The Essential Cocktail Book

Description

An indispensable atlas of the best cocktail recipes—each fully photographed—for classic and modern drinks, whether shaken, stirred, up, or on the rocks.

How do you create the perfect daiquiri? In what type of glass should you serve a whiskey sour? What exactly is an aperitif cocktail? A compendium for both home and professional bartenders, The Essential Cocktail Book answers all of these questions and more—through recipes, lore and techniques for 150 drinks, both modern and classic.CLASSICS RECIPES 

stirred 
Adonis 34 
Bamboo 45 
Bijou 51 
Boulevardier 59 
Brooklyn 60 
De La Louisiane 81 
Gibson 91 
Improved Whiskey Cocktail 107 
Manhattan 114 
Martinez 118 
Martini 121 
Negroni 135 
Old Pal 141 
Old-Fashioned 142 
Remember the Maine 164 
Rob Roy 167 
Sazerac 168 
Ti’ Punch 186 
Tuxedo 190 
Vesper 193 
Vieux Carré 194 

shaken 
Absinthe Frappé 32 
Airmail 37 
Aviation 42 
Bee’s Knees 47 
Blood and Sand 55 
Bloody Mary 56 
Brown Derby 63 
Clover Club 70 
Corpse Reviver No. 2 73 
Daiquiri 74 
Florodora 85 
French 75 86 
Garibaldi 89 
Gimlet 92 
Gin Daisy (Old and New) 97 
Gin Fizz 98 
Gin Sour 102 
Hemingway Daiquiri 105 
Jungle Bird 108 
Last Word 111 
Mai Tai 113 
Margarita 117 
Mexican Firing Squad 122 
Millionaire Cocktail 127 
New York Sour 138 
Painkiller 144 
Paloma 147 
Pegu Club 148 
Pisco Sour 157 
Planter’s Punch 158 
Ramos Gin Fizz 163 
Sherry Cobbler 173 
Sherry Flip 175 
Sidecar 177 
Singapore Sling 178 
Sloe Gin Fizz 181 
Southside 182 
Tom Collins 189 
Whiskey Sour 198 
Zombie 200 

built 
Americano 38 
Aperol Spritz 41 
Bicicletta 48 
Black Velvet 52 
Caipirinha 64 
Champagne Cocktail 67 
Dark ’n’ Stormy 78 
Death in the Afternoon 82 
Gin and Tonic 95 
Gin Rickey 101 
Michelada 124 
Mint Julep 128 
Mojito 131 
Moscow Mule 132 
Negroni Sbagliato 136 
Pimm’s Cup 152 
Queen’s Park Swizzle 160 
Stone Fence 185 
Whiskey Smash 197 

frozen 
Piña Colada 154 

large format 
Charles Dickens’s Punch 69 
Daniel Webster’s Punch 77 
Philadelphia Fish House Punch 151 
Scorpion Bowl 170 

MODERNS RECIPES 

stirred 
Archangel 211 
Benton’s Old-Fashioned 214 
Boo Radley 223 
Fitty-Fitty Martini 238 
Flatiron Martini 242 
Gin Blossom 249 
Latin Trifecta 268 
Natoma St. 281 
Oaxaca Old-Fashioned 282 
Old Hickory 285 
Oxford Comma 286 
Red Hook 303 
Revolver 304 
Rhythm and Soul 307 
Sakura Martini 313 
Tokyo Drift 320 
Trident 323 
White Negroni 327 

shaken 
Angostura Colada 208 
Barber of Seville 212 
Bitter Intentions 217 
Bitter Mai Tai 218 
Bitter Tom 221 
Bramble 224 
Chartreuse Swizzle 230 
Cosmopolitan 233 
Filibuster 237 
Flannel Shirt 241 
Heart-Shaped Box 255 
Italian Buck 260 
Joggling Board 263 
Kentucky Buck 264 
La Bomba Daiquiri 267 
Lefty’s Fizz 270 
Long Island Bar Gimlet 273 
Mott and Mulberry 277 
Mountain Man 278 
Paper Plane 290 
Penicillin 294 
Pompelmo Sour 299 
Poppa’s Pride 300 
Rome with a View 309 
Second Serve 314 
Weathered Axe 324 
White Russian 331 

built 
American Trilogy 205 
Americano Perfecto 207 
Campari Radler 229 
Gin and Juice 246 
Glasgow Mule 250 
Go-To 252 
Hop Over 259 
Mexican Tricycle 274 
Padang Swizzle 289 
Royal Pimm’s Cup 310 
Suppressor #1 319 
White Negroni Sbagliato 328

frozen 
Brancolada 226 
Frozen Negroni 245 
Piña Verde 297 
Show Me State 317 

large format 
Dorothy’s Delight 234 
Hibiscus Punch Royale 256 
Parish Hall Punch 293
Megan Krigbaum is a wine and spirits writer, a contributing editor at PUNCH, and the former deputy wine editor at Food and Wine. There, she wrote a monthly wine column called “Bottle Service,” in addition to regular feature stories pertaining to wine, spirits, and beer.

PUNCH is a James Beard Award–winning media brand dedicated to drinks and drinking culture.INTRODUCTION 

Over the course of the past three hundred years of drinking history, since the first punch was made, a solid stable of classic cocktails has emerged. These tried-and-true recipes have endured for their distinctive personalities and winning flavors, but they’re also respected for having reliable templates. New York City bartender Sam Ross has said that “classics are the formulas of balance,” which is why many of the new drinks seen on bar menus these days have sprung from this old guard: their formulas work. And, thanks to an ever-growing contingent of devoted and creative bartenders, not to mention the outright explosion of craft spirits into the marketplace over the past fifteen years, it is now possible to get a well-made drink in just about any city in the country. 

But among the plethora of wittily named drinks made with unlikely combinations of unheard-of ingredients and house-made syrups that has resulted from this renaissance, a conundrum has arisen: which of these drinks are worth keeping around? The best of these modern interpretations are thoughtful revisions of the classics that point to the creativity that can arise from knowing the standards backward and forward. The greatest bartenders will understand a cocktail’s personality, history, and intention—not to mention the ingredient ratio that informs it. 

In these pages, you’ll find 150 recipes—the classics are all here, from the Gimlet to the Old-Fashioned, alongside the best examples of riffs on them, sourced from some of the greatest bartenders of our time. Though there are successful blueprints, you’ll notice through these variations that there are no hard-and-fast rules. The truth is, drinks are made to be tinkered with. At the most basic level, the classic recipes are composed of modular building blocks: spirit, perhaps citrus, a little sugar, a dash of bitters. All this means that a drink originally based in whiskey can be completely transformed when made with a core of applejack as long as the rest of the cocktail is appropriately adjusted to remain balanced. 

What becomes apparent when looking at these originals and their descendants together are distinct branches of the cocktail family tree that give bartenders a solid jumping-off point for adding their own leaves. As you shake and stir your way through this book, getting the classics down and investigating this selection of outstanding modern updates, hopefully you’ll feel moved to improvise based on whatever is in your liquor cabinet. These pages will provide you with the tools—and the permission—to ruminate on the pleasures found in using pineapple rum instead of the usual white to make a daiquiri, tossing a few fresh raspberries into a bramble in the peak of summer, using expensive Japanese “whisky” in an old-fashioned, or even adding dry cider to your gin and tonic.CN

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