Drinks_with_Nick's blog

Jack & Lydia

Jack & Lydia
5 oz. Tsingtao beer
1 oz. Galliano
2 shakes Bar Keep Chinese bitters
Stir all gently with ice. 
Strain into an ice-filled Collins glass.

Summer is everywhere, so our cocktail is a thirst quencher in honor of Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng. 

Complications arise in her novel when a young, blonde college student marries her Chinese American professor – in 1958. 

While there aren’t many Chinese cocktail ingredients available in the states, Tsingtao beer is one – and beer cocktails this time of year go down easy.

Dirty Shame


 

 

 

 

This month’s cocktail inspiration is Fourth of July Creek  by Smith Henderson.  Named after the first of many bars in Smith Henderson’s Fourth of July Creek, the Dirty Shame takes its cue from the Dirty Martini’s call for olive juice, but I went with bourbon, not gin, because that’s what soaks the novel’s pages.  I wish I could've utilized the whiskey Henderson cites – Redeye – but that’s unavailable, so use Montana’s own RoughStock to evoke this fierce novel’s terroir.

Dirty Shame:
2 oz. RoughStock Montana Whiskey
.25  - .5 oz. olive juice (make it as dirty as you want)
.25 oz. simple syrup
1 full dropper Bittermens Hellfire bitters
Olives
Shake all – except olives – with ice and strain into an ice-filled old-fashioned glass.  Garnish with olives
(mine are jalapeno stuffed, but any will do).

Sea of Flames

This month’s featured book and cocktail inspiration is All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.  Ten years in the writing, "All the Light We Cannot See" is a magnificent, deeply moving novel from a writer "whose sentences never fail to thrill" ("Los Angeles Times").
 

Sea of Flames
1.5 oz. Hendrick's Gin
1 oz. Byrrh
.5 oz. St. Germain
2 tsp lemon juice
2 dashes The Bitter Truth Jerry Thomas' Bitters
Stir all with ice. Strain into chilled glass.

“This one came together nicely - and I know I'm not supposed to say that about my own concoctions, but there it is! The Byrrh is a really lovely, red-wine based aperitif that was created in France well before WWII (the setting of the novel). The St. Germain is also French. The other story line begins in Germany, so I added the Bitter Truth bitters - a German product.” Enjoy!

 

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