The Cocktail Artist

We just got a bottle of Don Ciccio & Figli’s newest release, Cerasum Aperitivo , and we are really enjoying working it into cocktails. This aperitivo comes from an Italian recipe that includes an infusion of cherries, sakura blossoms, roots and herbs. Don Ciccio & Figli is a craft distillery located here in Washington, DC (with roots in the Amalfi Coast), and Cerasum is their nod to DC’s Cherry Blossom Festival. Since one member of the Cocktail Artist partnership has roots in Michigan, we were happy to learn that Michigan cherries were used to create this aperitivo. If you follow our blog you may have noticed that we spend time in Northern Michigan in the summer, and that we are big fans of Michigan’s Traverse City Whiskey Co . Take a look at our posts for the Cherry Capital Old Fashioned , the Grand Mariner , and the Up North Raspberryand Rye to see how we’ve used Traverse City Whiskey’s bourbon and rye (and to check out some of the Cocktail Artist’s watercolors done i...

It’s been busy here in Cocktail Artist HQ. Not only do we have a lot of new materials to work with in our home bar and our art studio but we’ve also added a new member to the Cocktail Artist family. Henry Hudson is our 3-month old Cavalier King Charles spaniel – and a bundle of energy. We named him after the English explorer, Henry Hudson, because right from the start this puppy showed us his curious and adventurous personality. Once we got him to settle down we made a trip to the liquor store in search of inspiration for a new cocktail. We ended up getting a bottle of Tuthilltown Spirits Hudson Baby Bourbon – which seemed like a very obvious choice for a cocktail in honor of our new “baby”. The bourbon, which comes in a cute squat bottle, is made from 100% corn and aged in small (3 gallon) oak barrels. The distillery is up the Hudson River from New York City and uses local grains in the production of their spirits. Tuthilltown Spirits describes  their Baby  Bourbon as...

Spring hasn’t officially arrived here in Washington, DC, but we have had some intermittent spring-like weather over the past few weeks, and the cherry blossoms are already starting to come out. We took a quick trip to Philadelphia last weekend to see the annual Philadelphia Flower Show, and this threw us into full-throttle spring mode. We’re ready to spiff up our outdoor spaces, mix up a tall drink, and enjoy cocktail hour outside. To get things started, we decided to freshen up a simple classic cocktail with some floral notes. A Rickey is a highball that originated here in the District of Columbia in 1883. This drink was born when a local bartender added a lime to Colonel Joe Rickey’s daily dose of bourbon and sparkling water, and it really became popular a decade later when the bourbon was replaced with gin.  Traditionally, a Rickey doesn’t contain any sweeteners (so maybe our cocktail is more like a Tom Collins ), but we’re going to call it a Rickey anyway. Our cock...

We love a good brandy, and if you have read some of our other blog posts you have probably noticed that the mixologist member of this partnership is quite partial to apple brandy in particular. Does apple brandy (or applejack, or Calvados) taste like apples? Well, yes in the way that wine tastes like grapes. You get the essence of the fruit in apple brandy, but the fermentation, distillation, and aging results in liquor that’s 80 proof (or more) and tastes more like whiskey than apple juice. We enjoy sipping apple brandy neat, but it’s also a part of several of our favorite cocktails including our Presidents’ Day Cocktail and Shenandoah Cyd Car. Laird & Company is America’s oldest commercial distillery and today the Laird family is still producing Applejack and Apple Brandy – as they have been for nearly 300 years. For most of those years they have pretty much had the apple brandy market to themselves (for good reason - they produce a really solid product), but recently cr...