You Had Me At Aloe

According to Wikipedia, there are at least 299 types of aloe plants.  However, the only type of flowering succulent that interested me was the kind packed in that Trader Joe's can high on the store shelf: aloe vera cozy in its own lightly sweetened juice.

Usually aloe vera is a plant on a kitchen window ledge, ready to be used for careless fingers suffering from a recent collision with a hot skillet. Here, at Trader Joe's, the famous medicinal plant was ready for purchase. Dimly aware of all the "aloe cures what ails you" theories out there and having the usual single-mindedness, this hapless bartender considered the product in only one way - could it be put to good use in a cocktail?!

The first combination tried wasn't an easy one because there was very little whiskey in the jar - the only thing on hand, in the brown spirits family, was a corn whiskey.

I started with a variation on the classic whiskey sour with the above Tuthilltown Corn Whiskey, opting for appearance perhaps rather than performance. Corn whiskey, an unaged spirit, a neonatal Bourbon so to speak, results from a corn mash that doesn't spend any time in the oak cask required for a bourbon. 

Corn whiskey is a strong taste against which the delicate aloe syrup struggled; add more if desired. The taste, well...but it looks great.

With apologies to Todd Rundgren, I give you the Aloe, It's Me:

2 oz. of corn whiskey

1 tbs. of fresh lemon juice

1 tbs. aloe vera syrup (lightly sweetened)

1 tbs. of superfine sugar

Combine in a cocktail shaker with a cup of ice. Shake until a frost forms on the outside. Strain into a sour glass (looks like a small champagne flute) for straight up sour or strain into a double old-fashioned glass with fresh ice. Garnish with a maraschino and lemon wheel of course!

Because of the color and consistency of the aloe vera, both the plant and its juice, it worked very well with vodka, a neutral spirit. I experimented along the lines of the Dirty Martini motif.

With apologies to Jim Morrison, I give you the Aloe, I Love You:

2 1/2 oz. of vodka
1/2 oz. dry vermouth
2 oz. of aloe vera lightly sweetened syrup

Shake (not stirred) with ice in cocktail shaker until frost forms on the outside. Strain into a chilled martini glass.

And here is where the aloe lends itself to a distinctive cocktail in a surprising way.

The consistency of the diced aloe is a bit odd - on the rubbery yet tender side, gelatinous really, brings to mind a jellyfish, but it looks so attractive. On the hors d'oeuvres pick above, the diced aloe looked like little ice cubes in the martini.

One more variation on the Aloe Martini, one actually approaching Cosmo territory, I bring you my favorite of the evening. 

With apologies to Carol Channing, the Aloe Dolly:

2 1/2 oz. vodka
1/2 oz. cointreau
1 oz. lemon juice
1 oz. aloe vera lightly sweetened syrup
dash of Orange Bitters

The Aloe Dolly had a sophisticated combination that both tasted and served conversation well: "What's in your drink?!" So, with no apologies to Renee Zwelleger or Tom Cruise, and quoting Jerry Maguire again, we weren't trying to make history here, just a little cocktail fun with a medicinal plant. 

First published on blogcritics.org

Martha says "Herb" with an "H" and other cocktail news....

Martha Stewart was stuck in the inevitable traffic of Manhattan's United Nations week, but no diplomat was going to keep her from her date with a blender in the Bronx at one of New York City's most glorious kitchens – the New York Botanical Gardens.

On a recent early autumn evening, the Gardens presented an herb class with Martha Stewart as part of its Edible Garden exhibition. The series features a line-up of celebrity chefs.

Martha hosted her own garden this summer at the Gardens with over 50 types of herbs. The event was right on target with what is trendy in mixology right now, as we all knew a Martha Stewart event would be. The days of arcane and precious cocktails have already passed their peak, and now it is the time for simplicity in mixed drinks: going out and picking something special from the late garden and adding it to a spirit.

With a perfect New York blue fall sky in the background, a tent was set up in front of the iconic NYBG Conservatory. Hundreds of Manhattanite Martha fans were dressed in what was supposed to be "This old thing? I just came from the office," but was more suspiciously along the line of "I'm going to see Martha Stewart" Tory Burch.

The two classic cocktails that Martha focused on: a variation on a frozen daiquiri, and the classic mint julep, a drink she confessed she wasn't particularly fond of, but she did adore the silver tumblers.

  

Cocktails from the Garden with Martha

I call this one "The Martharita." It is like a daquiri or a margarita with a sweet and sour balance.

