Bacon and Roasted Bean Salad

Roasted chickpeas are a wonderful thing. The little round legumes, when tossed with olive oil and cooked in the oven until their edges dry out and crisp, make a wonderful snack or salad addition (see related recipes below for links to dishes where I've used them).

Turns out you can achieve a similar effect with other types of canned legumes. I got the idea from a recipe by Kay Chun for Warm Escarole-and-Shiitake Salad with Crispy Beans in the latest issue of Food & Wine. For this salad, I drained and rinsed a can of red kidney beans, tossed them with olive oil and seasonings and roasted them until they split open and dried out. They were amazing! I really love their texture and taste. Just like the chickpeas, they would make a great snack or salad topping.

Because canned beans are a little softer than canned chickpeas, they can be roasted at a lower temperature. They're done in about a half hour. If you think about it, give them a stir halfway through to promote even cooking. Check them after half an hour and give them an extra 5 minutes or so in the oven if it seems like some of the beans might still be soft.

This salad is actually inspired by one of my favorite winter soups, Smoky Pinto Bean, Red Wine and Bacon Soup, a recipe from New York Times recipe columnist Melissa Clark. Here, I've taken many of that recipe's ingredients--the bacon, onion and celery, rosemary, the beans, of course, and even the red wine (in the vinaigrette)--and translated them into a salad. If you're getting tired of winter soups, this is great way to put something on the table with similar ingredients but a lighter, fresher profile.

I'm interested in roasting other types of canned beans, possibly with other seasonings. I wonder what roasted black beans tossed with ground cumin and chili powder would be like. Although hominy isn't a bean, this similar treatment for canned hominy, roasted with garlic and chili powder, also sounds tasty. Any other ideas for roasted beans? Please share them in the comments.

Bacon and Roasted Bean Salad

Serves 2

15 oz. can of red kidney beans, drained and rinsed

3 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil

Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

4 oz. thick-cut hickory-smoked bacon (I recommend Benton's, available online)

3-4 cups of torn green-leaf lettuce leaves

1/3 cup finely diced red onion

2 celery ribs, cut on an angle into 1/8-inch-thick slices

2 tsp. chopped fresh rosemary

1 1/2 tbsp. red wine vinegar

1 tsp. Dijon mustard

1 tsp. honey

1. Heat oven to 350 F. Combine beans with 1 tbsp. olive oil, salt and pepper in a medium bowl and toss to coat. Spread beans in an even layer on a baking sheet (lined with aluminum foil if desired for easy clean-up) and roast until the beans have split open and dried out, about 30-35 minutes. Set aside to cool.

2. Cook the bacon in a frying pan over medium heat until browned and crisp. Set aside to cool and drain on a paper-towel-lined plate. Chop into bits.

3. Combine lettuce, onion, celery, rosemary and bacon bits in a large bowl. Whisk together the vinegar, mustard and honey, then whisk in the remaining 2 tbsp. of olive oil. Pour over the salad and toss to combine. Divide the salad onto two plates and serve topped with a generous handful of the roasted beans (serve any remaining beans on the side--they make a great snack).

Related

Smoky Pinto Bean, Red Wine and Bacon Soup

Parsnip-Carrot Soup with Tahini and Roasted Chickpeas

Crispy Kale and Roasted Chickpea Salad

Snap Pea and Bacon Salad with Ricotta and Roasted Chickpeas

Reconstructed Hummus Salad

Roasted Chickpea "Potato" Salad

8-2-Eat: Oscar Party Fare

8-2-Eat is my food-focused list series. A perfect Friday distraction. Sunday night is the 88th Academy Awards, also known as the Oscars. Here are 8 ideas for fun food and drinks to serve at your Oscar Party. And the envelope goes to...

Flavored Popcorn. Popcorn and movies are a classic pairing, but rather than top those fluffy popped kernels with just butter and salt, why not try something more interesting like Sriracha-Spiced Honey-Sesame Popcorn or Fajita-Spiced Popcorn? Then there's my favorite: Cracker Jack, the old-school caramel corn with peanuts.

Nachos. This also goes with the movies--at least I see nachos sold at most cinema concessions stands these days. The version you make at home will certainly be better.

Buffalo Chicken Sliders. I invented this recipe for the Super Bowl, but for a lot of people, the Oscars are the "other" Super Bowl (frankly, they're the one I'm more interested in). These tasty bite-size burgers would be perfect to chow on while the first few awards are handed out.

Classy Appetizers. If your Oscar party is a more elegant affair, you'll want food that matches such as Bacon-Wrapped Blue Cheese Dates, Endive with Honey Goat Cheese and Pecans or Crostini with Smoked Blue Cheese, Caramelized Onion and Rosemary.

Pizza. If you're aiming to serve something more substantial, I say pizza is the way to go.

Healthy Snacks. The Oscars usually go late, so while you may serve dinner beforehand or heavy hors d'oeuvres when they start, your guests might appreciate noshing on something lighter as the night wears on such as Crispy Kale Chips or Roasted Chickpeas.

Cake. About halfway through the show, you can really impress your guests by serving them a camera-ready dessert. This flourless Chocolate Truffle Cake would probably win their votes, or perhaps Triple Chocolate Mousse Cake or Coffee Cake with Coffee Frosting, which actually tastes like coffee.

The Lightsaber, inspired by Star Wars

Cocktails. Of course, your guests need something to drink, and nothing is better than signature cocktails inspired by the Oscar nominated films. Whether you're rooting for The Big Short, The Revenant or Spotlight to win Best Picture, I got you covered, and there's even a drink for the Star Wars: The Force Awakens fans who are still upset that film wasn't nominated. Check out all the Oscar Cocktails for this year, 2015, 2014 and 2013.

Lucky Peach 101 Easy Asian Recipes

"...the magazine equivalent of throwing an M-80 into a bowl of ramen and taking a crime-scene photo of the results." That's how--writing in the second issue--editor Peter Meehan described the first issue of Lucky Peach, the irreverent food quarterly launched in 2011 by Meehan and Momofuku chef David Chang.

Each issue revolves around a theme, such as the apocalypse (#6), gender (#8), and obsessions (#14). The magazine's recipes range from the exotic to the simple, including cultural mash-ups like a recipe from issue #1 for Instant Ramen Cacio e Pepe. They once created an issue-within-an-issue (for #9) called "Mad/Guts" about a René Redzepi food conference and stuffed the small-size book inside an insert with a photo of a woman's belly--so extracting the book was like conducting a c-section.

And they haven't shied away from complicated recipes, like the holiday issue's (#13) 11-page spread on constructing an elaborate Tuscan-style Christmas gingerbread house, complete with blueprints. Or the Roast Chicken, 2034, a.k.a. "The Frankenbird" (#6),  a chicken that had its skin carefully removed, its meat replaced with pork glued in place with meat glue, the skin carefully reattached, and the whole thing roasted.

So when Peter Meehan and the editors of Lucky Peach put out the cookbook Lucky Peach 101 Easy Asian Recipes, I wondered how "easy" the recipes would really be. After all, a chef like Chang probably has a different idea of what's "easy" than a home cook like me.

