Friday's Recess
Shake with ice and strain into a frozen coupe glass.
- Fall From Grace — Irish whiskey, Cynar, Zwack liqueur, Aromatized wine, Rhubarb bitters
- Chachita — Mezcal, Sweet vermouth, Cynar, Bénédictine, Bitters, Orange peel
Shake with ice and strain into a frozen coupe glass.
Combine all except milk. Add batch to milk. Wait 10 minutes. Strain to fine-mesh sieve 2 times using the same sieve. Bottle. Serve 3 ounces over big ice and stir to chill. Garnish with raisins.
Rehydrated Toasted Whole Milk
1. Preheat an oven to 275°F. Spread 40 grams of milk powder (Villa recommends Anthony’s or Hoosier Hill Farm dry milk powders) on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper. Toast in the oven for 15 minutes.
2. In a saucepan, bring 8 ounces of water to a simmer. Whisk in the toasted milk powder and 1/2 gram of salt. Reduce the heat to low, and allow to rehydrate for at least 5 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool. Whisk well (or use an immersion blender) before using in milk punch.
Stir, strain, up
Clamfest Batched
Shake with ice and strain into a frozen coupe glass.
Stir with ice, strain into chilled cocktail glass or pour over a large rock.
There was more peppery bite to the cocktail than the overall alcohol content might suggest, which provided a great deal of character, and confirmed that bourbon was a better choice than rye for this drink. There is ample room to change ratios or to use another rucolino (arugula amaro). Cherry Heering might sub well for the Ginja.
Espinheira Ginja liqueur is a maceration of ginja (morello cherries) in alcohol and sugar and is Portugal's most popular fruit liqueur. After tasting both it and the arugula based Amaro Cinpatrazzo, I sensed that the vegetal bitterness of the arugula amaro would work well with the cherry and bourbon.
The concoction's unexpected flavorful heat and reddish brown hue reminded me of the effectiveness of a good counterpunch, hence the name.
Combine with ice, shake, double strain into chilled coupe or cocktail glass. Garnish with lime wheel.
More developed than the classic Lion's Tail, a marked improvement in my opinion. The Sibano works particularly well here and is Ward's original call.
A riff on the Lion's Tail (Coda di Leone is Lion's Tail in Italian) that introduces Sibona Amaro to add needed complexity.
Dry shake 3/4 oz tonic water, rum, lemon juice, and syrup to incorporate and flatten tonic. Add ice and shake to chill. Strain over rocks. Top with 1 oz tonic. Express and discard a lemon twist, and garnish with a lemon slice or candied ginger.
For oolong syrup, brew strong oolong tea, and dissolve an equal part of sugar in it.
Made for the Reddit Original Cocktail Competition - September 2023 (Rum & Tonic).
Stir, strain, down
Autumn 2023 menu
Combine all the ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake until chilled. Fill a Double Old Fashioned glass with crushed ice, then strain contents into the prepped glass. Garnish with pineapple leaf, edible orchid, cherry, and lemon wheel.
Stir with ice, strain into chilled cocktail glass, express lemon peel.
Kapriol liqueur is dominated by juniper, and to my palate lacks the bitter bite to carry a Negroni alone; hence, the addition of Jeppson's Malort to stiffen the backbone.
Kapriol's Negroni recipe uses Elena Penna Gin which I have not tried, but I see some tasting notes about it being London Dry Gin style with some citrus flavor, so I used Hayman's London Dry. I have also used Tanqueray for the cocktail.
I used Italian Martini Bianco for its vanilla contribution, noting it is somewhat richer than French Dolin Blanc.
Kapriol has a "Negroni Bianco" recipe, but it was missing the bitter component that completes a Negroni. To address this while keeping the profile clean, I added 1/4 ounce of Jeppson's Malort to add significant bitterness and a long finish.
Kapriol was created as a "distillato del bosco", a distillate of the forest. The forest in this case is the Cansiglio Forest where the juniper berries are collected that define its flavor.