My three-year-old son announced one day that his two favorite things to eat are "clock water" and smoke. He's a mystic.

Cocktail revivalists have long lamented the tendency of the venerable Monkey Gland to resist palatability. To the modern palate, the standard Monkey Gland recipe—gin, some dashed absinthe and raspberry syrup, and a heaping helping of orange juice, justly called by Dan Chadwick the "fruit of cocktail death"—registers as an unbalanced, overly sweet mishmash of discordant flavors, lacking structure or shame. But with a bit of modern tinkering—adding some acid here, dashing complementary bitters there, replacing orange juice with orange liqueur—we arrive at something with the zippy acidity and bright citrus flavors of a... well, we arrive at a Pegu Club, with some berry juice and an absinthe rinse. Which, come to think of it, is a pretty good thing. Enjoy.

The Bluebeard cocktail is based on the Blackbeard (in PDT cocktail book) made with blackberries in the place of blueberries and lime in place of lemon juice. The original was created by Daniel Eun.

Two members of the Singapore Cricket Club made their own gin sling upon the refusal of the Club to do so (per a piece in the Singapore Weekly Sun in 1913 which included the recipe.)

Recently purchased both a cream whipper and dried mace flowers. This is the result.