I had the opportunity to try Old Raj gin this past summer at a bar in Ithaca, NY. Though after browsing the cocktail menu and watching the bartender, I knew that I had better play it safe. So I decided I’d ask for a martini with tons of vermouth; “way more than you would ever […]

It’s not often you come across a cocktail that so successfully combines six liqueurs, and especially not one that does so with equal measurements. I somehow graced over this daring conglomeration on my first … ok, 50th time through The Gentleman’s Companion Vol. II, but I sure am glad I found it. I would expect […]

This was the third cocktail I mixed up from David Wondrich’s Esquire Drinks, and I knew immediately that his book would become prized in my collection. If you have not already purchased it based on my previous recommendation, just go do it. That shelf / grand library where you keep all of your cocktail books […]

Now this, my friends, is a drink book. I’ve spent so many hours looking through my library searching for that one, secret, cocktail that I could add to the Kaiser Penguin archives. Books were flying on and off shelves like a wizard at work, yet nothing excitingly potable was to be found. Baker seemed to […]

I must admit this up front. I struggled with the tiki gods to not include a warm and most likely flaming tiki drink in this month’s edition of Mixology Monday, Winter Warmers, hosted by our friends over at Imbibe Unfiltered. I was even playing around with how to photograph the blue flames dancing from my […]

Gaze upon the words of Charles H. Baker, Jr. and be instantly transported to the high mountains of Luzon, the pre-prohibition days of New York, or to Jamaica where you’ll dine with a retired British army man named Wilson. It doesn’t matter where he takes you – it’s always interesting, and sometimes dangerous. After reading […]