What are your goto cocktails?

Lately I've been doing a twist on an old fashioned. You'll need to prep some ginger simple syrup in advance, which is:

• 2:1 sugar to water.
• I like it spicy, so I do 1/4 cup ginger per cup of water.
• Roughly chop ginger, combine with sugar and water.
• Boil. I do about 30min.
• Done. Use a fine strainer or cheese cloth to separate the ginger bits.

Cocktail:

• Bourbon
• Ginger Simple Syrup
• Lemon wedge
• Bitters

I haven't named this cocktail yet. It feels incomplete, so I'm still experimenting with the recipe.

I am somewhat allergic to drinking the same thing twice (at least: within a month or so’s time), but in no particular order some classics:

• corpse reviver #2, nuff said
• Saturn
• 1910, usually the cognac version but either are good
• in that vein: a Martinez but you have to find Old Tom gin which can be a pain
• the Demerara cocktail (Jeff Beachbum Berry has the definitive source now, but it’s not publicly accessible so, this will do)

Okay, buckle up, this is an intense cocktail. If you don’t like bitter things, take a pass on this one.

My take on the Trinidad Sour:

• 1.5 oz angostura bitters
• 0.5 oz rye whiskey
• 1 oz Amaretto
• 0.75 oz lemon juice

Shake with ice and strain into a chilled coupe.

It is… intense. It’s the only cocktail I have found where the base alcohol is a bitter. It’s also the reason I stock my bar with the largest bottle of angostura you can buy. You can sub out other aromatic bitters, but I personally think angostura is the best for this drink. You can also sub out for a scotch, Irish whiskey, or bourbon, but the rye really makes this cocktail shine.

If anyone here is brave enough to give this a go, let me know what you think.

Gin and tonics are easy, and my favorite summer drink. Tonic water, gin to taste, a slice of lime, and ice..

I also recommend mules, both vodka and whiskey variants. They're typically served in a copper mug/cup which isn't completely necessary, but it does change the flavor of the drink significantly. I think it's due to a small chemical reaction between the ginger beer and the copper.

Ice
1-2 oz vodka or Jameson
Top off your cup with a quality ginger beer
Slice of lime, squeeze as much of that citrusy goodness into the drink as you can and stir.

Whisky sours.

The classic:
2 part whisky
1 part lemon juice
1 part simple syrup
1 drop bitters
0.5 egg white
Shake with ice, strain into rocks glass or Coupe. For nicer foam, strain through a fine mesh conical strainer. Now you can choose to lay an extra drop of bitters on the foam and drag a toothpick across for sexy presentation.

Canadian riff: sub in Maple syrup for simple syrup. Use dry rye Canadian whisky. Centennial and Canadian Club work well.

Japanese riff: sub yuzu for lemon, and use Japanese whisky (I use nikka or suntori). When making the simple syrup use about 30% mirin to create mirin syrup. Omit the bitters, add a few drops of sake or a drop of high quality rice vinegar instead.

Also a big fan of the Sidecar. Considering it's a similar build to a sour using brandy as the core spirit, that tracks.

If you want a low alcohol drink that's great refreshment, try an Americano:
2 oz sweet ( red) vermouth
Orange slice
Build in a tumbler or Collins glass over ice, top up with soda water or seltzer.

50 50 mix of whisky and amaretto with a cherry

I recently got introduced to this by a bartender as a 'Godfather' and have been experimenting at home. There's definitely a spectrum where when made well they're very good, and if you make them less well (and/or with too low quality liquor/cherry) they taste like an elevated couch syrup more than a cocktail. :P

If you like more whiskey forward stuff could also try out a Sazarac. They're the only reason I have absinthe in my house and you use so little that it lasts for quite a while.

The official recipe is:

50 ml cognac
10 ml absinthe
One sugar cube
Two dashes Peychaud's Bitters

And an experienced bartender will make a great one by muddling the sugar and absinthe with water and it's a whole process. But I usually make them more like an Old Fashioned. Rye/Bourbon whiskey, some simple sugar, a drip of absinthe, and the bitters.

