Category Archives: Cocktails

Mix it, shake it, & serve it. Covering classics to modern bar drinks.

Friday Cocktail Hour: The Lemon Drop

By Michael Ruhlman | Published: April 12, 2013

Lemon Drop. Photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman

Lemon Drop. Photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman.

A couple weeks ago, inspired by my BFF Blake Bailey's latest bio, Farther and Wilder (boffo WSJ review here), I offered a Tom Collins, gin-lemon-soda. But on retrospect it was only OK—it would be the perfect libation on a hot summer evening, but it was March. Also, I could hardly taste the gin, and what's the point of that unless you're drinking the cheap shit? Just to check, I ordered one last weekend at a restaurant and it was so bad I didn't even finish it (which is not like me, that's how bad it was—how do you screw up something as simple as that?). But I loved the idea of the heavy lemon. I loved the idea of, every now and then, not being ...

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Friday Cocktail Hour: The Hasty Negroni

By Michael Ruhlman | Published: April 5, 2013

Regina's Negroni. Photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman.

The Hasty Negroni. Photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman.

There was no other way given everyone's schedule. We arrived from a relaxing vacay with Mom in West Palm on Monday night, and Donna's sister, Regina, a professional cake whisperer, arrived first thing the next day ready to work (and teach). I am cake challenged. I'm sweets challenged. My idea of sweets is pictured above. But the subject I'm writing about now, cleverly integrated into the above photo, demands that I address cakes. Thus, despite Regina's patience, energy, and expertise, each day has for me ended with a feeling of depletion and fatigue, requiring a single end-of-the-day cocktail before I began dinner (which would be followed by more baking—cakes can be, should be, frozen—and/or photography). So I wanted something strong, complex, familiar, and easy at the end ...

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Friday Cocktail Hour: The Tom Collins

By Michael Ruhlman | Published: March 22, 2013

A Tom Collins. Photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman

A Tom Collins, a favorite of Charles Jackson.
Photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman.

Today's cocktail is in honor of my best friend's latest biography out this week, Farther & Wilder: The Lost Weekends and Literary Dreams of Charles Jackson. Jackson is all but forgotten but was the toast of Hollywood for a time and a highly regarded novelist, best known for The Lost Weekend. The Wall Street Journal calls Blake Bailey's book "brilliant and gripping," which is all the more amazing in that the story is largely about literary failure. The Lost Weekend was until now Jackson's only enduring legacy, and remembered only because a great movie was made of it. Blake, whom the Daily Beast and his next subject, Philip Roth, both called the best biographer working today, ...

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Friday Cocktail Hour: The Vesper

By Michael Ruhlman | Published: March 15, 2013

The classic Vespar. Photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman.

The classic Vesper. Photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman.

Having recently delighted in Skyfall with son James, and with a fresh bottle of Lillet on hand, and having never tried this preposterous sounding cocktail with the beguiling name, well, I had to give the Vesper a go. Checking my resources I noticed that one, the very elegant and excellent ratio-oriented book, See Mix Drink, includes a twist of orange rather than the customary lemon twist. I contacted the author, Brian D. Murphy, who explained his rationale via email: "Alessandro, the bartender at the Dukes Hotel in London (where the cocktail originated), replaces the lemon with an orange peel. When I visited there and asked why, he said it pairs much better with the hint of orange ...

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Friday Cocktail Hour: The Donna Paloma

By Michael Ruhlman | Published: March 8, 2013

A freshly made paloma. Photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman.

A freshly made Paloma. Photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman.

I've written before in the depths of winter that now is grapefruit season and grapefruits were my first realization that food was in fact seasonal. It was 1989 and I'd grown up in a country where I could buy pretty much anything I knew about all year long and this was the natural way of the world. I'd fallen in love with Donna, who was a photographer for the Palm Beach Daily News, but I kept long-held plans and left her to travel Africa and Asia, only to find myself 10 weeks later on the porch of an American expatriate living in Ouagadougou. A monkey jumped onto my lap, and I thought What the hell am I doing in Ouagadougou when ...

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