Cocktails and Mocktails
This next season is all about whiskey! So, stayed tuned for more recipes, and if you’d like to see videos showing exactly how to make them, consider joining our Patreon Community (where videos are one of the perks!)
Cheers!
This cocktail comes from a share within our Runaway Anchor Patreon Speakeasy group. After making it a couple of times, I would classify this cocktail as “alcoholic tropical punch”. The bourbon is buried in this drink. The citrus is front and center with the lemon (or lime) balancing nicely with the orange in the Curacao and the rich grenadine syrup. If you aren’t making your own grenadine at home, consider buying the one we used from Portland Syrups and created by Anders Erickson. It is awesome!
Enjoy the last month of summer with this smooth sipper! But be careful, as each drink is still packing 2 oz of booze, and if you use a high proof bourbon, this drink could sneak up on you! Drink responsibly.
Cheers!
1½ oz Bourbon
½ oz Dry Curacao
¾ oz Fresh Lemon Juice (or Lime Juice)
½ oz Anders Erickson Grenadine
Add all ingredients to a shake
Add ice and shake for 10-15 seconds
Double strain into a lowball over a single large ice cube
Source: @top_shelf_tre https://www.instagram.com/reel/C9QeRVWPh58/
One of the great things about cocktails is that once you know a base recipe, you can always modify the elements are create something entirely new! That is definitely true for this riff on the Sidecar. The Cable Car swaps out the Cognac with Spiced Rum, adding a bold new flavor to the mix. For our recipe we chose to use Cointreau for our “orange liqueur”, but you can use Dry Curacao if you prefer (which was our choice for the Sidecar recipe).
This recipe comes from the amazing cocktail book by Steve the Bartender, and it’s definitely worth picking up a copy HERE.
Cheers!
This recipe is doubled for coupe
3 oz Spiced Rum
1½ oz Orange Curacao (Cointreau)
2 oz Lemon Juice
1 oz Simple Syrup
All all ingredients to a cocktail shaker
Add ice and shake for 10-15 seconds
Double strain into a chilled Coupe glass (no ice)
The sidecar is a staple at the Runaway Anchor. A simple build, but a still a complex experience. If you are trying to break away from making Old Fashioneds and Manhattans all the time, consider this cocktail as a great starting point.
Cognac is called for in the Sidecar, but as Cognac is actually just “Brandy” you could use a cheaper bottle if your budget demands it. But there are affordable Cognac’s out there and one is included in the recipe links. The same goes for the Dry Curacao. While Pierre Ferrand is often the “go to” for this type of liqueur, you could also consider other Orange Liqueurs with lower price tags. Don’t let the premium ingredients often listed for the Sidecar get in the way of making one! We will include two options for the two primary ingredients in the receipt section below. Try it out! And if you are brave, add the sugar rim!
While you’ll find this recipe in almost every cocktail book from the past 100years, we are featuring the recipe of Steve the Bartender. Pick up his book for lots of great options for the home bar right HERE!!
Cheers!
¾ oz Dry Curacao or Orange Liqueur
¾ oz Lemon Juice
1 tsp Demerara Syrup
Garnish: sugared rim (optional)
All all ingredients to a cocktail shaker
Add ice and shake for 10-15 seconds
Double strain into a chilled Nick and Nora glass (no ice)
This cocktail was featured on our first menu in Spring 2023. While some might think it is named after the character’s from the movie Titanic, this cocktail is actually quite old, dating back to the turn of the century. This is a simple THREE INGREDIENT COCKTAIL, so it’s great for beginners. Any Apple Brandy will do for your base, and remember to fresh squeeze whichever juice you decide to use (we like lemon).
For the Grendadine, in the past we would have argued to make your own, as it is very easy to do on the stove (basically pomegranate and sugar), but we got a hold of a couple bottles of Anders Erickson’s Grenadine, and it is AWESOME! So we recommend giving it a try. Here’s the LINK to get a bottle of your very own. And NEVER use Rose’s Grenadine again!
Doubling up again for large coupe (cut in half for a nick and nora)
3 oz Apple Jack (or other Apple Brandy)
1½ oz Fresh Lemon Juice (or Lime Juice)
1 oz Anders Erickson Grenadine
Add all ingredients to a shake
Add ice and shake for 10-15 seconds
Double strain into a chilled coupe glass
Source: Anders Erickson Jack Rose Recipe (slightly modified)
Another mocktail with a movie tie-in. This riff on the Ramona was created while watching “The Princess Diaries”, so it gets it’s name from the fictional country presided over by Julie Andrews (or Queen Clarisse Rinaldi).
This mocktail can use bottled orange juice in a pinch, but if you have the time, we recommend juicing the oranges for maximum flavor! The blueberry, on the other hand, need not be juiced. There is a great line of fruit syrups at most liquor stores (links provided in the recipe below) that are good for both the blueberry and passion fruit syrups.
Make sure to double strain this mocktail to remove any un-wanted ice chips and keep it smooth as silk!
Cheers!