I dont really drink anymore, but my favorite was always the caipirinha: squeeze a cut lime into a glass, muddle a Tbsp of sugar in it, fill with a couple oz of cachaca (Brazilian cane rum, like good tequila) and stir. Sometimes I throw a dash of Rose's lime juice too

Adding another twist on the Old Fashioned: instead of cherry and an orange peel for garnish, I just dunk half a mandarin into the drink. Makes it more citrus-y (which I prefer), as well as giving a tasty treat at the end as the mandarin soaks up the alcohol. I use brown sugar instead of normal sugar as well.

I also use orange-flavored bitters, I guess I should just call it a Citrus Old Fashioned lol

Not sure about a name or specific ratios, but I enjoy:

-highball-sized glass, add ice
-Empress gin, about 1 hearty shot
-Grapefruit juice, a couple shots
-top with fizzy water
-Garnish with fresh rosemary sprig, rubbed to release the flavours

Does whiskey and water count as a cocktail?

Recipe:

• 3oz Canadian Rye Whiskey
• 1oz locally sourced dihydrogen monoxide

Repeat as necessary until trade wars subside.

My wife when not pregnant really enjoys an amaretto sour every now and again. She doesn’t like it with the egg, but I do! Because the egg (for me) is mostly for the foam, you can do fine without it.

If I'm making something for myself to sip slowly, I almost always default to a bamboo:

• 1.5oz dry vermouth
• 1.5oz fino sherry or another dry sherry
• 2 dashes of angostura and orange bitters
• 0.5oz St. Germain, this is my riff on it since I like the extra bit of floral sweetness

Add all ingredients into a glass with ice and stir. Lots of nice light floral and fruity notes in this while still being dry and not all that sweet.

If I'm making something I'm mostly confident everyone will enjoy during dinner, I'll do a St. Germain spritz:

• 2oz St. Germain
• 2oz prosecco
• 1oz club soda

Add the St. Germain and prosecco to a glass with ice, top with club soda. It's light, sweet, bubbly, and not bitter or dry so it works for most palates.

I also enjoy a whiskey sour and my favorite variation of it so far has been this one using Jagermeister from How To Drink.

Stagger Lee:
Build in shaker

• 1 oz. or 30 ml. Lemon Juice
• 1 oz. or 30 ml. Jägermeister
• 1 oz. or 30 ml. Bourbon
• .5 oz. or 30 ml. Maraschino

Add ice and shake, strain into glass.
I don't have a bottle of Maraschino liqueur so I sub it with cherry Heering and use a bit less Jager so it doesn't become too sweet. Yes I know Maraschino and cherry liqueur are not proper substitutes, no I'm not buying a bottle of Maraschino I would barely use it.

As for a simple thirst quencher on a hot day, my go-to is a ranch water:

• A can or bottle of seltzer/sparkling water, preferably Topo Chico
• 1.5oz blanco tequila, reposado's fine too
• 1oz fresh lime juice or however much you get from one lime

Fill a tall glass with ice, pour the tequila and lime juice in, top with the sparkling water, gently stir.
Or, if you want to maximize the carbonation:
Chill your seltzer/sparkling water beforehand. Open it and drink some to make space, then pour the tequila an lime juice directly into the can/bottle and stir that a bit.

