Forget Sourdough Starter—You Should Pre-Batch Cocktails
While there’s nothing that would give me more sheer joy than to have all of our bars safely open again and full of people laughing and chatting and holding forth, their eyes artificially bright, their grins a little lopsided, and all of their troubles parked outside where they can’t bother anyone, the reality is that’s not going to happen any time soon.
In the meanwhile, we can sit outside, a little nervously, and hope for the best, or we can take those lovely drinks home and sip on them in the same space we’ve been doing everything else in since the bottom dropped out of the world.
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But sometimes you want a drink when it’s raining, or the to-go window is closed, or you can’t face the thought of rounding up some pants, masking up and venturing out in the world. And by “drink,” I don’t mean some booze splashed into a Flintstones glass over an ice cube or two. I mean something that will draw a line at the end of a stressful day and say “this is my reward for getting through that.” I mean a cocktail, and a real one, like they make in bars.
What’s to be done? Setting up a complete home bar and learning how to use it is a lot of work. And once you’ve assembled all the bottles and gear and practiced all the stirring and shaking and straining, you’re still left with a basic question, every single day—or at least every single day you want a drink (those may be coterminous). What do I drink?
I’ve been mixing drinks on an almost daily basis for decades and that question still troubles me. I’d like to suggest a middle way; a sort of Sandra Lee “Semi-Homemade” approach that allows you to drink a proper cocktail at home, but both gives you a leg up on what to drink and streamlines the process of making it, so you’re not fumbling with bottles and teaspoons and whatnot just as you’re at your thirstiest.
Rather, here are three shelf-stable premixes that not only take minimal on-the-spot activity to turn into a real cocktail, but are also each flexible enough that you can get a couple of other, different drinks out of them. To make all three will take not much more than $100 worth of booze (there will be leftovers) and less than an hour of your time, and you’ll be able to spin those three bottles out into a menu of nine or ten drinks to choose from and enough cocktails to draw that daily line for at least three weeks. Plus, since the premixes you’ll be using are your own, there’s no need to worry about chemical-laced sour mixes or HFCS-laden syrups or anything like that.
Drink #1: The Bee’s Knees (Bright & Refreshing)
Let’s start with this 1920s classic, which was evidently created by Maggie Brown of Denver, the mining heiress and Titanic survivor who went into history as “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” (why Molly and not Maggie I cannot begin to tell you). It’s a simple drink: gin, lemon juice and honey syrup, but tasty and refreshing. Since drinks with citrus do not keep well, you’re going to batch the gin and honey and add the lemon to order.
Equipment:
A one-quart Mason jar
A measuring cup
A jigger or tablespoon
A cocktail shaker (you can also use another Mason jar)
A cocktail strainer
A lemon squeezer
A fine-mesh tea strainer (optional)
Premix Ingredients (12 drinks):
1 750-ml bottle Gin (you want something like Plymouth, Fords or Citadelle here: nothing too weird or too strong)
4 oz Honey (artisanal preferably, and something that’s not so odd that you’ll get sick of it)
4 oz Hot water (water from the tap is fine, unless yours sucks)
Serving Ingredients:
Lemons (1 per two drinks)
Optional Serving Ingredients:
Fresh raspberries or blueberries
Sparkling water
Champagne or other dry sparkling wine
Instructions:
Stir the honey into the water until it has dissolved.
Pour the gin—all of it—into one of the Mason jars.
Add 6 oz (.75 cup) of the honey syrup.
Seal and shake the jar to get everything mixed.
Label it and put it where you keep your booze (note that over time some fine sediment may collect at the bottom of the jar, from the honey; this is neither abnormal nor a problem).
To Serve:
Pour 2.5 oz (5 tablespoons or .25 cup plus 1 tablespoon) of the gin-honey mix into a cocktail shaker. Add .5 oz (1 tablespoon) fresh-squeezed lemon juice.
Fill shaker with ice, shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass or small wine glass (put the glass in the freezer before you start squeezing the lemon and that should be fine).
Variations:
For a BK Fizz, let’s call it, proceed as above but strain it into a 6-oz juice glass or other smallish narrow-mouthed glass and top it off with around 2 oz (.25 cup) of chilled sparkling water. This is a very refreshing drink.
