This is one of several holiday-theme original/adapted drinks I’ve created over the last 18 months. On Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, we traditionally enjoy apples and honey with a prayer for a “sweet new year”. I created the Apple Bee by drawing on a cocktail known as the Golden Delicious. I’ve made this a little less booz.y and increased the apple flavor profile by muddling apples and swapping out higher-proof applejack with apple brandy for a smoother taste. My first iteration of the drink used Barenjager honey liqueur which tasted artificial. Honey- sweetened Benedictine provides a more nuanced and herbal profile and makes for a much better drink.
This is a modern classic created at a bar in London’s SOHO district in 1984. Use caution – this goes down easy, and if you happen to be using navy-strength gin – well, you’ve been warned. I love all things berry flavored, and the combination of Chambord with muddled berries, gin and lemon are just too good. Among my top ten cocktails, no doubt.
Strain over fresh crushed ice in an old- fashioned glass.
Garnish.
The easiest way to tweak the original is to swap in a different base spirit for the gin, like a dry pisco or grassy rhum agricole, or to drizzle the liqueur on top.
The Clover Club cocktail dates back to the late 1800s and Philadelphia’s Bellevue- Stratford hotel. This was my first-ever attempt at using fresh egg white in a cocktail. I chickened out (see what I did there) and used pasteurized egg white, which work just fine. The impact can’t be beat – texture, mouth feel, and beautiful color gradations all stem from that (very) shaken egg white. Of course, a little aquafaba (the liquid from canned chickpeas) will sub in a pinch. I also made a fruit syrup for the first time (berry syrup recipe below). Julie Reiner of NYC’s Clover Club updated the eponymous classic with 1/2 ounce of dry white vermouth for a more balanced flavor profile.
The daiquiri is actually a very refined drink and one of the best tests of a barkeep’s skill in terms of balance, technique and dilution. This recipe is from the late Sasha Petraske of NYC bar Milk & Honey. He doesn’t tell us to use 3/4 oz. of simple syrup – instead, he gives a range dependent on how acidic your specific lime tastes at the time the cocktail is made. His book, Regarding Cocktails, was published posthumously by his wife, and from what I’ve heard, truly captures the kind, gentle, and exacting person he was in life.