4 oz Fresh Orange Juice
4 oz Pineapple Juice
1½ oz Blueberry Syrup
1 oz Passion Fruit Syrup
All all ingredients to a cocktail shaker
Add ice and shake for 8-10 seconds
Double strain into a chilled low ball glass (no ice)
Garnish with three cocktail cherries
We couldn’t have a summer menu without some TIKI in the mix! The Planter’s Punch is a quick and easy tiki cocktail that can be made with either a blender or a cocktail shaker. The blender is the traditional way to make it, and there are cheap options that also make excellent milk shakes!
Rum is a tricky element in tiki, because the magic is found in the specific type and often (though not in this drink) in the combination of flavors. Stick with an aged rum for this one (not white, spiced, or (yikes) coconut!). The flash blend is also pretty straight forward here. Get all the ingredients in the tin, along with a bunch of ice that you smashed into a crushed state with your Lewis Bag and Mallet, and then pound that high button and run for 5 seconds. And then do it 1-2 more times. That will nicely mix and aerate the cocktail. Then simply open pour straight into your chilled glass and grab a straw (this one is VR Enabled!
Cheers!
3 oz Jamaican Rum (Appleton 12 year is nice)
¼ oz All Spice Dram
1 oz Fresh Lime Juice
¾ oz Demerara Syrup
2 dashes Angostura Bitters
Semi-Crushed Ice – best (and most enjoyable!) method is using a Lewis Bag and Mallet to create the ice, starting with standard cubes
Add all ingredients to a stainless steel cup (comes with blender)
Fill with semi-crushed ice (made with Lewis Bag and Mallet, see above)
Flash blend (4-5 second bursts, 2-3 times)
Open pour into a chilled highball or Zombie glass
Garnish with sprig of Mint (slap it to wake it up first)
Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker
Fill with semi-crushed ice and shake for 10-12 seconds
Open pour into a chilled highball or Zombie glass
Garnish with sprig of Mint (slap it to wake it up first)
Source: Smugger’s Cove Recipe (also found in their great BOOK)
This week’s cocktail features a common tiki element without the complexity of the majority of tiki drinks. Orgeat is a syrup made from almonds and sugar. It’s possible to make it at home, but we recommend getting a nice bottle from the store.
The Japanese Cocktail is an old cocktail and very simple. We found it in the book, “3-Ingredient Cocktails” by Robert Simonson (NYT cocktail writer).
Reactions to this cocktail have been mixed, and so we also went looking for any variations on the classic recipe and quickly found one with our cocktail bar Godfather, Anders Erickson. We are including both the classic and improved versions this week for you to explore!
Cheers!
2 oz Cognac
½ oz Orgeat
2 dashes Angostura Bitters
Add all ingredients to a mixing glass
Add ice and stir for 30 seconds
Double strain into a chilled coupe
Express lemon twist and drop into glass
Improved Japanese Cocktail
1½ oz Cognac
¾ oz Orgeat
¾ oz Lemon Juice
2 dashes Peychaud’s Bitters
Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker, add ice, and shake for 12-15 seconds
Double strain into a chilled coupe or nick and nora glass
Express lemon twist and drop into glass
Source: 3 Ingredient Cocktails and Anders Erickson (alternate option)
The Summer Menu is now available in the Main Menus of the Site. Watch for new posts in the coming weeks featuring the recipes for many of the cocktails found on the menu!
Cheers!
Campari is a challenging bottle. It’s a divisive bottle. There are those who love it and those who hate it. It is the mother of all Aperitifs, and you will be hard-pressed to find a bottle featuring such bitterness. But in a well-built cocktail, bitter does have a place. Perhaps you’ve poked at the genre with Aperol? Or at the very least mixed your martini with a dry vermouth. That’s a start.
We went looking for an “entry level” cocktail for Campari, and discovered that you can buy a smaller bottle (which isn’t the smart choice if you’re planning to mix with it often, but not a bad idea if you might get 2 ounces out and dump the rest). The Jungle Bird is an approachable campari cocktail. Based in Rum and dominated not by the bitterness, but rather by the Pineapple. The recipe we used from Steve the Bartender calls for 1.5 oz of Pineapple Juice, but we found that to be too fruit forward, so we dropped it back to 1.0 oz. We also made a version pulling back on the Campari to 0.5oz, but again that took the drink out of balance and it was all about Pineapple again.
The recipe below is a good balance of the citrus, the sweet and the bitter. The rum didn’t seem to matter. We used Appleton 12 year, but probably most aged rums will work. Just don’t get creative with Spiced Rum or similar, as the balance is delicate with this “bird”.
Properly built, the citrus will hit first and a slight bitterness will be the finish. If you are Campari curious, this might be the cocktail for you!
Cheers!
1½ oz Aged Rum
¾ oz Campari
1 oz Pineapple Juice (can is okay)
½ oz Fresh Lime Juice
½ oz Simple Syrup
Chill a Lowball Glass
Add all ingredients to a shaking tin
Add ice and shake for 10-12 seconds
Fill prepared glass with fresh ice cubes
Strain cocktail into glass
Garnish with an orange slice and cherry
Source: Steve the Bartender (slightly modified)