The besotted bunch of contributors concocted some impressive drinks, and we can’t wait to start mixing these up at home.

We’ll kick things off with The Venture Mixologist, who brings us a welcome riff on the bloody mary, called Off the Vine. This cocktail includes a boozy backbone of tomato-infused gin and cucumber vodka, and from there adds Cocchi Americano, lemon juice and celery bitters. The blend of vegetal with botanical and aperitif sounds like a great eye-opener.

Paul Clarke, intrepid drinks journalist, proprietor of The Cocktail Chronicles and founder of Mixology Monday, gives us a drink that opts for beer and bubbles instead of hard hooch – the Black Velvet. With two ingredients, Guinness and Champagne, and no laborious measuring, shaking or stirring required, this might be the perfect morning drink for the weary riser.

Frederic of Cocktail Virgin Slut contributes The Morning Delight, which he found in William Schmidt’s 19th century book, The Flowing Bowl. This tasty-sounding potable combines breakfast staples like egg whites and orange juice with lime, sugar, absinthe, whiskey, Sherry, Amer Picon (subbed for Calisaya) and soda. That’s a stout way to start your day, complete with stomach-settling absinthe, vitamin-packed citrus and nutrient-dense egg whites.

Louis-Florian Tatsuhito created his submission, The Farewell, while living in Japan, where the drink was often consumed when saying goodbye to guests. The Farewell finds synergy in Japanese whisky, Bailey’s, Kahlua, espresso and milk, and it’s topped with light cream, vanilla and kinako (roasted soybean flour).

Ian from Tempered Spirits begins his day with a hot milk punch. He starts with a homemade spiced Appleton Rum, and from there adds brandy, vanilla-demerara sugar syrup and hot milk. Top with some freshly-grated nutmeg, and your breakfast just got better. As Ian notes, the milk punch – like eggnog – is a great libation for the holidays.

The next morning drink comes from Chris at Tacoma cocktail lounge, 1022 South. Starting with a base of the always-enjoyable Ron Zacapa rum, the Journey to the End of the Night adds cold-pressed Ethiopian coffee, simple syrup, organic cocoa and cayenne pepper. With booze, caffeine and cayenne in your system, this drink provides quite the morning jolt!

James from All Hail the Cocktail invokes Halloween with his aptly-named Swamp Thing. This green potion mixes silver tequila with green tea liqueur and a green fruit smoothie (such as Naked’s Green Machine). Rim the glass with green tea powder, and you’ve got a morning drink that’s as healthy as it is scary.

Ever the ambitious boozehound, Ed of Wordsmithing Pantagruel goes heavy on the Peychaud’s and gives us three(!) morning cocktails. Each is a take on the classic Corpse Reviver, like his Blood Infusion, which combines equal measures of Bulldog Gin, Cocchi Americano, Solerno Blood Orange Liqueur, lemon juice and – you guessed it – Peychaud’s Bitters. Now that’s a balanced breakfast.

Next up, the Morning Starfish, courtesy of Rowen at Fogged in Lounge. This “bright and bubbly tequila-grapefruit-Campari thing that’s light enough to let you have at least two, even in the morning” combines the aforementioned trio with lime juice, honey, soda and a salt-and-pepper rim. Sign me up for two, please.

Kudos to The Tipsy Vixen, Colleen, for introducing Advocaat to our cocktail party with her Pumpkin Milk Punch. Advocaat is a creamy liqueur made from eggs, brandy and sugar, and Colleen mixes it with Cognac, canned pumpkin, whole milk and simple syrup for a hearty, seasonal drink.

This orangey entrant comes from Andy at Sybaritic Wanderings. The Hard Stare is a riff on a Harry Craddock original and combines two of my favorite breakfast items – gin and orange marmalade – with orange bitters. The result? A refreshing breakfast cocktail to replace your morning orange juice.

Sother Teague says why detox when you can Retox? Drawing inspiration from the famous detox cleanse of hot water with lemon juice, cayenne pepper and maple syrup, his drink puts booze back in your system. Muddle some jalapenos for a spicy kick, then shake up reposado tequila, grade B maple syrup and lime juice.

A Drinker’s Peace provides the well-rounded Begs and Achin’ Flip, which nearly covers the entire breakfast spectrum with bacon-infused rye whiskey, potato simple syrup, a whole egg and espresso. Also, overproof rum. It’s garnished with black pepper, habanero powder and toast. That should hold me over until lunch.

Spirit of Imbibing wakes up early with the 6:00am Sour, a veritable cornucopia of breakfast favorites. Bacon-washed bourbon melds with orange juice, maple syrup and egg white, plus some bitters and acid phosphate. Sprinkle some black pepper on top, and breakfast is ready.