My cocktail flowchart:

Am I in New Orleans? -> Sazerac
Is it really hot? -> Pimm's Cup
Is it Spring / am I watching a horse race? -> Mint Mojito
Good bartender & I'm in the mood for it -> Ramos Gin Fizz
Do they have Gosling's Ginger Beer? -> Dark & Stormy
Bad/understocked bar or a bad bartender / general backstop -> Gin & Tonic

We make a lot of negroni variations at home. When we say we're making a negroni, it'll probably be roughly a 2:1:1 ratio of gin or rye, some kind of amaro, and some kind of vermouth, depending on what we have on hand and what we feel like having. The ratios may be fudged a bit depending on mood and how sweet each ingredient is.
One variation I really like is a White Negroni:

• 2oz gin
• 1oz Suze
• 1oz blanc vermouth
  Stir with ice and strain over a large chunk of ice.
  This one is less white and more pee-colored, so we usually turn down the lights for this one.

As I've gotten older, I find I don't like as much sweetness, so sometimes we go really dry with a 4:1:1 ratio, which starts to look less like a negroni and more like a martini. The Rolls Royce is a cocktail that is slightly more approachable than a martini, with gin, sweet vermouth, and dry vermouth in a 4:1:1 ratio.

My favorite tiki cocktail is the Jungle Bird. I like going to tiki bars because I would never stock all those ingredients at home, but any other cocktail that has pineapple and lime has felt like a less successful version of a Jungle Bird to me.
Recipe:

• 1.5oz Black Strap Rum
• 0.75oz Campari
• 1.5oz pineapple juice
• 0.5oz lime juice
• 0.5oz demerara syrup
  Shake with ice and strain over a large chunk of ice.

Spouse got into cocktails. I'm more of a wine drinker and don't really care for sweet in my beverages, but here's his Negroni-variant recipe that changed my mind:

The Belle Epoque

2 oz gin
1 oz Amaro Nonino
5 shakes black walnut bitters

Serve in an Old Fashioned glass with one large ice cube and either a strip of orange peel or a dried orange slice.

It's aromatic, complex, and perfectly balances sweet and bitter. It stays interesting and the flavor keeps evolving as the ice melts. Good to the last drop.

The only cocktail I reliably drink anymore is a mule, but I frequently like to swap out the vodka for something different. Amaretto, gaillano, and limoncello all make for interesting mule variations.

Another thing that I had fun with a few years ago was making both a ginger and a cranberry simple syrup over Christmas. It was fun to tweak normal cocktail recipes with a different flavored syrup. @BashCrandiboot posted the perfect base syrup recipe above for a ginger version.

In tending to be influenced in drinks choices by literature:

• In what was probably not at all the message one was supposed to take from the novel, white ladies show up again and again in Molly Keane's Good Behaviour, and I became rather fond of them as a reliable choice of something to make. They are reasonably simple, while being more nuanced than gin sours; egg whites also considerably enhance them. Oddly enough, if I recall correctly, after some research I decided that their presence in the novel is most likely anachronistic.

• In the decidedly earlier Castle Rackrent of Maria Edgeworth (some would argue it was the first historical novel), the subjects of the novel destroy themselves while drinking whiskey punches, and for various reasons, I decided to try making this a few times. The first time, it turned out quite well, and I was quite enthusiastic about trying it again: it had a delightful depth of citrus, and it even seemed like I could come up with a non-alcoholic version to have two alternatives for parties, because the primary ingredient of whiskey punch is, of course, oleo-saccharum, the oils of citrus fruits leeched from their peel by sugar. Unfortunately, the second time I made them, for a small dinner, they turned out so poorly --- 'like a sugary orange soda' --- that I haven't tried since, in part because of the time involved.

Lately, I have been making my wife a cocktail I named after her. It probably already exists under another name but it is essentially:

• 1 part Chambord
• 1 part vodka
• 1 part rum
• 3 parts Starry (or other lemon-lime soda)

1. Fill a glass with ice.

2. Add Chambord, vodka, and rum.

3. Top with Starry.

4. Stir gently

I have a soda stream so I make the Starry extra fizzy. She seems to really enjoy it!

My #1 go-to cocktail is a rye-whiskey Manhattan, "perfect" (50/50 dry+sweet vermouth), no garnish, served over ice in a rocks glass. I usually prefer Bulleit rye or Sazerac (the brand) rye for these. I will take it "up" though if it's a higher-tier whiskey like Willet or Kings County.

