Recipes By Rebekah Peppler
83 recipes found
Sweet Bay-Peppercorn Shrub
This citrus-based shrub, in which lemon and grapefruit peels are muddled with sugar, black peppercorns, thyme, cloves and bay leaves before being combined with citrus juice, acts as a lightly spiced base for any drink — whether you’re adding alcohol or not. Use it in a No-ABV French 75 or simply pour an ounce or so over ice and top with sparkling water or tonic. Or try it in a low-A.B.V. French 75, or in lieu of simple syrup in a classic French 75.
Pisco Sour
The pisco sour is sweet-tart, richly textured and crowned with a fluffy white top. The origins of the drink, a blend of pisco (a South American brandy), citrus, sugar and egg white, come with some debate as to whether it originated in Chile or Peru. But it is most commonly said to have been created in the early 20th century by Victor Morris, an American expatriate in Peru. While this recipe calls for using exclusively lime juice, a combination of fresh lime and lemon juice (1/2 ounce lemon, 1/2 ounce lime) works as well. Just don’t skip the aromatic bitters, added as a final garnish and often in a decorative pattern: They contribute to the drink’s final aesthetic and aroma.
Celery Sour Mocktail
Serve this bright, refreshing nonalcoholic mixed drink up in a chilled cocktail glass, or stretch it by pouring it over ice in a lowball glass and topping with a splash of soda water or tonic. However you choose to serve it, reserve the extra celery simple syrup and use it as a replacement for regular simple syrup in all manner of drinks, nonalcoholic and spirited, alike. Or, if you don’t have time to make the celery simple syrup for this drink, you can substitute in standard 1:1 simple syrup, though the resulting sour will lose some of its vegetal nuance.
Classic Sherry Cobbler
This cocktail’s combination of sherry, sugar and citrus is infinitely adaptable. Swap in a different sweetener. Use lemons or clementines or blood oranges instead of traditional orange slices. Add in seasonal fruit, say berries in summer, plums in autumn or jam any time of the year. Use different varieties of mint or another herb to garnish. Nuttier than fino or manzanilla, lighter and spicier than oloroso, amontillado sherry strikes the ideal middle ground in this drink. But you could also combine amontillado with another sherry — or tap in another variety altogether.
Classic French 75
Drinkers who know and love the French 75 have strong personal preference on whether to use gin or cognac as the base. This classic recipe offers both options. Pour what you like, or, if you’re on the fence, let season or mood determine your choice. Gin tends toward a cleaner, more botanical, refreshing drink, ideal for warmer weather drinking; cognac lends heft and weight, especially great in cooler weather.
Adonis (à la Oloroso)
A 19th-century classic, the stirred, vermouth-forward Adonis was invented at the Waldorf Astoria’s bar in New York and named after a Broadway musical. A classic Adonis is often made with a lighter fino or manzanilla sherry. Swapping in oloroso here further deepens the drink’s rich flavor and silky texture, making it an ideal, low-A.B.V. cold weather apéritif. If you prefer to use a lighter sherry, shift the proportions to 1 1/2 ounces sweet vermouth and 1 1/2 ounces fino or manzanilla sherry.
Porto Cooler
The key to this citrus-forward nod to Portugal’s venerable porto tónicos lies in the citrus wheels that stack along the inside of the glass top to bottom. As aesthetically pleasing as they are functional, use any one citrus or mix of citrus, seeking out those with thin piths for glass-lining ease. Lime, lemon, orange, blood orange, mandarin, Meyer lemon, even kumquat are all excellent choices, depending on your personal preference and season. To keep the citrus rounds in place, use a wider-mouthed highball glass and alternate adding citrus and ice. Once the white port, vermouth, bitters, and tonic are added, the citrus will gradually impart its flavor into the cocktail as it sits, shifting the cooler's flavor as you drink.
