Oh, Cicilie! (Difford's Guide Recipe)

What a lovely rocks sipping cocktail! Part Negroni and part Old Fashioned, this drink combines the bitter citrus of sweet Italian Amaro and French Amer Picon with spicy angostura bitters and gin.  Of course I've made a lot of these ingredients, like the Amer Picon, of course, and a dry gin. I'm also showing off Don Ciccio & Figili's Ambrosia. This is a nice stand-in for Aperol, but has a more honeyed citrus flavor. 

The cocktail drinks like an Old Fashioned, but the richness and spice of that classic drink opens up in the sip to citrus bitterness and honey. I love the thoughtful addition of a grapefruit twist, which really offsets the bitter orange of the Amer Picon. As stiff as Oh, Cicilie! is, I can see it being a nice afternoon aperitif cocktail, something to wet your appetitie for dinner. 

• 1 1/2 oz. dry gin (homemade used)
• 3/4 oz. Aperol (Don Ciccio & Figili Ambrosia used)
• 3/4 oz. sweet vermouth (Cocchi di Torino used)
• 1/4 oz. Amer Picon (homemade used)
  
• 1 dash Angostura bitters
• grapefruit zest

Combine all liquid ingredients in a mixing glass full of ice. Stir and strain into a chilled Old Fashioned glass full of fresh ice. Twist the grapefruit zest over the glass and drop it in. 

 

Messianic Cocktail (Difford's Guide Recipe)

 

The name of this cocktail is quizzical: how is a cocktail related to followers of a messiah? Maybe it has to do with the spices and fruits that were often used in the Holy Land two thousand years ago. Cloves and ginger might have scented oils for anointment. In cocktail form, this blessing attains these flavors by infused spirits as well as a little muddling of the clove directly into the mixture. 

I've infused cloves, cooked them into teas and syrups, and used them as garnishes. This is the first cocktail I've made that involves muddling cloves. More on that later. The rest of the ingredients, ginger liqueur and Grand Marnier (or in this case Royal Combier) are spiced to make them more exotic. But we have grown accustomed to these ingredients in our cocktails. Clove really sent this drink's profile in a new, richer direction. 

You get clove on the nose and rich baking spices on the sip. This is followed up by oaky rum notes and finishes dry with cloves and orange. I'll be doing this trick again soon.

• 1 dried clove
• 2 oz. Haitian rum (Barbancourt 5-years used)
• 1/4 oz. ginger liqueur (homemade ginger brandy used)
  
• 3/4 oz. Grand Marnier (Royal Combier used)
• orange zest twist. 

Add clove and all liquid ingredients to a mixing glass and muddle to break up the clove. Add ice and stir to chill before fine straining into a chilled cocktail glass. Twist the orange zest over the glass and drop it in. 

Mr. Dogma (Difford's Guide Recipe)

 

Mr. Dogma is a long drink that has dispirit parts that seemingly wouldn't work well together. Orange and lemon juice with a bitter liqueur, rich dark rum and sweet vermouth. It seems that the gamble pays off when you mix up this drink and put it under a spiral slice of lemon and a flower. 

The result is a strange experience, like a tiki drink crossed with some classic cocktail from the early 1900s. The flavor swings from citrus to bitterness to sweetness and spice. Some of the flavors are almost floral because of the herbal infusion, which the flower hints at. But this bodacious drink lasts a while and is perfect for slow sipping. 

A quick note: a rich sweet vermouth like Cocchi is a good call here. You don't want to taste wine, you want herbs. Also, my Amer Picon is a special recipe involving Rammazzotti, Combier and orange bitters that I made with MurLarkey Justice white whiskey. 

• 1 2/3 oz. aged dark rum (George Bowman used)
• 1/3 oz. aged sweet vermouth (Cocchi di Torino used)
• 1/3 oz. Amer Picon (homemade used)
• 1/3 oz. grenadine
• 2/3 oz. orange juice
• 1/3 oz. lemon juice
• spiral cut lemon wheel
• flower garnish

Combine liquid ingredients in a shaker with ice. Pour into a Collins glass and garnish with lemon and flower.

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Biggles' Sidecar (Difford's Guide Recipe)

Biggles is a postwar kids book series about an intrepid British aviator. Naturally, Simon Difford has his own recipe for a Biggles Aviation. But he went a step farther in creating a Biggles Sidecar--I guess Biggles was known for motoring and espionage, so that seems about right.

The thing that makes this Sidecar different is ginger: ginger in the brandy and ginger as a garnish. Kings ginger liqueur is the brand that Difford recommends because it is that rich aged brandy that will stand out in a citrus cocktail. I made my own ginger brandy using Korbel and fresh ginger, but if all you have is Domaine de Canton, that should do. I think that the fresh slice of ginger is really important to the garnish experience. From a distance, it looks like another slice of citrus, but the scent with the lemon is perfect.

