Episode 72: Aperol Spritz

  • 3 parts prosecco

  • 2 parts Aperol

  • 1 part soda water

  • Orange slice garnish

Fill a large wine glass with ice and pour in chilled prosecco. Slowly add the Aperol and then top up with soda. Gently stir and garnish with an orange slice.

Aperol is a citrusy bittersweet Italian Apertif. The name is actually a play on a French slang word for aperitif, “Apéro”.

While Aperol first came on the market in italy in 1919, the spritz has been around for much longer. In the 1800s, part of the Veneto region of northern Italy was controlled by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The story is that visitors and soldiers from the empire found Italian wines too strong and started adding a splash (a "spritz," in German) of water to lighten them up.

Over the years the recipe slowly evolved, and soda water was eventually substituted for flat water, and from there people started adding other flavors and liqueurs to their wines to dress them up even more.

Aperol was added to the spritz in the 1950s, and while the recipe was an instant hit in Italy, it didn’t really become popular in the US until the 1970s when many Italian liqueur brands were spending a lot of marketing dollars in the U.S.

It was modestly popular in the 1970s, but when Aperol was acquired by Gruppo Campari in the early 2000s, they went in hard with advertising to Americans once again, making the Aperol Spritz the go-to drink at social media-friendly events like The Governor's Ball. Since then the drink is absolutely ubiquitous across the globe.

Episode 53: Amaretto Sour

  • 2 oz. Amaretto

  • 1 oz. Fresh lemon juice

  • ½ of a fresh large egg white (or ½ oz of Pasteurized egg whites if you prefer)

  • Garnish: Good quality cocktail Cherries and a few dashes of Angostura bitters

Combine all of the ingredients in a shaker and “dry” shake without ice for 5 seconds. Add ice and shake again for 15 seconds. Strain into a chilled rocks glass filled with ice and garnish.

No-one knows for sure who first came up with the recipe for the Amaretto Sour, but we do know that it was created somewhere in the USA, sometime in the 1970s, when Italian liquors were starting to become fashionable in America.

Italians had been trying to introduce their spirits to an American audience for years, but it seemed that the bitterness of many Italian spirits was too much for most Americans in the 70s, who preferred their alcohol on the sweet side. Campari and the Negroni cocktail, for example, had a really hard time squeezing into the American market, but thankfully for Italy, Americans found the sweet nutty flavor of Amaretto to be very easy to drink.

 Amaretto (Italian for "a little bitter) is a sweet, slightly bitter, almond flavored liqueur traditionally made by soaking apricot kernels in brandy. Today it can also be made with peach stones, sweet almonds, or bitter almonds.

While we don’t know who or where or when the amaretto sour was invented, we do know that in the 70s the recipe would have been as simple as mixing amaretto with ready mixed bar sour mix. Such a simple recipe could have come from anywhere and it’s highly likely that multiple bars started selling them independently of one another and the popularity spread until they were ubiquitous in the 1980s. They remained popular in the 90s but eventually fell out of favor. Today though, they’re actually starting to make a bit of a comeback, but most of the new-fangled recipes that bars are serving today mix the amaretto with whiskey to increase the alcohol content and balance the sweetness. The recipe above contains only amaretto, but instead of sour mix, it calls for fresh lemon juice and egg white. Since amaretto is sweet enough on its own, no sour mix is necessary.

Episode 36: The Last Word

  • 2oz London dry gin

  • 1oz green chartreuse

  • 1oz luxardo maraschino liqueur

  • 1 oz fresh squeezed lime juice

Combine ingredients in cocktail shaker with plenty of ice. Shake until frosty, strain into a chilled coupe glass and garnish with a luxardo cherry or brandied cherry.