Amaro Sour
This drink, run through with amaro, riffs on the endlessly adaptable sour template (spirit-citrus-sweetener). A maraschino cherry and half a grapefruit wheel are muddled with sugar early on, to sweeten and flavor the drink, while another cherry and half-wheel are added just before serving. That allows the fruit to slowly become infused with gin and amaro, creating garnish and boozy snack. Reach for a sweeter-leaning amaro, or throw caution to the bitter wind and grab something more intense. If you want to balance the amaro’s bitter edges with a touch more sweetness, add a dash or three of the maraschino cherry syrup to your shaker or serve with extra cherries for middrink pops of sweetness.
Cassis Manhattan
With a rye-bourbon split and just enough slightly herbal crème de cassis to sweeten without overpowering, this manhattan variation is spirit-forward, with layered notes of sugar and spice. If you prefer to keep the drink to one type of whiskey, opt for rye and leave out the bourbon. The cocktail will be slightly more spice-forward and boozier in feel. Whatever you do, let the cherry garnish sit until the very end of the drink for an especially flavorful final snack.
Mezcal-Tequila Margarita
The spirit base of this margarita is split between tequila and mezcal, which gives the final drink a deep, complex flavor, and provides an excellent excuse to rim the glass with sal de gusano, or worm salt. With roots in Oaxaca, Mexico, sal de gusano is made from toasted, ground gusano (the moth larvae that feeds on the agave plant), salt and dried chiles, and is traditionally served alongside mezcal. If you’re running low on tequila or mezcal, feel free to use 1 1/2 ounces total of whichever agave-based spirit you have.
Gin Cidre
Bright, botanical and lightly bubbly, this cocktail is an ideal entry point to fall drinking — and one that can easily take you straight through to spring. Look to a cider that’s dry, light and not overly powerful in acid or funk here: You want the botanicals of the gin and the salinity of the sherry to play an equal role in balancing the drink.
Any-Spirit Negroni
This take on the classic drink uses a combination of sweet and dry vermouths in the standard gin-vermouth-red bitter formula, adding depth and character. The vermouths are paired with the spirit of your choice for an adaptable drink that puts whatever bottles you prefer or have on hand to work. If you're not a fan of the traditional gin, rum, tequila or bourbon or rye whiskeys are all great here.
Scorpion Bowl
Because many tiki recipes were kept secret from even the bartenders assembling them, the original scorpion bowl recipe is difficult to pinpoint. This recipe is an updated take on what many consider to be one of the originals: Trader Vic’s 1946 recipe. The quality of the ingredients is important, but just as important is the garnish. Put edible flowers, chunks of fruit and reusable straws to work. If fire is in your heart, float a flaming lime shell atop the drink (see Tip), taking care to attempt this only in the early stages of the night and to snuff out any lingering flames before serving.
An Adaptable Cosmopolitan Cocktail
In case you couldn’t help but wonder, this more refined Cosmopolitan is not a robust red but a dusty pink, deeply chilled, and walks the line between sweet and sour. You can even shed the notion that it must be served in a martini glass, and serve it in a coupe or smaller cocktail glass instead. Whatever your vessel, tuck it in the freezer for about 10 minutes to properly chill before pouring.
Basil Vermouth Cooler
A double dose of basil — infused in dry vermouth and used as garnish — ensures this drink is fresh and herbal throughout. A splash of olive brine and a garnish with the olives themselves add salinity and balance. Use the leftover basil-infused dry vermouth in a 50/50 martini, Vermouth Royale, a Fair Play or pour as is over a large ice cube and finish with a citrus twist.
New York Sour Shot
A wine-spiked whiskey sour, the New York Sour is a potent combination of bourbon, lemon, sugar and sometimes egg whites. Top each of these shots with dry red wine for a more classic experience — both in looks and in taste — or swap out the wine entirely for sweet red vermouth. The slightly more herbal flavor makes up for what it lacks in striking visuals. This alternative float is especially ideal if you don’t have or don’t want to open a full 750-milliliter bottle of red only to put a few ounces to use. (That’s less of an issue if you plan on drinking wine later in the night, but you do you.)
