I had a request from a friend and cast member of the Light in the Piazza to create a drink specifically for him, with the only request being for it to be sweet. As this individual was playing Signor Naccarelli, I produced something I felt appropriate for such a gentleman.

Il Signore

• 1.5 oz. Carpano Antica sweet vermouth
• 1.0 oz. Cognac
• 0.5 oz. Amaretto
• 0.5 oz. Cynar

Stir with ice and strain into a coupe.
Garnish with a pinch of salt.

For the most part I stuck with Italy, with the base being a rich Italian vermouth. To this I added Cognac (just over the border, right?), some Amaretto for more sweetness and nuttiness, and the Cynar for some needed bitterness. I love myself some saltiness with sweet, so the pinch of salt enhanced the final composition for me.

I don’t go for overly sweet drinks myself usually, but found this one offered a richness that still appealed to me. And I’d take this dessert any day over a bowl of ice cream.

For the next Light in the Piazza cocktail, we now move from the Italian locales to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, “the land of corduroys,” according to Clara in the show.

The Corduroy

• 1.5 oz. Midnight Moon moonshine
• 1.0 oz. Cocci Americano
• 0.75 oz. Root liquor
• 0.5 oz. Bittermens Hiver Amer
• 2 dashes Smoke Gets In Your Eyes bitters

Stir with ice and strain into old fashioned glass over ice.
Garnish with an orange peel.

Here I used unaged American whiskey, good ol’ moonshine, for the base. To that I added Cocci Americano as a nod to Italian setting of the show. This brightens the drink up a bit, which is needed after adding the rich Root liqueur, which is smoky and thick with spices like cinnamon and clove and allspice. The bitterness in the Cocci wasn’t enough, so I put in the Hiver Amer as well, which also has strong cinnamon notes. The Smoke Gets In Your Eyes contributes even more smoke, which I felt appropriate for such a cigarette center.

I suppose this should contain a Surgeon General’s warning as well.

Getting back (finally!) to my Light in the Piazza cocktails, the next locale featured after Florence is Rome. I happened to have a huge bottle of Sambuca that I have barely touched (like many of my unused bottles, I purchased it for a recipe, but found I generally wasn’t a fan). So my mission here was to make a drink I liked with an ingredient I normally wouldn’t. Thus, the Roman Ruin.

Roman Ruin

• 1.0 oz. Sambuca
• 1.0 oz. Aperol
• 0.5 oz. Espresso liqueur
• 0.5 oz. lemon juice

Shake with ice and strain into ice-filled Collins glass.
Top with 2.0 oz. of club soda.

There are of course the traditional three coffee beans served in Sambuca, so as a nod to that I mixed the Sambuca with an espresso liqueur. Very sweet. The Italian Aperol helped to cut that a bit with bitter, and the lemon juice offered a much needed acidity and brightness. Such a strong drink, taste-wise, is not diluted much — and is actually helped quite a bit — by the club soda to top.

I still won’t be reaching for the Sambuca with any frequency, but when I do I think all roads will lead to this.

Mixology Monday is here once again! After taking a break last month, I’m back this month to tackle a fiery challenge, as presented at Feu de Vie:

Tiki-philes have their flaming spent lime shells and scorpion bowls. Classic cocktailers have the magic of a flamed orange zest. Molecular mixologists have their Smoking Guns. (and yes, frat boys have their flaming shots.) Even brunchtime drinkers have spicy Bloody Marys.

You don’t have to go full Blue Blazer, not nearly — heck, you could go full Fireball Whiskey! (or Fire Rock Pale Ale, etc..) You could riff on the Old Flame or come up with an inventive name of your own. You could even use a good firewater or burned wine. (and if you’re grilling fruit, save some for me, will ya?)

In essence, bring the heat! Bring the Fire! Bring your inspiration!

On a serious note: remember that lass in Britain who lost her stomach because the mixologists weren’t in control of the dangerous elements they were using in a cocktail? Let’s have none of that here, huh? There’s a lot more to Fire than just the electrochemical reactions happening on the end of a lit match. Stay safe and trust your gut about what you’re comfortable doing. We’re all here to have fun.