Moisten the cocktail glass (which looks like a small martini glass) with Lillet Blanc and then place on the rim the salt/sugar combination. Do this early in the day so that the rim dries before cocktail hour.

5 basil leaves (lemon basil is especially good if you have it)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 oz Lillet Blanc
1 oz vodka (or more if you're stuck in UN traffic)
1 tablespoon simple syrup
1 cup ice
Combine all in a blender. Top off with additional vodka if needed. Martha did.


The crowd was enthusiastic. So much so, Martha remarked, that it "sounds like someone has already had a lot to drink back there. Sounds like you've already had your cocktails!" And we had – at the pre-show champagne cocktail reception in her herb garden. Remember, a chamagne cocktail is an easy but impressive drink consisting of a sugar cube at the bottom of a flute, a couple of dashes of Angostura Bitters, and champagne. It makes for a willing audience.

Martha's Mint Julep

I have covered making mint juleps before in this column near Derby time, but this is a recipe from Martha's precise lips. It differs from the recipe from her Living Magazine in that it doesn't require squeezing 26 lemons, but if you don't mind forgoing that pleasure, here goes:

8 mint leaves
1 tsp superfine sugar - raw
muddle
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Add 1 cup crushed ice to the tumbler.
Pour 2 oz. bourbon over ice.
Sitr until the outside of the cup is frosted.
Garnish with mint sprig.

I was delighted when Martha gave our local whiskey distillery, Tuthilltown Spirits, a substantial plug. Along with the Maker's Mark, she offered Tuthilltown's beautiful Baby Bourbon as an option in the julep. My own Baby Bourbon is empty so it's time soon for a return trip to New Paltz.

photo by Ben Stechschulte

Lessons to be learned in the Garden: invest in a good blender, and even more important, never use anything other than fresh juice in a cocktail. That can't be stressed enough, but I'll let Martha explain: "Whatever the recipe calls for, if it's a margarita, it has to be fresh lime juice. It doesn't pay to buy any of those mixes. They are expensive. They are full of chemicals and artificial sweeteners. I won't order that kind of drink in a bar unless they are squeezing the limes right there in front of me." Rightly said, but still, can you imagine being that bartender when Martha comes up to the stick and orders a margarita? There might be an unsteady hand over the juicer even if there is no artificial mix in the house.

Originally published on blogcritics.org

The Currant Affair

My poor, neglected cocktail blog. Sniff. Since I've been on the jury for the 1st Irish Theatre festival, everything, laundry, cooking, cocktails, everything has been shoved aside for a show and a quick glass of wine at intermission. Two weeks I'll be done. In the meantime, I'm reprinting a column I wrote for the wonderful Lazaro Cooks blog this summer. Check out the site. He whips up pure gold and not just the Yukon puree kind.

The column also made an appearance on the Sweet Southern Prep blog. It's a delightful mix of food and fashion and all in pink and green.

Both sites are very popular with lots of comments. Thank you both for spreading good cheer.

Happy Hour at the Farmer’s Market: A Currant Affair

There are some people whose happy hours are spent at the week-end farmer’s market. And then there are those people whose happiest hours are well past the time the farmers have packed up their goat cheese. The drinking class would do well, however, to rise with the roosters and check out what’s being brought to market for there are infinite possibilities for a summer cocktail at the nearby farmer’s stand. Remember, think globally, drink locally.

A recent trip to a nearby farmer’s market in Bronxville, NY ( a town, farmers take note, that the New York Times reported today, is not suffering from the real estate recession that is affecting the rest of the country) offered lots of inspiration for this article.

To begin with, there’s the ubiquitous cucumbers and fresh basil here in Bronxville as in any Farmer’s Market this time of year. As bartender Adam Schuman, from Brooklyn’s Fatty 'Cue proves, basil and cucumber make for a considerable combination in a cocktail.

The South Sixth:

2 oz. gin (or vodka)


2 cucumber slices (1/16 in. thick)


2 basil leaves


1 oz. cardamom simple syrup


1 oz. lemon juice


1 oz. ginger beer

Muddle cucumber, basil and simple syrup in a pint glass. Add gin and lemon juice. Shake over ice for ten seconds. Double strain into iced highball glass. Top with ginger beer and garnish with cucumber wheel. Serve on patio.

When shopping, don’t just buy fresh basil. Buy the plant! Help yourself to the fragrant basil leaves with the South Sixth sense calls you. I bought 2 basil plants for $3 at the market, and you just have to admit, that is a bargain. I placed the plants in my container gardens to ward off my black gardening thumb for just a little while longer.

