The Cocktail Artist

Darn! Why didn’t we buy those airline tickets to Italy when they were cheap? It would be so nice to be lounging in a beautiful Italian seaside town right now.  The Amalfi region, on Italy's west coast, is known for it's production of lemon liqueur and fine writing and art paper - sounds like the perfect place for us! Oh well, maybe it would be better to be there during the off season. Italy is probably packed with American tourists right now. Let's  just pull out the watercolor paints and the cocktail shaker and bring a bit of la dolce vita  to our patio. Our Amalfi Martini (naturally) features limoncello. It's a fairly low-alcohol liqueur, so we boost the proof of this cocktail by adding our vodka of choice - District Made Vodka by One Eight Distilling. If you are using a vodka that doesn't have much flavor on it's own (which, honestly, is most vodka) you may want to add a couple dashes of citrus bitters to this recipe. This just wouldn't be an Ita...

  This cocktail came about as the result of several nice gifts. I guess when one of your hobbies is putting together a cocktail blog people naturally give you things which would inspire new drinks - and we're not complaining! Several years ago we, along with a group of friends, attended a rum tasting hosted by the Jamaican Embassy which featured rums from Appleton Estate . We thoroughly enjoyed their barrel aged rums, but they are really best for sipping neat.  Our friends recently gifted us a bottle of the Appleton Reserve Blend, and we found it makes a great cocktail. The other gift was The Waldorf Astoria Bar Book - by Frank Caiafa. This excellent bar book is where we found the "Daisy" family of cocktails - which date back to the mid 1800's. One of the nice features of this book is that they give a bit of history about the drink along with the recipe and ways you might want to vary the ingredients to suit your taste. So, here is our version of the Rum ...

Summer is officially here, so we thought we would share one of our favorite cocktails for sipping on a warm summer evening. It's hard to beat a great whiskey sour, and to make a great whiskey sour you should NEVER use pre-made sour mix! The "sour" comes from using fresh citrus juice. In our recipe we use lemon and orange. You don't need to use a top-shelf bourbon. A decent one (like Maker's Mark) gets the job done, since this cocktail uses as much citrus juice as bourbon. We can tell you from personal experience that this cocktail tastes even better than you drink it outdoors (preferably when sitting near the beach and/or watching the summer sun go down). A couple of the paintings in this blog post were done during cocktail hour while we were on vacation last summer. So when you are putting together a packing list for your summer vacation, don't forget about the cocktail shaker! An early evening cocktail hour is a great time to really relax and appre...

Most people are familiar with the Manhattan cocktail (we certainly are!), but there are versions named for other New York City boroughs. One of our favorites is the Brooklyn - which is similar to the Manhattan but uses maraschino liquor and vermouth along with the bourbon. Yes, we know, everyone is sick of hearing about how hip Brooklyn is now, but this cocktail seems more like a throwback - something to sip while listening to a Sinatra album. We did a barrel-aged version of our Brooklyn recipe (aged for 6 weeks in a mini oak barrel from Deep South Barrels ) and it was a huge hit at our recent party. For the barrel-aged version we used Maker's Mark bourbon, but when we make it as a single drink our preference is for Old Scout Smooth Ambler or Russell's Reserve bourbon. For another one of our barrel-aged creations see:  Autumn on 44th Street . So go ahead and mix yourself a drink and imagine a time when you could go into a bar in Brooklyn and not have to pay $18 for a co...

Strawberries are beginning to appear at our local farm markets, so naturally we started to think about creative ways to use them in a cocktail (no resorting to a daiquiri or strawberry margarita!) The rosemary in our garden is doing well, so we thought that nice herbal fragrance would pair well with the strawberry in a variation of the Aperol Spritz. We did a bit of experimenting...... and a few drinks later we were torn between using Aperol and it's more bitter cousin, Campari. it really comes down to personal preference. If you like a sweeter cocktail go with Aperol, but one of us is more partial to the version with Campari so that's what we have here. This is a nice refreshing pre-dinner cocktail - especially as the days get warmer.  It's the kind of thing you should be drinking on the patio (or a piazza in Italy).  So mix up a pitcher of these, put on the Sinatra music and relax - it's summer! Cheers! Strawberry - Rosemary Spritz 1 large or 2 small ri...