Now, I have a Smoking Gun and a chef’s torch that I’ve recently used in drinks for Young Frankenstein, so I didn’t want to head straight to those. I have used sriracha and tabasco in past recipes as well and I’ve infused with habaneros and jalepeños, too. So to get away from what I’ve done in the past (and, to be quite honest, I’m not a huge FAN of spicy drinks), I headed to the liquor store and grabbed a bottle of Fire Eater, a cinnamon whiskey liqueur. And that brought me to Heathing (please forgive the cheesy flames — as my photo turned out blurry I thought well why not make the whole thing crash and burn):

Heathing

• 1.5 oz Fire Eater cinnamon whiskey liqueur
• 1.5 oz. pear liqueur (Mathilde)
• 0.5 oz. Campari
• 1 barspoon ginger honey balsamic
• 1 pinch Thai ginger salt

Stir with ice and strain into highball. Top with 3.0 oz. ginger ale (Q).

I pretty much always start with a standard base spirit, but for this, to counter the spiciness, and since it is outside the norm for me, I wanted to do a liqueur-based cocktail. Cinnamon and pear just sounded right to me, and to balance the sweetness I added a healthy dose of Campari. For some acid, I turned to a balsamic vinegar I had that also added ginger spiciness, and the salt enhanced all those flavors for me.

Originally, I used an extra dry ginger ale to top, and that was nice, but upon verification of the drink the next day I found I was out, so turned to a sweeter Q. Both offered nice end results, though I would probably opt for the less sweet, personally.

As for the name, I struggled a bit as the drink, although spicy, doesn’t earn the “fireball” sort of moniker. My children, though, were recently introduced to the movie Clue, so Madeline Kahn’s hilarious monologue describing the “flames.. flames.. on the side of my face” came to mind. I looked up the quote online and found that (at least in some accounts) she ends with “heaving breaths.. heathing…” before being cut off by Tim Curry. Whether the quote is right or wrong, Heathing it was.

A friend is having a peacock-themed bridal shower and requested a “peacocktail” for the occasion. I had to extend the name a bit as the conjoined name doesn’t really sit well in my ear… but otherwise was happy to oblige.

The Peacock

• 1.5 oz. London Dry Gin
• 1.0 oz. Aperol
• 1.0 oz. Pink Grapefruit Marmalade syrup*

Stir with ice and strain into cocktail glass.
Top with 2.0 oz. chilled Prosecco and a lemon twist.

*For one drink, reduce 2.0 tbsps pink grapefruit marmalade in 1/3 cup boiling water for 3 minutes. Strain and let cool.

I wanted something bubbly, sweet and just a little extravagant. I would have gone more over the top with some crazy, show-off ingredients and techniques to match the name, but as this was something that others would be making I wanted it to be easy to do with fairly familiar ingredients, which was the challenge.

In the end, the bit of special that I added was the pink grapefruit marmalade, which added a bitterness with hints of sweet and tart. Easy to find, yet uncommon enough to add a bit of different pizzazz to the drink.

I mixed that with gin and Aperol, which adds to the bitterness and offers a beautiful hue. These are topped with sparkling Prosecco, which I like for its added sweetness, but you could go with an American sparkling, Cava, Champagne, etc., depending on how sweet or dry you wanted things. I thought sweet appropriate.

I suppose the garnish should be more flamboyant, but the lemon twist does everything that’s needed to add some crisp, bright notes at the end. If you want to find actual peacock feathers or add multiple colors of peel, have at it. I’ll be sipping away while you do so.

The Burning Monk

• 1.0 oz. London dry gin
• 1.0 oz. Punt e Mes
• 0.5 oz. Campari
• 0.5 oz. Gran Classico
• 2 dashes Habinero Hellfire Shrub

Stir with ice and strain into a coupe.
Garnish with a burnt orange peel and fresh ground cinnamon.

My first The Light in the Piazza cocktail was a riff on the Negroni since that came from Florence, the first setting I was highlighting. In the musical, the American mother and daughter go to the site where the monk who preached the bonfire of the vanities was burned. I don’t know why I was inspired by this morbidity, but I was.

As in a Negroni, I kept a third of the drink gin and a third vermouth. For the latter I chose the tasty Punt e Mes, which offers a bit more bitter. Because of that I only used a half ounce of Campari, and for the rest of the bitter component turned to Gran Classico, which leans to the sweeter side.

