Author: Bob Westal

It’s probably not entirely coincidental that Roman Polanski’s film version of “Rosemary’s Baby” and George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” were both released in 1968. Just as the Summer of Love in Haight Ashbury was becoming the autumn of ODs, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated, and as the nation’s collective stomach was beginning to turn as the bloodshed in the Vietnam War seemed neverending, the collective unconscious was veering towards the morbid and the apocalyptic — something both movies provided in their own madcap ways. It was also just prior to the rating system so more…

Scary movie season has arrived and even though I’m a bit too much of a squeamish scaredy-cat to see the majority of modern day horror flicks, I’m still attached to the genre when it’s more fun and less traumatizing/ultra-gruesome. Much like my cocktails, I like them classic and I’d prefer they don’t actually make me feel sick. I therefore can’t think of a better way to start this series out than with a tribute to arguably the greatest horror-associated actor of all time. Oh, and I did I say I was done with fizzes in my last post? Guess I was…

It looks like Monday’s autumnal equinox is kicking in a bit quicker than usual here in LA, where summer usuallly tends to linger well into October. Fortunately for my heat-averse self and my electic bills, LA autumn weather (highs in the 70s, lows in the 50s chilly!) should be upon us by the time you read this. So, it’s probably time for me to wrap up my recent experiments in high boozy refreshmentwith one last fizz. For me, the defining ingredients of a fizz are chilled soda water and egg white, though the original gin fizz — sometimes called the silver fizz –…

So, the Gimlet is a combination of gin and sweetened lime juice. The Gin Rickey, on the other hand, is gin, lime juice, no sweetener (usually) and soda water. I added egg white and a Pisco Sour-style bitters garnish to the Gimlet Eye. When I found myself with a lot of limes and a desire to keep my series of classic fizzes with egg white going throughout September, the logical step was to add soda to the prior egg white and sweetened lime juice combos. Since I can’t find anything much like this drink anywhere, I’ve decided to take ownership and…

The are numerous classic era drinks with completely different recipes going by the name of Morning Glory. Fortunately for everyone’s sanity, however, the Morning Glory Fizz sticks to a fairly manageable group of ingredients: Scotch whisky, lemon juice (sometimes mixed with equal parts lime juice), sweetener, a minuscule amount of absinthe and, crucially, egg white to make it all palatable and refreshing. Lest life be too simple, however, the proportions of those ingredients are also all over the place. I think it means that this is a pretty sturdy cocktail with a fair amount of room for adjustment. There seems to…

In my opinion, a mixed drink has to work a little extra hard to be refreshing. Alcohol is a pretty powerful diuretic that doesn’t even feel thirst quenching — at least not to me — and no sane person downs shots or martinis to quench actual thirst anyhow — the opinions of movie pirates and cowboys notwithstanding. Beers, ciders, and mixed drinks are a different story but even they can make a guy feel thirsty and tired after drinking them. Kind of the opposite of refreshing. Last week’s end of summer sour employed lots of juice and not that much…

Our Labor Day Weekend DOTW for 2019 is theinvention of Dale DeGroff — the George Washington of the American cocktail revolution — who was trying to come up with accessible whiskey drinks that would remind people that summer isn’t reserved only for clear spirits. He came up with a cooling beverage that cocktailians and neophytes alike can love. It definitely works for me. The Hawaiian Stone Sour 1 1/2 ounces bourbon 1 ounce pineapple juice (fresh or canned) 3/4 ounce lemon juice (definitely fresh!) 3/4 ounce simple syrup (or a bit less if you want more tartness) Combine all the liquid ingredients…

The Martinez is a drink that’s about as old as the telephone but maybe somewhat younger than the electric lighbulb. Many believe it’s the ancestor of the Martini — and a “dry Martini” might have once meant simply using dry vermouth instead of the sweet stuff, as opposed to using very little vermouth at all. It doesn’t really matter. Mixing sweet vermouth with gin makes a lot of sense, and brings us pretty darn close to a gin Manhattan. I covered the Martinez in 2015, but that version was pretty different, being comprised of equal parts gin and sweet vermouth, making…

There’s a sad — but not as sad as many other things — reason why I chose a drink this week that celebrates the second race in the horseracing triple crown held at a Maryland racetrack. However, I decided it was better to just give you a drink rather than give you a reason to drink. Suffice it to say that the Preakness is yet another very nice variation on a Manhattan that’s just different enough to refresh one’s interest in that cocktail warhorse. Let’s mess around no further. The Preakness 2 ounces rye whiskey 1 ounce sweet vermouth 1/2 teaspoon Benedictine…

I’m back from my one-week off and completing my tasty trio of Dubonnet cocktails. Today, we have a drink that’s only mildly obscure. It’s featured in The Savoy Cocktail Book and a gazillion websites, but still a new one to me. Modern day bartenders like to futz with the recipe to a greater or lesser extent. Even such classicists as Erik Ellestad will go so far to substitute the Dubonnet out, and the recipe I’m using diverges a little from the Savoy recipe as it uses bourbon instead of rye and allows for triple sec as well as Cointreau, and rather more of it at that. The Dandy…