Pavilion Caprice Cooler

This cocktail has a charming name. It is appropriately whimsical and suggests a luxurious escape to the shade on a hot day.

The original Pavilion Caprice recipe calls for peach flavored brandy. I could have used apricot brandy, but I think that the intense peach flavor of Bird Dog peach whiskey is more suited to balance the grapefruit juice and lemon.

I'm impressed by the balance in this cocktail. I rarely come across flavor combinations that surprise me anymore. I expected a peaches and cream flavor. Instead, the Pavilion Caprice comes across as exotic with grapefruit juice and peaches rising and falling away from the tongue in a delightful way.

• 1/2 oz. honey
• 4 oz. grapefruit juice
• 1/2 oz. lemon juice
• 1 1/2 oz. peach brandy (Bird Dog peach whiskey used)
• 1 egg white

Combine all ingredients in a blender. Blend to combine without ice to incorporate the honey. Add ice and blend until smooth and pour into a chilled Squall glass or brandy snifter.

Pancho Villa

The raider of New Mexico was deadly and so is is namesake drink. There's so much booze in this cocktail that I wondered if it was a misprint. There's 2 oz. of rum, one of gin and about another 1.5 oz. of miscellaneous spirits and almost no juice, that you know not to mess with Pancho.

I took the opportunity to try out the new Vitae spirits I bought from Charlottesville, Virginia. Vitae makes a platinum rum with great flavor that tastes much like fresh cane juice. It is an excellent tiki cocktail addition. Then they have the only molasses-based gin in the U.S. with a fun aromatic scent and the flavor of local hardy oranges. The drink is further exoticized with apricot brandy and cherry brandy. I opted for kirschwasser for the latter for color consistency and the rummy flavor of kirsch that sweet cherry brandy doesn't have.

• 2 oz. light rum (Vitae platinum used)
• 1 oz. gin (Vitae modern gin used)
• 1 oz. apricot brandy 
• 1 tbsp. cherry brandy (Kammer Kirsch used)
• 1 tbsp. pineapple juice

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

Corn And Oil (Smuggler's Cove Recipe)

Corn And Oil is a recipe from Martin Cate's book on Smuggler's Cove rum drinks. According to Kate this is a traditional Barbados recipe and must be done with Barbados blended and aged rum. There's not much else to it: John D. Taylor falernum and Angostura bitters. The trick is to make a swizzle in an Old Fashioned glass. This must be done with lots of crushed ice to get that frosted glass you can see in the photo above. See the recipe below.

• 2 oz. blended and aged Barbados rum
• 1/2 oz. falernum (homemade falernum used)
• 2-4 dashes Angostura bitters

Build drink in a double Old Fashioned glass and pack to the top with crushed ice. Stir until frost forms on the outside of the glass.