These days, there’s no shortage of stunt cocktails out there—drinks made with zany, unusual ingredients: Sweet peas! Bacon! Hen-of-the-woods mushroom garnish! Cotton candy! Rose foam! These exhibitionist drinks invariably scream, “Look at me!”

And, yes, while I’m often the first one at the bar to order a stunt cocktail, it’s not what I want to serve at a dinner party. For that, I want something elegant, understated, and most importantly, something that complements food. But not a complete introverted wallflower of a drink, either—I want something delicious and balanced, a drink that can hold its own.

Enter the Sparkling Ginger Daisy cocktail. This drink, with a hint of warm ginger and sprightly champagne, is what I want my guests sipping while the Macy*s Thanksgiving Day Parade is on, and the turkey is still roasting. And as everyone’s sampling my signature cornbread stuffing laced with rosemary, as well as my sweet potato casserole sprinkled with ginger and cinnamon, they’ll be washing it all down with these daisies.

The drink starts with equal parts crisp gin and zingy Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur. (I love this stuff. If you buy one new bottle of booze this holiday season, I say this is the one.) Add to this a splash of tart lemon juice for balance and grenadine for rosy, festive color, and top with the lightness of bubbles. Together, these flavors meld together into a sippable sparkler that becomes an easy guest at the dinner table.

It doesn’t scream, it doesn’t whisper. It’s a perfect conversationalist.

Sparkling Ginger Daisy
by Kara Newman
from Spice & Ice
(Chronicle Books, 2009)
Makes 1 cocktail

A daisy is a classic juice-based cocktail sweetened with grenadine or a red liqueur, and often topped with sparkling wine. Here, the bright spice of ginger plays against a backdrop of bubbles for a festive holiday sparkler. And if you feel like gilding the lily, try one or both of the optional special touches below.

convert Ingredients
1 ounce Plymouth gin
1 ounce Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon grenadine
Brut champagne

Method
1. Combine the gin, ginger liqueur, lemon juice, and grenadine in an ice-filled mixing glass.

2. Stir until well chilled, and strain into a champagne flute.

3. Top with champagne.

Optional touches:
1. Rim the flute with sparkling sugar before pouring in the drink.

2. Garnish with a cherry at the bottom of the flute.

Recipe © 2009 Kara Newman. All rights reserved.
© 2009 Leite’s Culinaria, Inc. All rights reserved. Terms of use.

by Kara Newman
from Spice & Ice
(Chronicle Books, 2009)
Makes 1 cocktail

Rich with the flavors of orange and vanilla and the caramelized goodness of bourbon, this fall spice cordial sits more on the spiced than spicy side of the spectrum. This sweet cordial pairs well with autumn pies and other desserts or makes a great sipper to enjoy fireside.

convert Ingredients
For the chipotle-orange syrup
2 cups water
1 chipotle pepper
2 strips dried orange peel, or fresh peel, if dried peel is not available
3/4 cup sugar

For the cordial
1 ounce bourbon
3/4 ounce chipotle-orange syrup
1 ounce vanilla vodka or Navan vanilla cognac
2 dashes Regan’s orange bitters
Orange peel, for garnish

Method
Make the chipotle-orange syrup
1. Bring the water to boil in a small saucepan. Reduce to a simmer and add the chipotle pepper and orange peel. Cover and let simmer for 15 to 20 minutes.

2. Strain with a fine-mesh sieve and add the sugar.

3. Return to a boil and stir until sugar dissolves. Remove from the heat and let cool.

4. Pour the syrup into a container and keep in the refrigerator.

Make the cordial
1. Mix together all the ingredients except for the orange peel. Shake together with ice and strain into a martini glass. Garnish with the orange peel.

Recipe © 2009 Kara Kewman. All rights reserved.
© 2009 Leite’s Culinaria, Inc. All rights reserved. Terms of use.

These days, if you love cocktails it’s assumed you also love the hit TV series “Mad Men,” which in turn assumes you love a good dry martini (gin, natch, not vodka), one of the ad world’s hallmark drinks sipped over and over throughout the series, most frequently in triplicate during long-gone expense-account lunches.

Okay, I’ll cop to the “Mad Men” season pass. But if I admit I don’t love a dry Sterling  Cooper martini, do I have to give back my cocktail credentials? Because I don’t. In fact, my taste veers straight to the other end of the flavor spectrum: I love a sweet, creamy, luxurious drink, the polar opposite of a “dry” anything.

Very uncool of me to admit to this, I know.

If a dry martini is a perfect aperitif, then the Fiery Almond is the equivalent of dessert. Think of it another way:  dry-roasted almonds versus a luscious slice of toasted pound cake crowned with melted chocolate sauce. The first coaxes the appetite, the latter satiates it.

