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Drinks

Drinks
Framboise Apricot Punch Recipe

I have my friend Kalisa, an extraordinary cook and entertainer who once catered to ex-presidents, to thank for this recipe. It’s sweet and potent and you and your friends will want more when the bowl is dry. 1 cup orange juice ½ cup water 1 cup pomegranate seeds (or frozen raspberries depending on season), divided use ¾ cup Framboise (raspberry eau de vie) ½ cup VSOP Cognac ¼ cup apricot brandy 1 orange, thinly sliced 1 lemon, thinly sliced ½ cup sugar ½ cup sour mix 2 bottles Rotari or Mirabelle brut sparkling wine Combine the orange juice, water and ½ cup pomegranate seeds (or raspberries) in a small ring gelatin mold or a small square plastic container with a lid. Freeze for 24 hours. Combine the Framboise, Cognac and brandy, orange and lemon slices and sugar in a plastic container. Let fruit soak in the liquor overnight. The day…
January 30, 2011
Champagne, Drinks, Sparkling Wine
Big Bottles of Bubbly Make for Big Fun

As magical as it is to open any bottle of sparkling wine, opening a big bottle of bubbly when entertaining makes an even grander statement. Whether it’s a magnum that holds the equivalent of two regular bottles of wine or a massive 4-bottle Jeroboam, bigger bottles are a smart and easy way to please a crowd. Looking back on bottles of bubbly with friends over the years, the larger format bottles seem to stand out. We celebrated wrapping up shooting for my book The Bubbly Bar with a magnum of Veuve Clicquot; I remember sharing the same wine with Tony Hawk and his friends at a party in his oceanview backyard. Krug’s rich and toasty Grande Cuvée flowed freely from magnums at an over-the-top press trip to show off the brand’s custom hot air balloon. The cool thing about larger bottles is that ounce for ounce, they’re no more expensive…
December 19, 2010
Cocktail Recipes
Celebrate Repeal Day with a Pisco Punch

This time of year, most people’s holiday-related thoughts are consumed by Hannukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa and New Year’s Eve. But today, the holiday most serious bartenders and cocktail geeks are celebrating is Repeal Day. December 5, 1933 marked the end of Prohibition, the ill-conceived “Noble Experiment” with temperance that ran from 1919 to 1933. Repeal Day events are going on tonight at classically-minded bars like The Drawing Room in Chicago. In northern California, check out the party at Elixir in the Mission. In Southern California, head to downtown LA to Seven Grand, The Edison and/or The Varnish. Before Prohibition, a delicious golden cocktail called the Pisco Punch was the San Francisco treat – sorry Rice-a-Roni. According to David Wondrich’s fine historical cocktail book “Imbibe”, all the bars in town made the this tangy cocktail with the Peruvian grape brandy. Many patrons were prone to over-enjoying Pisco Punch; things got so bad…
December 5, 2010
Cocktail Recipes
Cocktails to Crave: The Old Cuban

After doing a little event for a group of women attorneys at The Bubble Lounge last week, I went out for drinks with Heather and Marie, a pair of new foodie friends. As we scanned the menu at a hip vintage style watering hole in the Financial District, Heather was disappointed that the Old Cuban — her favorite new drink — wasn’t on the menu. I told her to ask for one anyway. It’s my new favorite too and a modern classic that any bartender worth his salt knows how to make. Apparently not. The waiter brought over two pale cocktails that looked like mojitos. Close — since the Old Cuban is a variant of the mojito. Both are made with lime, mint, simple syrup and benefit from a good golden or dark rum with some age, like Zaya, Smith & Cross or El Dorado 12. But what makes an…
November 19, 2010
Drinks
Chambord Has a New Look, and a Vodka too

I was sitting at the long Carrara marble bar of the Lake Chalet looking out at Lake Merritt and the rows of liquor bottle on the back bar. I saw lot of familiar bottles, but noticed that the familiar round Chambord bottle had changed. And Chambord, the venerable black raspberry liqueur has a new sibling — a flavored vodka The bottle has lost its crown, it’s replaced with a crown medallion on front. The top of the cap and the bottle have a new flower with four pointed petals, like a play on the French design called a quatrefoil. Chambord has a new look that stars the quatrefoil, a four-pointed floral motif. Quatrefoils are popular motifs on churches in France, England and especially Italy. But the most familiar example of the quatrefoil is on the iconic Louis Vuitton logo created in 1896. One thing that hasn’t changed is the distinctive and deep…
October 2, 2010