Finally! Season 3 of “Mad Men” premieres August 16. And it’s just not “Mad Men” without booze.
Who can forget when Sally Draper mixed a Tom Collins for the grown-ups? Or when Don Draper wooed Rachel Menken with one of the prettiest Mai Tais I’ve ever seen? And of course there was Freddy Rumson’s … incident in the office after one Screwdriver too many.
So what better way to celebrate the start of this new season than with a 1960s Mad Men cocktail party!
Here are a few cocktails we’ve seen characters order, plus some additional suggestions appropriate for the era.
Old Fashioned (Don Draper)
1 sugar cube
1 dash bitters
1 tsp. water
2 oz. rye whiskey
Muddle the sugar cube, bitters and water in an old-fashioned glass. Add rye and stir. Add ice plus a twist of lemon peel. (Don’t leave the peel in the glass) Garnish with an orange slice.
Vodka Gimlet (Betty Draper)
1 oz. lime juice
1 tsp. simple syrup
1.5 oz. vodka
Shake with ice then strain into a cocktail glass.
Gibson (Roger Sterling)
2.5 oz. gin
1/2 oz. dry vermouth
Stir with ice, then strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a cocktail onion.
Brandy Alexander (Peggy Olson)
1/2 oz. Creme de Cacao
1/2 oz. brandy
1/2 oz. heavy cream
The Spanish wine punch is designed to cool and refresh. Just the word sangria makes me feel happy and relaxed.
But in addition to being delicious, it can also be quite cheap. It’s a great way to enjoy fresh fruit that’s a little past its prime but still good.
Savvy Housekeeping has a white wine sangria recipe that allows you to enjoy a summer cocktail treat while keeping an eye on expenses:
I punched the numbers this morning and discovered that this sangria only cost me $3.70 a pitcher, or $.62 a glass. Compare that to a bottle of white wine ($11 or so, or $2.20 a glass) or a margarita (roughly $4.50 a glass using decent tequila, I’m guessing).
Luxe Coterie, a high-end jewelry and spirits company, will hide a sticker in New York City on August 21. Whoever finds that sticker can redeem it for a rare bottle of Mendis Coconut Brandy worth $100,000. This particular bottle is signed by the founder and sealed in gold leaf.
The company will provide clues to the sticker’s whereabouts via Twitter. Hunters will have from 9 a.m. to 11:59 p.m. on August 21 to find the Luxe Hunt sticker.
Mendis Coconut Brandy is a 100% all-natural clear Brandy distilled from coconut essence. It is matured for a minimum of two years in Halmilla wood casks.
Is this brandy really worth $100,000? I don’t know, but I’d be willing to taste some to find out. So if you find the sticker, be sure to share.
At the recent Nightclub & Bar Conference in Las Vegas I had the pleasure to attend a seminar lead by Georg Riedel. What a treat, not only did I learn first hand from a Master about fine glassware and how it enhances all types of spirits, but I learned how the Reidel family figured it all out. Said Greog to my question, “We’ve been doing this a long time”. And they have, the family run Austrian company has been making glass for 11 generations of Riedels, over 250 years.
The tasting ran through 5 glasses and three spirits. The glassware consisted of a plastic cup, and ordinary brandy snifter and a Riedel Scotch, Cognac and Tequila glass. The specialized glasses bring out the unique flavor profile of each spirit. The spirits we tasted were Patron Silver Tequila, Hennessy VSOP and Talisker 12 Year Single Malt Scotch.
We were first asked to try each spirit in the plastic cup, ok kinda blah. Not bad, but not great. Next came the brandy snifter supplied by the caterers. We were told this glass was designed to withstand being tossed against the wall, not for drinking fine cognac. The cognac was better in this glass than the plastic cup, but it is not much of a competition.
We then moved on to the Riedel glasses. Each is designed to bring our the unique flavors of the spirit. This is achieved through an combination of height, diameter and shape of the glass bowl. The height of the stem is purely aesthetic. First by trying cognac from each of the three glasses. It was incredible how the same Hennessy VSOP tasted in the three different glasses. Of course the most pleasing of the three samples came from the cognac glass. All the fruity goodness and none of the harsh alcohol were detected. We repeated the exercise with the Takisker and Patron with similar results each time.
Of course, your not going to use these for a cocktail, but for sipping the finer cognacs, single malt scotch and tequilas. However, if you enjoy drinking the fine spirits and want to experience then the way they were meant to be, invest in a set of Riedel glasses.
This punch recipe is inspired by the Orange Punch served at Andrew Jackson’s inauguration in 1829, according to Eric Felten of the Wall Street Journal.
It was quite a rowdy crowd, and servers brought out buckets of the punch to lure the revelers out of the White House and on to the lawn.
Serve this to your own Inauguration Day party crowd on Jan. 20.
Inaugural Orange Punch
3 parts fresh orange juice
1 part fresh lemon juice
1 part mulled orange syrup
1 part dark rum
1 part cognac
2 parts soda water
Combine in a punch bowl with a large block of ice. Serve in punch cups with a little crushed ice, and give each glass a dash of Angostura bitters.
Mulled Orange Syrup
Combine 1 cup sugar with 1 cup water and heat to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Reduce heat to a low simmer. Add the peel from an orange and mulling spices (a couple of cinnamon sticks, some whole cloves and allspice berries). After 15 minutes, remove from heat and let it sit for several hours. Strain.
Reader Jerry asks, How do you make an Apricot Stone Sour? So we did some digging and here’s what we found out about this cocktail. The Apricot Stone Sour is actually quite easy to make, equal parts of apricot brandy, orange juice and sweet & sour mix. Some recipes, however, do adjust the ingredients to accommodate different tastes. Sometime a bit more brandy sometime a bit less. Anyway, it’s a classic.
Jerry, thanks for asking!
Apricot Stone Sour
2 oz. Apricot Brandy
2 oz. Orange Juice
2 oz. Sweet & Sour Mix
Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass with ice. Mix well and serve in a tall glass.
It isn’t Christmas without egg nog! This recipe requires a little extra work compared with some, but it’s worth it. It uses cream, bourbon and brandy — so it’s rich and packs a punch. You can substitute other liquors, such as another type of whiskey or rum.
Rich Bourbon-Brandy Egg Nog
8 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1/8 tsp. salt
2 1/2 cups heavy cream
2 cups milk
1 tbs. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. nutmeg (fresh-grated if possible)
1/2 cup bourbon
1/2 cup brandy
Separate two of the eggs. Whisk together six whole eggs, two egg yolks, sugar and salt. Heat two cups of the heavy cream with all of the milk over medium-low heat. Whisk in one cup of the milk-cream into the egg mixture. Then pour this into the rest of the milk-cream mixture and continue to cook, stirring until the mixture thickens — about 3 to 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the stove and strain the through a fine-mesh sieve. Allow to cool for 10 minutes.
Add the vanilla, nutmeg, bourbon and brandy and stir. Beat two egg whites to soft peaks in a clean mixing bowl and fold them in. In a separate bowl, beat 1/2 cup cream to soft peaks and fold that in. Cover and refrigerate until chilled, about 1 hour.
Then you’re done! Pour into a pitcher or bowl and garnish individual servings with nutmeg.
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This punch recipe is inspired by the Orange Punch served at Andrew Jackson’s inauguration in 1829, according to Eric Felten of the Wall Street Journal.