Chineasy Cucumber Salad

Thankfully, the recipes in the book really are pretty easy with one important caveat: the ingredients. This isn't the kind of Asian cookbook that instructs you to make Pad Thai with ketchup; recipes call for authentic ingredients, the kind you can maybe find in the Asian foods aisle, although more likely you'll need to visit an Asian market. Recognizing this, the cookbook opens with a helpful section explaining the ingredients called for in the recipes. Substitutions are sometimes provided in this section. Take Shaoxing wine, for example. The book acknowledges that many cooks substitute sherry for this ingredient, which is similar in some respects. But they also note that shelling out for the authentic stuff will make the dish taste better, however, they also acknowledge that the cheap Shaoxing wine you can find in the Asian aisle, which has salt added to make it non-potable, will also work fine.

The book's recipes are divided into 12 categories, with a dozen or so recipes for most categories save for dessert, which features only two--well, really only one, since the first recipe is sliced oranges. The other is Egg Custard Tarts, a very simple recipe that uses puff-pastry cut-outs baked in a muffin tin to form molds for a simple vanilla-egg custard. It doesn't strike me as particularly Asian, but it does sound good and quite simple if you use store-bought frozen puff pastry. The book acknowledges that the default Asian dessert is cut fruit (hence the oranges recipe).

Elsewhere, the recipes are clearly Asian and run the pan-Asian gamut of Chinese, Japanese, Korean and other cuisines. Many of these you'll probably recognize, like Beef Satay, grilled skewers of flank steak marinated in a mixture of coconut milk, garlic, ginger and spices and served with a simple peanut sauce made with creamy peanut butter, soy sauce, garlic and water. I made a sampling of the recipes from the book and was pleased with all of them.

Jap Chae with added chicken

I started with Jap Chae, one of my favorite dishes to order in Korean restaurants. It's a noodle and vegetable dish made with sweet potato noodles, which are a translucent gray color when dry and even first cooked but, but once tossed with a a brown sauce, they pick up that color, turning a beautiful golden brown. The book notes that the dish is often a side, although I added chicken to mine and served it as a main. The hardest thing about this recipe was finding the noodles, which weren't to be found in the Asian aisles at Giant or Whole Foods but which I did acquire from an Asian market in Chinatown. This recipe was easy to follow and the resulting dish was tasty and exactly what I expected.

Next, I went for a soup-and-salad combo of the "Chineasy" Cucumber Salad and the Hot and Sour Soup. The salad is super easy--it's just cut up cucumbers with peanuts, cilantro and dressing, but again assembling the dressing could prove the most difficult task, as it calls for Chinkiang vinegar (also known as "black" vinegar) and Sichuan chili oil. Lacking the latter ingredient, I sprinkled my salad with a pinch of gochugaru, which is Korean chili pepper flakes. This gives the salad just a bit of kick. It's a wonderfully simple and refreshing side to something spicier.

For the soup, I was so excited the book had a recipe for Hot & Sour Soup, the Chinese staple that is one of my favorite soups and among the first Chinese dishes I learned to love as a child. I remember, as a teenager, making a version of Hot & Sour Soup from a packet that was absolutely terrible (I actually made it multiple times, despite the fact that it didn't taste anything like the soup from a Chinese restaurant).

Hot and Sour Soup

Thankfully, the Lucky Peach version is really good, a faithful rendition of the soup that's hot (although not too much) and flavorful. A couple weeks after making this, I ordered hot and sour soup from a Chinese restaurant. It was hot--far hotter than this--but had an unpleasantly thick texture, likely thickened with cornstarch. The Lucky Peach recipe doesn't thicken the broth, and it doesn't need it. In making this, I made a substitution regarding the pork. The recipe calls for 8 oz. of pork shoulder cut into matchsticks. For simplicity, I substituted ground pork. I also ended up substituting  an additional 8 oz. of ground pork for the tofu, since Giant was out of tofu the day I made this. Flavorful-wise, the soup was still tasty, although I definitely would recommend making the soup with a mixture of pork and tofu, as I like the combination of textures. Lastly, there's a mistake in this recipe: dried wood ear mushrooms are soaked in step 1, but then never reappear. They should be added after returning the soup to a simmer in step 3 (this was corrected in the online version). Here again, I made a substitution, as I couldn't find dried wood ear mushrooms, so I used fresh shiitakes. Still delicious.

Other soups in the book include miso (located in the short "breakfast" section), chicken noodle (similar to the chicken soup that ran in Lucky Peach issue #1), beef noodle soup (a recipe that looks like a simpler version of the delicious soup at Momofuku CCDC), a miso version of clam chowder, a slow-cooker version of pho and, of course, ramen.

Kung Pao Chicken

The last thing I made from the book was Kung Pao Chicken, an adaptation of the Kung Pao Shrimp that appears in the book (substituting cubed raw chicken for shrimp is an easy swap). Like Hot and Sour Soup, this is another of my long-time favorite Chinese recipes, one that I have a good go-to recipe for. When I make it, I use red chili pepper flakes, whereas this recipe calls for 10 small dried red chilies. The challenge with this instruction is which chili pepper to use. I used chiles de árbol, which I found at Whole Foods. They gave the dish a mild spiciness (unless you eat one--then wow, be careful, as they are hot). The recipe states that they intentionally dialed back the heat, but it would be easy to ramp back up. If you like the look of a few whole chilies, you could always use both the 10 (or more) dried chilies plus a generous pinch of chili flakes. I liked the heavy use of vegetables in this recipe, which includes red and green bell peppers and celery, in addition to the usual scallions.

There are lots of other dishes I want to try. Thumbing through the book while writing this article, the Miso-Glazed Explant caught my eye. Again, this is super-simple: cut Japanese eggplant in half, brush with oil, roast and glaze with red miso and mirin. Sounds delicious, Asian and easy, just as promised.

Jap Chae
Adapted from a recipe in Lucky Peach 101 Easy Asian Recipes by Peter Meehan and the editors of Lucky Peach; also available online

Note: The original recipe does not include chicken, which I added. Other substitutions I made are noted below.

10 oz. sweet potato noodles
2 tbsp. vegetable oil (the original recipe called for grapeseed oil), plus more as needed
1 lb. boneless-skinless chicken breast cutlets, cut into 1/2-inch cubes (this was not included in the original recipe)
1 large or 2 small yellow onions (about 3 cups), thinly sliced (the original recipe called for red onion)
2 red bell peppers, thinly sliced
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 large carrot, peeled and cut julienne
8 oz. shiitake mushrooms, stems removed and caps thinly sliced
4-5 scallions, cut into 1-inch pieces
4-5 garlic cloves, minced (about 2 tbsp.)
1/2 cup mirin
1/2 cup low-sodium tamari (the original recipe calls for standard soy sauce)
2 tsp. sugar
1 1/2 tsp. dark sesame oil
3 tbsp. toasted sesame seeds

1. Cook the noodles in boiling water according to package directions. While they cook, prepare a large bowl of ice water. When the noodles are done, drain them, then transfer to the ice water to cool. Once cooled, set aside in a large bowl until ready to use.

2. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the chicken and sauté until cooked through, about 8 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove chicken from pan. Add additional oil to the pan if needed. When the oil is hot, add the onion and bell peppers and sauté until the vegetables have softened, about 5-6 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper, then add the carrot, mushrooms, scallions and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are lightly browned, about 10 minutes.

3. Add the mirin to the pan, and stir to combine and deglaze the pan, scraping off any browned bits on the bottom of the pan with a spatula or wooden spoon.

4. Add the cooked chicken and vegetable mixture to the bowl with the noodles. Add the soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil and sesame seeds and toss to combine.

Hot and Sour Soup
Adapted from the recipe in Lucky Peach 101 Easy Asian Recipes by Peter Meehan and the editors of Lucky Peach; also available online

1/2 cup wood ear mushrooms (note: wood ear mushrooms are generally sold dried; I couldn't find them, so instead, I used 8 oz. fresh shiitake mushrooms, stems removed and caps thinly sliced)
2 tbsp. vegetable oil
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 tbsp. chopped fresh ginger (about 1 1/2 inches of peeled ginger root)
4-5 scallions, chopped (about 1/2 cup)
8 oz. ground pork (the original recipe called for  pork shoulder, cut into fat matchsticks)
4 cups low-sodium chicken broth (the original recipe didn't specify low-sodium)
8 oz  soft tofu, cut into 1/2-inch cubes (as my grocery store was out of tofu, I substituted an additional 8 oz. of ground pork, but I really recommend making the recipe with tofu, as it adds texture)
1 tsp.  sugar
1/2 cup rice vinegar
3 tbsp. soy sauce
1 tsp. freshly ground  black pepper
1 tsp. dark  sesame oil
Sriracha (1 tbsp. or more to taste)
2  large eggs, lightly beaten (optional)
Fried Chinese noodles (optional, not in the original recipe)

1. If using fresh shiitake mushrooms, heat 1 tbsp. of oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add mushrooms and sauté until lightly browned, about 5 minutes, then remove from the pan and aside. If using dried wood ear mushrooms, place them in a bowl and cover with warm water. Soak until plump and pliable, about 30 minutes. Drain and set aside.

2. Heat remaining oil in the pan over medium heat. Add the garlic, ginger, scallions, and sauté, stirring occasionally, until the meat is cooked through, about 5 minutes. Add the broth and increase heat to medium-high to bring to a simmer, then reduce heat to medium-low and continue simmering.

3. Stir in the tofu (if using), sugar, vinegar, soy sauce, pepper, sesame oil and sriracha. Return the mixture to a simmer. Adjust to taste with additional salt, srirarcha and/or vinegar, and stir in the mushrooms.

4. Slowing add the beaten eggs to the soup while gently stirring, which will set the egg into strands. Serve immediately. I like to add a side of crunchy fried Chinese noodles.

Oscar Cocktails Bonus: Love Unspoken (Carol)

Oscar Cocktails are inspired by this year's nominees for the Academy Award for Best Picture (plus two bonus cocktails). See recipes for all of this year's Oscar Cocktails here.


Set in the early 1950s, Carol tells the story of its title character (Cate Blanchett), who falls in love with Therese (Rooney Mara), a young woman working in a department store. While pursuing a divorce from her husband (Kyle Chandler), Carol pursues a relationship with Therese complicated by the times in which same-sex relationships were verboten. The film, directed by Todd Haynes, is nominated for six Academy Awards including Best Actress (Blanchett) and Supporting Actress (Mara). I was very surprised the film was not nominated for Best Picture. In fact, since the Academy expanded the slate of best picture nominees in 2009, this is the most nominations a film has received and not been a Best Picture nominee.

Carol has a beautiful classic 1950s look, so I wanted an elegant cocktail fitting for the times and representative of Carol and Therese's love. Carol drinks a martini several times in the film, so I took a dry gin martini as my starting point and made some modifications to fit the film's story and characters. I rinsed the glass with absinthe, a bitter fennel-flavored French liqueur that was banned in the United States for many years--not unlike the legal status of same-sex relationships, which were criminalized for decades and have only recently received full legal status. I sweetened the drink with two liqueurs to represent the two characters: Yellow Chartreuse for blonde Carol and maraschino liqueur for youthful Therese. The burlesque bitters add a touch of bitterness to the drink, symbolizing the bitterness that Carol and Therese must endure. The garnish comes directly from the film, since one of Carol's martinis was garnished with two green olives and a cocktail onion.

Bonus: Love Unspoken (Carol)

Inspired by Carol’s martini and her love for Therese, which at the time “dared not speak its name.”

1 tsp. absinthe

2 oz. Bombay Sapphire London dry gin

¾ oz. Dolin dry vermouth

¼ oz. Yellow Chartreuse

1 tsp. Luxardo maraschino liqueur

2 dashes Bittermens burlesque bitters

2 greens olives and 1 cocktail onion, garnish

Rinse a chilled cocktail glass with absinthe. Combine gin, vermouth, Chartreuse, maraschino liqueur and bitters in a cocktail mixing glass with ice. Stir until very cold, then strain into the cocktail glass. Garnish with olives and onion.

Related

2016 Oscar Cocktails

Oscar Cocktails: Moscow Mole (Bridge of Spies)

Oscar Cocktails are inspired by this year's nominees for the Academy Award for Best Picture. See recipes for all of this year's Oscar Cocktails here.

Bridge of Spies is based on the true story of American lawyer James Donovan (Tom Hanks) who, in 1957, unsuccessfully defended Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance) during Abel's trial as an accused Soviet spy. Donovan later successfully negotiated a prisoner exchange with the U.S.S.R. and East Germany, exchanging Abel for an American Air Force pilot captured by the Soviets and an American student held by the East Germans. The film is nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Supporting Actor (Rylance). It is the 10th film directed by Steven Spielberg to be nominated for Best Picture, following Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial, The Color Purple, Schindler's List (a Best Picture winner), Saving Private Ryan, Munich, War Horse and Lincoln.

This one was really too easy. Bridge of Spies is a spy story. Spies deal in secrets. A "mole" is a term for a spy. The Moscow Mule is a classic cocktail made with vodka, lime juice and ginger beer. To turn the Moscow Mule into the Moscow Mole, I added an ingredient with a secret recipe--Yellow Chartreuse, a French herbal liqueur that has been made for centuries by Carthusian monks. It's recipe is purportedly only known to the two monks in charge of production. Voila.

Moscow Mole (Bridge of Spies)
A riff on the classic Moscow Mule cocktail with Chartreuse, an ingredient with a secret recipe.

1 ½ oz. vodka
½ oz Yellow Chartreuse
½ oz. lime juice
4-6 oz. Fever Tree ginger beer
Half lime wheel garnish

Combine vodka, Chartreuse and lime juice in a copper mug filled with ice. Stir ingredients and top with ginger beer. Garnish with half lime wheel.
Related

2016 Oscar Cocktails

Oscar Cocktails: Brooklyn Heritage (Brooklyn)

Oscar Cocktails are inspired by this year's nominees for the Academy Award for Best Picture. See recipes for all of this year's Oscar Cocktails here.