I felt it was only fitting to add some Hellfire Shrub to heat things up, and of course garnished with a flamed orange. The extra cinnamon spice? Ashes, of course.

Another month has quickly come upon me and thus a new Mixology Monday has arrived, this time presented by Andrea at Gin Hound:

Singapore Gin Sling, Blood and Sand and the Aviation wouldn’t be the same without them. They are brilliant in pies, go great with pork dishes and may even be a super food able to combat insomnia. But cherries in cocktails are also horribly abused, few things taste worse than artificial cherry aroma and the description of how most maraschino cherries are made can make you sick to your stomach. So it’s my pleasure as the host of Mixology Monday number 74 to challenge you to honor the humble cherry.

I had just tried some sour cherry jam in a Young Frankenstein cocktail, What Hump?, and thought I might start there, but honestly I got tired of the straining after shaking that this involved. Also, not wanting to just rely on the old standby Cherry Heering, I played a bit with Leopold Bros. Michigan Tart Cherry Liqueur and a Black Forest Cherry Liqueur, and, although I like these quite a bit, in the end it was the Cherry Heering that won out in my two cherry cocktail creations.

The Payout

• 1.5 oz American Dry Gin (Bluecoat)
• 1.0 oz. Kirschwasser
• 0.5 oz. Cherry Heering
• 4 dashes Fee Brothers Cherry Bitters

Stir with ice and strain into coupe. Garnish with three maraschino cherries.

If I was doing cherries, I was going all out. Although tempted to have two cherry components and go with a Neil Diamond reference (anyone?) I ended with three cherry components representing a slot machine’s payout. The sweetness here obviously comes from the Cherry Heering, though the bitters also offer more sweetness and tartness than they do anything bitter. The cherry brandy makes the cherry flavor a little more natural to my taste, and opens the drink up a bit, as does the gin, which adds some nice spice and herbaceous notes.

For the second drink, I wanted a punch that would really contrast with the sweetness of the cherries. Thus, the Backhanded Compliment.

Backhanded Compliment

• 1.5 oz black pepper-infused Rye (Old Overholt)
• 1.0 oz. Cherry Heering
• 0.5 oz. lime juice
• 1 dash Peychaud’s Bitters

Shake with ice and strain into coupe.

I love the spiciness of rye, and the black pepper infusion here enhances that even more. There’s a lot of Cherry Heering present for sweetness, but the amount of spice along with the tart acid of the lime really help to balance it. The Peychaud’s I think deepens the drink a little more, while also adding to its bite.

Maybe if the theme is ever pop icons of the 60’s and 70’s I can go back to that Neil Diamond tipple.

Before starting in on my next collection, I thought I would post an addition to my Sunday in the Park with George drinks. This in itself wasn’t inspired by the show, but rather was a drink that I was developing while in the show (well, not while on stage…). At one after-show gathering I made it for our music director, who had gifted me with a bottle of Ron Zacapa. I made him the drink and gave him the opportunity to name it. He immediately dubbed it “Lesson #8,” which is a song from the show where George begins by reading his great grandmother’s written grammar lessons from her lesson book before connecting the simple words to his own life.

Lesson #8

• 2.0 oz. Aged Rum (Ron Zacapa)
• 1.0 oz. Kina L’Avion D’Or Quinquina
• 0.25 oz. Vanilla, Fig and Black Pepper syrup
• 0.25 oz. lime juice

Shake and strain into coupe. If desired, crack fresh pepper as garnish.

This one began with the vanilla, fig and black pepper syrup. I thought an aged rum would work nicely with it, and I think it does. The quinquina is a favorite ingredient of mine, giving a bright bitterness to a drink. The lime juice balances everything out with its acid, which is necessary here for me because of the sweetness present from both the syrup and the quinquina.

George would have liked to see people out drinking on Sunday.

