Exploring the World One Drink at a Time Since 2005
Back in 2009, I stumbled upon a bitters recipe with two Abbott signatories on the document. Since Abbott’s was one of the most popular bitters before prohibition, it required further investigation. And that led me to present all this research at Tales of the Cocktail 2016. And now here it is for you. My original goal was to recreate the […]
It has been roughly ten years since Fix the Pumps came out; the ebook came out in December 2009, and the print edition came out in May 2010. In 2011 it was nominated for “Best New Cocktail Book” at the Spirited Awards, though it didn’t win. Looking back, I can see the effect the book had on the bar industry, […]
Every year as winter cedes into the past, the maple tree sap starts to run. A time-honoured tradition in the north is to tap a spile into these maples and siphon off a few buckets of sap, then boil it down into a syrupy brown liquid and drizzle it on everything. That is the taste of spring. Since I’m in […]
As ice cream became the mainstay of the soda fountain, malt milkshakes became so popular that they started to change the name of the establishments to Malt Shops.
What if I told you that there was a tiki style drinking establishment before tiki bars even existed? What if I told you it existed in 1917, 16 years before Don Beach opened Don the Beachcombers. In this case it wasn’t a bar but a soda fountain doing “Hawaiian Week” in March 1917. Effectively it was a soda fountain tiki […]
Rhode Island seems to be a sleepy little state nestled amongst giants like New York and Massachusetts. One of the state’s quirks is the drink called the cabinet which to the rest of North America is called a milkshake or ice cream shake. The Coffee Cabinet (or coffee milk) is the states official drink. Why do they call them cabinets […]
The milkshake was a simple drink, but unique and there are a few drinks that resemble it today.
Cream soda has a long history and was the soda fountain drink that influenced the ice cream float and the milkshake.
A genuine cream soda requires cream, but that is not an option for all diets. This recipe from the 1800s is a substitute cream syrup used at soda fountains and it is tasty.
A properly made shot can make a fun night even more enjoyable, and the B-52 shot meets all the criteria because it is tasty, easy to drink and has eye appeal.
Can you make non-alcoholic aromatic bitters? Yes you can with this relatively easy recipe.
A great name for a cocktail, but like the original recipe is a bit of a disappointment, but with a few adjustments it can be fantastic.
Learning from the century-old Rum & Coke recipe, making the best Jack & Coke is easy if you follow a few simple steps.
Grapefruit juice is a relatively common ingredient in cocktails, with the perennial favourite being the Greyhound, but the Paloma is better. Unlike a Screwdriver, the Greyhound isn’t nearly as sweet and even has a pleasant bitterness that is imparted by the grapefruit juice. There are people who do not enjoy the bitterness of grapefruit juice, so those people tend to […]