The aptly named Good Booze likes something hot, sweet and strong to get through the mornings. Enter the Coffee Killer, a traditional Italian drink in which hot espresso is followed up with some liqueur. In this case, stir some homemade maple sugar syrup into your coffee and chug it. Then down half a shot of apple brandy, and pour the remaining liquor into your coffee cup and swirl to catch the last bits of coffee and maple. Down that too, and you’re ready to face the day.

Jeannine Woodland doesn’t have a blog, but that didn’t stop her from crafting the spicy What’s Up Doc?. This healthy morning treat doctors a tequila, pepper-and-honey vodka and carrot juice base with red bell pepper, lime juice, sea salt, Garlic Tabasco and Bittermens Burlesque Bitters. From there, rim the glass with a ground mixture of whole medley peppercorns and demerara sugar.

Dennis from A Drink on the Rocks gives us the Morning Dutchman, a cocktail based on Salvatore Calabrese’s Breakfast Martini. This libation starts with some breakfasty tea-infused Genever, and from there adds orange and lemon juice, orange marmalade, an egg white and orange bitters.

And lastly, your honored host’s submission was Dad’s Juice Box, an orangey and eggy potable that started with Clementines, ended with absinthe, and added some Bols Genever, St Germain, egg white and sugar somewhere in the middle. It’s refreshing and creamy and pairs nicely with bacon. That’s a winner in our book.

And with that, this round of Mixology Monday comes to a close. Thanks to all who contributed! Stay tuned to Mixology Monday for upcoming rounds of community cocktailing.

This month’s Mixology Monday focuses on morning drinks, the kind of boozy beverages that jumpstart your day and pair nicely with breakfast. I created a tasty libation, dubbed Dad’s Juice Box, that pairs fresh orange juice with egg whites for a nutrient-packed beginning. From there, I add genever, St. Germain, sugar and absinthe, because I’ve yet to find a better way to start your day than with absinthe.

For the orange component, I opted for Clementines. They’re seedless and sweet and their peels give off very aromatic oils when muddled. So rather than squeeze the fruit, I muddled a handful of Clementine wedges to extract the juice and oils.

The result is a drink that’s bright and fresh, with a pleasantly creamy texture formed from the mixture of fresh juice, egg whites and powdered sugar. The St Germain adds a floral sweetness, while the absinthe keeps everything in check with its strong herbal backbone.

Mix one of these up for breakfast or brunch, and your day’s heading in the right direction.

Dad’s Juice Box

1.5 oz Bols Genever
.5 oz St Germain
1 teaspoon powdered sugar
1 egg white
1 barspoon absinthe
1.5 Clementines, quartered

Muddle Clementines to extract juice and oils. Add remaining ingredients, and shake vigorously without ice to emulsify the egg. Then add ice and shake until cold. Fine strain into a cocktail glass.

Cocktail Enthusiast is hosting this month’s Mixology Monday, so stay tuned for the roundup of all submissions.

We’re all familiar with bloody marys, mimosas and bellinis, but what else constitutes a breakfast drink? We’re looking for corpse revivers, eye openers and hair of the dog – drinks that jump start your morning, absolve the prior night’s sins or just taste really good with eggs and bacon.

Maybe you like to fortify breakfast smoothies with gin. Or perhaps you’ve concocted an alcoholic sangrita that pairs nicely with migas. Regardless, let’s see some morning cocktails. To participate, simply –

1. Find or create a cocktail for morning consumption. Be as creative as you want, utilizing common breakfast ingredients like orange juice and coffee, or branching out with bacon-infused spirits, eggs or stomach-settling bitters. The drink doesn’t have to be your original creation, but if you borrow, please credit your source.

2. Post your cocktail recipe and a photo on your blog, including some details on the drink. In your post, include the MxMo logo and a link back to Cocktail Enthusiast and Mixology Monday.

3. Post a link to your submission in the comments section of this post or send it to me via email. And if you don’t have a blog, no worries. Just email me your recipe and photo following the above guidelines.

The due date is Monday, October 24th. We’ll say 11:59pm Pacific Time. Spread the word, and get mixing! We’re looking forward to everyone’s submissions.

Cheers,
Kevin

UPDATE: MxMo has come to a close. Check out the Morning Drinks Roundup.

Mixology Monday

We all know that cocktails are supposed to taste good, and for this event, we’re going to take that as a given.  What we’re looking for, instead, are drinks that truly excite one or more of the other senses: touch, smell, sight, or even hearing.

That said, I got to experimenting. Sounds and sensations are great, but nothing beats burying your face in a drink with great aromas. So I went the aroma route. After a cursory glance at the home stash, basil came to mind. It’s fresh, clean, smells great and grows on my balcony. Done.