For this month’s Mixology Monday, Mark Holmes of Cardiff Cocktails posted the following challenge, the Witches’ Garden:

As far back as we can look, the use of fresh herbs have been prevalent in the world of mixed drinks. From the early days of the julep, through Williams Terrington’s 19th century Cooling Cups and Dainty Drinks, to Don the Beachcomber’s ahead of their time Tiki drinks, fresh herbs have always been at the forefront of mixology. So lets take influence from the bartenders that once ruled the world of mixology, raid your herb garden that too often gets neglected, and start mixing. I don’t want to put too many limits on this theme so get as creative as you please, want to use roots, spices or beans as well? Sure thing. Want to make your own herbal infusions or tinctures? Sounds wonderful.

Now, I don’t have a garden, and I’m not a witch (I weigh much more than a duck), but as it happened I had a gin I had recently infused with fresh rosemary and so I immediately gravitated to that as a base. I also had some fun ingredients I had picked up in Sydney that I hadn’t yet played with. One was a bush tomato balsamic. Rosemary and tomatoes? I could work with that.

The Walkabout

• 2.5 oz Rosemary-infused London Dry Gin
• 1.0 oz. Cucumber Liqueur
• 1 barspoon Caramelised Balsamic Vinegar with Bush Tomato
• 2 dashes The Bitter Truth Lemon Bitters

In addition to the balsamic, I have some dried bush tomatoes as well, which dehydrate to the size of small berries. I muddled some of these with some fresh rosemary, then combined all ingredients with ice, stirred and strained into a cocktail glass. Finally, I garnished with some of the dried tomatoes, floated on top.

The cucumber is almost like a really light simple syrup which opened the drink up a bit. The balsamic gives a rich, sweetness that isn’t too overwhelming, and the bitters help to counter it. The rosemary gin is what stands out here, as I think it should.

Not willing to leave it at that, I also infused some gin with some lemongrass and came to the following:

Thai Phoon

• 2.5 oz. Lemongrass-infused London Dry Gin
• 0.5 oz. King’s Ginger Liqueur
• 1 barspoon Monin’s Coconut Syrup
• 1 barspoon Ginger Rice Vinegar
• 2 dashes The Bitter Truth Lemon Bitters

Stir with ice and strain into a coupe. Garnish with a lemon twist.

Lemongrass, coconut and ginger sounded good to me. That little bit of the syrup is all that’s needed for sweetness along with the ginger liqueur, which added some bite. The vinegar is my favorite part here, adding a brightness and acidity to counter the sweetness, which the bitters also help out with. I’m not sure how much lemongrass I could detect in the end, but I didn’t mind.

Now off to see what I can do with these beets…

A little Young Frankenstein addendum:

At the show’s conclusion I was thoughtfully given a gift by one of my friends and castmates who played the Blind Hermit (famously portrayed by Gene Hackman in the film) along with a card issuing a fun challenge, asking me to construct a cocktail specifically inspired by the Blind Hermit character. The gift contained a few ingredients and bottles from another cocktail, which was basically half Frangelico and half Iced Cake Vodka with nutmeg on top. I kept the Frangelico and nutmeg (sorry, the Iced Cake Vodka tasted exactly like it sounds — yummy if you were wanting to drink cake, I’m sure) and came up with the following.

Blind Hermit

• 2.0 oz. Old Monk Rum
• 1.0 oz. Frangelico
• 0.5 oz. Dry Oloroso Sherry
• 1 barspoon cinnamon syrup
• 1 barspoon Green Chartreuse
• 2 dashes coffee bitters

Stir and strain into coupe over rum soaked raisins (raisins cooked in dark rum, cinnamon and allspice).
Garnish with fresh toasted nutmeg.

Keeping the monk theme (close to a hermit, I guess) presented by the Frangelico bottle, I started with one of my favorites, the spicy Indian rum Old Monk. To this I added the healthy dose of the hazelnut Frangelico and some dry, nutty sherry to open the drink up more. I wanted some Young Frankenstein influence, so added the cinnamon for a bit of “fire” and a little Green Chartreuse for the monster himself. The coffee bitters helped temper the sweetness, and were added, of course, because the hermit was “going to make espresso!”

All of this went into a coupe over rum soaked raisins — raisins were also included in the gift as an ingredient and I thought they made an interesting garnish. The nutmeg was also part of the original cocktail I was riffing on, so I ended with that, but first used a torch to toast it. Just watch that you don’t light your thumb.