Nuitcap
A modern and decidedly French-slanted nightcap, the Nuitcap combines Cognac, blanc vermouth and a drinker’s choice of bitter, herbal liqueur: Salers, génépy or Suze. Salers makes for a drier cocktail, while génépy leans sweeter and more herbal. Suze shifts the drink toward the more bitter — and bright yellow — side. A final splash of soda water is kept to a modest 1 ounce, diluting the drink, but not so much that it moves into spritz territory.
Hanky Panky
This sweet 50/50 martini was created in the early 1900s by Ada Coleman, the head bartender at the American Bar at the Savoy Hotel in London. It combines equal parts gin and sweet vermouth, finished with a splash of the bittersweet Italian amaro Fernet-Branca. Stick with the original recipe and use Fernet-Branca, or substitute another fernet. The amount you deploy depends on both individual taste and the intensity of the fernet used, so add it slowly, and as you like.
Tuxedo Cobbler
This modern take on the Sherry Cobbler — and nod to the classic Tuxedo and Tuxedo No. 2 cocktails — makes for a bright, refreshing drink that’s slightly higher in alcohol by volume (or A.B.V.). The optional but highly recommended absinthe rinse lends a subtle yet grounding anise flavor to the drink. If you don’t have absinthe, use a splash of anise-forward pastis. To rinse, add the absinthe to the glass and swirl to coat; tip out the rest. A pinch of salt both aids in balancing the drink and highlights manzanilla sherry’s inherent salinity. If you don’t have manzanilla, use fino or, if you’re looking for a slightly richer drink, amontillado sherry.
Nonalcoholic French 75
Pull out your finest coupe or Nick and Nora glass for this tart, nonalcoholic take on the French 75, ideal for nondrinkers and those taking a night (or week, or month, or year) off drinking. The key to the drink’s complexity is in the sweet bay-peppercorn shrub, a rich-in-flavor, make-ahead base that lasts, stored in the refrigerator, up to one month.
Tequila Soleil
Think of the Tequila Soleil as a Negroni (with tequila) meets a spritz (with beer) meets that wonderful feeling of relief only an ice cold drink on a hot summer afternoon can bring. The vermouth — use blanc if you have it, sweet red if you don’t — tempers the drink, but the key to a perfectly balanced Tequila Soleil lies in how you build it. Namely, you’ll want to add the ice last. This small switch in technique has a big impact, keeping the beer from deflating on impact and thus retaining a bubbly, refreshing vibe for much longer.
Lambrusco Spritz
Think of this as a grown-up, but not too grown-up, spritz. Here, grapefruit brightens and plays up the wine’s light bitterness, while buttery green olives add a touch of earthy brine and serve as a welcome snack. Reach for a lighter, sweeter, more citrus-leaning amaro, to avoid masking the bubble’s nuance. For Lambrusco, seek dry or off-dry bottles, and commit to tasting a few until you find what you like. Two to start with: Lambrusco di Sorbara, which is the lightest in color and flavor, with high acidity and plenty of aromatics, and Lambrusco Grasparossa, which is dark in color and bold in flavor with dry tannins and rich berry notes.
Basque Country
The equal proportions of vermouth and cider make this cocktail especially easy to pour or batch up. Choose a cider with a bit of tartness and funk, and reach for a quality red vermouth. Sweet and slightly viscous, it stands up to and smooths out the cider’s personality. Finally, don’t skimp on the garnish. The orange, olives and peppers should be deployed in a way that feels less like decoration and more like a snack. Drop the skewer straight into your cocktail to impart notes of citrus and brine — or lay it on top to snack on and sip at your leisure.
Frozen Tom Collins
Think of this frozen drink as a Tom Collins meets Italian lemon ice: It’s refreshingly sweet-tart, boozy and fully capable of giving you brain freeze in a painfully nostalgic way. Since colder temperatures can shift the way we perceive sweetness, frozen drinks read less sweet on the palate and thus require a bit more added sugar to balance flavors. This recipe employs a final flourish of syrupy maraschino cherries, stirred in to taste. If you’re skipping the cherries or don’t have time to run out to stock up, you can simply add a bit more simple syrup to taste while blending. You’ll lose the brilliant color contrast — and the outright fun of snacking on ice-cold, candylike cherries — but, like most good drinks, this one’s adaptable.