Derby Day We have been a bit busy with other duties (work, travel, cleaning the basement....), but now we're putting our priorities back in order (and Chris has done some painting) so we have a new blog post! Yes, the Kentucky Derby was a couple of weekends ago, but a Mint Julep is not just for the first Saturday of May.  This nice cold, slushy drink is perfect all summer - especially if you made the grave error (as we did) of planting mint in the ground (instead of keeping it in contained in a pot) and now it's coming up like Kudzu! So, start by yanking up some mint from the garden (or getting a bunch at the grocery store) and make the mint syrup ahead of time (recipe below). This is a lot easier than muddling the mint leaves for each drink.  We also suggest shaking the ingredients with ice cubes before pouring them over the crushed ice. If the liquid isn't chilled first, it melts the crushed ice too quickly and you end up with a watery drink - which is just sad....

Despite the inconsistent spring weather, there are things blooming here in the District of Columbia. It probably won't be the best year for the cherry blossoms on the tidal basin, but the trees are trying to tough it out after a cold snap caught them in mid-bloom.   So, we are dedicating this blog entry to spring and it's blossoms - which happens to work out well for the art (Chris has been doing a lot of flower paintings recently) and for the cocktail. For our vodka-based drink, we are also featuring St. Germain - an elderflower liquor made from flowers that are gathered from the hillsides in the French Alps each spring. In a nod to our local blossoms, we have added cherry juice and cherry bitters to the cocktail (along with some citrus to brighten the flavor). We think this drink has the taste of spring - and it does look nice and fresh with the blossoms from our garden.  Happy spring! Spring Blossom 1 1/2 oz. Vodka 1 oz. St. Germain 1 oz. Tart...

Union Station - Washington, DC Some days you just need a good martini... Especially those of us here in Washington, DC - where every day can bring some new horror (or something to celebrate!) If you have read our previous posts, you know we are fans of District Made Vodka  made by One Eight Distilling  right here in DC. This vodka has a nice herbal taste, which really gives depth to the martini. If you can't get this one, experiment with some of your local craft vodkas. We find that the big brands are just too bland for this cocktail (and frankly, for most other cocktails we make). So here is our "District Martini" - dedicated to our (more than 650,000) fellow DC residents. Some of us are working on our tax returns this weekend, and while this is a frustrating exercise for everyone in the United States, those of us with no voting congressional representatives really need a drink after we are finished! Cheers! The District Martini 2 1/2 oz. ...

We don't typically have cocktails in the middle of the week, but it's Mardi Gras, and some of us may not be having a cocktail for the next 40 days! The Sazerac is a drink that makes us think of the epicenter of Mardi Gras in the United States - New Orleans, so that would be a natural choice for this evening. Another cocktail that we enjoy is the Deschler - which (like the Sazerac) contains rye and Creole bitters.  It also contains Rouge Dubonnet (a fortified wine), and some citrus zest. The last time we made this we used a blood orange and we liked the result. So, here is our version of this pre-prohibition cocktail - cheers! Deschler 1 1/2 oz. Rye whiskey 1 oz. Rouge Dubonnet 1/4 oz. Cointreau 2 dashes Creole Bitters large orange zest large lemon zest Muddle the lemon and orange zest with the Creole bitters in a cocktail shaker. Add ice, rye, Dubonnet, and Cointreau to shaker and shake briefly.  Strain int...

It's been an unusually warm week here (for February), so we thought we would break out the summer cocktail menu.  Our additional inspiration for this week's cocktail was the bottle of Authentic Kola Syrup from Washington, D.C.'s  True Syrups & Garnishes  that we had picked up a couple of weeks ago. The tropical origins of the Kola Nut, along with the ginger and spices in the syrup, got us thinking about a nice deserted island - but a deserted island that would have a good bottle of gin on it! We figured Thurston Howell III would have a nice bottle of gin, and the kola syrup has "Ginger". Let's just go ahead and christen this drink the "Gilligan's Island". So sit right back, find some old reruns on TV, and mix yourself up something refreshing! Gilligan's Island 2 oz. gin 1/2 oz. fresh squeezed lemon juice 3/4 oz. True Kola Syrup 1 dash cardamom bitters 3 oz. club soda Place gin, lemon juice, kola s...