It’s almost become a cliché, how much I like the booze-fueled hot apple cider within the colder months (in that it’s utterly expected that when one walks into my house they’ll smell the cinnamon, apple, and rum on the air during holiday-season gatherings). But you know what? I think being a cliché is just fine (in this one instance that is. Don’t be calling me cliché any other time. Unless my love of genius British television character Dean Learner becomes a cliché. Which would be awesome, cause the world would be a better place if everyone, when asked what they loved, said “Dean Learner.” But I digress), when the word revolves around this cider recipe, which is from the GS. It’ll warm you and your guests (and works darn well as a pre-Thanksgiving-meal sipper, too. Especially in chilly KS, Jen, if you were wondering).

4 quarts fresh apple cider

20 ounces cinnamon schnapps

16 ounces white rum

1 teaspoon whole cloves

1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

10 cinnamon sticks

10 apple slice for garnish

1. Add the cider to a large nonreactive saucepan. Heat over medium heat for 5 to 10 minutes

2. Add the cinnamon schnapps, rum, cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon sticks.  Simmer for 15 minutes, but don’t let the mixture boil.

3. Once thoroughly warm, ladle the mixture into heatproof mugs, making sure that each mug gets a cinnamon stick. Garnish each with an apple slice.

A Note: Here are three things to remember: 1. Be careful with the cloves when scaling (meaning, too many cloves can take over the flavor). 2. Use apple cider (which is good and cloudy) not apple juice. 3. Boiling boils off some of the alcohol. If getting mistakenly to a boil, or leaving the cider on the stove for an extended period, add more rum as needed.

A Second Note: This may be too much cinnamon for some. I see no problem, for balance, in upping the rum.

All right, all right, I know it may seem strange (not groovy and mystical like Dr. Strange either, but just downright odd) to be sipping a bubbly-cooling-kind-of-a-drink in Seattle’s damp and dreary mid-to-late November, but I’ve been working hard stocking the shelves (virtual shelves surely, but shelves) and shilling the books, not to mention raking the inordinate amount of leaves in my backyard (and, you know what, if Mr. Cherry Tree is reading this, please stop dropping basketfuls of your leaves on the ground the minute I get finished raking said ground. Wait a couple days at least. Give me that, for gosh sakes.), or writing this sentence which will never stop. Anyway, I was feeling the need for a refresher last night, but one that still had an underlying . . . strength of character. I didn’t want to go teeth-rotting sweetness, but did want a hint of sunshine. And, I wanted to be able to name drop a second super hero in one post (Hourman, that is). All of which led me to the Hour Glass:

Ice cubes

1 ounce Cognac

3/4 ounce Cointreau

1/2 ounce absinthe

Chilled club soda

Lemon twist, for garnish

1. Fill a cocktail shaker halfway full with ice cubes. Add the Cognac, Cointreau, and absinthe. Stir well.

2. Fill a highball glass three-quarters full with ice cubes. Strain the mixture over the ice, and then fill the glass with club soda (unless it’s a large-ish highball, then just go up three-quarters of the way).

3. Squeeze the lemon twist over the glass and drop it in.

Just flew back in from a U.K. vacation (and I have to say, boy are my arms tired. No, really, I had to say it. I was forced by the lame jokes union, who said they’d cut off my supply of Strega if I didn’t use that particular line), where I not only had the brilliant pleasure of seeing the almighty Mighty Boosh live (a show I suggest everyone see before they shuffle off unless they’re very, very lame), but also had some fine drinks. The drinks came in the cocktail, highball, cider, and beer varieties, depending on the place and time and situation. The trip started in London, and started heavier on the cider and beer sides of the bar. I’m a large cider lover (take that as you will–there are what, at least four ways to take it), and the U.K. is an ideal spot to try out members of the cider species, including Aspalls Suffolk Cider, which I had at the Royal George Pub (in the Charing Cross neighborhood–I think), a punkish pub suggested by pals Stereolad and Schtickergirl, who came along for this U.K. adventure and who know their London spots. The Aspalls was “light, dry, and flouncy.”