Mr. Schuman, my hero., also came up with a even more refreshing variation on the cucumber theme: muddling cucumber with the cardamom simple syrup, strain over ice, adding St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur, grapefruit juice, sparkling wine and club soda to taste.

Moving beyond the cucumbers, I couldn’t pass by the red currants. Basically because I cannot resist bright, shiny objects.

I was wowed by what looked like thousands of dazzling rubies. I didn’t know anything about the berry at the time but bought some in confidence that I could find something to make with them. They were just too beautiful not to be perfect in some sort of beverage or another.

It turns out that for once my overconfidence paid off - red currants make a wonderful cocktail. Fresh, they are tart like a cranberry, and we all know how important cranberry is in today’s mixology.

Here is a variation of a Red Currant Martini recipe that I found online:

2 oz. gin

2 oz. red currant simple syrup

1 oz. limoncello

1/3 oz. fresh lemon juice

Garnish with red currants.

In a cocktail shaker, muddle 1/4 cup of red currants and lemon juice. Add gin and limoncello and fill with ice. Shake til frost forms on the outside of the shaker. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with red currants.

As you can see, the red currant martini, pictured with some of the spoils of the day, a looks much like a cosmopolitan but falls on the sweeter side of a well-made cosmo. It might do better on the rocks as most summer drinks do.

I was unwilling to stop there because I felt that the above martini, while perfectly presentable, did not do justice to these beautiful berries. So I went exploring further in hopes of having something new to offer here as a guest blogger.

It’s amazing what a deadline (and a good Japanese soft drink) will do.

Drum roll. Unveiling.

A Michael Giacchino swell of music.

I bring you a Currant Affair.

3 oz. vodka

2 oz. red currant simple syrup

Unsweetened grapefruit soda.

Red currants for garnish.

To make a red currant simple syrup, dissolve one cup sugar in one cup water over low flame. When the sugar dissolves, add one cup of red currants. Stir and let cool. Pour into an airtight container and the syrup will last for up to four months.

In the Currant Affair, I used Gokurí Grapefruit Soda, a soft drink from the Japanese Beverage Company, Suntory. Gokurí, while difficult to find if you don’t live near a Japanese grocery, is particularly wonderful in cocktails. It was the true key to this cocktail’s succes: Gokurí has real fruit pulp, and it doesn’t hide the grapefruit tartness with sugar. It’s a very sophisticated beverage, and the same effect could be had with grapefruit juice and some club soda. You don’t want to use an American grapefruit soda like Squirt, as good as Squirt is, because it is too sweet and will pile on and overpower your currants.

Next week-end, take a morning walk through the local farmer’s market to see what’s possible for the evening cocktail. Next time, I’m going back to load up on more red currants. I hear that Martha has a great recipe for a red currant puree, one that goes perfectly with champagne. In the meantime, I have a particularly aromatic bunch of lavender that I will work with; I just know it will enhance some happy hour.

Container Gardens and Container Cocktails: It's Summertime and the living is easy

Being essentially a lazy person, I find that container gardening is the only horticulture for me (cue Dorothy Parker quote here). It's a very small amount of effort for a great deal of validation: riotous color in exchange for some dirt and water. Here I proudly pose my red, white and blue gardening just in time for the 4th of July holiday.

Container cocktails are in the same spirit. A small amount of energy is placed into the right pitcher of drinks, and riotous colorful dialogue blooms among the summer barbecue guests.

On the lookout for some summer holiday entertainment ideas, I found a couple recipes in a recent New York Magazine issue.

Of the four highlighted container cocktails, I found that the simplest were the best, and that works out just perfectly because who has time for a 17-ingredient punch? It's summer. The living is supposed to be easy, and the guests will be here any minute.

Pictured above is the Elder Berry Smash developed by London mixologist Charlotte Voisey for the New York City restaurant Kenmare, a Mediterranean restaurant with an Irish name. The super-sized cocktail was very easy to make and a big hit with the guests who long ago have stopped being polite about the way I experiment on them. They would have told me if they didn't like it, in no uncertain terms.

Elder Berry Smash

1 cup of blackberries

9 oz. St. Germain elderflower liqueur

Lime juice from 3 whole limes

8 oz. Champagne or a sparkling wine

6 sprigs of mint

Muddle blackberries in the bottom of a pitcher. Add St. Germain and lime juice, followed by crushed ice, leaving room for the champagne. Top with Champagne, garnish with mint sprigs. Stir just before pouring and serve in fluted glasses. Serves 6.

