Ingredients for six drinks
4 1/2 oz Sortilege Maple Whiskey
4 1/2 oz Averna Amaro
4 dashes per drink Fee Brothers Whiskey Barrel Bitters

Instructions
1) Mix the Sortilege and the Averna in a small pitcher with a wooden spoon
2) Pour into small aperitif glasses
3) Add bitters to each drink

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But here are drinks from this weekend.

On Friday, I did something I almost never do, and mixed a drink from a magazine. It was a drink from this month’s Food & Wine, made with Hendricks, arugula, lime, and agave. I mixed it for two reasons: one, because it had arugula in it; and two, because it accompanied an article that reflected a lot of my own thoughts about bartending (and particularly my thoughts on the pretentiousness of the term “mixologist” and the unsettling trend of people putting things in drinks purely as a type of liquid oneupmanship as opposed to making something that tastes good. I wasn’t fond of the agave, and think it’s just not really the right sweetener for gin, but the arugula was really nice.

On Saturday, I made this:

Basil Negroni

This isn’t quite a negroni with basil in it; it’s a little bit off a traditional negroni recipe and has a sort of duskier flavor.

Ingredients for two drinks
6 oz gin
1 oz Campari
1 oz port wine
1/2 oz Grapefruit bitters
About 20 leaves basil, plus two pretty sprigs with blossoms

Instructions
Put everything in a shaker with ice, except basil flowers
Muddle until basil is bruised
Shake
Strain into two chilled cocktail glasses, add flowers for garnish

On Sunday, I started out my day by infusing a bottle of gin I wasn’t too thrilled with with lavender. We’ll see how it comes along next week.

Then I made this:

Elderfields Road

Elderfields Road is the name of the street my father grew up on. This drink is a variation on a Manhattan, and since he grew up right outside the city, I thought that was appropriate, considering the major ingredient here.

Ingredients for 2 cocktails
6 oz bourbon
Juice of 1 lime
2 oz elderberry syrup (homemade)
1 oz red vermouth
2 splashes blood orange bitters

Instructions:
Mix everything but the bitters together in a shaker with ice and shake
Pour into two chilled cocktail glasses, add bitters

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1) Rabbitini

Rabbitini

Ingredients:
3 oz Hendrick’s Gin (this recipe is intended for Hendrick’s and not another brand of gin)
1 Kirby (small) cucumber, or 1/2 large cucumber
2 tsps white sugar
1 pinch celery seed
1 oz Dolin’s Vermouth
4 dashes The Bitter Truth Celery Bitters
Ice

Chill 2 martini glasses
Slice 2 slices cucumber and reserve
Chop remaining cucumber, muddle in shaker with sugar and celery seed
Add gin, vermouth and bitters, shake
Remove ice from glasses and pour
Garnish with cucumber, serve

This drink is crisp and refreshing, with a nice celery-cucumber taste. It’s great with seafood and salads– we had it with a scallop and green apple salad.

2) Red Chocolate

Red Chocolate

Ingredients:
1 blood orange
3 oz bourbon (I used Buffalo Trace)
4 dashes Bittermens Xocolatl Mole Bitters
1 tsp white sugar
1 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder

Chill 2 martini glasses
Slice two half moons of blood orange, reserve.
Squeeze juice from remaining blood orange into shaker
Add a few slices of blood orange peel from squeezed orange to shaker
Add bourbon and bitters
Mix sugar and cocoa together on a plate
Moisten edge of glasses with water or tiny bit of bourbon
Remove ice from glasses, rim glasses with cocoa-sugar mixture
Add a small bit of water (about 1/4 tsp) to remaining cocoa-sugar mixture and stir with fork until dissolved
Pour cocoa-sugar mixture into shaker
Shake and pour
Add lood orange wedge for garnish

This drink has a wonderfully complex flavor that starts out very bitter for the first few minutes after pouring but then opens up and becomes smoky and rich. It would go well with beef or pork– we drank it with flank steak.

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