Wife Natalie was a bit pooped by the time we hit the George (we’d been doing the London market experience all the live-long day), and went for an old reliable: the ice-cold Peroni, which is good no matter what country you’re visiting.

We also went in for the Pimm’s multiple times during the trip (and even brought back a bottle of Pimm’s No. 3, which is the brandy-based winter version, and hard to get over here in the WA), which only makes sense, with Pimm’s being an English standby and a favorite on warm days, which we had plenty of–who says the U.K. is cloudy and rainy and gothic-novel-melancholic 365 days a year by the way? That’s crazy talk. We had a few fine Pimm’s Cups, but the absolute finest, the tip top Pimm’s Cup, maybe in all of the U.K., but definitely in the parts we visited, was discovered at the White Bear Hotel, in Masham, in the Yorkshire Dales (a part of the country we spent some lovely days hanging out within). Masham is a nice village, with a market on Wednesday, a couple good hotels, quaintness to spare, and (like any English village) plentiful pubs on every street. Maybe my favorite Masham pub was the Bay Horse, which had a great veggie Ploughman’s Lunch loaded with 7 kinds of cheese, a meal I consumed while being watched by a little dog named Hank. Oh, but back to the Pimm’s at the White Boar (I start to go tangential, like a monkey flinging through the forest, right after a vacation, cause I miss every bit of it so much). They gave us the option of having it with lemonade (which is lemon soda) or straight soda, but every glass was packed with strawberries and grapes to go with the Pimm’s and mixer, and then topped off with the traditional cucumber slices.

A delicious bubbly treat, indeed. We also had an assortment of cocktails to swoon over at the Lonsdale in London, but I’ll hit those up later in the week.

A drink I picked up from the classic Savoy Cocktail Book, the Oriental has become a reliable mid-week (or weekend) hit for me, making me giddy every time I take that first sip, with its balanced nature and life-saving qualities. Oh, if you don’t know, as the Savoy tells it, “In August, 1924, an American engineer nearly died of fever in the Philippines and only the extraordinary devotion of Doctor B. saved his life. As an act of gratitude, the engineer gave Doctor B. the recipe of this cocktail (the Oriental).” Hence the life-saving nature of this drink. And, isn’t it always good when a drink comes with a built-in story, to start off those bar conversations that are so memorable (if a bit hazy in hindsight here and there). I love it. If you ever want to impress that certain someone, or just goof it with pals while soaking in the pleasures of being off work for a while, then the Oriental is a good drink to order up or make up and swill up.

It doesn’t hurt if you can embellish the story a bit as well. Lead up to the fever by giving the engineer a little more history (maybe he’s your uncle? maybe he was building a bridge to save a village from extinction? maybe he wears a jaunty hat?), and bring in the jungles of the Philippines, and then the engineer slowly succumbing to the fever, with the mosquitoes buzzing around his head like little planes around King Kong, and the lights getting dimmer, and dimmer, and dimmer, the darkness creeping and the fever rising and our brave engineer (who looks a bit like George Clooney) descending into his fate . . . and then the tent flaps rise and the mysterious Doctor B walks in, surrounded by sunlight. Cut to the next scene where the engineer is making the Doctor the Oriental for the first time, and then sliding the recipe across the table as the Doctor’s eye’s gleam with thankfulness (he’s on his third Oriental by now, and the gleam is partially backed by that third round). It’s enough to make you tear up a bit. Or is that tear just because you’ve been waiting to get the recipe for so long? The following is how I make them. I tried experimenting with different orange liqueurs and such, but kept coming back to that basic curaçao, which isn’t quite as sweet (and the drink can be a tad sweet for some anyway, so it’s good to keep a handle on it). Be careful with the lime juice pour as well, as it tends to want to take over (those fresh juices are always a little, well, fresh). I even experimented with subbing in Aperol (that invigorating Italian afternooner) for the curaçao one time, and while it wasn’t a bad drink, it was different enough to where it was actually a different drink. But fun to play with.