The other popular recipe was deemed the Farmer's Friend, but it was really a mojito with a surprise variation - rhubarb. While checking out at the supermarket, the cashier asked me what rhubarb tasted like: "is it like celery?" No. Most definitely not, I responded. People make pies out this - with a lot of sugar! I told her about my beverage plans, and she was enthused. With good reason. The drink was a success. I'd say that the party was split 50-50. Half of the imbibers liked the Smash, the other half liked the Farmer's Friend. All love a good muddle apparently.

The Farmer’s Friend

By Ron Levine, Anfora

2 handfuls of mint leaves, torn

2 cups rhubarb (about 4 stalks), sliced into 1/2-inch pieces

16 oz. white rum

8 oz. simple syrup

4 oz. fresh lime juice

Club soda (approximately 6 oz.)

Muddle mint leaves with rhubarb at the bottom of the pitcher. Add ice, and pour rum, simple syrup, and lime juice over mixture. Stir, and top with club soda. Pour in rocks glasses. Serves 8.

Container gardening is perfect gardening for cocktail hour. A plant here and there, a sip and a sit, and an admiring gaze toward all that hard work.

You don't want any operation of heavy equipment while mixing up pitchers of white sangria for your guests. This version calls for the addition of vodka, a good segue way toward "the Russian spy that lives next door" as a party conversation.

A Vodka Sangria, pictured below, from The Bar:

1 bottle of a dry white wine

6 oz. Vodka

3 oz. Grand Marnier

3 oz. pomegranate juice

3 oz. orange juice

2 oz. white grape juice

3 oz. lemon juice

2 oz. simple syrup

4 raspberries

Simply mix all liquid ingredients in a pitcher and garnish with raspberries and lemon wheels. Couldn't be any more effortless and that's perfect for a hot summer's happy hour. Happy Fourth!

Originally published on blogcritics.org

The Red Snapper: Facing the Music

Chances are, if you had a drink on New Year's Day, that is if you didn't give up drinking as a New Year's resolution, you had a Red Snapper. "But I had a Bloody Mary," you may respond. "Free! With my brunch!"

Same drink, classier name.

The Bloody Mary could be named for the Queen of England, Elizabeth I's older sister, who had a brief and violent reign. It could be named for the Bucket of Blood Club in Chicago -a tavern on the west side of town. Apparently a bucket of blood would be mopped up at the end of an active night. Yum.

The name of the drink, the origins of the drink, the proper ingredients of the drink, all these are as hazy as things might have been at midnight on December 31st, but one thing is crystal clear. These spicy tomato/vodka combos are a most useful tool for the morning after.

Notice the ratio of vodka to tomato juice. It is one to one rather than the one to three ratio of vodka to mix that you might find in a typical restaurant brunch drink today. I tried Petiot's Bloody Mary Martini with some degree of success with the brunch crowd who do not like tomato juice. Shaken, strained, and poured.

From Harry's in Paris, Fernand Petiot went on to bartend at the St. Regis Hotel in New York City, in the celebrated Old King Cole Room, where they still call vodka and spiced tomato juice a Red Snapper.

In one of the first stops in my international tour of Red Snappers, I stopped at the Mill Street Brew Pub, part of Toronto's historic Distillery District - a highly recommended trip for the year 2010. The Distillery District, a Canadian National Historical Site, is the largest and best preserved collection of Victorian Industrial Architecture in North America, according to its website. Buildings that once housed the largest distillery in the British Empire now host the making of Hollywood movies. In the 1850s, there was rye and rum in the neighborhood. Now there is the filming of blockbusters, Hairspray and X-Men among other A-list movies having been filmed there.

The brewpub restaurant offered some excellent beers made on location but also had a Caesar on the brunch menu that needed to be sampled. The Caesar is a variation on the Bloody Mary which uses Clamato juice. This is a much more popular drink in Canada than in the U.S. I don't know what the connection between Julius Caesar and clams are, but the clam broth and tomato juice in Clamato is not as noxious a combination as you, you American you, might think. Note the heavy celery salt on the rim and the olive as a garnish. If there was a clam harmed in the making of this drink, it went unnoticed in the stockade of celery salt.

In traveling from Toronto to Buffalo, mixologically crossing over the border, I tried to emulate theTrattoria Aroma's Buffalo Chicken Wing Bloody Mary. In doing so, I also crossed over the border into Bloody Mary craziness - oh how Francios Petiot would have hated this.

