Cocktail Recipes

17 Cocktails and Counting

One of the most classic cocktails in the history of bar drinks is the Bloody Mary. It is a divine combination of ingredients not regularly found in cocktails and spirits that compliment the flavor and the textures. What are those ingredients? It is tomato juice, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce with the clear and neat spirit of Vodka. It is one of the very rare savory cocktails that are combined to give a fulfilling taste. Vodka being clean taste companies with everything sweet, sour and salty.But it is not the only spirit that can be used. Tequila for example has many qualities that make it savory. We actually did the salsa shots a while back that identifies – Read More…

The first think that comes to mind when we put together the words cocktail and apple is the Green Apple Martini. That is an abomination of the sissified neon cocktail era that haunted the 70s, 80s and half of the 90s. The mixture of a sugar mixture, with artificial color artificial flavor and artificial aroma with vodka in a glass is as close to a cocktail as close is a skateboard to a Lamborghini; they both have four wheels. It is not a cocktail, it is not a worthy drink and you should forget all about it! We need to make a cocktail that will be true to the elegant flavor of the apple.

Cider or apple juice is another way – Read More…

There is a great Greek dessert that is called Greek Delight. It is actually more widely known as Turkish Delight, since it originated in Turkey. Some people still dispute that which is reasonable still after 400 years of culinary overlap recipes did exchange back and forth and many dishes lost origin. We can, however, give the credit to the Turkish for the development of this delightful dessert. Actually the Greek name of the dessert is loukoumi, very close to the turkish that is loukoum. Greeks though will keep calling it Greek Delight just because. The delightful dessert is a gel made with corn starch, sugar and a flavoring. It is then covered in a mixture – Read More…

When I think if America I think of Cowboys. I know America is so much more than just cowboys, but the Cowboys are the poster boys of America. Maybe it is the cigaret commercials, maybe it is the hundreds of western movies or maybe it is just the iconic cowboy hat. As a kid a used to imagine the Cowboys not as the people who manage herds of cattle, but as people who were roaming the country looking for a saloon to get some whiskey and if possible get into some trouble, pick up a gunfight and even steal a kiss from the pretty lady. Yeah. To my childish eyes, that was what a cowboy was. A guy with tough looks, soul-piercing eyes, rough hands and the smell of – Read More…

Thanksgiving food is definitely good. But do you know what else is good? Thanksgiving drinks. And probably the most popular thanksgiving drinks are beer and wine. Beer is often associated with the football games, one of the main events during that day and the wine with formality of the dinner. There is however another drink, that we seem to drink year around, based on cranberries, which for some reason we tend to ignore that day. I am talking of none other than the Cosmopolitan. Cosmopolitan is a very popular drink, very refreshing, if it is made right way, and most importantly it is a simple drink. Due to the bright pinkish color it seems to be a very popular – Read More…

As the summer continues its course through the calendar year, cocktails hit the peak of their demand. Cocktails are one of the best beverages to cool off with under the hot summer sun. It is not just that they are over ice. It is the combination of all the ingredients working together to wake you up and tease the senses during the hot day or night. It is not a coincidence that most well-known cocktails were invented in hot and tropical places: Mojito in Cuba, Daiquiri in Miami, Caipirinia in Brazil Piña Colada in Puerto Rico… the list goes on!

Cocktails are not only fun to drink but also fun to make! You can make your – Read More…

In 1948 when David A. Embury was publishing the book “The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks” little he knew it will become a classic cocktail book, praised 70 years later. The book attempted to put an order to the mess of the cocktails and all the different mixed drinks that right after the end of the second World War became a growing trend. He laid down a few simple rules and concepts that can be a guide, a compass for every bartender. The peak era of the cocktails was in the 60s. The Rat Pack and James Bond made cocktails cool. And then came the 70’s. The Dance floor was steamy hot. The dancers need to cool down and get energy. Slowly the Martini – Read More…

This is the third recipe that has a special meaning. It is from my island in Greece the glorious island of Crete, and even more specifically from my Home town, the town of Ierapetra ( Ιεράπετρα ) that literally translates as Hollystone. Crete is most known for the agriculture and farming, ranging from olive oil, vegetables and wine to animal farming (sheep and goats) and fishing. It is in a way self sustained island. The wine industry although not well developed is responsible for a great by product. All the leftover grape mush after the juice is extracted. This waste is converted to one of the most celebrated distilled spirit of Crete tsikoudia – Read More…