Ice cubes

1-1/2 ounce rye

3/4 ounces sweet vermouth

3/4 ounce orange curaçao

1/2 ounce freshly squeezed lime juice

1. Fill a cocktail shaker half way with ice. Add everything. Shake well.

2. Strain the mix into a cocktail glass.

The missus had her Discovery Park (for those not in Seattle, Discovery Park’s the biggest park here, and she directs the summer camp, the nature preschool, and about everything else out there) staff of rowdies over for eats and drinks, and I decided to roll out the outdoor drink trolley so I could keep up with their massive intake requests. As the line-up included rogue actresses Megan and Melissa (from the Paradise Cocktail video), I knew I’d need to keep things flowing. The cart, as the picture displays, has three bottle holders, (though the bottles are out on top in the picture, you get the idea), which led me to honing in on the classic, straight up, Margarita for the drink of choice (it’s also good in the August sunshine). It boasted simply tequila, GranGala (a lovely orange liqueur from Italy–if you aren’t already acquainted with it, it’s brandy-based, has rich orange flavor with a punch, and matches up with tequila in Margs like sleeping in matches with Saturdays: perfectly), and fresh lime juice. Shaken, strained, and accented with a lime slice in 3, 2, 1 fashion, here it is in recipe breakdown format:

Ice cubes

3 ounces Cazadores Blanco Tequila

2 ounces GranGala

1 ounce freshly squeezed lime juice

Lime slice, for garnish

1. Fill a cocktail shaker halfway with ice cubes. Add the tequila, GranGala, and lime juice. Shake well.

2. Strain into a cocktail glass or other glass that fits your mood, occasion, and dancing style. Garnish with the lime slice and a smile.

When clearing out space in the homemade liqueurs cabinet (for the new bottles from the below post), I realized that I had a few ounces left of some homemade triple sec that I’d constructed during my first liqueur-making frenzy. Not sure why I didn’t completely guzzle it up, cause it ruled/rules–not too sugary and just orange-y enough. Anyway, I wanted to utilize the last drops in making up a new drink (to give that triple sec the honor it deserved), and the Crimson Slippers was the end result. An awfully pretty result, as you can see.

Since I had the Campari bottle at the front of the shelves (from the Negroni-making), I thought I’d play around with it in the drink, even knowing that it can be a dangerous addition to the party because of the bitter undertones. But hey, I love bitter. So much that I ended up adding a dash of some homemade bitters in there as well (I’d made them for a bitters party thrown by no other than bartender Andrew Bohrer, from Cask Strength). These homemade bitters were based on an old “stomach” bitters called Hostetter’s, and take the bitters scale to another level. If I play around with the drink a little further in the future, I might try in other bitters–I think Peychaud’s would work well (and look well, too). Wait, I’m skipping the base liquor. I decided to go with rum, since it’s summertime. Well, and I thought it would be a nice touch, especially the dark variety, which has enough personality to hold its own, and thought it would be enjoyable to work to balance it with the other players.

The Campari uses a disguise to try and sneak away from the scene.

The end result is a touch bitter, but bounces around well due to that touch of triple sec (the homemade kind has such a bright orange-ness that it doesn’t get overwhelmed). The color, with that red glow, seemes like it would fit in at a crime scene, too. Maybe not one of the modern, forensic-equipment-and-fluorescent-y-mood-lit heavy scenes, but an Agatha Christie attic scene, with lots of thinking and sipping and a rocking chair. Here’s the final recipe.

