Check out the “Holiday 2024 Menu” in the menu bar to see what tasty treats we’ve whipped up for this season! Some oldies and newbies! But all ready to make your season holly jolly! Happy Holidays!
Holiday Menu is Live!!
1st Specialty Menu (Brooklyn Nine-Nine) – Coming May 11th!!
Here’s a little teaser for our first “specialty menu”. We’ve put together a collection of cocktails based on the characters of the show “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”, including a fun game to see if you can guess the character behind each cocktail!
This menu will only be available to Patreon members!! So, if you aren’t a member already, it’s a good time to hop on board HERE.
NINE-NINE!!!!
The Runaway Anchor has a Patreon!!
Smoked Manhattan w/ Cinnamon
The Manhattan is becoming a standard at the Runaway Anchor these days. The combo of a nice spicy Rye whiskey with vermouth is great, and a good alternative if you default to the Old Fashioned all the time. If the vermouth part freaks you out, consider this cocktail.
All the standard elements are present, but with two enhancements. First a spoonful of cherry syrup. This is the “soup” your Luxardo cherries are swimming around in. Just grab a barspoon of the sauce and add that to your mixture. The other element is the cinnamon. You don’t dump cinnamon syrup in the mix though. Instead, you add a smoked cinnamon by burning a cinnamon stick and smoking the glass with it. Pay close attention to the build to get it just right. We hope you enjoy this twist on the Manhattan! Cheers!
1 cinnamon stick
2 oz Rye Whiskey (or Bourbon if you don’t want the spicy kick)
¾ oz Sweet Vermouth
1 tsp Maraschino Cherry Syrup
3 dashes of Orange Bitters
Garnish: Maraschino Cherries (Luxardo is great!)
Light the Cinnamon Stick and place on a heat-proof surface, quick placing the coupe glass over the stick to trap in the smoke (this takes some practice!)
In a mixing glass, add bourbon, sweet vermouth, bitters and cherry syrup
Add ice and stir for 30 seconds (give that glass time to get really smoky!)
Turn over the coupe glass and strain the cockail into it
Garnish with a couple maraschino cherries and that burnt cinnamon stick
Source: A Grateful Meal Recipe
You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out
Becherovka is an herbal liqueur from the Czech Republic, full of holiday spice flavor. This Christmas themed cocktail (named for a scene from “A Christmas Story”) is credited to Mathias Simonis and published in Imbibe magazine in 2011 (source). Thanks to @anatomyofadrink on Threads for boosting it recently.
2 oz Aged Rum (Plantation 5 year)
½ oz Benedictine
½ oz Becherovka
¼ oz Cinnamon Syrup
3 dashes Angostura bitters
Cinnamon Simple Syrup
In sauce pan combine 1 cup white sugar and 1 cup water on low heat, stirring frequently until the sugar dissolves. Turn off heat.
In another sauce pan, over medium heat, toast 5 cinnamon sticks, making sure to toast both sides, until you smell the spice. Remove from heat.
Add the cinnamon sticks to the simple syrup and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and set aside to cool. Strain into bottle. Keeps 2-3 weeks in the fridge.
Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass with ice.
Stir until chilled.
Strain into a lowball glass over a large ice cube.
Garnish with a twist of orange peel.
White Russian (featuring Mr. Black)
The earliest cocktails that I ordered at bars were Midori Sours and White Russians. Simple builds, not overly “boozy”. And while I don’t make them as much now, I’ve brought the White Russian back entirely because of Mr Black. Using this liqueur (versus kaluha) you save an entire step (no vodka bottle required), and put the coffee first in the cocktail. Simple glass build of equal parts and you’re ready for an evening chilling out. Once my Mr Black goes dry, this cocktail might no longer be a standard, but for now it makes the list.
Cheers!
2 oz Cream (heavy cream is great!)
Fill low ball glass with ice cubes
Add Mr Black over the ice
Add cream over the ice (over up-turned spoon if you want to be fancy)
Stir and Drink!
