Teetotalers will like the way this homemade grenadine brightens up sparkling soda or ginger ale when served over ice. Serve this cocktail anytime, but especially as summer draws to a close on September 20th—National Rum Punch Day.
I smashed sweet, ripe blackberries and a spicy homemade ginger syrup with lemon juice and topped it off with bourbon and sparkling water, as you see here. If you prefer less kick and more floral aroma, swap St-Germain elderflower liqueur for the ginger syrup and exchange the sparkling water with ginger beer. Float a half teaspoon of beautifully purple Empress gin over the top to make this drink a bright beauty.
I served this cocktail for my husband Michael's fortieth birthday party. He was born on June 27, 1969, which is the night when activists like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera clashed with the police during a raid of the Stonewall Inn, the famous gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village. This date is regarded as a watershed moment for the LGBTQIA civil rights movement, and so Michael often refers to himself as a "Stonewall baby." While the name of the drink tells the story of the historical significance of the date, the recipe does not. The ingredients are simply Michael's favorites. So no, the drink is not rainbow-colored, nor do any of the ingredients relate to the Stonewall Riots. It's simply a modified bourbon sour.
This drink is somewhat similar to the Preserves Sour, with the addition of 1/4 ounce of simple syrup, which softens some of the acidity, as well as a dash of bitters, which provides aromatic complexity.
Introduce acid and bubble into a cocktail with kombucha. This effervescent, living beverage has the sort of bracing acidity you can’t quite get enough of, which keeps you engaged and drinking swig after swig. Pair that with the natural sweetness and hydrating power of watermelon juice and you might as well call yourself a self-care expert.
Mezcal is meant to bring joy and be used in times of celebration. Sip it, savor it, and kiss it, and make sure to take a moment to reflect on it, appreciate it, and understand it.
You can learn a lot about ice just by looking at it. A pristinely clear cube tells you it’s made from pure water in a perfect crystal lattice. Cloudy ice signals impurities, absorbed gases, and irregular crystals. Those impurities (such as chlorine or fluoride) impart unwanted flavors, while absorbed gases (like oxygen and nitrogen) and irregular crystals weaken cubes, making them more prone to shattering while shaking. This creates many unwanted ice shards that will overdilute your cocktail. Bartenders go to obsessive, time-consuming lengths to achieve perfectly clear ice for craft cocktails, but we just wanted an easy at-home technique to get us as close to clear as is practical.
A bootlegger’s reimagining of the swanky Sidecar, straight moonshine added to cointreau, lemon juice, and cognac will rev up your engines for chasing down a great time from one mountaintop to the next.
Struck with a little white lightning, this revamped Manhattan is high proof that moonshine—especially cherry-infused, including a hooch-soaked maraschino cherry—can even make perfection a little more perfect.
The classic, most beloved campfire treat of all time just got a moonshine makeover! Whether savored fireside or not, marshmallow-infused moonshine and chocolate liqueur prove that indulging your sweet tooth doesn’t get any better than this.
Sometimes a perfect pint can be made even better. Put the black and tan to shame.