. grenadine
• lime twist

Shake all liquid ingredients in a shaker with ice. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with twist. 

Belmont

I used my homemade raspberry syrup to make the Belmont, a creamy gin drink with raspberry sweetness. Interestingly it was fairly dry for a dessert drink and you almost didn't notice the cream except that it made the drink white. Pink, really... This is a New York cocktail, like the Cosmopolitan and therefore must have a little red coloring of some kind.

Dry gin and homemade raspberry syrup with its jam-like flavor gave the Belmont an old colonial style flavor and mouthfeel. That's why I was glad to use my new coupe glass for this entry. I can't say I liked the Belmont all that much, but I'm not a dessert drink drinker. I tried to pair it with cookies, but it was really dry and spicy, so it might actually do better as a before dinner drink.

• 2 oz. gin
• 1/2 oz. raspberry syrup
• 3/4 oz. half and half

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

Belmont Stakes

I can't explain how long I've been preparing to make this cocktail and thinking about it: how to display it, how to acquire the spirits, which spirits to use... It's been about a month of ruminating; meanwhile the Preakness and Kentucky Derby have already been held. I am excited that the Belmont Stakes (the drink) is a rum cocktail, so it has little to do with southern whiskey.

The Belmont Stakes (the race) is held outside New York at the Belmont racetrack for almost a century. The cocktail that has its namesake is like most other New York cocktails in that it is pink or red. (See Cosmopolitan, Manhattan, New York Sour, New York Cocktail or, The New Yorker) The pink color comes from strawberry syrup and grenadine. For this cocktail I chose to make my own strawberry liqueur: the recipe follows below.

Boil 8-10 large cored and sliced strawberries in a cup of water until the berries are soft and the water has cooked down (about 5 minutes.) Cut heat and add 1/2 cup of fine white sugar and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Using a potato ricer, mash the strawberries until they are pulverized and their juice is extracted. Allow the mixture to cool. Add 1 cup of 100-proof vodka or light rum and stir until evenly combined. Using a fine strainer, remove the strawberry pulp and preserve the liquor and sugar mixture in a clean saleable bottle.

Now the recipe for the cocktail:

• 2 oz. vodka 
• 1 oz. gold rum (Lyon Bijou Batch used)
• 1/2 oz. strawberry liqueur (homemade liqueur used)
• 1/2 oz. lime juice
• 1/2 tsp. grenadine 
• orange slice
• lime wedge
• strawberry

Combine liquid ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with fruit.