Eschliman Dwight - The Cocktail Hour: 50 Classic Recipes

50 CLASSIC RECIPES

Once, not so very long ago, handsome women and mischievous men dressed impeccably and flirted wittily over elegant cocktails. They smoked back then, in the 50s. A woman knew how to arouse a man simply by the way she removed her gloves. He knew how to make a perfect martini. Nothing compares to how it was thenthe clothes, the music, the parties, the attitude. This cocktail-rich culture was born in the dark years of Prohibition, killed by the New Generation in the 60s, and resurrected by the young swingers of the 80s and 90s who finally realized something was missing in life. Forgive them their chocolate martinis and sugary drinks with lewd names, for this renaissance of cocktail awareness returned the classic cocktail party to our severely parched shores.

Cheers!

A classic cocktail party takes less preparation than a meal, entertains more people (though it still should be an intimate gathering), and allows guests to mingle, all within a two-hour time frame before dinner. Thankfully, anyone should be able to be brilliantnot to mention an impeccable hostfor such a short stretch. First impressions are often the most salient, so you cannot be overly scrupulous in your preparations. Heres the bones:

Invite twelve to twenty guestsenough to fill a roomby phone or e-mail two weeks before.

Choose two or three cards from this deck as the featured cocktails. A cocktail must make a solid statement on its own. Consider it nimble foreplay. Select different types of cocktails: a brown liquor and a white liquor; a fruit drink and a Martini. Note that the recipe on each card makes one average-sized serving.

Rent the appropriate glasses and count on three drinks per guest (each should be offered in a fresh glass). Organize the bar area so that everything needed is at hand, including prepared garnishes, cocktail napkins, glasses, and lots of ice. Some cocktails can be made ahead of time in large batches and poured from pretty pitchers. Others need to be made on the spot, but you can mix up enough to serve several people at once.

Stimulate the palates of your guests with a salty nibble or two. Strategically place bowls of spiced almonds around the room, and pass on trays a bagatelle of a canap or two.

Enchant your guests further. Add ambient lightingdim the bright overhead lights, ignite clusters of candles, or consider stringing up tiny lights or paper lanterns to festoon the cocktail area. Music, planned in advance, should be something that complements both the cocktail mood youre trying to evoke and your snazzy attire. Is it saucy jazz piano and palazzo pants, or short skirts with kicky mules and throaty vocals? Is it a romantic Lets Get Lost Chet Baker ambiance, or classic swingin Sinatra?

Finally, remember to mingle, flirt, and be charming!

These are the essential tools of barkeeping, and will make your job as mixmaster all that much easier.

Cocktail shaker

Martini pitcher

Seltzer bottle (not necessary, but classic)

Ice bucket and tongs

Electric blender

Coil strainer

Bar spoon

Jiggers (1-ounce shot and 1-ounce pony) Muddler (thin wooden pestle for mashing together ingredients)

Paring knife for garnishes

Citrus zester (with attachment for making twists)

Swizzle sticks for stirring and garnishing Cocktail napkins

Basic barware should include heavy, squat old-fashioneds (6-10 ounces); tall glasses such as highballs (8-12 ounces); stemmed cocktail glasses; stemmed wine glasses (which can be used for some cream drinks); and champagne flutes. Also worth the space are snifters, which come in a range of sizes.

With the following inventory of ingredients, you can open your home bar for some classy entertaining. Add more exotic ingredients, such as orgeat (nonalcoholic almond-flavored) syrup, as desired.

Spirits: Cointreau, whiskey, brandy, vodka, rum, gin, scotch, sweet and dry vermouths

Nice to have: tequila, Campari, Pernod, Benedictine

Mixers: tonic, soda, Roses lime juice, ginger ale, tomato juice (buy these in small containers so they stay fresh)

Other essentials: sugar cubes, superfine sugar, rock salt, Angostura or Peychauds bitters, grenadine, cream, ice

Garnishes and juices: oranges, lemons, limes, maraschino cherries with stems, pitted cocktail olives, cocktail onions

(Note that orange and lemon wheels are referred to in recipes; these are circular slices of the citrus with the rind.)

Gin has been called both Mothers ruin and Mothers milk, depending on how it treats you. The herbaceous spirit was designed as a curative by a Dutch chemist several hundred years ago in the belief that juniper berries helped cure kidney problems. Much later, those devilish Brits in India used gin to help their quinine medicine go down, birthing another stunning tradition.

2 ounces gin

Tonic water

Lime wedge

Pour gin over ice in a tall glass and fill with tonic. Squeeze a lime wedge over the top and drop it in.

A croquet game on a grassy, green lawn calls for white attire and white spiritsG&Ts.

Ill take Manhattanmake that two. This sassy cocktail, invented in 1874 at the Manhattan Club, is traditionally sweet, but a twist on the vermouth changes all. A Perfect Manhattan calls for ounce dry vermouth and ounce sweet vermouth with a lemon twist, and a Dry Manhattan is made with ounce dry vermouth and a lemon twist.

2 ounces whiskey

ounce sweet vermouth

Dash of Angostura bitters

Cherry

Stir together over ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Plop in a cherry, put on some Sinatra, and take it nice n easy.

Two words: brandied cherries. Only novices use maraschinos in this drink.

The Italians, stylish inventors of Ferrari, Bulgari, and Campari, named this cocktail for its popularity with Americans abroad. Equally refreshing is a Campari and Sodaa double-shot of Campari with soda water or San Pellegrinoor Campari and Orange Juice.

1 ounce Campari

to 1 ounce sweet vermouth

Soda water, chilled

Orange or lemon twist

Pour Campari and vermouth over ice in a highball glass and top with soda. Stir and garnish with a twist.

An Americano and sunglasses make for a perfect afternoon of caf sitting. Ciao, bella!

One of the jazzier classics from Americas cocktail album, this intoxicating tipple, first made with Sazerac cognac, hails from New Orleanshome to Antoine Peychaud, the apothecary who delivered his famous bitters directly to the bar where this drink originated.