And who would have thought I’d find Martin of Forbidden Island, Eric Seed of Haus Alpenz, and Matt of Rum Dood at the carousel bar? After some great conversation, a Vieux Carre, and a Pimm’s Cup, it is time for the good Penguin to get some sleep before the a.m. rum judging in the […]

I never gave the Old Waldorf-Astoria more than a glance after it came with a shipment of other cocktail and cook books nearly a year ago. Boy what a mistake that was. I dug it out the other day, remembering it included more than a handful of gin-laden cocktails. To my surprise, […]

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 […]

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 […]

For 95% of bar goers, “bitters” are an unknown substance. And of that 5% who have discovered the secret treasure, probably less than 1% actually know bitters as anything beyond that mis-wrapped bottle with a yellow cap crusted to the top with sticky brown goo.

Then again, those few people probably have a blog and […]

Pernod is intense. And lot’s of people find the pungent combination of star anise and aromatic herbs quite unpleasant. To be honest, anise used to be on my top five hated foods list as of four months ago. I didn’t really discriminate between licorice and anise, either. Nearly everything with those […]

When I first saw this cocktail, I grinned. Not because it was so similar to one of my loves, the Rob Roy, but because I recognized the name. My grandfather is Robert Burns. It just so happens that he, Mr. Burns, worked much of his life as an executive for a nuclear […]

I hate licorice. Well, ok, I hate licorice at about 40% as much as I did 3 months ago. Why the drastic reduction of hate, you ask? I’ve been forcing myself to eat as many things flavored with licorice as possible. Why on earth would you do something like this?, you ask. […]