You probably saw the other two recipes on salsa. They are very good but done again and again. Not of course with the same flare but done never the less. However I discovered something astonishing. While I was sipping down the tequila with the tomato salsa, I figured that the salsa tasted better when the tequila was in the mix. So I got this strange idea to try a salsa shot. How? Just make the tomato or  Read More…

Recently there has been a big focus on this blog on cocktails. The cocktails are not just a mixed drink to have fun, it is cooking since the mixing is a form of art, as was stated in the book the “Fine art of Mixing Drinks” published in the 1900s and still in print today. Although the book describes 6 basic cocktails there are some other classic cocktails that are not only worth mentioning, but it is important to learn the right method of making them. I am not a bartender or very experienced with drinks. There are some drinks however that I have master and I do hope that you will too. I am here to help. The cocktail today is the Mojito.

About the martini I have already spoken. A whole series of posts targeting the 7 drinks that a bar tender has to master to consider himself an mixologist. Knowing how to make it and mastering is two different things. It is what makes a Martini, a good Martini, or a great Martini. I am not going to talk about the history of the Martini. I have all you need here. Today I am going to show you, how to master (hahahaa, like it is easy) more like how to make a good martini.

This the last cocktail of the six famous cocktails. It is probably the least famous cocktail of the david A. Embury ‘s coctails. Jack Rose is the name of a classic cocktail, popular in the 1920s and 1930s, containing applejack, grenadine, and lemon or lime juice. It notably appeared in a scene in Ernest Hemingway’s 1926 classic, The Sun Also Rises, in which Jake Barnes, the narrator, drinks a Jack Rose in a Paris hotel bar while awaiting the arrival of Lady Brett Ashley.

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The first known definition of the word “cocktail” was in response to a reader’s letter asking to define the word in the May 6, 1806 issue of The Balance and Columbia Repository in Hudson, New York. In the May 13, 1806 issue, the paper’s editor wrote that it was a potent concoction of spirits, bitters, water, and sugar. The first use of the specific name “Old Fashioned” was for a Bourbon whiskey cocktail in the 1880s, at the Pendennis Club, a gentlemen’s club in Louisville, Kentucky. The recipe is said to have been invented by a bartender at that club, and popularized by a club member and bourbon distiller, Colonel James E. Pepper, who brought it to the – Read More…

The Sidecar is a classic cocktail traditionally made with Cognac, Cointreau, and lemon juice. It is one of six basic drinks listed in David A. Embury’s classic (The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks). The exact origin of the Sidecar is unclear, but it was created around the end of World War I in either London or Paris. It is a variation on the older Brandy Daisy (brandy, yellow Chartreuse, and lemon juice). The first recipes for the Sidecar appear in 1922, in both Harry MacElhone’s Harry’s ABC of Mixing Cocktails and Robert Vermeire’s Cocktails and How to Mix Them. In early editions of MacElhone’s book, he cites the inventor as Pat MacGarry, “the Popular bar-tender at – Read More…

The name Daiquirí is also the name of a beach near Santiago, Cuba, and an iron mine in that area. The cocktail was invented about 1905 in a bar named Venus in Santiago, about 23 miles east of the mine, by a group of American mining engineers. Among the engineers present were Jennings Cox, General Manager of the Spanish-American Iron Co., J. Francis Linthicum, C. Manning Combs, George W. Pfeiffer, De Berneire Whitaker, C. Merritt Holmes and Proctor O. Persing. Although stories persist that Cox invented the drink when he ran out of gin while entertaining American guests, the drink evolved naturally due to the prevalence of lime and sugar.

Manhattan is the second basic cocktail that is mentioned in the great book of bartendering “The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks” by David A. Embury. A popular history suggests that the drink originated at the Manhattan Club in New York City in the early 1870s, where it was invented for a banquet hosted by Jennie Jerome (Lady Randolph Churchill, Winston’s mother) in honor of presidential candidate Samuel J. Tilden. The success of the banquet made the drink fashionable, later prompting several people to request the drink by referring the name of the club where it originated – “the Manhattan cocktail.”

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One of the most famous cocktails is the Martini. Especially if you are a James bond fan then Martini is your drink. The martini is a cocktail made with gin and dry white vermouth, although substituting vodka for gin is now common. It is often described as being “crisp” or “astringent.” Over the years, the martini has become perhaps the most well-known mixed alcoholic beverage. H. L. Mencken once called the martini “the only American invention as perfect as the sonnet”,and E. B. White called it “the elixir of quietude”. It is also the proverbial drink of the one-time “three-martini lunch” of business executives, now largely abandoned as part of companies’ – Read More…

Last modified: March 28, 2014 by Georgios Pyrgiotakis