Cocktails
658 recipes found
Rosé Sangria
What’s pink, pretty and packs a punch? This rosy riff on sangria, which is loaded with red and pink fruit for a festive, crowd-friendly treat. Be sure to plan ahead: The fruit needs to macerate for at least 4 hours to soak up the flavors and to soften. For the wine, choose a rosé that is neither too sweet nor too dry. It should taste good to you on its own, but since it will be mingling with juice, liquor and a whole lot of fruit, go with something inexpensive.
Tequila Sour
Sours aren’t just for whiskey; tequila lightens things up. For extra froth, use egg white when you shake the drink.
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.)
Rosie Schaap’s Negroni
The Negroni’s no-nonsense 1:1:1 proportions make it one of the easiest classics to prepare — even for a crowd.
Planter’s Punch
Good for serving one or serving a crowd, rummy planter’s punch is just off-sweet and surprisingly subtle.
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.
Traditional Sangria
Rafael Mateo, the proprietor of Pata Negra, a Spanish wine bar in the East Village, formulated this sangria that is winelike and very refreshing, with a keen balance of tart and fruity flavors. Unlike many recipes, which specify Rioja made from the tempranillo grape, Mr. Mateo prefers using garnacha from Campo de Borja in central Spain, which he said has backbone without being overly tannic. He lightens the blend by adding rosé, and sweetens it with orange liqueur and orange soda rather than with fruit purée, a common addition, which he dislikes because, he said, it gives the sangria a grainy texture. He experimented with orange juice rather than soda, but found it, too, changed the texture. Finally, he allows the punch to knit together overnight and adds cut fruit only at the end, as a garnish.
Lazy Old-Fashioned
Here’s the easiest ever old-fashioned. No stirring. No garnishing. Just some whiskey, bitters, sugar and ice — an eternally excellent combination, even without any ritual or fuss.
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.
Bourbon: Manhattan
A Manhattan is generally made with rye whiskey. Here we’re using its sweeter cousin, bourbon, with a splash of sweet vermouth. You’ll see precise measurements. But use this recipe as a guideline, and customize according to your preference.
Three Sheets to the Watermelon
This summer cocktail is essentially a variation on the watermelon margarita that eliminates the blender and the Curaçao and adds some fun and easy prep work. The result is thick, fresh and fruity — a drink that poses no danger of your interrupting your backyard barbecue with deep thoughts.
Honey Bee
With its lemon and honey, this drink is a summery version of a hot toddy.
Rosie Schaap's Cuba Libre
Real cane cola makes a difference in this classic highball. Try to find Mexican Coca-Cola or Boylan sugar cane cola if you can.
Peacock Alley Martinez
This is the version of the classic Martinez cocktail — the possible progenitor of the martini — that Frank Caiafa serves in the plush surroundings of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel’s Peacock Alley bar. It’s made in the “perfect” style (that is, with both sweet and dry vermouths) and is as elegant as it is potent.
Kathy Madison
The Rumpolitan
The Spaniard — a wonderfully cozy, cluttered, friendly pub in Belfast, Northern Ireland — has a fine assortment of rums and a winning way with rum-based cocktails. I’ve had many excellent daiquiris there, but I can also vouch for the Rumpolitan, the bar's alternative to a Cosmo. The Clément Créole Shrubb orange liqueur contributes a subtle, welcome note of bitterness and a flash of spice.
The Seelbach Cocktail
When devising a signature drink for the Seelbach Hotel in Louisville, Ky., Adam Seger drew inspiration from the cocktails made with cava and Spanish brandy that he had tasted at a Spanish restaurant. Wishing to create something that would resemble a pre-Prohibition drink, he replaced the brandy with Old Forester, a bourbon with a long heritage in Kentucky, and the cava with Korbel Brut, the sort of sparkling wine that would have been available to a Louisville bartender in the early years of the 20th century. The drink comes across as a mash-up of a manhattan and a Champagne cocktail: refreshing and just peculiar enough to keep you interested. Mr. Seger strongly recommends that all of the ingredients be very cold before being introduced to the glass.
Paper Plane
The drink, invented by the New York bartender Sam Ross, who created the classic modern cocktail the penicillin, has slowly been gaining steam since it was introduced in 2007, showing up on cocktail menus in numerous time zones. It is a rich, immediately likable whiskey sour lent plenty of culinary complexity by the amaro and the Aperol.
Apple Cider and Bourbon Punch
Apples and oranges! They’re often presented as exemplars of opposition, as though they have nothing in common. But both fruits make appearances on many Thanksgiving tables, with orange in some cranberry sauces and cornbread stuffings with apple, and they mingle beautifully in a mellow punch that gets its verve from bourbon and its depth from a brown sugar and cinnamon simple syrup. For extra apple flavor, try swapping an apple spirit, such as Applejack or Calvados, in for the bourbon. The leftover simple syrup is great in cocktails -- a festive Old Fashioned, for example -- and also on oatmeal and rice pudding.
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.
Watermelon Cooler
Created by the New York bar expert Dale DeGroff, this is the ultimate wine cooler. It's refreshing and, contrary to what you might think, only lightly sweet, which also makes it ideal on a hot summer afternoon.
Smoking Bishop
‘‘I’ll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family,’’ Scrooge tells Bob Cratchit near the end of A Christmas Carol, ‘‘and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop!’’ This recipe, adapted from the book Drinking With Dickens, by Charles Dickens’s great-grandson, Cedric, reflects Scrooge’s new disposition and largesse perfectly: it’s warm and sweet and meant for sharing. (To Cedric Dickens’s recipe, I’ve added some fragrant cardamom pods, because years of drinking glogg have shown me how well they play with orange and wine, but you may omit them). If you’re unable to find Seville oranges—marked by a pleasant, pronounced bitterness — substitute five navel oranges, and add the juice of one lemon when you add the port to the pan (do not stud the lemon with cloves or roast the lemon with the oranges).
Rum Flip
S.S. Field calls this early concoction “a drink that may have helped to change and improve our history but that two centuries of history have neither changed nor improved.”
Periodista
In 1995, Joe McGuirk was tending bar at Chez Henri, a bistro in Cambridge, Mass., with an executive chef of Cuban descent. Mr. McGuirk was asked to come up with a menu of Latin-flavored cocktails. He found a rum drink called the periodista (Spanish for “journalist”) in a liquor company's cocktail book and gave it a whirl. Mr. McGuirk did a little tinkering and delivered a cocktail, under the same name, that called for Myer’s rum, apricot brandy, Rose’s lime juice, triple sec and a bit of sugar. The drink took off and was soon served across the Boston area. Mr. McGuirk continued to work on the recipe. Here is the one he currently uses.