Brooklyn, adapted from the historical novel by Colm Tóibín, is the story of Eilis Lacey (Saoirse Ronan), a young Irish woman who immigrates to the United States in the early 1950s. There, she begins a new life in Brooklyn, falling in love with a young Italian man, Tony Fiorello (Emory Cohen). The film is nominated for three Academy Awards including Best Picture and Actress (Ronan).

The basis for the Brooklyn cocktail was really obvious: the Brooklyn cocktail. It's a classic cocktail that's a riff on another classic--the Manhattan. While both drinks are made with rye whiskey and bitters, instead of the Manhattan's sweet vermouth, a Brooklyn calls for dry vermouth and, for sweetness, maraschino liqueur. To make the drink fit with the film, I used particular ingredients to represent the geography of the characters and setting. For Eilis's Irish heritage, I used Irish whiskey instead of an American rye whiskey. Tony's Italian heritage is represented by Luxardo maraschino liqueur and Carpano dry vermouth, both of which are made in Italy. Then Brooklyn itself is represented by the bitters. I used a blend of aromatic and orange bitters from Hella Bitters, which was founded in Brooklyn.

Brooklyn Heritage (Brooklyn)
A riff on the Brooklyn cocktail inspired by the film’s setting and the Irish and Italian backgrounds of its characters.

2 oz. Tullamore Dew Irish whiskey
¾ oz. Carpano dry vermouth
¼ oz. Luxardo maraschino liqueur
2 dashes Hella aromatic bitters
2 dashes Hella orange bitters
Maraschino cherry garnish

Combine whiskey, vermouth, liqueur and bitters in a cocktail mixing glass with ice. Stir until very cold, then strain into a chilled coupe. Garnish with cherry.

Related

2016 Oscar Cocktails

Oscar Cocktails: The Strong (Room)

Oscar Cocktails are inspired by this year's nominees for the Academy Award for Best Picture. See recipes for all of this year's Oscar Cocktails here.

Room is a wonderful adaptation of Emma Donoghue's powerful 2010 novel about a young mother, Joy (Brie Larson), and her 5-year-old son, Jack (Jacob Trembly), who live in a garden shed they refer to as "room" and never leave, held captive there by "Old Nick," who kidnapped Joy years ago. Although Joy has shielded Jack from the truth of their situation, as he is now older, she begins to tell him the truth and hatches a plan with him for them to ultimately escape and undertake the difficult task of returning to normal life. The movie is nominated for four Academy Awards: Best Picture, Actress (Larson--who is the frontrunner), Director (Lenny Abrahamson) and Adapted Screenplay (Donoghue, adapting her own novel).

Of all of this year's films, Room was the most challenging to create a cocktail for. A story about a captive mother and child does not shout out "cocktail." There aren't the kind of sensual cues--drinking and dinner scenes--that sometimes provide inspiration.

I reached out to my Twitter followers for suggestions, and Mangia.TV, purveyors of incredibly good Cajun spice rubs, suggested the idea that put me on course: build the drink around the concept of "The strong." In the film, Jack has long hair because his mother has never cut it, telling him that's where he gets his strength, so he refers to it as "the strong." Later in the movie, when his mother is in poor health, he cuts his hair and sends it to her to give her the strength to recover. It's a sweet moment and an important concept in the film, which is ultimately about the strength to survive what life throws at you, whether that be the horrors of captivity or the challenges of everyday life.

So I wanted a drink that was, obviously, strong. I thought about the cocktails we'd had recently at The NoMad Bar in New York, several of which included cold-brewed coffee as an ingredient. Jack's hair is dark brown too, which was perfect for creating a drink that's dark brown in color. Using rye whiskey as a base, I added Averna, an Italian amaro, for bitter and sweet flavors and two liqueurs: the nutty walnut liqueur Nux Alpina Nocino and spicy-sweet Drambuie. Mole bitters add some additional spice. There's not a lot of coffee in this drink--and I didn't even steep it as long as most recipes recommend--yet the coffee flavor definitely comes through nicely along with the bitter, sweet and spicy flavors.

The Strong (Room)
A strong drink inspired by Jack’s hair—The Strong—a metaphor for the strength to be brave through the tough times.

1 ½ oz. Rittenhouse rye whiskey
½ oz. Amaro Averna
½ oz. Nux Alpina Nocino walnut liqueur
½ oz. Drambuie liqueur
½ oz. cold-brewed coffee (see note below)
2 dashes Bittermens Xocolatl mole bitters
Orange peel, garnish

Combine whiskey, Averna, liqueurs, coffee and bitters in a cocktail mixing glass with ice. Stir until very cold, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with orange peel.

Note: To make cold-brewed coffee, combine 3 tbsp. of coarsely ground coffee with 1 cup of cold water in a French coffee press. Let stand at room temperature for 6 to 12 hours (the recipe I used said 12 hours, but I did it for only 6, which was sufficient for the purposes of this drink), then slowly push down the coffee press plunger. Store coffee in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.

Related

2016 Oscar Cocktails

Oscar Cocktails: Fury's Fuel (Mad Max: Fury Road)

Oscar Cocktails are inspired by this year's nominees for the Academy Award for Best Picture. See recipes for all of this year's Oscar Cocktails here.

Mad Max: Fury Road picks up the Mad Max movie franchise 30 years after the series'  third installment (Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome). If you're not familiar with Mad Max, it's a dystopian science fiction story, set in a future where Earth has become a desert wasteland and battle is waged over scarce resources--namely water and gasoline. The visually stunning, pulse-pounding film is nominated for 10 Academy Awards including Best Picture and Director (George Miller).

Mad Max is a rather bold film. It unfolds at break-neck pace and never lets up. There are few slow moments between the action, much of which is chase scenes involving futuristic motor vehicles moving across the wasteland. Translating all that into a drink, I wanted something bold that would assault the senses and nod to the film's automotive aspects. The drink had to be brown, obviously, and smoky, so I used a black spiced rum as the base with a bit of mezcal to add smoke, plus a flamed orange peel garnish. The german herbal liqueur Jaegermeister has a reputation as a party drink, so it seemed like a fitting choice to add some bitter and sweet flavors here, along with cinnamon syrup. I used grapefruit juice for some sour flavor and finished the drink with Bittermens tiki bitters for some additional spice.

Fury's Fuel (Mad Max: Fury Road)
Inspired by the film’s automotive themes and generally wild nature.

1 oz. Captain Morgan black spiced rum
½ oz. Marca Negra espadín mezcal
½ oz. Jaegermeister
½ oz. Cinnamon syrup (see note)
½ oz. grapefruit juice
Bittermens ‘Elemakule tiki bitters
Flamed orange peel garnish

Combine rum, mezcal, Jaegermeister,  Cinnamon syrup, grapefruit juice and bitters in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake until very cold, then strain into a chilled coupe. Flame the orange peel over the drink, then rub it around the rim before dropping it into the glass.

