Can you identify the ingredients in a martini, cosmopolitan, Manhattan, Mai Tai, Long Island Iced Tea, Harvey Wallbager and more? See how well you know your cocktails.

Gin and tonics. Photo: Daveybot/Flickr

There's no denying that the Brits give good gin, but it turns out Americans aren't too shabby when it comes to distilling the drink, either. As Clay Risen points out at the Atlantic Food Channel, each of these Six American Gins Worth Tasting not only stand up to "the best of the British" brands, they're affordable, too.

Risen isn't the only one with gin on his mind this summer. While sipping gin and tonic over the weekend, we ran out of the latter. Necessity being the mother of invention, this resulted in the surprisingly delicious (if admittedly somewhat lowbrow) cocktail: one part gin, one part 2-calorie citrus soda Fresca and a hunk of lime.

While British gin distillers might turn their noses up at such a combo, perhaps Americans are more forgiving? Tell us your favorite gin cocktails in the comments and weigh in on our poll.



[Via the Atlantic Food Channel]

Bruschetta. Photo: YumSugar

Each Thursday, we round up a selection of scrumptious links from our friends over at YumSugar. Here's what they've got cooking this week:

A photographic journey through San Francisco's new Thursday farmers' market with a focus on artisanal street food.

Definition: Offal (not "awful"!) is the entrails and organs of a butchered animal.

Che Guevara becomes trendy once again as his granddaughter bares it all for PETA.

Could Right Gin be the right way to learn gin appreciation?

Finally! Heirloom tomatoes are coming into season, and YumSugar offers a bunch of dishes featuring them.

Calling all tv trays: Do you eat dinner in front of the television?

Starry Night Cooler. Photo: LeNell Smothers.

Alabama-born LeNell Smothers defines herself first and foremost as a bartender, but she's been called many things -- most recently, the proprietress of LeNell's liquor store. She's owned her own whiskey label called Red Hook Rye and been recognized by her home state as an honorary Colonel. Other interests include gin, sin and men.

Absinthe has been blamed for a lot of rowdy behavior, but I don't think any French folks could blame it for the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789. Absinthe actually had its peak in France in the late 1800s, but the trend lasted into the early 1900s. Although it originated in Switzerland, most production during the heyday of the Green Fairy took place in southern France.

The idea for Van Gogh's magnum opus, "Starry Night," is also said to have originated in southern France. Although it was created a full 100 years after the Bastille showdown, I figured I'd celebrate le quatorze juillet with a tribute to beautiful night skies (black currant syrup), a bit of revolution (gin) and a touch of madness (absinthe). I call this my Starry Night Cooler. Oh, yeah, and to beat off the summer heat, I threw in some seltzer and a bit of family-recipe lemonade.

The recipe for LeNell's Starry Night Cooler is after the jump.

Unexpected guests have arrived and your fridge is bare. Here's how to create a drink out of next to nothing.

When I think of the word "Bonecrusher," I don't usually think of a champagne cocktail, but that's what this is.

It's from WineIntro.com (I like how they have a pic of the ingredients you'll be using - more sites should do that), and even though it has champagne, it also includes rum, gin, and vodka, so maybe that's where the crushing of bones begins. This drink is a lot stronger than it looks, even if it does also include grenadine and Sprite.

We conclude this particular numbered cocktails theme week with the One-Armed Bandit.

I'm more of a red wine guy than a white wine guy (much more, actually), but this drink has so many other ingredients in it that I love that I'm going to try it tonight. It's white wine with Cointreau, grenadine, oranges, lemon, and lime. Cocktail.com doesn't say who created the drink, but does say that it was "discovered in Vegas." That's good enough for me.

Continuing with the theme week of numbered cocktails comes the 20th Century, from the book Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails. Wikipedia says it was created in the late 30s to help promote the introduction of the Hudson Dreyfus Engine, which powered the 20th Century Limited Train.

I like the color.

I think I inadvertently started a cocktail "theme" week here yesterday: cocktails with numbers. Yesterday I had the Shane 75, and today is the recipe for Esplanade 1925. This one is also from Imbibe.

It's a drink that was inspired by the Regent Hotel Esplanade in Zagreb. Esplanade 1925 also happens to be the named of the lounge/bar there.

Burnett's London Dry Gin is 40% abv. / 80 proof and the US version is made by Heaven Hill Distillery according to Sir Robert Burnett's 1770 recipe. It is a distilled gin which means that the botanicals are distilled with neutral spirits to create the gin. This is the method used by premium quality gins and it is surprising to see a gin in the lower price range made this way, this well.

The aroma is light and crisp with a citrus and juniper nose with hints of spice and black pepper finishing with a slight earthy tone that is from some root botanical, maybe angelica. It has a nice, complex smell and I wish I knew more about the botanicals in the recipe. I wrote to Heaven Hill a few months ago and after several emails back and forth still couldn't get them to give me any details.

The flavor is light and in the classic London Dry style. Juniper, spices in the peppery realm, and citrus come on smoothly and softly, and in a clean way. Burnett's is a great gin for mixing in cocktails and highballs, especially a gin and tonic, or anything else where you want a gin presence, but not one of the overwhelming powerhouses not suitable for most cocktails. It also tastes fine on the rocks, for when you want nice, light, crisp gin; and not anything else.

There's been a longstanding assumption that journalists and drinking have always gone hand in hand. I'm not sure how rumors like this get started. I'm here to tell you that journalists only drink when they absolutely have to, on days of the week that end in a "y." No more than that.*

This drink is The Journalist, and it's made with gin, two kinds of Vermouth, Triple Sec, lime juice, and bitters. To all the writers out there, make one for yourself tonight and type away!

* Yes, this is an old joke.

There are a gazillion martini recipes out there, and sometimes it's hard to pick one we either want to drink regularly or experiment with (I like mine with gin, thank you very much).

Here's one from the terrific book The Craft of the Cocktail, by legendary mixologist Dale DeGroff. It's for the Smoky Martini, and it's not only a very simple concoction it also has a very cool, mysterious name. Full recipe (along with variation) after the jump (the pic is from another site, not sure if it's the same as this recipe).

Wow. Is it late August already? No matter how much we pout, the Summer is coming to a close. The days get shorter, the temperature gets cooler (in most normal parts of the country - here in LA, it still gets into the 90s), and we move our "entertaining" indoors. Right?

No! I refuse, my friends, refuse! I am a clingy girl, and I am going to hang onto the last rays of the summer sun if it burns the skin on my shoulders to a bacon-y crisp.

thebar.com makes it easy with a few cocktails, Pineapple Orange Margarita and Rangpur Madras, that will keep that summer vibe going, even if it's me standing by myself in my living room in a pair of sunglasses and a straw hat sipping on these cocktails (I am not a fan of tequila nor of gin, but look at how pretty the cocktails are!)
Recipes after the jump.

So, you found it hard to get back to work today after the long July 4th holiday (assuming, of course, that you didn't work last Thursday or Friday)? Feeling like you had some sort of work-related jet lag today? Then you need a cocktail!

This is called The Bachelor Bait. Not sure why, unless they think that the mixture of gin, orange bitters, grenadine, and egg whites is enough to "get a man." Maybe this recipe was created in 1959, who knows. Or maybe it's us bachelors who are doing the baiting?

Full recipe after the jump.