Ice cubes

2 ounces dark rum

1 ounce Campari

1/2 ounce homemade triple sec

1 dash bitters

Lime slice, for garnish

1. Fill a cocktail shaker halfway up with ice cubes. Add the rum, Campari, triple sec, and bitters. Shake well.

2. Strain into a cocktail glass. Squeeze the lime slice over the glass and drop it in.

I love the Negroni. It’s such an accurate mingling of flavors, a demonstration of how, with a little attention to balance, the world (or at least the drinking world) can come into alignment in a manner that has to make the universe applaud. Sure,  I’m going overboard a bit with my fluffy language, but that’s what a really good drink drives us to, flights of poetic fancy usually reserved for singing the praises of nymphs–or at least of the hottie at the other end of the bar.

I love the Negroni so much that I made wife Natalie and pals Jeremy and Meg track down Café Giacosa in Florence, when we were visiting Italy, which is where the Negroni was thought to have been invented by a Florentine count, Camillo Negroni, and bartender Fosco Scarselli, who was bartending at the Bar Casoni, which became Café Giacosa (that sentence is much more confusing than the drink itself). The count wanted more kick in his Americano (which is Campari, sweet vermouth, and soda, and which, if you haven’t had one, is tasty in its own right when the sun’s heat is descending on your head like warm cotton) one day  after a long night of dancing the Volta, and the Negroni was born. At least that’s the story. The Café Giacosa is now owned by Italian designer Roberto Cavalli, and packed with animal print stools and I suppose oodles of style (I think we weren’t up to the normal clientele, as we were a bit sweaty and rocking shorts and t-shirts), as well as super friendly bartenders–super friendly and super attractive bartenders. My guess is that they’re models between gigs, or wannabe models, or just modelesque drink slingers. They made dandy Negronis though, which, in the end, matters more than the history, even. Drinking them there, surrounded by the faux leopard prints, in the one of the world’s finest cities, was a perfect way to while away the afternoon.

The Negroni I’m having now is being consumed at night (though who knows when I’ll actually get this post posted), and in “up” format. Sometimes I enjoy my Negronis over the rocks (when it’s a little sweaty out and I want to have some ice for accompaniment; then it’s “Negroni on the rocks, ain’t no big surprise” as the song says), but the moon is out, and I’m wearing a tux and feeling classy, and having it up seemed the right way to accent the evening. I don’t always feel that a drink should be changeable like that (and I’m sure some will turn up their noses at my even suggesting it, and that’s okay, too, cause everyone has to make those choices. And, while we’re admitting things, I’m not really wearing a tux). But, somehow, the Negroni works both ways for me.

Much in the same way as both Diana Prince and Wonder Woman work for me–one is more outwardly heroic, but the secret identity is also important, and also a key role. See, I tend to think (as I’ve mentioned before somewhere) of the Negroni as the Wonder Woman of drinks (this taking drinks into the DC universe, and showing my boundless love for the Negroni in geek form), after the Martini’s Superman and the Manhattan’s Batman. This may be giving it outlandish props (again, disagree if you want–do it in the comments though, and let me know who you’d sub in instead). The Wonder Woman TV show theme song does have the line “dressed in satin tights, fighting for your rights,” and I see the Campari as the satin tights in this situation, which I guess makes the gin the rest of the costume, and that sweet vermouth the magic lasso and the bullet-deflecting bracelets (as without it, the drink would be too metallic? Seems to make sense). And, the Negroni has an even-keeled nature (like Wonder Woman), but is still somewhat a drink of the people (attached to the world, and not belong to the universe). But I’m going far afield. Make yourself one tonight, and you’ll soon have your own theories. Here’s the recipe I used:

Ice cubes

1-1/2 ounces gin

1-1/2 ounces Campari

1-1/2 ounces sweet vermouth

Orange twist, for garnish

1. Fill a cocktail shaker halfway with ice cubes. Add everything. Shake well.

2. Strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with an orange twist.

A Variation: I heard about this from Pierre, a Florence bartender (who I met at the Hotel Casci). If you make a Negroni with Champagne or sparkling wine (you’d have to put it in after shaking and straining the Campari and vermouth, then top with the bubbly), it’s called a “Spagliato.” Which means “wrong.”