Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails | Quarry Books, 2009 | Serves 1

There has always been a certain simpatico correspondence between the cocktail and horse racing. The Mint Julep has become a mascot, of sorts, for The Kentucky Derby. But as witnessed with The Derby, drinks were actually named to commemorate races as well as horses. The Derby had several variations. Three were in the 1947 Bartender’s Guide by Trader Vic. This one is my favorite.–Ted Haigh

LC Name That Derby Note: Bourbon. Curaçao. Sweet vermouth. Fresh lime. We’re sort of sad that we didn’t dream up this comforting little number, although we’re grateful somebody did. We’re not certain what the other two aforementioned variations on The Derby from Trader Vic are, though we’re fairly certain that this eminently likable version makes them irrelevant. And hey, if you can’t find orange curaçao, simply swap any orange liqueur. (You could also substitute blue curaçao, although rumor has it you’ll end up sipping something that’s a sort of lurid shade of green. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. We just always appreciate a heads up when our cocktail resembles antifreeze.)

Special Equipment: Cocktail shaker

Active time: 5 minutes | Total time: 5 minutes

The Derby Cocktail Recipe

Directions

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Good Food to Share | Weldon Owen, 2010 | Serves 1

A friend from Bermuda turned me onto these grown-up sodas. He says locals traditionally use Gosling’s rum and Barritt’s ginger beer. Other brands are fine, just be sure you use ginger beer, not ginger ale. This simple concoction combines the sweetness and spice of ginger, the tropical nuances of rum, and the citrus tang of lime in a rich flight of fancy that looks good, too.–Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan

LC Dark & Stormy Note: It was a dark and stormy night. Er, let’s try that again. April showers bring May flowers, sure. They also bring an excuse to sit on your porch and sip something sweetly, stiffly satisfying as you watch the thunderclouds roll in. Yet just as there’s more than one way to convey dark storminess, there’s more than one way to take–and make–a Dark & Stormy. When you crave a relatively tame nip, rely on the genteel proportions of rum to ginger beer in the below recipe. But when you’re partial to something tipsier, turn to the proportions proposed by entertaining designer Lulu Powers in Lulu Powers Food to Flowers: Simple, Stylish Food for Easy Entertaining. Her tactic is to pour 1 1/2 ounces of dark rum over ice, top it with about 1/2 cup ginger beer, and then finish it with the juice of 1/2 lime. (You may as well toss that spent lime into the glass for good measure.) One version isn’t better than the other. Just different.

Active time: 5 minutes | Total time: 5 minutes

Dark and Stormy Cocktail Recipe

Directions

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Serves 1

In the interest of tradition and in deference to a proper cocktail, allow us to explain something. Listen carefully, we’re only going to state this once. A classic martini consists, quite simply, of gin and vermouth. A five to one ratio. Stirred, not shaken. Maybe an olive or two; if you’re me, a twist instead. Nothing else.

This is the martini known and imbibed by icons including Ernest Hemingway, Marlene Dietrich, and Humphrey Bogart. The martini that inspired the three-martini lunch. The martini that was rendered almost extinct by the trend toward froufrou cocktails. The martini that’s convinced some of us we were born several decades too late.–Renee Schettler Rossi

LC I’ll Have a Dry Martini, Please… Note: For those unfamiliar with liquor lexicon, the relative dryness of a martini refers to the amount of vermouth. The drier the martini, the less vermouth. This can be achieved in any of many ways, whether you use a scant splash, give the glass but a quick rinse of vermouth prior to sloshing in the gin, or only so much as wave the bottle over the glass. (Conversely, ordering the rarity known as a “wet martini” tells the barkeep you want a hefty splash of you-know-what.) More on making a martini of proper proportions can be found in the writings of M.F.K. Fisher.

And should you be looking to put the rest of that bottle of vermouth to good use, grab your roasting pan, a hen, and this recipe from James Beard for Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic. You’re welcome.

Special Equipment: Martini glass, chilled

Active time: 5 minutes | Total time: 5 minutes

Classic Martini Recipe

Directions

Martini Variations

• Dry: Go easy on the vermouth. (Traditionally, it was the converse, relying on a generous pour of vermouth.)
  Dirty: Add a splash of olive brine.
  Vodka: Duh. Swap gin for vodka.
  Perfect or 50-50: Rely on equal amounts sweet and dry vermouth.
  Gibson: Lose the olive and the twist. Toss in a cocktail onion instead.

The Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Sixties Cookbook | Running Press, 2012 | Serves 1

Victor Jules Bergeron, Jr., founder of the tiki restaurants that bear his nickname “Trader Vic’s,” claimed to have invented the Mai Tai when he had an overstock of rum. When he served it to a guest, the drinker supposedly exclaimed “Maita‘i! roa!”, a Tahitian phrase loosely translated as “way cool!” Vic’s rival, Don the Beachcomber, the eponymous owner of his own Polynesian restaurants, also claims to have invented the Mai Tai, but of course, years earlier. Whoever it was, we thank them.

As for the sky-blue cocktail, be sure to move your hips Elvis-style as you shake this drink. At the point in his career when he starred in the musical Blue Hawaii, the King was just a crown prince. The previous generation’s stars, including Sinatra and Crosby, were the big names. Presley was for kids, at least then. But back to the drink. This is the kind of cocktail that gives tiki cocktails a good name.–Rick Rodgers and Heather Maclean

LC Groovy Note: Get out your go go boots and halter tops. The ’60s are back. In a big way. Witness Nicole Miller’s fall 2012 show, which featured groovy outfits, psychedelic florals, and hippy hats. Marimekko’s retro patterns are more coveted now than ever. Flared jeans have been lingering in popularity for about the past six years or so. And if that isn’t enough to convince you, blue-hued Blue Hawaiians and retro Mai Tais are still around. But if you’re going to do ’60s cocktails, then really do ’60s cocktails. You know, really embrace the spirit of these cocktails. We can think of no better way to do this than with paper umbrellas. You know you want to.

Active time: 5 minutes | Total time: 5 minutes

Mai Tai and Blue Hawaiian Recipe

Directions

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An Illustrated Guide to Cocktails | Serves 1

Whatever days in history surrounded the creation of the White Russian of the 1960s, they are obscured by March 6, 1998, the day directors Joel and Ethan Coen unleashed a disheveled, disarranged, and ruggedly disembodied Jeff Bridges upon the world in their film The Big Lebowski. Bridges’ character, known cosmically as “The Dude,” is snapped from his daily routine of day-drinking and night-bowling when he is thrust into a plot of kidnapping and mystery as the result of mistaken identity. The road is not without its tolls, but waiting at the end is liquid sustenance of vodka, Kahlua, and cream, and so The Dude abides.–Orr Shtuhl and Elizabeth Graeber

LC The Dude Note: If you’ve yet to devote 119 minutes of your life to plopping yourself on the couch and getting stoned, er, being stunned at the brilliance of Jeff Bridge’s zenned-out character, The Dude, in The Big Lebowski, please remedy that situation. Without delay. Say what you will about a fashionably unkempt guy who runs around in boxers and a ratty sweater, but The Dude’s heart is in the right place. So is his taste in cocktails. We’re not the only folks to think that. Rumor has it Ben & Jerry’s may soon release The Dude’s Dude Food, with The Dude’s image superimposed upon a bowling alley, just above the tantalizing description, “White Russian ice cream with chocolate malt bowling balls.” It seems to be just a spoof, but it’s got us wishing…and hoping…and, in the meantime, sipping.

Active time: 5 minutes | Total time: 5 minutes

White Russian Recipe

Directions

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Speakeasy | Ten Speed Press, 2010 | Serves 1

As the title says, a classic. A smooth, sophisticated, satiating classic.–Renee Schettler Rossi

LC Necessity is the Mother of Invention Note: : We’re so uncouth, we didn’t even realize there was such a thing as a “mixing glass” until we set about to mix this drink for ourselves. And yet necessity truly is the mother of invention, especially when a cocktail is on the line. We think you’ll manage to jury-rig something, too.

