Description: A bourbon-based riff on the Moscow Mule, swapping vodka for whiskey for a warmer, spicier long drink. Cultural Background: A 20th-century American variation on the vodka Mule, popular in Kentucky and across the American South as a bourbon-forward highball. Tips: A spicy, strongly gingered beer stands up best to the bourbon. Variations: Use rye […]
Description: The Old Fashioned is the cocktail from which the very word "cocktail" gets its original definition: spirit, sugar, water, bitters. Cultural Background: First described in print in the 1880s, the drink was popularised at the Pendennis Club in Louisville, Kentucky, and its name reflects a 20th-century push to return to the "old fashioned way" […]
Description: A bourbon cocktail topped with champagne and a heavy dose of two different bitters — bolder and boozier than it looks. Cultural Background: Attached to a legend about the Seelbach Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky, in the early 1900s, though the recipe as we know it was popularised decades later. Tips: The seven-dash measure of […]
Description: An unusual, fruity rye cocktail named for the famous New York hotel and its literary Round Table. Cultural Background: Named for Manhattan's Algonquin Hotel, longtime home to the 1920s literary gathering known as the Algonquin Round Table. Tips: Use fresh pineapple juice if possible — the canned variety can taste noticeably more processed here. […]
Description: A citrus-forward rye cocktail sweetened and colored with grenadine, dating to Boston's political history. Cultural Background: Created around 1898 at Boston's Locke-Ober restaurant, reportedly to celebrate a local election victory in the city's Ward Eight district. Tips: Use real pomegranate grenadine, not the artificial red corn-syrup version, for a much better drink. Variations: A […]