Author: Bob Westal

Let’s consider possibly the single most popular mixed-drink genre, the sour. Aside from those that have “sour” in the name, pretty much any drink with lemon or lime juice is a member of the sour family. That means margaritas, daiquiris, sidecars, and so on. While it was once almost eclipsed by the pisco sour, the whiskey sour continues to spawn a gazillion tasty variations; gin and vodka sours aren’t going anywhere either. Nevertheless, it occurred to me recently that, sidecars aside, I couldn’t remember having a straight-up sour made with European or American brandy. I stipulate that because the pisco…

If you’re online as much as I am, and you shouldn’t be, then you’ve likely seen thousands of tweets and/or Facebook posts in recent years that go something like this: “I’m calling it. America died today.” I’m not a fan of this kind of sentiment. Pessimism and cynicism played a huge part in getting us into our national embrace of a nihilistic death cult and they remain the bad guys’ second most effective weapon following blind hatred. To clean out toxic mental sludge and in socially distanced celebration of living to fight another day, I present my variation of the…

The Holy Joe Cocktail appeared in print in late December of 2016 as the world took a long, slow ride up a demonic orange rollercoaster. Meanwhile, John Robinson of The Hive restaurant in Bentonville, Arkansas, was making people feel better with a lovely beverage cataloged in Imbibe. As you might guess, my selection of the Holy Joe this particular week is not a coincidence.  “Don’t compare me to the Almighty. Compare me to the alternative,” says president #46. He wasn’t my first, second, third, or fourth choice in the primaries but, I have to say, in comparison to his his…

I had to get to the prairie oyster eventually because of it’s overall cocktail notoriety. It’s also a frequent trope in 20th-century movie hangover scenes – Cabaret gets mentioned the most. Also, how many opportunities am I going to get to write about the hoariest hangover remedy of all on a post that goes live on January 1, aka International Hangover Day? None of this means it’s something you’d want to drink because it tastes good or even just to get a buzz-on. The best version of this drink doesn’t even have any alcohol. Not to be confused with the…

Merry Christmas – if you’re seeing this on Xmas Day. Otherwise, still be happy. You’re alive and able to read! And to All a Good Night appeared in a 2009 edition of Imbibe. It is credited to San Francisco bartender and proprietor Tim Stookey, now of  Stookey’s Club Moderne, which looks like it will be a cool place to hang when hanging becomes safe again. Our drink this week is intended as a festive or possibly post-festive after-dinner drink for grownups. It’s sweet, rich, and boozy flavor seems to bolster that claim though I’ve been drinking it before dinner and…

Today’s DOTW is the first I’ve done in some time I can take a little credit for. One night recently, I stumbled over Difford’s guide recipe for The Mountain Cocktail. The article described it as “a perfect Manhattan smoothed by egg white.” (For cocktail newbies, a Perfect Manhattan is just like a regular Manhattan except that it employs dry vermouth as well as sweet vermouth in equal amounts.) While the Mountain recipe seemed very dry for an egg white beverage, I thought maybe skipping the bitters (a must for standard Manhattans) would make it something other than mouth-puckeringly dry. I…

Today’s drink is a nicely balanced, somewhat sweet member of the martini-Manhattan family of cocktails. To my tastebuds, absolutely nothing about it says “cowpoke” or “frontier gunslinger” – it doesn’t even contain any rye,  the whiskey preference of countless grizzled old-timey movie cowpokes. Yet, The Savoy Cocktail Book tells us it was the favorite for British-immigrant Richard William Clark, one of several individuals claiming to have been the inspiration for Deadwood Dick, the literary creation of barely remembered dime-novelist Edward Lytton. Unlike Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, Buffalo Bill Cody, and the villainous Gen. George Custer – all of whom…

If you walked into a bar in the 19th century and asked for “a cocktail” without elaborating, instead of a blank stare, you might get something pretty close to what we now call an old fashioned – a base spirit with some sweetener and bitters. Today’s drink goes back to that era and uses a minimal number of ingredients to make drinking brandy or cognac more fun. There are many ways to approach the Brandy Cocktail, but I’m borrowing mostly from a recipe by Colleen Graham at The Spruce Eats. I like it for its bold blend of bitters and…

You don’t need me to tell you that this year will be no ordinary Thanksgiving. I’m not going the usual way with a rich and sweet autumnal beverage, either. I think an easy to make drink with not a lot of extra calories might be ideal in this year of many weight gains. Also, this is the drink I was already working on when I suddenly realized that this will be my final post before Turkey Day 2020. Cocktail superhistorian David Wondrich thinks the Brainstorm is a superb after-dinner drink but I think its relative dryness, especially in his recipe,…

As history will record, on the night of November 3, 2020, the hope of a swift one-two punch of voter rage dissolved in a red mirage over Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Suddenly, having the Wisconsin Old-Fashioned be my first post-election cocktail didn’t seem like such a clever idea. That night, I was drinking my brandy straight and skipping dinner. Another few nights like that and this week’s drink might have been lighter fluid with olives and a dash of opium extract. Thank goodness and the #resistance, events took a much more positive turn as the week progressed. Today’s drink may…