Note: to make cinnamon syrup, combine 1 cup water, 1 cup sugar and 2 cinnamon sticks in a saucepan. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat, simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat, allow to cool, discard cinnamon sticks, and store syrup in refrigerator.

Related

2016 Oscar Cocktails

8-2-Eat: Desserts for Valentine's Day

8-2-Eat is my food-focused list series. A perfect Friday distraction. Valentine's Day is this weekend. Instead of fighting your way through the crowds at restaurants Sunday night, be a pro and make dessert at home. Your lover will be even more impressed...I guarantee it. Here are 8 delicious dessert suggestions.

Triple Chocolate Mousse Cake. Nothing says Valentine's Day romance like chocolate, and this mousse cake has three-time the chocolate for extra seductive power.

Chocolate Truffle Cake. Another chocolate winner, pictured above. This decadent flourless chocolate cake is sinfully delicious.

Mocha Baked Alaska

Mocha Baked Alaska. Wanna show off? Baked Alaska is visually stunning but delicious too.

S'mores Pie. This is a little more down home, but still a very sweet Valentine's Day dessert, especially if you and your significant other met at a summer camp.

Momofuku Milk Bar Blueberry & Cream Cookies. Couldn't score a Valentine's Day reservation at Momofuku? You can still enjoy the Milkbar treats at home, like these amazing Blueberry & Cream Cookies you can make yourself.

Tres Leches Cake. Creamy sweet goodness that gets even better with a drizzle of chocolate sauce. Definitely a romantic choice.

By the Fire Sundae

By The Fire Sundae. Not into chocolate? Weird..but, I understand it's not everyone's thing. Instead, turn up the heat with this decadent fire-inspired sundae of maple-bacon ice cream, brown butter blondie, caramel sauce and smoked whipped cream.

Brownie-Blonde Sundae. For the couple that wants to have it all, this sundae features a chocolate-chip peanut-butter blondie, a peanut brownie, vanilla ice cream, peanuts, chocolate sauce and whipped cream.

Oscar Cocktails Bonus: The Lightsaber (Star Wars: The Force Awakens)

Oscar Cocktails are inspired by this year's nominees for the Academy Award for Best Picture (plus two bonus cocktails). See recipes for all of this year's Oscar Cocktails here.


Star Wars: The Force Awakens is the seventh live-action Star Wars movie, representing episode 7 in the cycle and set 30 years after 1983's Return of the Jedi. It tells the story of a young woman, Rey (Daisy Ridley), and a young man, Finn (John Boyega), who leave ordinary lives as a scavenger and trooper, respectively, to join The Resistance in battling the dark forces of Kylo Ren and the First Order. The film is nominated for five Academy Awards.

Alas, the latest Star Wars film was not nominated for Best Picture. But, I think it really should have been. After all, it's really great and wasn't nominating films that are both popular and acclaimed one of the reasons for expanding the best-picture slate beyond five films back in 2009? It's actually the first film in my lifetime that became the highest-grossing film of all time in the U.S. and was not nominated for Best Picture, an honor enjoyed by Avatar, Titanic, E.T. and the original Star Wars. So I had to make the movie one of my two bonus Oscar cocktails.

The Lightsaber is a tiki drink of sorts--it's colorful and fruity--but instead of rum, it has a split base of cachaça and mezcal, nodding to the smoke those hot lightsabers make as they slash through whatever finds its way in their path. It was Rey's journey I wanted to honor with this drink, specifically her picking up Luke's lightsaber to become the heir-apparent to the line of the Jedi. As much as possible, the drink itself looks like her lightsaber--it's blue and in a tall, thin, cylindrical glass. And her opponent in the movie's climactic lightsaber duel, Kylo Ren, shows up here too, since I used his action's figure's lightsaber as part of the garnish.

Bonus: The Lightsaber (Star Wars: The Force Awakens)

Inspired by Luke’s—now Rey’s—blue lightsaber and her duel with Kylo Ren in the snowy forest of Starkiller base.

¾ oz. Del Maguey Vida mezcal

¾ oz. cachaça

½ oz. light crème de cacao

½ oz. blue curaçao

½ oz. fresh lime juice

Bing cherry garnish

Combine mezcal, cachaça, crème de cacao, blue curaçao and lime juice in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake until very cold, then strain into a collins glass filled with crushed ice. Garnish with bing cherry (preferably skewered with an action figure’s lightsaber). Serve with a straw.

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2016 Oscar Cocktails

Oscar Cocktails: The Market Fizz(led) (The Big Short)

Oscar Cocktails are inspired by this year's nominees for the Academy Award for Best Picture. See recipes for all of this year's Oscar Cocktails here.

The Big Short dramatizes the late 2000s financial crisis caused by bad mortgage practices and is based on the book of the same name by Michael Lewis. The film is nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture, Supporting Actor (Christian Bale) and Director (Adam McKay).

The Big Short takes a serious complicated subject, the financial crisis of 2007-2008 that triggered a major economic recession, and manages to make a film that provides a lot of detail but in a way that's engaging, even funny at times with excellent performances from its all-star cast that includes Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling and Brad Pitt.

Because I've been so into "classic" cocktails lately, you'll find that a lot of this year's cocktails are rather...high-octane. The sort of cocktails that are mostly all booze and really should be sipped rather than gulped down. This one is comparatively lighter, but made with serious ingredients--not unlike the film that inspired it. We've got mezcal for all that money that went up in smoke, Green Chartreuse for money and greed, lemon juice to represent all those bad mortgage investments (a bad investment is sometimes called a "lemon") and ginger beer to give the drink some fizz...er, fizzle, just like the market did. That's actually the root of the this drink: a "fizz" is a cocktail with predominant sour flavor and carbonated water--which could be soda or tonic, but here I used ginger beer.

Market Fizz(led) (The Big Short)
Inspired by the Wall Street meltdown, the bad investments (lemons), greed and crushed hopes depicted in the film.

1 oz. Del Maguey Vida mezcal
1 oz. Green Chartreuse
¾ oz. lemon juice
1 tsp. agave nectar
1 oz. Fever Tree ginger beer
Lemon twist garnish

Combine mezcal, Chartreuse, lemon juice and agave nectar in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake until very cold, then strain into a lowball glass filled with crushed ice. Top with ginger beer and garnish with lemon twist.

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2016 Oscar Cocktails

Oscar Cocktails: The Woods (The Revenant)

Oscar Cocktails are inspired by this year's nominees for the Academy Award for Best Picture. See recipes for all of this year's Oscar Cocktails here.

The Revenant tells the story of early 1800s American fur trappers fleeing from an Indian attack. When one trapper (Leonardo DiCaprio) is badly injured by a bear, another trapper (Tom Hardy) is assigned to tend to him but instead kills his son and buries the injured trapper alive, believing death will be soon. Instead, the trapper recovers and seeks vengeance. The brutal film is nominated for 12 Academy Awards--this year's most-nominated movie--including Best Picture, Actor (DiCaprio), Supporting Actor (Hardy) and Director (Alejandro G. Iñárritu).