• 1 2/3 oz. cognac (Martel single distillery)
• 1/2 oz. ginger brandy
• 1/2 oz. lemon juice
• 1/4 oz. sugar syrup
• 1 dash Peychauds bitters
• lemon slice and ginger slice garnish

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

 

Champagne Cocktails: Elysee Palace and Lord Baltimore's Cup

 

Special occasions call for impressive champagne cocktails. A good champagne cocktail is balanced, not overly sweet or spicy; it should be elegant, colorful, effervescent and most of all, strong. Both of these cocktail achieve this in very different ways. The quintessentially French Elysee Palace is a blushing, bubbling flute glass with rich berry flavors and cognac. Lord Baltamore, the English governor of the Maryland colony, is a chunky chalice full of manly rye and bitters. 

The nice thing about offering a champagne cocktail during a party is that it makes use of the dry sparkling wine that is already open and being passed around. The rest of the recipes are not complicated and really only amount to sprinkling in a few ingredients to alter the champagne. 

Here are the recipes to these two cocktails. As usual, feel free to make substitutions when it comes to syrups, liqueurs and sparkling wine as needed to pull them off.

For instance, I used sparkling wine that is as dry as Champagne--Californian, not Italian, which runs the risk of being too sweet. I made my own raspberry syrup out of brandy, sugar, and fresh raspberries rather than buy a bottle of Chambord. And because I don't have framboise, (which does have a little fizz of its own) I fell back on strawberry-infused rum, hoping that the sparkling wine would take up the slack of the bubbles. 

        Elysee Palace

• 1 oz. cognac (Martel single distillery used)
• 1/2 oz. raspberry liqueur (homemade raspberry brandy used)
• 1/2 tsp. framboise (homemade strawberry liqueur used)
• brut champagne  

Combine cognac and raspberry liqueur in a mixing glass with ice. Stir and strain into a champagne flute and top with brut champagne.

         Lord Baltimore's Cup

• 1/2 oz. sugar syrup to taste  
• 1 oz. rye (Rittenhouse)
  
• brut champagne
• several dashes Angostura bitters
• several dashes Pernod (Ricard used)

Combine rye, sugar and bitters in a wine goblet. Add ice cubes (I prefer cracked ice for drinks with floats) and stir. Float Pernod (or pastis like Ricard) on top.

Looks Familiar (Difford's Guide Recipe)

 

There's something especially decadent about the spirits-forward tequila and amaro cocktail on a winter day. The way that spicy tequila mixes with bitters and bitter citrus Amer Picon should be better known among tequila afficianados. Add to that the smoke of Islay scotch and you have a cocktail fit for the menu of some of the best speakeasy-style bars. 

I've always considered tequila as as much a holiday spirit as sherry, rum, or whiskey, but just not used in a Margarita. You don't have to dispense with the agave syrup that you might use in some of the best tropical tequila drinks. Madhava agave syrup allows you to sweeten a cocktail in a way that respects tequila's agave plant origins. Unlike simple syrup, agave syrup is not just sweet: it has a mild herbal flavor and a richness that seems more refreshing in hot weather than a sugary drink does.

My take on this cocktail, is that it is flashy--on the palate--while looking like a whiskey cocktail. The drinker will be surprised that it is a tequila drink, and even after tasting it, will say "I don't usually like tequila, but this..." That's right: people don't like fake mixers. Amer Picon, Angostura bitters and agave syrup make it stand out on flavor when appearances are deceiving.

• 1/2 oz. Islay scotch (Laphroaig Select used)
• 2 oz. blanco tequila (Sauza 100% blue agave used)
• 1/2 oz. agave syrup (Madhava used)
• 2 dashes Angostura bitters
• 1/4 oz. Amer Picon
• orange twist

Coat the inside of a mixing glass with the Islay scotch. Then add ice,  tequila, agave syrup, bitters and Amer Picon in a mixing glass with ice. Stir and strain into a chilled Old Fashioned glass. Twist the orange zest over the glass and drop it in.

Canary Flip (Difford's Guide Recipe)

This is a simple and delicious dessert drink that breaks from the Flip format of whole egg, cream and nutmeg. This cocktail uses the creamy egg yolk advocaat liqueur in place of raw egg and opts for a citrus zip from lemon juice and tart sauvignon blanc.

While I've had Port and Sherry Flips in the past, this flip was probably the best for enjoying more than one. It isn't that it is less rich--there's plenty of sugar and richness there--it is just a little thinner and goes down quickly with a wine and vanilla finish. No nutmeg means that it isn't a winter spice cocktail, so it feels appropriate for dessert any time of the year.

• 2 oz. advocaat liqueur (homemade used)
• 2 oz. sauvignon blanc
• 3/4 oz. lemon juice
• lemon twist garnish

Combine all liquid ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Twist lemon zest over the glass and drop it in.