For a Royal BK Fizz, proceed as above, but strain the drink into two chilled Champagne flutes and top each off with Champagne or substitute. This is also refreshing, but also rather dangerous.
For a Skinned Knee (I dunno, best I could come up with), throw four fresh raspberries into the shaker along with the premix and lemon juice, as above, and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. It’s best to double-strain this: use a cocktail strainer to hold back the ice, and a tea-strainer over the glass to catch any raspberry seeds.
You can also turn this into a Skinned Knee Fizz or a Royal Skinned Knee Fizz (or whatever better names you can come up with), as above by adding sparkling water or Champagne or the like.
So, that’s six nights’ drinking already.
Drink # 2: The Sazerac (Rich & Boozy)
There’s little to say about this New Orleans stalwart that hasn’t already been said (see, for instance, this and this). In general, the Sazerac is a stiff whiskey drink, perfectly adapted for times that call for stiff whiskey drinks. Put down your phone, stir up one of these, and it’s “what, me worry?”
Equipment:
A one-quart Mason jar
A measuring cup
A barspoon
A mixing glass (you can also use a cocktail shaker, that measuring cup or another Mason jar)
A cocktail strainer
A lemon peeler
Premix Ingredients (12 drinks):
1 750-ml bottle Straight rye whiskey (like ‘em extra stiff, you’ll want a bonded rye, which clocks in at 50 percent ABV / 100 proof; don’t go over that, though)
1 bottle Peychaud’s Bitters
1 bottle Angostura Bitters
8 oz (1 cup) Demerara sugar or Sugar in the Raw
4 oz Water
Serving Ingredients:
1 Lemon per 6 drinks
1 bottle Absinthe (Vieux Pontarlier is a favorite, but any will work fine) or substitute, (such as Herbsaint or Pernod). Some brands sell half-bottles. That will be more than enough.
Optional Serving Ingredients:
1 bottle Sweet/red vermouth (Martini & Rossi or Cinzano are fine)
Those lemons from above, but one for every two drinks
Instructions:
Prepare a “rich simple syrup” by slowly stirring the sugar and water together over a low flame until all the sugar has melted; let cool and bottle.
Pour the rye into the Mason jar.
Add 3 oz (6 tablespoons) of the rich simple.
Add .75 oz (1.5 tablespoons) Peychaud’s Bitters
Add .5 oz (1 tablespoon) Angostura Bitters
Seal and shake the jar to get everything mixed.
Label it and put it where you keep your booze (note that over time some fine sediment may collect at the bottom of the jar, from the syrup; this is neither abnormal nor a problem).
To Serve:
Prepare a twist by cutting it with a lemon peeler, moving from one pole of the lemon to the other.
Put an Old-Fashioned glass or other smallish glass (like a juice glass) into the freezer.
Pour 2.5 oz (5 tablespoons) Sazerac mix into a mixing glass full of ice.
Stir well.
Take your glass out of the freezer. Pour a teaspoon or so of absinthe or absinthe substitute into it, swirl it around to coat the sides of the glass, and pour out the excess.
Strain the drink into the glass and twist the lemon peel over the top. Drop it in or throw it out as you prefer.
Variations:
Any certified cocktail geeks or New Orleans residents should leave the room at this point. Okay. So that Sazerac? It’s very easy to turn it into a Manhattan—a drink that was all the rage in New Orleans a good ten years before people there started talking about Sazeracs. Simply take an ounce-and-a-half (3 tablespoons) of your bottled Sazerac and an ounce-and-a-half of red vermouth, stir them together with ice and strain it into a chilled cocktail glass. No need for absinthe here (although a dash of it in the cocktail is a fun option, although not more than a dash—say, 5 or 6 drops), but use the lemon twist as above. For a stronger drink, use 2 oz (.25 cup or 4 tablespoons) Sazerac mix and 1 oz (2 tablespoons) vermouth. In either case, the drink will be slightly sweeter than a normal Manhattan, but a little spicier, too. Call it a Creole Manhattan.
And as long as those guys are out of the room, you can also turn the Sazerac into a lovely Whiskey Sour. Simply pour 2.25 oz (4.5 tablespoons) of the mix and .5 oz (1 tablespoon) fresh-squeezed lemon juice into a cocktail shaker full of ice, shake well, and strain it into a chilled cocktail glass. If the result is too tart for you, add .5 teaspoon of the rich simple syrup you made for the batch.