Tomato juice has loads of vitamins that your body craves after a lively night and also has the fructose that helps your body metabolize the alcohol from the night before more quickly. Plus that little bit of alcohol in the Bloody Ma...umm....Red Snapper helps with a reintroduction of ethanol alcohol into your blood stream, diverting your enzymes from their work of torturing you to death with headaches, nausea, and general feelings of worthlessness. Or at least, this is what science says.

Sometime in the 1930s, New Yorker George Jessel combined vodka with tomato juice at a time when vodka was a novelty, and no one else knew quite what to do with it. Thank heavens, George did. Then, Fernand Petiot, bartender at Harry's New York Bar in Paris, took the tomato juice and vodka and went a step further:

“I initiated the Bloody Mary of today,” Petiot claimed in the July 1964 New Yorker. “Jessel said he created it, but it was really nothing but vodka and tomato juice when I took it over. I cover the bottom of the shaker with four large dashes of salt, two dashes of black pepper, two dashes of cayenne pepper, and a layer of Worcestershire sauce; I then add a dash of lemon juice and some cracked ice, put in two ounces of vodka and two ounces of thick tomato juice, shake, strain, and pour. "

Buffalo Chicken Wing Bloody Mary

2 parts vodka

6 parts V8 juice

4 dashes of worchestershire

4 dashes of Frank's Hot Sauce

Blue Cheese crumbles to taste

celery salt to taste

Red snapper purists couldn't stand the thought of chewy hunks of horseradish in a Bloody Mary. I don't know what they would have thought of crumbles of blue cheese, but it probably wouldn't be kindly thoughts.

Finally, I stopped at that Arts and Crafts wonder - the Roycroft Inn in East Aurora, New York. The Roycroft is an American National Landmark, a 1905 campus for the arts based upon the designs of Frank Lloyd Wright and Gustav Stickley. It is a beautiful building and atmosphere - perfect for a vintage cocktail.

There I had a Bloody Mary built as well as its surroundings. At first glance, all the drink looks to contain is tomato juice. It was even suspiciously free of Worcestershire. But the drink had good proportion, modest in profile, but tangy to taste - no excess of horseradish or celery salt floating senselessly through the cocktail. Fernand Petiot would have been pleased.

The Bloody Mary is a common cocktail. There is even a tinge of the blue collar to it. Avowed beer drinkers will admit to a cocktail if it is a morning Bloody Mary. Does it even deserve a discussion? After all, champagne mimosas or bellinis are much more fashionable for endless Sunday brunches. But admit it. After a long night of over-imbibing on "brown liquor" cocktails, a mimosa is just not going to make a dent in that bourbon fog. If cocktail time is somewhere between noon and 3 p.m., seasoned tomato juice with a good vodka is peerless.

From the Rangoon Ruby to the Nantucket Cosmopolitan

Last weekend, during the nor'easter that dumped premature snow on Boston, we headed to the beach for the season's last clam roll and warm weather cocktail. Logical, right? We ended up at Hemisphere in Sandwich, Massachusetts, first town over the Sagamore Bridge. The waterfront restaurant rattled in the wind. Patio chairs flew by the windows. On recommendation, I ordered a Nantucket Cosmo. It was summer a few hours longer.

There are so many variations on the cosmopolitan these days that the Sex and the City beverage of choice seems a vintage drink in comparison. What started as a simple drink in a sophisticated glass — Absolut Citron, a splash of Triple Sec or Cointreau, a drop of lime juice and just enough cranberry to make it pink — comes in many flavors and bears little resemblance to the original cocktail other than the martini glass.

Heavy on the cranberry, the Nantucket Cosmo is an ironic transformation of the Cosmo which is itself a relative of the ye olde Cape Codder. And here I was — on Cape Cod.

The original Cape Codder dates back to somewhere in the early 1960s, probably originating at Trader Vic's. Then the cranberry and vodka cooler was called a Rangoon Ruby, and to this day it is on the Trader Vic's strong drink menu made for "Pirates, Buccaneers and Beachcombers." As advertised, it is "no sissy drink." Do you hear that, Carrie and Co.?




By 1965 Ocean Spray saw a business opportunity and put Cape Codder drink recipes on its juice labels calling for vodka or rum and Ocean Spray Cranberry Cocktail. The beverage then spent a brief time as a "Harpoon" which introduced fresh lime instead of Rose's lime juice. The Harpoon is how vodka and cranberry appears in the exhaustively detailed Mad Men minutiae. Fans of the show may remember the Harpoon cocktails daughter Sally made Don Draper - 90% vodka, 10% cranberry. The name Harpoon is probably in reference to the arrow-through-the-head feeling Don Draper experienced the morning after.