Source: Mr Black Recipe
Sazerac (Runaway Anchor Style)
We needed one “neat” cocktail in the standards, and this one is solid. A buddy introduced me to this one just in the past year and it is a great twist on my standard old fashioned. The keys are the ingredients though. No swapping or experimenting with this one. The whiskey must be Rye. The bitters must be Peychauds. The only thing I’d make optional is the absinthe rinse, as the anise flavor would ruin this cocktail for many people. I use a small spray bottle to mist my glass with the absinthe versus rinse, which is the traditional way to do it. This one is a year round treat.
Cheers!
1 Sugar Cube
2-5 dashes Peychauds Bitters (I do 5)
2 oz Rye Whiskey
Rinse glass with Absinthe
Prep the Glass: add absinthe to low ball and swirl around to coat the inside
Prep the Glass: discard (or drink) the excess absinthe (spray bottle is another way to coat)
Prep the Glass: place coated low ball in the freezer while building cocktail to chill
Add sugar to a Mixing Glass and soak with bitters
Muddle the sugar with muddler (or bar spoon)
Add Whiskey and fill Glass half full of ice cubes
Stir for 15-30 seconds
Strain the drink into the prepared low ball glass
Express lemon oil over drink and drop peel into glass
Source: this one is my version based on several different recipes
Old Fashioned (Runaway Anchor Style)
This is my go-to cocktail during the colder months of the year. It’s easy to have all the ingredients on hand, and it’s fun to play around with whiskey. You can even go with a Rum version if you like. This recipe is my own slight tweak that pushes the orange to the front of the cocktail. It’s especially good for those just getting into whiskey drinking, as the orange can take a bit of the edge off of the drink. Still to strong? Bump the simple to 0.5oz.
Cheers!
2 oz Bourbon Whiskey
¼ oz Simple Syrup (1:1 water to sugar – make your own!)
Fresh Orange Chunk
2 dashes of Angostura Bitters
2 dashes of Orange Bitters
Orange Peel (garnish)
Add all ingredients to the Mixing Glass (including piece of fresh orange, don’t muddle it)
Fill Glass half full of Ice Cubes
Stir with bar spoon for 20-30 seconds
Put large cube in low ball glass
Strain cocktail over the large cube
Garnish with slice of orange and luxardo cherry
Source: this one is my version based on several different recipes
Welcome to the Runaway Anchor!
First off, the Runaway Anchor is not a physical cocktail bar. You might call it a “concept bar”. I’ve been mixing cocktails in my home bar for a while, and recently we started hosting friends to the house for an evening of food and drinks. I started offering a “cocktail menu” to show what options could be built with the stuff I have on hand each month. Being a little crazy, I decided to create a “virtual cocktail bar”, which we called “The Runaway Anchor”.
I have a passion for building community and connection, and I’ve found mixing cocktails for friends has been really fulfilling. The fact that I work for a remote company means connection is even more challenging. I happen to work for a Virtual Reality company, focused on building an education community for medical professionals, using collaborative VR. The stars kind of aligned for me. I could create a bar that could exist anywhere. Both in the physical world, or in the virtual world (see VR Enabled Cocktails). Wherever I’m mixing, or where people are accessing the drinks I list on the site becomes the Runaway Anchor.
It’s just an idea. But I’m excited to see the community it could build. Each season I will share a new “menu” of highlighted cocktails. Recipes for other drinks can be found in the tabs including “The Standards”, “VR Enabled Cocktails”, “Mocktails”, and Wine. Things will most likely change as we get going. But here is where we start.
Wherever you are, drop the anchor, mix a cocktail and welcome to The Runaway Anchor Cocktail Bar!
(please drink responsibly, and never drive buzzed or worse!)
First Cocktail – The Shark’s Tooth (classic tiki)
My buddy came up for an afternoon cocktail and we had a Don the Beachcomber classic tiki drink, the “Shark’s Tooth”. Very similar flavors to a daiquiri (lime, rum, sugar), but with a flash blend (thanks to my new Hamilton Beach Mixer) and fresh mint sprigs, this one was a new experience. I’m planning a Summer Menu of Tiki drinks, so this was a great way to kick off “The Runaway Anchor”. Wherever I’m mixing, that’s where the anchor dropped.
Cheers!