When I was thinking of early ideas for this year's Oscar cocktails, I first envisioned The Revenant's drink as a cross between an Old Fashioned and a Sazerac, nodding to the movie's historical setting amid the wilderness of the Louisiana Purchase territory (the Old Fashioned is based on the earliest cocktails, and the Sazerac originated in New Orleans). But that was before I saw the movie, which his such a visceral experience. It's setting in the snowy woods struck me as particularly important, for the movie is as much about revenge as it is survival. So I took the drink in new direction, wanting ingredients that were woodsy and botanical. This has a somewhat long list of ingredients, but they all play off each other well--the woodsy flavors of bourbon, muddled fresh rosemary and Douglas Fir Eau de Vie with the botanical gin, a touch of smoke from the Scotch, and sweetness from the maple syrup, another tree-based ingredient. The original Revenant cocktail was good--I might share it later--but The Woods is even better.

The Woods (The Revenant)
A woodsy and botanical drink inspired by the film’s damp, cold forest setting.

2 tsp. fresh rosemary leaves
½ oz. Clear Creek Eau de Vie of Douglas Fir
½ oz. Laphroaig quarter cask Scotch whiskey
¾ oz. Buffalo Trace bourbon whiskey
¾ oz. Leopold’s American small batch gin
½ oz. Carpano Antica sweet vermouth
½ oz. maple syrup
2 dashes Fee Brothers whiskey barrel-aged bitters
Rosemary sprig garnish

Add rosemary leaves and Eau de Vie to a cocktail shaker and muddle. Add Scotch, whiskey, gin, vermouth, syrup, bitters and ice and shake until very cold. Strain into a rocks glass with ice. Garnish with rosemary sprig.

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2016 Oscar Cocktails

Oscar Cocktails 2016

And the Oscar goes to...

That's what we'll be hearing 24 times on February 28th, during ABC's telecast of the 88th Academy Awards. A night that will be surely filled with glamour, tributes and surprises.

This year's crop of Best Picture nominees is one of the strongest in years. I liked every one of these eight films, and I think they are all deserving of their nominations. In fact, I think two more films--Carol and Star Wars: The Force Awakens--were also deserving, so I went ahead and created  bonus Oscar cocktails for those movies too.

Creating this set of Oscar cocktails was a lot of fun, but it was also quite challenging. As in previous years, I have two important criteria for each drink: 1) it has to honor and represent the film, be it the film's settings, characters or themes, and 2) it has to be a really great cocktail. I'm not just throwing ingredients together. I want them to harmonize and balance into a drink that's enjoyable any time of year. I think I've achieved that this year. I hope you enjoy them also.

Below are the recipes for all 10 of this year's Oscar cocktails. Over the next two weeks, I'll also create separate posts that tell the story behind each drink, starting today with The Martian and Spotlight cocktails. Those posts will be linked to the names of the cocktails in this story as they go up each day. I also posted ideas for what to serve at your party (8-2-Eat: Oscar Party Fare).

Market Fizz(led) (The Big Short)
Inspired by the Wall Street meltdown, the bad investments (lemons), greed and crushed hopes depicted in the film.

1 oz. Del Maguey Vida mezcal
1 oz. Green Chartreuse
¾ oz. lemon juice
1 tsp. agave nectar
1 oz. Fever Tree ginger beer
Lemon twist garnish


Combine mezcal, Chartreuse, lemon juice and agave nectar in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake until very cold, then strain into a lowball glass filled with crushed ice. Top with ginger beer and garnish with lemon twist.

Moscow Mole (Bridge of Spies)
A riff on the classic Moscow Mule cocktail with Chartreuse, an ingredient with a secret recipe.

1 ½ oz. vodka
½ oz Yellow Chartreuse
½ oz. lime juice
4-6 oz. Fever Tree ginger beer
Half lime wheel garnish

Combine vodka, Chartreuse and lime juice in a copper mug filled with ice. Stir ingredients and top with ginger beer. Garnish with half lime wheel.

Brooklyn Heritage (Brooklyn)
A riff on the Brooklyn cocktail inspired by the film’s setting and the Irish and Italian backgrounds of its characters.

2 oz. Tullamore Dew Irish whiskey
¾ oz. Carpano dry vermouth
¼ oz. Luxardo maraschino liqueur
2 dashes Hella aromatic bitters
2 dashes Hella orange bitters
Maraschino cherry garnish

Combine whiskey, vermouth, liqueur and bitters in a cocktail mixing glass with ice. Stir until very cold, then strain into a chilled coupe. Garnish with cherry.

Fury's Fuel (Mad Max: Fury Road)
Inspired by the film’s automotive themes and generally wild nature.

1 oz. Captain Morgan black spiced rum
½ oz. Marca Negra espadín mezcal
½ oz. Jaegermeister
½ oz. Cinnamon syrup (see note)
½ oz. grapefruit juice
Bittermens ‘Elemakule tiki bitters
Flamed orange peel garnish

Combine rum, mezcal, Jaegermeister,  Cinnamon syrup, grapefruit juice and bitters in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake until very cold, then strain into a chilled coupe. Flame the orange peel over the drink, then rub it around the rim before dropping it into the glass.

Note: to make cinnamon syrup, combine 1 cup water, 1 cup sugar and 2 cinnamon sticks in a saucepan. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat, simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat, allow to cool, discard cinnamon sticks, and store syrup in refrigerator.

The Red Planet (The Martian)
Inspired by Mars’ red color and the fiery rockets needed to get there.

1 oz. Marca Negra espadín mezcal
1 oz. Mount Gay extra old dark rum
½ oz. Carpano Antica sweet vermouth
¼ oz. Aperol
¼ oz. Campari
1 tsp. agave nectar
2 dashes Angostura bitters
½ dash Bittermens Hellfire habanero shrub
Orange peel garnish

Combine mezcal, rum, vermouth, Aperol, Campari, agave nectar, bitters and shrub in a cocktail mixing glass with ice. Stir until very cold. Strain into a rocks glass with a single large-sphere ice cube. Garnish with orange peel.

The Woods (The Revenant)
A woodsy and botannical drink inspired by the film’s damp, cold forest setting.

2 tsp. fresh rosemary leaves
½ oz. Clear Creek Eau de Vie of Douglas Fir
½ oz. Laphroaig quarter cask Scotch whiskey
¾ oz. Buffalo Trace bourbon whiskey
¾ oz. Leopold’s American small batch gin
½ oz. Carpano Antica sweet vermouth
½ oz. maple syrup
2 dashes Fee Brothers whiskey barrel-aged bitters
Rosemary sprig garnish

Add rosemary leaves and Eau de Vie to a cocktail shaker and muddle. Add Scotch, whiskey, gin, vermouth, syrup, bitters and ice and shake until very cold. Strain into a rocks glass with ice. Garnish with rosemary sprig.

The Strong (Room)
A strong drink inspired by Jack’s hair—The Strong—a metaphor for the strength to be brave through the tough times.

1 ½ oz. Rittenhouse rye whiskey
½ oz. Amaro Averna
½ oz. Nux Alpina Nocino walnut liqueur
½ oz. Drambuie liqueur
½ oz. cold-brewed coffee
2 dashes Bittermens Xocolatl mole bitters
Orange peel, garnish

Combine whiskey, Averna, liqueurs, coffee and bitters in a cocktail mixing glass with ice. Stir until very cold, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with orange peel.