After your Bee’s Knees and your Sazerac, you’re probably going to need something a little gentler, by which I mean “with less alcohol.”
Drink #3: The Adonis (Low-Alcohol & Palate-Stimulating)
The Adonis was bartender Joe McKone’s brainchild at the old Hoffman House bar in New York, circa 1884. The Hoffman House has long been considered the greatest bar the city has ever had, and it’s had a lot of great bars. McKone, something of an Adonis himself (according to his contemporaries, anyway), probably named this after one of the first Broadway musicals, Edward Rice, John Eller and William Gill’s Adonis, which ran just down the street from the Hoffman House in 1884 and 1885.
McKone’s drink takes a Manhattan and lightens it by switching out the whiskey for sherry, which has the same richness and depth of flavor but far less alcohol. The result is a drink that’s perfect for your second or third round, when you still want a drink but you’re already feeling that Sazerac or whatever.
Equipment:
A one-quart Mason jar
A measuring cup
A jigger or tablespoon
A barspoon
A mixing glass (you can also use a cocktail shaker, that measuring cup or another Mason jar)
A cocktail strainer
A lemon peeler
Premix Ingredients (11 drinks):
1 750-ml bottle Amontillado sherry (Lustau is a good brand and relatively easy to find). You can also use an Oloroso or really any style of sherry but a Fino, a Manzanilla or a Pedro Ximenez.
1 750-ml bottle Sweet/red vermouth (Martini & Rossi or Cinzano are fine)
1 bottle Peychaud’s Bitters.
Serving Ingredients:
1 Orange per 6 drinks
Optional Serving Ingredients:
1 bottle White rum (you want something with some flavor, but not too funky: Plantation 3 Stars, Banks or Hamilton White ‘Stache will all do nicely).
1 bottle VSOP-grade Cognac
Lemons
Oranges
Rich simple syrup (the stuff you made for the Sazerac)
Sparkling water (chilled)
Instructions:
Pour 16 oz (2 cups) each of the sherry and the vermouth into a Mason jar. Add .75 to 1 oz (1.5 to 2 tablespoons) of the bitters, to taste.
Seal the jar, label it and put it where you keep your booze.
To Serve:
Pour 3 oz (6 tablespoons) of mix into a mixing glass full of ice, stir well and strain into a chilled cocktail glass or small wine glass (put the glass in the freezer for 5 minutes or so).
Cut a half-inch wide strip of orange peel (go from pole to pole on the orange) and twist it over the top. Drop it in or discard it as you prefer.
Variations:
Sometimes a Sazerac is too much but an Adonis just ain’t quite enough. Fortunately, an easy solution is at hand. Simply combine 2 oz (.25 cup or 4 tablespoons) of your Adonis mix with 1 oz (2 tablespoons) white rum, stir well with ice, and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. The result is rich and just a little boozy (it clocks in at just under Negroni strength); let’s call this the Adonisator.
Or, for something brighter (but still mid-range in strength), you can make a Golden Adonis: put 1.5 oz (3 tablespoons) of the mix, 1 oz (2 tablespoons) VSOP Cognac and .5 oz (1 tablespoon) lemon juice in a cocktail shaker with ice, shake it up and strain it into a chilled cocktail glass. This makes for a nicely complex Sour, suave and not too strong.
For an Adonis Americano, put 3 oz (6 tablespoons) of the mix in a tall glass, add 3 or 4 ice cubes and fill with chilled sparkling water. Light, refreshing, and not boring. Repeat.
Finally, you can also turn this into a fine version of the thoroughly refreshing American classic, the Sherry Cobbler. In a cocktail shaker, put 3 oz (6 tablespoons) of the mix, half a lemon wheel, half an orange wheel, and 1 teaspoon rich simple syrup. Add ice, shake, and strain into a tall glass full of ice. Garnish with the other half of the orange wheel and add a straw. Call it the Cobbled Adonis.
In total, that’s 14 different drinks you can squeeze out of those three bottles, each one of them easy to make and light on the counter space and prep-time. It’s no substitute for what they do in a real cocktail bar, but it’s better than filling Fred Flintstone full of Early Times and ice and sitting there morosely on the couch, anyway. Small victories, every day.
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