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  • Obscure Liqueur: How to Use Suze

    by virginiaemily

    Once upon a time, when I was 13, I desperately wanted a velvet blazer. Preferably in dark purple, but the colour wasn’t the most important thing. Unfortunately for me, the year 2000 was not a high point for velvet blazers – I might have been better off checking in 1977 – and I never got my hands on one. Imagine my delight, then, when...

    August 29, 2017
    Comments 0
    Bottles
  • Cocktail of the week no.22: the Angel Face

    by virginiaemily

    I was introduced to this cocktail by a barman at the Zetter Townhouse in Clerkenwell, and it’s one of the two drinks I’ve had in bars in recent months that I’ve desperately wanted to make for myself at home. The other was at “The Bar with No Name,” AKA 69 Colebrooke Row, and it was called “Silent Neon Flower.” Coincidentally, both of these bars...

    October 12, 2016
    Comment 1
    Cocktails of the Week
  • Cocktail of the week no.21: the Pink Lady

    by virginiaemily

    Ah, look at this cocktail – how pink, how frothy, how girly! You might think that if this were a person it would be Cinderella, radiating sweetness and light and charm, coming down the staircase in a flowing dress, about to step into her carriage with a bright optimism about the delights of the evening to come. Like so: You would of course be wrong....

    September 28, 2016
    Comments 3
    Cocktails of the Week
  • More Seasonal Cocktails: Fig Smashes

    by virginiaemily

    I think the first time I encountered a wild fig, I was about 22 and in Greece having a mooch around some ruins. As I come from a family that’s not particularly adventurous with its food, and has strong leanings towards the boiled meat and potatoes side of English cuisine, I’m pretty sure I’d never eaten a fig in any form before then. I certainly wasn’t...

    September 24, 2016
    Comments 3
    Seasonal Drinks
  • Cocktail of the week no.20: the Jack Rose

    by virginiaemily

    One of the things I always loved most (and hopefully will be able to appreciate again soon) about living in America is the enthusiastic celebration of all things autumn-related (sorry, fall-related). England does not do this with quite the same level of abandon, as we live in a state of near-perpetual autumn, and I miss not being able to move without tripping over some golden-hued...

    September 21, 2016
    Comments 5
    Cocktails of the Week
  • Seasonal Cocktails: Blackberry Smashes

    by virginiaemily

    I’ve had several episodes over the past month of being reasonably sure the English summer is over, and, in the grand tradition of English weather, it keeps subverting my expectations. A miniature mid-September heatwave has hit us (which will doubtless be over by the time I publish this, or even by the time I finish typing this), and it’s making me want to go...

    September 17, 2016
    Comments 2
    Seasonal Drinks
  • Cocktail of the week no.19: the Tuxedo

    by virginiaemily

    In 1885, in a rural patch of New York state called Tuxedo, just north of the border with New Jersey, a man named Pierre Lorillard decided to found a country club. He named it after the region, which had retained its Indian name; Etymonline and the Tuxedo Club’s own excellent history page agree that ‘Tuxedo’ probably derives from the Algonquian ‘p’tuck-sepo,’ or ‘crooked river.’ The club was...

    September 14, 2016
    Comments 4
    Cocktails of the Week
  • Getting To Know Amari: Amaro Averna & the Black Manhattan

    by virginiaemily

    If you’ve looked at the menu in a cocktail bar in the last decade or so, or indeed looked at any cocktail posts on Instagram – something I spend far too much time doing – you will have noticed a profusion of impenetrable names on the ingredients list like ‘Cynar’, ‘Averna’, ‘Fernet Branca’, ‘Ramazzotti’, which have certainly caused me, in the past, to reach unobtrusively...

    September 10, 2016
    Comments 3
    Bottles
  • Cocktail of the week no.18: the Ward Eight

    by virginiaemily

    For my weekly cocktail today (and I use the word ‘weekly’ in its loosest sense, of course, since I haven’t done one of these in several weeks), I present to you the Ward Eight, a fitting drink for election season. The Ward Eight, essentially a variation on a whiskey sour, is said to have been invented in 1898 at the Locke-Ober restaurant in Boston, to...

    September 7, 2016
    Comments 13
    Cocktails of the Week
  • Put A Plum In It: Stone Fruit Cocktails for the End of Summer

    by virginiaemily

    England seems to have taken the beginning of September rather seriously, and it has been raining and grey since the 1st. It’s not fun to let the summer go, but in an effort to be thankful for small mercies, I am appreciating the little gift of being still in the season of peaches and nectarines, apricots and plums. I find I’m always taken by surprise by these fruits,...

    September 4, 2016
    Comments 9
    Seasonal Drinks

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Recent posts

October 12, 2017

Cocktail of the week no. 23: Satan’s Whiskers

When I came across this cocktail, naturally the first thing I wanted to know was who came up with...

by virginiaemily
Comments 0
August 29, 2017

Obscure Liqueur: How to Use Suze

Once upon a time, when I was 13, I desperately wanted a velvet blazer. Preferably in dark purple, but...

by virginiaemily
Comments 0
December 22, 2016

Drinks to Get You Through Christmas Day

Christmas Day in the Clark household follows a well-established, age-old routine, utterly unshakeable in the face of whatever joyful...

by virginiaemily
Comments 0
October 15, 2016

Sloe Gin And What To Do With It

Sloe gin is one of those drinks I think of as quintessentially English – something you pick up in...

by virginiaemily
Comments 3
October 12, 2016

Cocktail of the week no.22: the Angel Face

I was introduced to this cocktail by a barman at the Zetter Townhouse in Clerkenwell, and it’s one of...

by virginiaemily
Comment 1
September 30, 2016

Meet the Gin Expert: Carl Hawkins, the Gintleman

Since I’m back in my hometown of Birmingham for about six weeks before I move back to the US,...

by virginiaemily
Comment 1
September 28, 2016

Cocktail of the week no.21: the Pink Lady

Ah, look at this cocktail – how pink, how frothy, how girly! You might think that if this were...

by virginiaemily
Comments 3
September 24, 2016

More Seasonal Cocktails: Fig Smashes

I think the first time I encountered a wild fig, I was about 22 and in Greece having a...

by virginiaemily
Comments 3
September 21, 2016

Cocktail of the week no.20: the Jack Rose

One of the things I always loved most (and hopefully will be able to appreciate again soon) about living...

by virginiaemily
Comments 5
September 17, 2016

Seasonal Cocktails: Blackberry Smashes

I’ve had several episodes over the past month of being reasonably sure the English summer is over, and, in...

by virginiaemily
Comments 2
September 14, 2016

Cocktail of the week no.19: the Tuxedo

In 1885, in a rural patch of New York state called Tuxedo, just north of the border with New...

by virginiaemily
Comments 4
September 10, 2016

Getting To Know Amari: Amaro Averna & the Black Manhattan

If you’ve looked at the menu in a cocktail bar in the last decade or so, or indeed looked...

by virginiaemily
Comments 3

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Categories

  • Bottles
  • Cocktails of the Week
  • People
  • Places to Drink
  • Seasonal Drinks

Recent Posts

  • Cocktail of the week no. 23: Satan’s Whiskers
  • Obscure Liqueur: How to Use Suze
  • Drinks to Get You Through Christmas Day
  • Sloe Gin And What To Do With It
  • Cocktail of the week no.22: the Angel Face

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Cocktails and other amusements

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