I love Sazeracs and they're probably my favorite cocktail, but only when made correctly, which is surprisingly rare at most bars. Like, what they'll give you will be fine, but not really a Sazerac.

I also like to make dry martinis using rosemary-infused vodka, which I make at home--though "make" is a strong word because you just put a fistful of fresh rosemary stalks in a bottle of vodka and stick it in your freezer for a week or two. If you find the cocktail too savory or bitter, cut it with just a bit of limoncello.

1 part Jagermeister
1 part cola

Served in a lowball over ice.

It's very much a strategic drink. Its a combo nobody asks for. It's a combo that, while still for discerning tastes, is still quite approachable. It's a unique drink that I don't think I've ever been charged over $5 for, in contrast to all the other over-ordered spirit+cola cocktails. Lastly, if a bar can't produce those two ingredients, what the hell are you even doing there? Leave.

About the drink itself, it really does taste good. The cola balances out the jager a lot. Was at a bar that had birch beer on tap, and a 50/50 of birch and jager, while sounding wonderful, turned out to just amplify each other and be horrible.

I'd be curious to see if there could be a third ingredient to complement the two (an aromatic of some sort), but honestly it's a complete drink as-is. The ice may be my "missing third."

Gin Sonic!

Flavorful with waaaay less sugar than a gin tonic. Of course because it’s gin, particularly in contrast to anything fermented, you’ll feel great the next day too.

Given a 250-300ml cup:

50g ice
25g gin @ 47%
25g tonic
150g soda water

My favourite drink is a Long Island Iced Tea. It can cost over $150 to get started but it goes a long way. Besides tasting great it also sits around 22% alcohol so it feels good too hah.

On a side note I just wanted to share this Kickstarter which I have no ties to, I'm just a backer and I'm really hoping it succeeds as I want to give it as a gift to my wife. She loves making cocktails, I'm more into drinking them :P, otherwise I'll more likely just crack open a sour or a Hefeweizen.

I stopped drinking and surprisingly quickly found my alternative. I've had mocktails that are good but it's a challenge to not finish them in less than two minutes. I wanted something that's easy to make without a bunch of cocktail-making gear, and something without a lot of calories.

1 can zero sugar ginger ale
1 splash cranberry juice
1oz DHOS bittersweet aperitif

Pour the juice/aperitif over ice, add the ginger ale, stir. The cranberry juice and aperitif total about 30 calories and it's delicious but tart enough to make me sip it slowly.

I'm still hunting for a good old fashioned replacement, but I don't have much hope there.

My wife infuses vodka with lemon (and sometimes additionally mandarin) peel. I make her a martini of sorts with 1 part lemon infusion, 1 part dry vermouth, and 2 parts vodka, with a twist of lemon peel to finish.

We call it a Lemon Party (do not search that name).

My own drinking is very limited these days, but I like a splash of Cabernet in diet ginger ale.

I like trying new ones but the one I always go back to is the penicillin. I'm partial to whisky, ginger, and honey - its perfect.

Runner up is the pipino. I've e never made it myself but there's a bar I frequent that makes a combo of gin, cucumber, sesame, lime, and coconut.

I don't know if it's already a thing, but on a whim I mixed whiskey and Gosling's diet ginger beer. It's got some burn and was quite nice, though I'm sure the flavor could be balanced better by someone who knows what they're doing.

Anyway, I've got a bottle of Suntory and am on the look out for suggestions for easy things to use it with. (Though it is quite nice on its own.)

I don’t drink much hard alcohol, and when I do it is usually neat or in something simple like gin & tonic, whiskey ginger, etc. Some years ago I stumbled across the vodka sidecar which is lovely:

• shot of vodka
• shot of cointreau
• juice of one lemon

Very tangy and satisfying. Also easy to make stronger without distorting the flavor.