This drink starts with the basic sour template – spirit, citrus, sugar – and adds some basil for flavor and color. From there, I made a basil foam with torn basil leaves, powdered sugar and egg white, and topped the drink for even more basil goodness. Given its creamy nature, we’ll claim this as a twofer – good aromas and some great texture on the palate.

Basil Gin Sour with Basil Foam

2 ounces dry gin
3/4 ounce fresh lime juice
3/4 ounce simple syrup
Basil leaves
Basil foam*

Muddle 3-4 basil leaves with lime juice and simple syrup. Add gin, and shake with ice. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass, top with basil foam and garnish with a basil leaf.

*Basil Foam — Tear or cut two basil leaves into tiny pieces, and mix with 1 ounce egg white and 1 teaspoon powdered sugar. Shake like hell until it turns thick and foamy.

There you have it. Dive in and you’re enveloped with fresh basil goodness. The aroma is very inviting, and the foamy top melds with the cold, refreshing drink for a nice balance of crisp and creamy. Good times all around.

Everybody has a friend or colleague whose drink order is invariably a dirty vodka martini or a machine-made margarita or something similarly icky. If you wanted to bring this person to the mixo side, what drink would you utilize that’s close enough to their comfort zone for them to try, but that could still open their eyes to better cocktail experiences?

Basically, some people suck at drinking. But rather than ridiculing one’s habit of ordering Appletinis, dirty vodka martinis and other drinks with a similar suffix, bartenders and enthusiasts the world over are banding together to tweak these drinks. Hopefully, the new drink – one which utilizes quality products, fresh ingredients and classic techniques – will open the drinker’s eyes to a world of good drinking and forever close the door on sugary swill.

I run a pretty tight ship at my home bar, and while I readily bestow my guests with free samples of vodka as parting gifts, I try to sway them toward gin when making cocktails. One of the most popular drinks ordered by a cocktail novice is a vodka and soda. A neutral spirit paired with fizzy water (and, if you’re feeling saucy, a wedge of lime) is a pretty good starting point for a gintervention.

Using a classic riff on both the Tom Collins and Aviation, my Gintervention includes the common ingredients that a vodka and soda drinker knows and loves – soda, citrus and booze. But I swap vodka for gin, add a barspoon of Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur and a couple dashes of orange bitters. The result is a tasty, refreshing drink that’s similar in appearance to the vodka soda, but more complex and infinitely better.

Gintervention

2 ounces gin
3/4 ounce lemon juice
3/4 ounce simple syrup
1 barspoon Maraschino Liqueur
2 dashes orange bitters
Club Soda

Shake all ingredients except soda with ice, then strain into a rocks glass over fresh ice. Top with a splash of soda, then garnish with a lemon peel.

Being the creative powerhouse I am, I offered up a theme. Yes, the same theme that dominates this blog and the first four words that come out of my mouth at any bar: brown, bitter and stirred. Basically, I’m asking you to participate in the Internet’s longest cocktail party by making me a drink.

Happy to oblige, I rounded up a handful of brown bottles, a bunch of bitters and some amaros.  “Brown, bitter and stirred” can take you on several routes, from tried-and-true classics like the Manhattan and Old Fashioned to innovative drinks using bitter liqueurs like Cynar and Averna.  My first attempt utilized an Islay Scotch rinse with some Canadian whiskey, while the second attempt was a modified Sazerac that paired rye whiskey with Bols Genever, an unaged spirit distilled partially from rye.  Both cocktails were pretty tasty, but not quite what I was looking for.

By happy accident, some Four Roses bourbon was sitting next to a bottle of Campari.  Bourbon is brown, and Campari is most certainly bitter.  Fast forward two minutes and one more ingredient, and a cocktail was born. Not by me, of course; I just recreated an existing drink – The Boulevardier.  This cocktail is like a bourbon Negroni, substituting bourbon for gin, and mixing equal measures bourbon, Campari and sweet vermouth.  It’s rich, warming and packs a hell of a boozy wallop.

The Boulevardier

1 ounce bourbon
1 ounce Campari
1 ounce sweet vermouth

Stir all ingredients with ice, and strain into a cocktail glass.  Garnish with a twist of orange or lemon peel.

The 1:1:1 ratio works just fine, but I preferred the drink with a bit more bourbon bite, so I upped the whiskey to 1.5 ounces.  Four Roses bourbon worked nicely, as did Bulleit (and even rye), so feel free to experiment as your tastes dictate.

The topic for February is Absinthe. That much maligned, misunderstood, mistreated spirit, suddenly plentiful again in the US and other parts of the world. Absinthe played a role, whether large or small, in a variety of great cocktails from the 1800s and early 1900s – the Sazerac, Absinthe Suissesse, Corpse Reviver No. 2… I’m getting thirsty. So let’s celebrate absinthe’s history, and it’s future, with all manner of cocktails using absinthe.