Active time: 3 minutes | Total time: 3 minutes

Classic Manhattan Cocktail Recipe

Directions

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The Food of Morocco | Ecco, 2011 | Serves 1

My friend Barbara Temsamani, who lives in Tangier, keeps this Moroccan formula for warding off colds and coughs taped to her refrigerator door. She taught her children to mix the spices and make the drink fresh three times a day for 1 to 2 days at the first sign of a cold. Drink hot, with honey added to taste.–Paula Wolfert

LC Behold, the Healing Power of Tea Note: Spices and herbs play critical roles in Moroccan cuisine—and, as it turns out, also in this soothing drink. The spices play differing roles, with aniseed imparting “a strong, warm, licorice flavor,” in the words of Paula Wolfert, and fenugreek providing a taste that’s perhaps best described as “a little like burnt sugar or maple syrup.” But it’s not just flavor that these spices and other herbs impart to therapeutic teas and herbal infusions. Or aroma. As Wolfert explains, “Moroccans are great believers in medicinal herbal teas.” Behold, the healing power of herbs and spices. Here’s Wolfert’s cheat sheet:

• Absinth is the “winter tea of choice” for warmth and as an antispasmodic and digestive.
• Lemon verbena calms the nerves, helps digestion, and gives comfort from the pain of menstruation.
• Orange flower water mixed with milk and sugar helps children get to sleep.
• Marjoram is an excellent remedy for a cold or stomachache.

Active time: 5 minutes | Total time: 15 minutes

Therapeutic Drink to Ward Off Colds Recipe

Directions

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See Mix Drink | Little, Brown & Company , 2011 | Serves 1

Believed to have been created by a bartender at the Brooks Club in London, England, the Black Velvet was born in 1891 while the country was in mourning for Queen Victoria’s late husband, Prince Albert. The bartender thought Champagne was too celebratory for the occasion, so he combined it with stout.

A Velvet, as opposed to a Black Velvet, is made with porter instead of stout.–Brian D. Murphy

LC So, Sooooo Smooth Note: While we extend our respects–albeit a century-late–to the somber origins of this cocktail, there’s no way we can contain our enthusiasm, our rapture, our over-the-moonness for it. Though it may seem an unlikely collision of sorts, it’s actually an inspired communion of effervescence and denseness, titillating and satiating, ladylike delicateness and handsome ruggedness. It’s so, sooooo smooth, it’s no surprise the cocktail takes the word “velvet” for its the title. And, like its namesake, the libation lends a sense of subdued sophistication to any celebration, whether the accompanying attire is your fanciest pants or your comfiest faded jeans. But don’t take our word for it. See, or rather, sip for yourself.

Indulge us, please, just a tad longer so we can inform you of the proper making of a Black Velvet. Tradition holds the stout goes into the glass first. This technique creates a rather dramatic presentation since the Champagne, due to the difference in densities, lingers atop the stout in an impressive, if ephemeral, subsequent layer. It’s only a matter of time until the boozes mingle. To extend the lifetime of the layers, pour the Champagne over the back of a spoon to prevent it from plunging headlong into the stout.

Active time: 5 minutes | Total time: 5 minutes

Black Velvet Cocktail Recipe

Directions

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John Besh | My New Orleans | Andrews McMeel, 2009 | Serves 12

Red wine and kirsch (a brandy made from cherries) make the base for this delicious holiday drink, laced with citrus and warming spices like cinnamon, cardamom, and black pepper. The spiced wine will keep overnight at room temperature. Reheat before serving.–John Besh

LC Tipsy Holidays Note: Your mother-in-law may frown upon you teetering around, a martini sloshing in your glass, every second of every family function during the holidays. But strolling about with a glass of genteel spiced wine? Sooooo much more socially acceptable…

Active time: 15 minutes | Total time: 15 minutes.

Hot Spiced Wine Recipe

Directions

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Claire Robinson | Five Ingredient Fix | Grand Central Life & Style, 2010 | Makes 4 cocktails

What makes this recipe really sing: Don’t skimp on the fresh cider here. When the cider is simmered and thickened, the flavor is intensely apple, and intensely autumn! Star anise and cinnamon stick will fill your house with a delicious aroma – you might want to quadruple this recipe and keep it warm on the stove throughout a cold winter evening with friends.

Toss a few slices of crisp apple and a squeeze of orange juice in the warm cider if you have it. For a true toddy, float a pat of butter on each drink and relax by the fire.–Claire Robinson

LC Tis the Season Note: Honestly? We’re not so smitten with cooler weather. Except, natch, as an excuse to luxuriate in beef oxtails, duck confit, hot toddies, and the like. So, a toast, to the arrival of a new season as a harbinger of lovely things. (Clink!)

Active time: 5 minutes | Total time: 15 minutes.

Apple Spiced Bourbon Toddies Recipe

Directions

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