Even more than cooking, the art of cocktail making has an air of alchemy about it. Creating tinctures, shrubs, and bitters for cocktails feels a bit like making magic potions, especially since many of them have medicinal properties. When time itself is an ingredient, you can watch infusions transform before your very eyes. One of […]

Shrubs have been having a revival recently in bars and home kitchens, though these “drinking vinegars” date back to 17th century England and colonial America. Shrubs only have a few components, but the possible combinations are wide-ranging. To make your own shrub, simply combine a seasonal fruit, a vinegar, a sweetener, and complimentary spices. Let […]

Winter is the season for citrus, and the blood orange is a top contender for best in show. Their peels are marbled with purple, and their juice is a gorgeous blend of ruby and fuchsia. Blood oranges have notes from practically every other type of citrus; grapefruit, meyer lemon, and lime to name a few. […]

Every Autumn when the air begins to get crisp, I get a craving for apple cider, apple fritters and apple pie. This could have something to do with the place I grew up, a New England town that celebrates Fall every year with an annual Apple Harvest Festival. This punch was easy to make and […]

You’ve probably heard that the Bellini was invented at Harry’s Bar in Venice, Italy, a small two-story cocktail lounge and restaurant, down a tiny alley off Piazza San Marco. Guiseppe Cipriani opened Harry’s Bar in 1931 and served aperativos to expats like Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles and Ernest Hemingway. Today travelers and foodies from around […]

I’ve been into dark liquor lately and was intrigued when I came across this cocktail recipe in Andrea Reusing’s wonderful book Cooking in the Moment. She’s got a plethora of seasonal, farm-to-table recipes and lovely stories about life in North Carolina. This is basically a Manhattan, composed of rye whiskey, sweet vermouth, and bitters. But […]