I drink my fair share of Sazeracs and Corpse Revivers, and for good reason – they’re delicious.  But I wanted a drink that showcases absinthe as more than just a rinse or dash; and rather than going the route of an Absinthe Frappe, I decided to meet absinthe halfway.  So for this round of Mixology Monday, I’ve pulled out a cocktail that uses just enough absinthe to lightly slap you in the face, without knocking your teeth out – the Chrysanthemum Cocktail.

This little fellow is one of the few cocktails that uses vermouth as its main ingredient.  In fact, it uses a hearty two ounces of vermouth. Joined by one ounce of Benedictine and a teaspoon of absinthe, the Chrysanthemum comes together beautifully.  The floral vermouth tempers the strong flavors of the Benedictine and absinthe without being lost in the shuffle.

The Chrysanthemum Cocktail

2 ounces dry vermouth
1 ounce Benedictine
1 teaspoon absinthe

Stir with ice until cold, and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a wide strip of orange peel.

Tea has played a historical role in cocktails for centuries. Perhaps the best documented early example was its inclusion in punches as part of the spice role to round out the spirit, sugar, water, and citrus line up…Find or concoct a drink recipe that uses tea or tisane (an herbal “tea” which lacks tea leaves) as an ingredient. This can be hot tea, cold tea, tea syrups, or infusions, and use it in a cocktail, punch, or other drink type.

After first attempting to pair a smoky añejo tequila with allspice-infused black tea, some bitters and an orange garnish, I moved onto green tea, and went the route of tea syrup.  To make my green tea simple syrup, I used a 1:1 ratio of Chinese green tea to sugar, boiling and stirring my way to a syrupy mixture that, quite honestly, tasted pretty decent on its own.  I then set about to pair my new green tea simple syrup with some booze.

I first associated green tea with lemon, which made me think of a whiskey sour, which in turn brought me to a Maple Leaf, a drink composed of bourbon, lemon juice and maple syrup.  Of late, I’ve been enjoying Urban Moonshine’s maple bitters in my Old Fashioneds and Manhattans, so I thought I’d give it a try in the whiskey cocktail laying itself out before me.

I wound up with the following drink, which I dubbed the Bourbon Tease.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 ounces bourbon (I used Wild Turkey 101)
1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice
2 dashes maple bitters
1 bar spoon green tea syrup

Shake all ingredients with ice, and strain into an ice-filled rocks glass.

The inclusion of maple bitters added a depth of flavor to this whiskey sour variant, and the sweet, herbal quality of the green tea syrup kept the tart lemon juice in check.  All in all, it made for a pretty tasty cocktail.

I feel a “Money” drink is something you can put in front of anyone, regardless of tastes or distastes about the spirits involved. Come up with a drink or a list based on spirits about drinks that would appeal to anyone,  Example: turning someone onto a Corpse Reviver #2 when they like lemon drops.

Depending on your spirit or drink of choice, one might have several money drinks, like a properly made Martini, Manhattan or Old Fashioned, to stick to the classics, that would convert even the most finicky drinker to well-crafted cocktails.  Personally, I feel a gnawing sense of frustration whenever someone bemoans a distaste for gin, and I’ve been known to order a friend a gin-based cocktail without her knowledge.  I stress “her” because it seems the women in my life have a natural aversion to gin.  Perhaps I need to surround myself with tougher women, but regardless, one such drink that seems to convert well is the French 75.

Composed of gin, fresh lemon juice, simple syrup and Champagne, the French 75 is a light, refreshing cocktail that subdues the wary gin-drinker while still packing a sizeable boozy wallop.  This tart, tasty concoction has made even the most dubious skeptic rethink their distaste for gin, without alienating fans of the spirit.

Ingredients:

2 ounces gin
1 ounce lemon juice
1 teaspoon simple syrup
Champagne

Shake gin, lemon juice and simple syrup with ice, and strain into a champagne flute. Top with champagne, and garnish with a long, thin lemon spiral.

Any drink using a dairy product is fair game: milk, cream, eggs, butter, cheese, yogurt, curds, you name it. Given the importance of dairy products in drinks dating back centuries, there are lots of opportunities for digging through vintage receipts for a taste of the past, and as always innovation is highly encouraged.

I’ve long enjoyed adding egg whites to cocktails as a means of justifying my drinking.  After all, who can’t benefit from some extra protein?

The Apple Blow Fizz is a cocktail that combines an egg white, fresh lemon juice and apple brandy.  It’s a veritable cornucopia of health foods, all rolled into one.

Apple Blow Fizz

1 1/2 ounces apple brandy
1 ounce fresh lemon juice
1 egg white
1 teaspoon sugar
Club soda

Shake all ingredients except club soda with ice, and strain into a highball glass over ice.  Top with club soda.