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The Last Word was first served at the Detroit Athletic Club, circa 1915. Initially you would have had to be a club member to taste it, but it does appear to have spread and had some popularity during prohibition. It faded in popularity over the years but appeared in print in Ted Saucier’s 1951 book, “Bottoms Up.” Unfortunately that didn’t really make much difference and the Last Word basically faded from memory completely until the early 2000s when a bartender at Seattle’s Zig Zag Café found Saucier’s book and put it on the menu. From there it blew up thanks to the prohibition era cocktail revival of the early 2000s, and it quickly became a staple in high end cocktail lounges across the country.

The Last Word is made with London Dry Gin, Maraschino Liqueur, fresh lime juice, and green chartreuse – a bright green, sweet, spicy, herbal, minty liqueur from France. The bright green color is 100% natural and comes from the blend of 130 herbs and botanicals that are used to make it. It’s made by monks in small batches so it’s a little pricey, but a little goes a long way so if you want to make a Last Word I suggest looking for a small bottle.  These are all very strong flavors that seem like they wouldn’t go together, but it all somehow works really well.  

Most Last Word recipes you’ll find online call for all the ingredients to be mixed in equal parts, but that’s an unusual ratio for most cocktails and seemed odd to us. One post we found said that the writer’s grandfather used to work at the Detroit Athletic Club and the original recipe they would server there had 2 parts gin to 1 part everything else. We tried both versions and preferred the one with more gin, but if you like a sweeter cocktail, feel free to scale the gin back to 1 oz.

Episode 26: The Aviation

  • 2 ounces gin

  • 1/2 ounce maraschino liqueur (preferably Luxardo)

  • 1/2 ounce lemon juice

  • 1/4 ounce crème de violette *see note

  • Luxardo Maraschio cherries (optional garnish)

Add the gin, maraschino liqueur, lemon juice, & crème de violette to a cocktail shaker with plenty of ice. Shake until frosty and strain into a chilled coupe or cocktail glass. Garnish with a maraschino cherry.

*note: We recommend Rothman & Winter brand crème de violette because it’s made the traditonal way with natural ingredients. We tried this cocktail with another brand that used artificial flavors and colors, and it was, frankly, terrible.
If you can’t find crème de violette, you can also use another violet flavored liqueur called crème Yvette.

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The recipe for the Aviation was first published by Hugo Ensslin in his 1916 book “Recipes for Mixed Drinks” but it was likely invented a bit before that. It contains gin, lemon juice, maraschino liqueur and a violet flavored liqueur called crème de violette, which gives the cocktail it’s purple color.

This cocktail was popular in New York in the 20s but when the recipe was included in the famous “Savoy Cocktail Book” in 1930, it’s popularity spread. Unfortunately, the recipe in that book left of the crème de violette.  By the 1940s the Savoy recipe without the crème de violette was probably the most popular version of this cocktail, but we think the original recipe is much more fun & interesting.

Crème de violette was discontinued in the 1960s, but a spirits company called Rothman & Winter found the original recipe and brought it back in 2007.

Episode 17: The Martinez

  • 2 oz Old Tom Gin

  • 1 oz Sweet Vermouth

  • ¼ oz Maraschino Liqueur (we used Luxardo)

  • 2 dashes aromatic bitters

  • Orange or lemon twist for garnish

Combine all ingredients (other than garnish) in a mixing glass. Add plenty of ice and stir well to chill. Strain into a chilled coupe or cocktail glass and garnish.

martinez

The Martinez cocktail is considered to be the precursor to the modern Martini. It was originally created as a gin-based spin on the Manhattan, and it tastes much more like a Manhattan than a Martini.

Old Tom gin is best to use because it has a sweeter and richer flavor than London dry gin and pairs better with the sweet vermouth and luxardo liqueur.

There is some debate about the cocktail’s origins, but most people agree it was invented in the 1880s in Northern California.
Some say Jerry Thomas invented the drink in San Francisco for a customer who was traveling to Martinez California. His recipe wasn’t officially published until 1887 though, so the cocktail is often credited to another famous barman named O. H. Byron. His recipe for the Martinez was published in 1884 with the simple instructions, "Same as Manhattan, only you substitute gin for whisky."
The city of Martinez however, claims that another local bartender invented the drink there.