The problem with sweet drinks is they sometimes can be cloying. But I’ve found that a hit of spice helps alleviate that and cuts the overall smack of sweetness. So I’ve added a chipotle-and-cocoa rim to this drink. On a spicy scale of 1 to 10, the heat in this dessert-like drink rates a big fat zero. That is, until you add the chipotle-cocoa rim. With this one easy but impressive touch, the spice level soars anywhere between a 7 and a sizzling 10!  I recommend using a two-to-one cocoa powder-to-chipotle ratio, but use the chipotle solo if you have the steely, unflinching swagger of Don Draper.

This libation will never see the inside of a Madison Avenue boardroom, but it’s perfect for sipping in front of the fire as autumn gives way to winter, or for capping off a great meal with a hint of sizzle and a touch of lingering sweetness. But my favorite: defiantly imbibing it in front of the tube while watching those martini-swilling characters on “Mad Men”—on TiVo, of course.

The Fiery Almond
by Kara Newman
from Spice & Ice (Chronicle, 2009)
Makes 1 cocktail

convert Ingredients
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
1/2 tablespoon chipotle powder
3/4 ounces amaretto
1/2 ounce Kahlua
1 ounce light cream

Method
1. To rim the glass: moisten the rim with amaretto. Combine cocoa and chipotle powder in a small dish or shallow bowl. Carefully dip the rim of the glass into the powder mix to coat.

2. In a bar shaker or kitchen tumbler, shake together the amaretto and Kahlua over ice; strain the mixture into an old-fashioned glass half-filled with ice.

3. Gently pour the cream over the back of a spoon to create a “float” on top of the fiery almond without disturbing the rest of the drink.

Like it hot? Visit the Kara’s blog,  Spice & Ice, and more.

Recipe © 2009 Kara Kewman. Photo © 2009 Antonis Achilleos. All rights reserved.
© 2009 Leite’s Culinaria, Inc. All rights reserved. Terms of use.

For a delightful citrus sun tea, simply set a pitcher of water with tea bags in a sunny spot, and within a few hours the clear water will turn a golden brown. Then, all that’s left to do is to swirl the bags, squeeze in the fresh fruit juices, and enjoy.

convert Ingredients
1/2 to 3/4 cup black tea leaves, or 9 to 12 tea bags
4 cups (1 quart) cold water
3 tablespoons sugar
6-inch sprig of fresh mint
2 cups fresh orange juice
Juice of 1 lemon
1 peeled (white pith removed) and seeded orange, cut into thin pieces
Orange slices and mint leaves, for garnish

Method
1. In a 2-quart glass jar, combine the tea, water, sugar, and mint. Screw on the cap and shake gently. Place the jar in the sun in a warm location for 3 hours.

2. Stir the orange juice and lemon juice into the tea mixture. Add the orange pieces and refrigerate for several hours. To serve, pour over ice, and garnish with orange slices and mint leaves.

Raspberry-Citrus Sun Tea Fizz: Follow the recipe for Citrus Sun Tea. Place 1 to 2 tablespoons raspberry syrup in a 10-ounce glass. Fill the glass one-third to one-half full with the chilled tea, and top with your favorite sparkling water. For a subtler taste, omit the syrup and add your favorite raspberry-flavored sparkling water.

Recipe © 2008 Sara Perry. All rights reserved.
© 2009 Leite’s Culinaria, Inc. All rights reserved. Terms of use.

Here are two methods for making perfect iced tea every time. Prepared in the traditional manner, with hot water, iced tea often becomes cloudy when chilled. Solution? Add a little boiling water to the chilled tea and give it a stir. If you want your iced tea to be crystal clear, use the cold-water method.

convert Ingredients
For the hot-water method
4 cups (1 quart) cold water, divided
1/4 cup loose black tea leaves, or 4 tea bags
Ice cubes

For the cold-water method
1/4 cup loose black tea leaves, or 4 tea bags
Ice cubes

Method
Make the hot-water method
1. In a saucepan, bring 2 cups of the cold water to a boil. Remove from heat and add the tea leaves. Stir, cover, and steep for 5 minutes.

2. Stir and strain through a fine sieve to remove the leaves. (For crystal-clear iced tea, strain a second time through filter paper—the kind used to make drip coffee.)

3. Pour the tea into a pitcher containing the remaining 2 cups of cold water. Stir and pour into tall glasses filled with ice cubes.

Make the cold-water method
1. Fill a large glass container with the tea and cold water. Stir well and chill overnight.

2. If you used loose tea, strain through a fine sieve to remove the tea leaves. (For crystal-clear iced tea, strain a second time through filter paper—the kind used to make drip coffee.)

3. Refrigerate until serving time. Stir and pour into tall glasses filled with ice cubes.

Recipe © 2008 Sara Perry. All rights reserved.
© 2009 Leite’s Culinaria, Inc. All rights reserved. Terms of use.