The Honeymoon Cocktail and Second Honeymoon

It’s a tired cliché, but kind of true - time flies when you’re having fun. It has been just over two years since we began publishing this blog. We started it just to keep track of our recipes and share them (along with Chris’s artwork) with a few friends. To our surprise, we have created something that people (who are not our blood relatives) actually read! It really has been fun creating the posts and meeting other craft cocktail enthusiasts through the blog and our Instagram account. 

We don’t typically share much personal information about ourselves. If you click around through the pages on our blog you will find the About Us section where we give brief bios. For those of you who don’t know us personally, we are a husband wife team (Chris and Beth). In December we celebrated 33 years of marriage (time really HAS flown!)… Beth is the one who comes up with the cocktail recipes, does the photography, and writes the blog. Chris is solely tasked with creating the original works of art that accompany our cocktails – and, of course, offering his opinion as we tweak our recipes. 

In London on our 2nd Honeymoon
Back in December, to celebrate our wedding anniversary, we picked up a pair of new cocktail coupes and mixed up a recipe from Ted Haigh’s Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails– appropriately called the Honeymoon Cocktail. Beth is huge fan of apple brandy and so this recipe using Calvados as the base spirit seemed perfect to toast our over three decades of putting up with each other. According to Mr. Haigh’s book, this cocktail is more durable than our marriage – having been around since the early 1900’s.

The recipe as written in the book (using either Calvados or a good apple brandy) is exactly as Haigh’s states: “smooth, balanced, nuanced, and urbane.”  Of course, we had to go ahead and put our own spin on it by adding a bit of Pommeau (an apple cordial). We had a nice bottle of Pommeau from a Boston-area distiller, Short Path Distillery, and so we gave it a try in this cocktail – with happy results. 

So, below we have both the original recipe for the Honeymoon Cocktail, and our riff, called the Second Honeymoon. The artwork accompanying our drink is one of Chris’s watercolor sketches of St. Paul’s Cathedral from a second honeymoon trip to London a few years ago. We also went to London on our original honeymoon (way back in 1985), but this time we were able to afford a nicer hotel!

Cheers!

Second Honeymoon

1-¾ ounces Apple Brandy (Copper and Kings Floodwall Apple Brandy)
½ ounce Pommeau (Short Path Distillery Pommeau)
½ ounce Benedictine 
½ ounce Cointreau
¾ ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice

Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker with ice cubes. Shake well and strain into chilled cocktail coup. Garnish with a flamed lemon rind.


Honeymoon Cocktail (original recipe)

2 ounces Apple Brandy (Catoctin Creek)
½ ounce Benedictine 
½ ounce Orange Liqueur (Vitae Spirits Orange Liqueur)
½ ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice

Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker with ice cubes. Shake well and strain into chilled cocktail coup. Garnish with a flamed lemon rind.

St. Pauls Cathedral - original watercolor by The Cocktail Artist

The Cocktail Artist ready to go in and purchase supplies at a century and a half old London artist supply shop

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