The Scoop (Spotlight)
Inspired by the reporters’ search for the big scoop and the black-and-white truth.

1 ½ oz. Buffalo Trace bourbon whiskey
½ oz. Becherovka
½ oz. Amaro Montenegro
½ oz. Kahlua
2 dashes Fee Brothers whiskey-barrel-aged bitters
1 dash chocolate bitters
Small scoop (1/4 cup) of Häagen-Dazs vanilla bean ice cream, softened
Rolled wafer cookie garnish

Combine whiskey, Becherovka, amaro, bitters and ice cream in a cocktail shaker. Shake until mixed and pour into a chilled coupe. Garnish with rolled wafer cookie.

Bonus: Love Unspoken (Carol)

Inspired by Carol’s martini and her love for Therese, which at the time “dared not speak its name.”

1 tsp. absinthe

2 oz. Bombay Sapphire London dry gin

¾ oz. Dolin dry vermouth

¼ oz. Yellow Chartreuse

1 tsp. Luxardo maraschino liqueur

2 dashes Bittermens burlesque bitters

2 greens olives and 1 cocktail onion, garnish

Rinse a chilled cocktail glass with absinthe. Combine gin, vermouth, Chartreuse, maraschino liqueur and bitters in a cocktail mixing glass with ice. Stir until very cold, then strain into the cocktail glass. Garnish with olives and onion.

Bonus: The Lightsaber (Star Wars: The Force Awakens)

Inspired by Luke’s—now Rey’s—blue lightsaber and her duel with Kylo Ren in the snowy forest of Starkiller base.

¾ oz. Del Maguey Vida mezcal

¾ oz. cachaça

½ oz. light crème de cacao

½ oz. blue curaçao

½ oz. fresh lime juice

Bing cherry garnish

Combine mezcal, cachaça, crème de cacao, blue curaçao and lime juice in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake until very cold, then strain into a collins glass filled with crushed ice. Garnish with bing cherry (preferably skewered with an action figure’s lightsaber). Serve with a straw.

Related

Oscar Cocktails 2015

Oscar Cocktails 2014

Oscar Cocktails 2013

Oscar Cocktails: The Red Planet (The Martian)

Oscar Cocktails are inspired by this year's nominees for the Academy Award for Best Picture. See recipes for all of this year's Oscar Cocktails here.

The Martian, adapted from Andy Weir's popular novel, tells the fictional story of NASA astronaut  Mark Watney (Matt Damon), who is presumed dead and marooned on Mars when his crew must abandon their mission during a surprise storm. Watney must use his ingenuity to survive alone on the red planet and find a way to communicate with Earth so he may return home. The film is latest great science fiction epic from director Ridley Scott (Alien, Blade Runner). It is nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Actor (Damon).

The Red Planet is one of several Oscar cocktails with a split base--meaning that rather than having the typical one base spirit, it has two--in this case mezcal and rum. This was a decision made for flavor, as well as color. I wanted the smokiness of mezcal to represent the rocket fuel needed for interplanetary travel, but the sweetness and brown color of rum as well. To make the drink the ruddy reddish-orange of Mars, I used equal parts of Campari (which is red) and Aperol (which is orange). When combined with the brown rum, you get that nice ruddy red-orange color like the surface of Mars.

When I first made this drink, I used all the liquors and served it "up" (i.e. without ice) in a coupe. It looked cool, but it was missing something, and it wasn't sweet enough. The added 1 tsp. of agave nectar was just enough sweetness to balance with the smoky and bitter flavors and serving the drink on the rocks--with a single large round ice cube--added an additional visual cue for how the drink is meant to represent Mars.

The Red Planet (The Martian)
Inspired by Mars’ red color and the fiery rockets needed to get there.

1 oz. Marca Negra espadín mezcal
1 oz. Mount Gay extra old dark rum
½ oz. Carpano Antica sweet vermouth
¼ oz. Aperol
¼ oz. Campari
1 tsp. agave nectar
2 dashes Angostura bitters
½ dash Bittermens Hellfire habanero shrub
Orange peel garnish

Combine mezcal, rum, vermouth, Aperol, Campari, agave nectar, bitters and shrub in a cocktail mixing glass with ice. Stir until very cold. Strain into a rocks glass with a single large-sphere ice cube. Garnish with orange peel.

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2016 Oscar Cocktails

Oscar Cocktails: The Scoop (Spotlight)

Oscar Cocktails are inspired by this year's nominees for the Academy Award for Best Picture. See recipes for all of this year's Oscar Cocktails here.

Spotlight is based on the true story of a group of Boston Globe reporters who uncovered the Catholic Church's cover-up of child sexual abuse among Boston-area priests. The film is nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Supporting Actor (Mark Ruffalo), Supporting Actress (Rachel McAdams) and Director (Tom McCarthy). It's considered a front-runner in the Best Picture race.

I had a good idea what I wanted to do with the Spotlight cocktail, but it took me three tries to execute it the way I wanted. My thought was to focus on the film's journalistic theme. Newspapers are, as they say, "black and white and read all over," so I wanted a drink with black and white ingredients. I thought about doing something with dark liquors like whiskey, amaro and coffee liqueur mixed with something white like vanilla ice cream. Hence, this was going to be dessert cocktail.

Getting the ingredients right was a challenge. On my first go, the ice cream didn't incorporate well with the other ingredients, ending up as a big lump in the drink. I needed to let it soften a bit first before mixing the cocktail. Because the ice cream is frozen, this cocktail requires no ice, and the ice cream cools the mixture as it melts and combines with the liquors. But if the ice cream is too cold, it won't melt completely. Setting it out for about 5 minutes did the trick.

I also needed to tweak the flavors to get the right. Initially, I made the drink with Carpano Antica sweet vermouth, but I thought its bitterness was getting in the way of the sweet creaminess of the ice cream. So I replaced it with Becherovka, an Eastern European herbal liqueur with prominent notes of cinnamon. This balanced much better with the other ingredients, making a smooth, satisfying drink. I garnished the cocktail with a rolled wafer cookie--a visual nod to the reporter's pencil--and called it "The Scoop," a double entendre for the drink's scoop of ice cream and shorthand for a breaking news story.

The Scoop (Spotlight)
Inspired by the reporters’ search for the big scoop and the black-and-white truth.

1 ½ oz. Buffalo Trace bourbon whiskey
½ oz. Becherovka
½ oz. Amaro Montenegro
½ oz. Kahlua
2 dashes Fee Brothers whiskey-barrel-aged bitters
1 dash chocolate bitters
Small scoop (1/4 cup) of Häagen-Dazs vanilla bean ice cream, softened
Rolled wafer cookie garnish

Combine whiskey, Becherovka, amaro, bitters and ice cream in a cocktail shaker. Shake until mixed and pour into a chilled coupe. Garnish with rolled wafer cookie.

