Drinks_with_Nick's blog

San Francisco ’65

  It would be easy to say that Elan Mastai’s All Our Wrong Todays is about time travel.  But since it’s about so much more – choice and consequence, love and loss – I’ll instead say that 1965 is important, lemon trees are important, and champagne, yes, is important.  So pour yourself a glass – but be prepared to have it grow warm, because you won’t want to put this book down once you start.  

 

San Francisco ’65

Champagne
Limoncello
Sugar cube
Lemon bitters
Lemon twist for garnish

In a champagne flute, douse the sugar cube with lemon bitters.  Add champagne.  Top with limoncello and garnish with the twist.
 

Lucky Boy Punch

In Shanthi Sekaran’s Lucky Boy, two women love the same little boy.  While his birth mother – illegally in the US – is being detained, his foster mother discovers her own love for the child is boundless.  You’ll want to drown your sorrows after reading their heartbreaking story, and this punch will help you do just that. 

 

Lucky Boy Punch
1 bottle red wine
½ cup mezcal
½ cup orange juice
1 cup raspberries
½ cup pomegranate seeds
1 lemon, sliced
1 orange, sliced
1 mango, sliced
Prosecco

Combine all ingredients, except the Prosecco, in a large pitcher or bowl and refrigerate overnight.  When serving, top with the Prosecco. 
 

Moonglow

Michael Chabon’s Moonglow may be my favorite of his novels – which should say quite a lot since the author is a Pulitzer prize winner. Moonglow is breathtaking in its scope, from prewar America through Europe and back again. There isn’t a novelist today who’s such a gifted teller of stories.  Hearing about the homemade hooch that soldiers distilled themselves during the war inspired this month’s Moonglow cocktail.  

Moonglow
2 oz. White Dog Mash whiskey 
1 oz. white vermouth (Chambéry blanc)
Cocktail onion for garnish
Combine whiskey and vermouth. 
Stir well with ice. Strain into a chilled glass. Garnish with the onion.

Naut-tini

November CocktailIn T.C. Boyle’s The Terranauts, you’ll follow 8 scientists literally experimenting under glass as they live in an artificial environment similar to what we may someday construct on Mars.  Pre-closure, one of the Terranauts hits the vodka and smokes pretty hard, so this Naut-tini is for him.cover

Naut-tini
2 oz Stolichnaya Vodka
.5 oz Mezcal
7 raspberries

Muddle six of the raspberries with the vodka and mezcal. Double strain into an ice-filled shaker. Stir for 15 seconds. Strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with the remaining raspberry.

The Mr. Magoo

Maria Semple is back, and while it’s hard to be funny and heartfelt – without being cloying! – Semple is able to do just that in this wonderful story about Eleanor Flood.  Eleanor pledges on page 1 that, indeed, Today Will Be Different.  Having made similar promises – often – I only wish I could accomplish those vows without “the destruction in my wake.  

 The Mr. Magoo
1 oz. Hudson Whiskey
2 oz. Limoncello
.25 oz. Simple Syrup
1 dash Lemon bitters
1 dash orange bitters
Club Soda
Lemon and Orange Wheels
Combine the whiskey, limoncello, and simple syrup.  Stir.  Strain into a glass garnished with the lemon and orange wheels.  Top with club soda.  Dash with the bitters.
 

FLOWERS IN THE METROPOL

Amor Towles delivers one of the most perfect novels of the year with A Gentleman in Moscow.  The gentleman in question -- Count Alexander Rostov -- finds himself sentenced after the Revolution to a life of house arrest in his beloved hotel, the Metropol.  Forced to give up his lavish rooms for a garret, he fondly remembers a grander time when there used to always be flowers in the Metropol.

 

Flowers in the Metropol 
1.5 oz Metaxa
.5 oz rose water
.25 oz simple syrup
.25 oz lemon juice
1 drop Aftelier Perfumes Rose Chef’s Essence
Rose-petal ice sphere

Combine all in an ice-filled shaker.  Shake well.  Strain over ice.

 

 

 

Carrie Starr

Leave it to Jay McInerney’s Bright, Precious Days, to breathe wonderful life back into the grand, New York novel.  One scene takes place in a secret restaurant where shirako is on the menu (go on, Google it).  They drink a Rudyard Kipling; an East meets West combination of ingredients (mischievously named for the writer who wrote that East and West would never meet).  I modified the recipe, replacing the bourbon with gin, and renamed it for the author’s wife.

Carrie Starr
2 oz. gin
.5 oz Umeshu
2 dashes blood orange bitters
Ume (Asian Plum) peel for garnish
Stir the gin and Umeshu with ice.  Strain into a cocktail glass.  Dash with the bitters. 
Garnish with the ume peel.

GOLDEN CHERRY

Ace Atkins takes you into the hot heart of Mississippi with The Innocents, his latest novel featuring Quinn Colson.  There are few reads more perfect for the middle of summer. Here you'll find rough riders known as the Born Losers living in the Golden Cherry Motel - and that's the perfect name for a cocktail. Mr. Atkins has been known to enjoy a beer now and again, so I didn't get too fancy.

Golden Cherry
1.5 oz  bourbon
5 oz Maraschino Liqueur
1 heavy barspoon lime juice
4 oz of a good, Mississippi beer, like Lazy Magnolia's Southern Hops'pitality
3 dashes cherry bitters
4 Golden Cherries

Muddle 3 of the cherries with everything except the beer. Shake with ice. Strain into a glass filled with crushed ice. Add the beer. Drizzle with the lime juice. Garnish with your last cherry. The vintage Peek-A-Boo glass is optional.

Mezzrole Cocktail

June arrives with a bounty of books.  Emma Cline’s The Girls is a heady and scary debut where a young Evie Boyd succumbs to the charisma of a Charles Manson-like figure in Northern California. June also sees the release of Cannabis Cocktails, Mocktails & Tonics by the cocktail whisperer himself, Warren Bobrow.  Mr. Bobrow was kind enough to lend us his Mezzrole Cocktail that we tinkered with just enough to make it Evie’s own.

 

 

 

The Mezzrole Cocktail (aka Evie's Joint)
4-6 Greenish Cocktail Cherries (please see page 45 of Cannabis Cocktails)
.5 oz Cherry Pie cannabis infused vermouth, such as Uncouth Vermouth’s Seasonal Wildflower Blend (also see Cannabis Cocktails on how to infuse your vermouth)
Handful of crushed ice
1 oz scotch.  Something a little bit smoky like Oban's 14 Year Old
Aromatic bitters

Muddle the Cocktail Cherries, then top with the vermouth. Continue to muddle for 30 seconds. Cover with the crushed ice. Top with the scotch, then dot with the bitters.  Enjoy! (But - never make this cocktail if marijuana is illegal where you live.)

 

Bejeweled Street

If  wreckage can be beautiful, you’ll find just that in Chris Cleave’s devastating novel, Everyone Brave is Forgiven.  Surveying the aftermath of the first bombs dropped on London during WWII, Mary North observes that, in too many neighborhoods, every window had been blown out and shards of glass bejeweled the streets. For Mary, then, something English, something lovely. 

 

Bejeweled Street
1.5 oz. Plymouth Gin 
.5 tsp. Blackberry jam
Champagne

Add gin and jam to an ice-filled shaker. Shake. Strain into a chilled champagne flute. Top with the bubbly. Garnish with a dollop of jam. Silver spoon optional. 

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