Take your New Year’s Eve party up a notch (if that’s possible–knowing the readers and pals I have, your New Year’s Eve parties are already notched up so high the belt might break. But even so, you still might like a new New Year’s bubbly beauty) with the Valencia, a drink I think sounds like it refers to an old, but somewhat shadily classy, apartment house, probably a brick brownstone, where the serious parties have happened, are happening, and will continue to happen as long as we’re lucky to walk and drink on this earth. Valencia the drink contains a captivating combination of apricot brandy, orange juice, orange bitters, and Champagne or sparkling wine (the latter being why it’s so fitting for the last day in December). In the below video, which is posted via the fine folks at How2Heroes (a site you should check out if you like drinking and cooking videos) you can see me making one of these sparklers.

If that’s not enough, and if you really want to start your New Year right (or oddly), check out this video of me (also from How2Heroes) talking about how I got into cocktail love and booze-writing and all that liquor madness. I’m also wearing a pink tie and straw hat and name dropping the Essential Dr. Strange Volume I.

And if that’s not enough, know that I’m wishing you, from a distance, if not in person (though I wish I was), the happiest and most wonderfulest 2009 imaginable. And then some. Cheers!

People always feel bad about riding the pine (meaning, sitting on the bench during a sporting event), but golly, someone has to be there to support the team with yelling and clapping and general enthusiastic behavior right? Without that, how could those stars actually playing get the energy to keep at it? Because, everyone needs support now and then, and, for that matter, everyone needs to sit and take a load off now and then. Heck, even Captain Marvel (the red-costumed one) needed to be Billy Batson on occasion. And when you’re hanging out on the bench in support style, or hanging out to catch your breath for a bit, you should have a drink that’s named for this very scene. Or, named because I had some lovely fresh pineapple that I thought to use in a drink, and this name made sense in that situation cause of the “pine.” One of those two reasons.

The first sounds better, doesn’t it? Like I wasn’t just whipping together a drink, but really thinking deeply about what it means to be a supporter of star players, instead of actually a star, combined with what it means to take a break from stardom, and trying to distill those notions into an ideal liquid form. Now that, friends, is deep (a deep load of crap some might say, but those “some” are probably creepy teetotalers).  And, sort-of a lie, because there wasn’t “one” ideal liquid form but two, as I made the drink two ways. The first was muddling up some fresh pineapple, then adding a bit of simple syrup, a touch of pineapple juice for juiciness, and some dark rum (I used Mount Gay Eclipse, cause I’m pretty fond of its mixability, though it’s not super dark–white rum could have been used, too, but the dark gave it a touch more flavor) and shaking it up. The second was adding all of the same, plus some ice, to a blender and blending it up. Wife Nat had an urge for a blended drink (even though it’s freakily freezing out here) and far be it from me to talk her out of it. Drinkers deserve what they want. Both versions, I have to say, came out darn delicious, and tropical, and warming all at once. Which is fitting for the “Riding the Pine” moniker (well, you’re probably dreaming of the tropics when there, and your hindquarters are warm, and the drink is delicious). This drink, probably, could have been called a “Pineapple Daiquiri” or some such. But that’d be awfully boring.

Riding the Pine #1

1/4 cup fresh pineapple, plus one or two cubes for garnish

Ice cubes

1/2 ounce simple syrup

1/4 fresh pineapple juice

2 ounces dark rum

1. Put the pineapple in a cocktail shaker. Using your favorite muddler, muddle well.

2. Fill the shaker halfway full with ice cubes. Add everything else. Shake really well, and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a pineapple cube or two.

Riding the Pine #2

1/4 cup fresh pineapple, plus one or two cubes for garnish

Ice cubes

1/2 ounce simple syrup

1/2 fresh pineapple juice

2 ounces dark rum

1. Put all the ingredients in a blender. Blend well.

2. Pour the Pine into a chilled glass of your choice, or a cocktail glass, or a basketball cut in half (but only if it’s been well-cleaned). Garnish with a pineapple cube or two.

This holiday helper was created for a winter parties class I’m teaching tomorrow and Friday at the wonderful and worthy Dish It Up (if you’re in the Seattle area, or visiting, be sure to check them out not only for a wide range of kitchen gear, and kitchen classes, but also for their selection of wines). The class was featured in the most recent issue of Traditional Homes (cause we all know for a real traditional home, you need lots of booze), and I had to make up some new mixes (and snacks) for the occasion. Funny enough, when the creation took place it was summer (ah, those long-lead mags) and I was drinking and mixing with rosé quite a bit (a good dry rosé, like one from those madcap vintners at Trio, is a dandy mixer), which led to the rosé-backed Saint Nick’s Rosy Cheek.

Ice cubes

1-1/2 ounces rosé wine (be sure to get an actual rosé and not a blush wine)

1 ounce citrus vodka

1/2 ounce simple syrup

2 dashes orange bitters

Maraschino cherry, for garnish

1. Fill a cocktail shaker halfway full with ice cubes. Add the rosé, vodka, simple syrup, and bitters. Shake well.

2. Add the cherry to a cocktail glass, interesting cordial glass, or anything you won’t drop. Strain the mix over the cherry. Kiss Santa’s cheek.

I used Regan’s orange bitters here, and it worked wonders. I suggest you do the same. I like the little ting the citrus vodka brings, but think straight vodka would be good as well, and would be interested to try this with gin (I mean, I tend to like gin better anyway, but for some reason reached for the vodka originally. Now I feel sorta bad, like I’ve let gin down. Gin, I love you. Forgive me).

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.

Where do you stand on the long-running political feud between gin and Cognac? Or, are you brimming over with disgust at the overindulgence in political speak? Or, do you just really really like drinks with egg in them? Or, are you in the mood for a little French loving? All of above? No matter what your answer is, this drink video is for you.

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.

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.”