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2016 Oscar Cocktails

The NoMad Cocktail Book by Leo Robitschek

Bohemia Cocktail

Hiding your bar continues to be "the thing" in cool cocktail bar circles. The practice is a revival of the speakeasy, the 1920s-era bar that had to be kept from the eyes of law enforcement because of prohibition. Obviously today that's not necessary, yet many cocktail bars have gone underground (a la Pepe le Moko or 2 Birds, 1 Stone) or camouflaged their appearance (a la Garage, tucked inside in parking garage) in a nod to that era.

The NoMad Bar in New York City, which I wrote about a couple weeks ago, is not a speakeasy. It's easily accessible from the hotel and the street. Perhaps because of this, The NoMad's owners had a bit of fun when it came time to publish a book of the bar's recipes: they hid it the book in the back cover of the NoMad restaurant's cookbook. Thus, if you want to get a copy of Leo Robitschek's The NoMad Cocktail Book--and I assure you that you do--you'll have to spring for The NoMad Cookbook as well, as they are not sold separately. If cost is an issue, get the much less expensive e-book version, which also contains the cocktail book.

Reading the book has given me a better appreciation for the bar. An introduction by David Wondrich, author of the wonderful cocktail history book Imbibe!, refers to Broadway between 23rd and 34th Streets as the "cocktail route," an area that in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was known for its bustling hotel cocktail bars and saloons. That era ended with prohibition, which changed the nature of the neighborhood into something quieter. But that has changed in recent years, as restaurants and bars have returned to this corner of Manhattan.

The NoMad Hotel is located right in the middle of the "cocktail route" on the corner of 28th and Broadway. The story of how this hotel came to have one of the city's finest cocktail bars begins at Eleven Madison Park, the four-star sister-restaurant of The NoMad where NoMad Bar director Leo Robitschek was working when he was asked to transform that restaurant's bar into something extraordinary. Leo recounts how he came to find himself in this position, a former investment banker who left Wall Street to work the bar and became captivated with the art of finely crated cocktails, a course that started with the Gin-Gin Mule, a refreshing gin, citrus and mint concoction that you'll find in the book's "classics" section. Later, still weighing whether to pursue a career in medicine, the Eleven Madison Park partners offered him the opportunity to establish The NoMad Hotel's bar and Robitschek gave up the stethoscope for the jigger for good.

After the informative opening that details the history of the bar and Robitschek's personal background, the book launches into the section common to many cocktail books that covers ingredients, equipment and techniques. If, like me, you have a lot of cocktail books, these sections can seem extraneous, but The NoMad Cocktail Book has a particularly good discussion on garnishes, and I'm considering getting some Cocktail Kingdom dasher bottles after reading the book's description of how they can improve consistent measurement of bitters (it has always bothered me that a "dash" is a rather inconsistent form of measurement).

Recipes in the book are divided into five groups: apéritifs, which are lighter cocktails; light-spirited (i.e. gin, vodka and the like); dark-spirited (i.e rum, whiskey and the like); classics--ones you may have heard of and quite a few you probably haven't; and "soft" cocktails (non-alcoholic).

The ingredients for each cocktail are listed twice: first, they are listed generically with the most prominent listed first (i.e. Chambray Blanc in the Bohemia cocktail); second, they are listed specifically by brand and amount (i.e. 1 oz. Dolin Blanc vermouth in the Bohemia). Each drink is then rated with 1-to-3 scales to help you get a sense of each drink in terms of being refreshing, spirituous (i.e. strong), venturesome, bitter and citrusy. The creator of most of the cocktails is also named. Robitschek appears frequently, but so do the names of his NoMad coworkers--Jessica Gonzalez, in particular, is the creator of many of the book's most appealing drinks (Gonzalez is a veteran of one of my other favorite New York cocktail bars, Death & Co).

Browsing through the book, I found lots of cocktails that interested me. Quite a few recipes call for house-made syrups and infusions, a practice that Robitschek pegs back to his transformative days at Eleven Madison Park when the bar realized that the restaurant's pastry chefs could help whip up house-made ingredients that were better than what they were previously buying. Lavender-infused honey, for example, shows up in the Bee Lavender, a mixture of Scotch, Cocchi Americano and lemon inspired by the smoky and floral flavors of Eleven Madison's Park's roasted duck.

Brown Sugar cocktail

One of the first cocktails that caught my eye in the dark-spirited section was the Brown Sugar, a drink I remembered from the menu when we visited the bar but that we didn't try. It's a split-base cocktail made from rye whiskey and rum with sherry, Cynar (an artichoke-based amaro) and mole bitters. Aptly named, the strong but sweet drink really does remind you of brown sugar. From the light-spirited section, I tried the Bohemia (pictured at top), a refreshing genever-based drink with aquavit, blanc vermouth and a touch of maraschino liqueur (an ingredient you have to be careful since, since it can easily overpower a cocktail). Unfortunately, our favorite drink from our recent visit to the bar--Always Betz on Black--is not included in the book, but I am hopeful that I will eventually discover its recipe, as I would love to recreate it at home.

From the classics menu, I made the Bijou, which I really liked a lot. It's a wonderful blend of gin, sweet vermouth and green Chartreuse that's super smooth. Although Robitschek doesn't get into the history of the drink, I looked it up in Imbibe! The Bijou dates back to the late 19th Century and is credited to Harry Johnson, a bartender who worked in New York and Chicago and is known for his 1882 Bartender's Manual (an alternative version with Grand Marnier instead of Chartreuse is credited to Chris Lawlor). Most recipes I've seen for the Bijou employ a 1-to-1-to-1 ratio for the drink's three key ingredients, but The NoMad ups the gin and reduces the green Chartreuse--a smart move for balancing the drink. Supposed the cocktail is named Bijou--French for "jewel"--because its' ingredients represent three jewels: gin for diamonds, sweet vermouth for rubies, and Chartreuse for emeralds.

Ever since Death & Co's book came out, I've been a serious devotee of their drink recipes, but I'll definitely be spending more time now with the NoMad Cocktail Book, a work that represents serious attention to detail and thought with a wide range of tasty drink recipes perfect for all seasons.

Cocktail: Brown Sugar
Adapted from Leo Robitschek's recipe, The NoMad Cocktail Book

1 oz. dark rum (the book calls for Diplomático Reserva Exclusiva rum; I used Flor de Caña)
3/4 oz. Rittenhouse rye whiskey
3/4 oz. Cynar (I substituted a different Italian amaro, Averna)
3/4 oz. Lustau East India Solera cream sherry
1 dash Bittermens Xocolatl mole bitters

Combine all ingredients in a cocktail mixing glass with ice. Stir into very cold, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass. No garnish.

Bijou cocktail

Cocktail: Bijou
Adapted from The NoMad Cocktail Book, based on the original recipe by Harry Johnson

1 1/2 oz. Plymouth gin
1 oz. Carpano Antica sweet vermouth
3/4 oz. green Chartreuse
1 dash orange bitters
Lemon twist garnish

Combine gin, vermouth, Chartreuse and bitters in a cocktail mixing glass with ice. Stir until very cold, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with lemon twist.

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