After getting home late from one of my bar shifts at Drink, I wondered what two gin classics would be mashed up -- the Hanky Panky and the Bee's Knees. Both recipes are often traced back to the 1920s, although the first publication of the Bee's Knees was in 1948 via David Embury. For a name, I originally was going to call this None of Your Business as a nod to Sasha Petraske's The Business (a Bee's Knees with lime instead of lemon juice), but Birds & Bees won out given the connotations of Hanky Panky.

This is Franky Marshall's take on the 1929 original that called for Izarra Jaune (a yellow Basque liqueur).

So, I drive into my backyard and a peacock is wandering around ...... haven't never ever seen anything like that in the last 64 years !!

In memory of a Naval Academy graduate.

In memory of a Naval Academy graduate ......
2 lbs of corned beef in the crockpot.
2 lbs of Santa Maria Tri-Tip in the same crockpot.
Lots of red wine in the crockpot.
Lots of spices in the crockpot.
8 hours on the simmer ........

One of my fellow bartenders at Drink made the Midnight Mass from Death & Co. for a guest, and I became curious about the combination of Cardamaro and Benedictine. After having a drink two nights prior with the Genever-Cardamaro duo, I decided to split the spirit with Batavia Arrack as I had done in the Dutch Hand after experiencing the two in recipes like the Double Dutch and Weirding Way. Also a nod to how the original was made with rum. For a name, I paid tribute to the Midnight Mass inspiration and dubbed it Midnight to Midnight after a Psychedelic Furs album.

During a trip to the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, I was inspired by the works of Estefania Puerta, a Columbian born sculptor living in Vermont. Her style was coated in surrealism, biological touches, and palpable symbolism, and I found myself returning to that section of the museum after the first lingering pass. One of my favorite pieces from her was the 2020 All of Freud's Beautiful Women (see blog post link for a photo), and that night, I was inspired to craft a cocktail tribute to it especially given its name. For a starting point, I focused in on an Amaro Montenegro for Campari riff on the Rose Gold that I had been making at Drink. Both the Bourbon and gin versions of this have been successes giving a touch of clementine and cinnamon complexity to the Gold Rush and Bee's Knees yet not as bitter as the Rose Gold. To that, the art made me think of the earthy and funky weirdness of the mezcal-rhum agricole combination that I have used in a few recipes. Despite the spirits leaning towards lime, I am glad that I stuck with lemon juice here akin to the Honey Bee.