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.
Cocktail Ingredients Quiz
Crazy for Cosmopolitans? You'll need vodka, Cointreau or triple sec, lime juice, and one other ingredient to shake 'em up at home.
Grenadine
Orange juice
Cranberry juice
Pink grapefruit juice
Some folks get fancy with the recipe, but a traditionally-made Mai Tai gets its signature flavor from lime juice, dark rum, grenadine (or simple syrup), curacao and what other key ingredient?
Almond syrup
Mango juice
Coconut milk
Orange juice
Shaking up vodka, cream, and this variety of liqueur results in a White Russian.
Coffee
White chocolate
Vanilla
Peppermint
The rim of a Sidecar glass is coated in what tasty substance?
Sugar
Salt
Cocoa
Honey
The non-alcoholic classic Shirley Temple contains ginger ale (or lemon-lime soda), orange juice and a sweet splash of what?
Fruit punch
Cranberry juice
Grenadine
Pineapple juice
Vodka or gin would need just this ingredient to be shaken or stirred into a gimlet.
Roses Lime Juice Cordial
Olive juice
Fresh lime juice
Pickle juice
Rye (or bourbon), vermouth, bitters and a cherry are the components of which classic cocktail?
Negroni
Old Fashioned
Manhattan
Rob Roy
Mix up rum, lime and Coca-Cola to make this drink.
Cuba Libre
El Presidente
Bronx
Corpse Reviver
Mint, sugar, lime, soda water and this liquor come together to be muddled into a mojito.
Cachaca
Tequila
Rum
Pisco
Standard ingredients in a Negroni include gin, vermouth and what other liquid?
Lemon juice
Egg whites
Angostura bitters
Campari
It's not just a punchline -- the Harvey Wallbanger is a fern bar staple featuring vodka, orange juice, and this odd liqueur.
Goldschlager
Rumplemintz
Galliano
Peach Schnaaps
When this is popped into a Martini in lieu of an olive, it becomes a Gibson.
Jalapeno pepper
Lime wedge
Gherkin
Cocktail onion
James Bond may be more commonly associated with the Martini, but writer Ian Fleming also had him slugging down Vespers, which are concocted from Lillet Blanc and which two liquors?
Brandy & Scotch
Gin & Vodka
Vodka & Bourbon
Bourbon & Brandy
Mix orange juice and this spirit for a hard-hitting Screwdriver.
Rum
Vodka
Champagne
Whiskey
Sure, you could ask for a vodka & cranberry with a lime wedge, but it's much more festive to order it this way:
Greyhound
Salty Dog
Cape Cod
Madras
If you've got bourbon, mint, and a splash of soda, you're on the right track to make the Derby Day classic, a Mint Julep. What's still missing?
Lime
Sugar
Bitters
Nothing
The Bloody Mary is a brunch standard, but this addition transforms it into a hearty Bloody Bull.
Beef broth
Red Bull
A whole hot pepper
Pepper vodka
Creme de menthe and cream are terribly tasty together, but if you want a Grasshopper, hop to the store for a bottle of:
Vanilla vodka
Creme de Cacao
Green food coloring
Mint extract
A Greyhound gets its distinctive flavor from vodka and this mixer:
Sweetened lime juice
Pineapple juice
Cranberry and orange juice
Grapefruit juice
We all know that a Long Island Iced Tea has no tea in the mix, but what liquor isn't part of the standard recipe?
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.
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.
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.
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 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!
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.
Boodles British Gin is 45.2% abv. / 90.4 proof and is made by Chivas Brothers for Pernod Ricard, USA. Boodles was named after the Boodle's Gentlemen's club in St. James's, London, which was founded in 1762 and run by Edward Boodle.
I first tasted Boodles many years ago when I was club hopping in South Hampton in my late teens, with my best friend and roommate at that time named Jonathan. Having a roommate with the same name has its good and bad points, at least he had good taste in gin. Up until then I tended to order a Tanqueray and tonic when I was out, but Jon had just been served a Boodles and tonic and convinced me to try it as well. For the rest of that summer Boodles was my gin of choice. Of course back then there weren't many gins available like there are now, so Boodles was also exotic in the extreme. I found it had a more refined and elegant taste than other gins and eventually started to order it plain on the rocks. This was the gin that taught me to appreciate gin in and of itself, and the heck with tonic.
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?