Vodka and cranberry is back to being a Cape Codder now, and a drink with much more vodka than cranberry is a cosmo. Sally Draper was so much ahead of her time.

Hemisphere's Nantucket Cosmo

* 3 oz.Triple 8 cranberry vodka
* 1 oz. triple sec
* Splash of cranberry
* Fresh lime slice as garnish



The Nantucket Cosmo is marked by its vodka, Triple 8 Cranberry Vodka, distilled on Nantucket. I applaud the use of local product, but in this particular drink, the cranberry vodka was redundant. It may be sacrilegious to say this while on the Cape, but there was just too much cranberry!

I moved inland one mile, away from the 30 mph winds, to the Belfry, a former Catholic church renovated into a gorgeous restaurant, also in Sandwich. It was a busy bar, filled by Cape Cod's Restaurant Week. I managed to find a seat and ordered a pomegranate cosmo continuing with the theme of the night. Or was it described as a pomegranate martini? Who knows? When so far off the beaten cocktail path, does it matter if it is called a cosmo or a martini? In my biased paradigm, a drink containing vodka, lime juice, and triple sec with a splash of cranberry is a cosmopolitan.




The Belfry's Pomegranate Martini/Cosmopolitan

* 3 oz. Clear Pomegranate Vodka
* 1 oz. Triple Sec
* 1 oz. Pomegranate Liqueur
* Splash of cranberry
* Fresh lime juice

Chris Wilson is the meticulous visionary/owner of the Belfry and its neighbor The Painted Lady. As crowded as his restaurant was, he still had time to come to the bar and ask me how my drink was. How often does that happen? Restaurant owners will frequently stop by a table and inquire after a meal, but to ask about a drink? Such a gesture makes me, as Patti Page sang, fall in love with Old Cape Cod.

Chris, the cocktail was refreshing. The pianist played "Autumn Leaves." The fireplace warmed up the storm outside. Everything was perfect.

La Paloma, La Philomena and Arthur Guinness

Another great place for the solitary woman to sit at the bar is at North Square on Waverly Place. Actually the restaurant is on Waverly, the lounge is accessed on MacDougal St.. Don't be afraid. It may look like you're walking into a residential building, but it's the Washington Square Hotel, and there will be a nice man to point you to the lounge.

I was early for a show at Manhattan Theatre Source down on MacDougal. The North Square was perfect for waiting. I could sit at the bar and have a chopped salad and a La Paloma in perfect peace. Plus they played Lloyd Cole and the Commotions Perfect Skin: "at the age of ten she looked like Greta Garbo and I loved her then but how was she to know that..." Perfect.

The La Paloma. Cabrito Blanco Tequila, Agave Nectar, lime juice and pink grapefruit juice - muy bonita.

Back to 59 East 59t Theatre bar, the Flagrant Philomena awaits. Created by Alberto for the Rough Magic Theatre company and their production of Improbable Frequency: rum, vodka, blue curacao, and tonic with a twist of orange. The imbibing of this blue concoction with frequency is improbable.

And finally, a toast to Mr. Arthur Guinness, whose concocted 250th anniversary was this past week. All cocktails raised to the stout!

The Fresh Wind

A defeated superhero: "The Evil Masterminds tried everything, then one of them offered me a cosmo," C. Barsotti.

Speaking of cosmos, Carrie Bradshaw is back in town. Sex and the City 2 is filming in midtown these days, at Bergdorf Goodman's.

Right around the corner from the 59 East 59th Street Theatre. Best theatre bar in NYC!

Sort of like a cosmo, The Fresh Wind was created by Sir Alan Ayckbourn. This is probably the first and last time that I discuss a cocktail devised by a knight. Sir Alan took some time from writing his 73 plays to put together this gem. It consists of vodka, french vermouth, pink grapefruit juice and a splash of Cointreau. It will quell your public fear of private places. Or is it a private fear of public places?

And speaking again of cosmos, here's a tasty one from one of my favorite NYC spots, Bar Centrale, on Restaurant Row. Bartender Paul O'H is one of the best in town. More on his skills later! This one is made with Hangar One Vodka Mandarin Blossom. Delicious! A couple of cosmos and tomorrow's weather forecast is foggy.