National Cocktail Day is March 24 (although who says you can’t celebrate any day?!). Check out our go-to classic cocktails below for a fun way to celebrate. Let us know which ones you make by tagging us on Facebook or Instagram!
Old Fashioned
Ingredients:
2 oz Michter's Rye Whiskey
¼ oz Simple Syrup
3 dashes Angostura Bitters.
Directions:
Build in glass and fill with ice, stirring at end for dilution. Garnish with orange twist to finish.
The Old Fashioned was first defined on May 6th 1806 in The Balance and Columbian Repository. It was originally defined as a stimulating liquor composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water and bitters.
Manhattan
Ingredients:
2 oz Jim Beam Black
1 oz Boisserre Sweet Vermouth
3 Dashes Angostura bitters.
Directions:
Stir ingredients until desired solution is met, strain into a chilled coupe or martini glass, and garnish with a brandied cherry.
Although it cannot be proven it likely comes from New York City's Manhattan Club and dates back to 1884 when it was seen in O.H. Byron's The Modern Bartenders’ Guide.
Negroni
Ingredients:
1 oz Tattersall Gin
1 oz Tattersall Bitter Orange
1 oz Boisserre Sweet Vermouth
Directions:
Stir in mixing glass until desired dilution is met, strain into a rocks glass with ice, and garnish with orange twist.
Caffe Casoni in Florence served Count Camillo Negroni his first Americano with gin in place of soda sometime between 1917 and 1920, which he thereafter called his usual.
Patron Margarita
Ingredients:
2 oz Patron Roca
1 oz Lime juice
½ oz Agave syrup
Lime for garnish
Directions:
Combine all ingredients into a shaker and shake, pour into a rocks glass and top with ice, and garnish with a lime wheel if desired.
Around 1987 Julio Bermejo owner of Tommy's Mexican restaurant in San Fran created the modern margarita variation that substituted agave for triple sec and it was soon put on cocktail menus all over the world.
Cosmopolitan
Ingredients:
2 ounces Crop Organic vodka
½ ounce Tattersall Orange Crema
¾ ounce Lime Juice
½ ounce Cranberry Juice
¼ ounce Simple Syrup
Orange or Lime twist for garnish
Directions:
Combine all ingredients into a shaker, shake thoroughly, strain into chilled coupe glass, and garnish to finish.
Sazerac
Ingredients:
2 oz Michter's Rye Whiskey
3 Dashes Peycheauds Bitters
2 dashes Angostura Bitters
Rinse of Absinthe
Directions:
Rinse a rocks glass with Absinthe, then stir ingredients in separate mixing glass until desired dilution is reached, pour into Absinthe rinsed glass, and express one lemon peel then discard.
The Sazerac was made popular by William H. Wilkinson around the turn of the 20th century at the Sazerac House Bar owned by Thomas H. Handy & Co.
Mojito
Ingredients:
2 oz Angostura white rum
1 oz club soda
1 oz simple syrup
¾ oz Lime juice
8 mint leaves
Directions:
Muddle mint and simple, then rum and lime juice, shake well, strain into Collins glass, top with ice and club soda, and garnish with a mint sprig
The Mojito first appears as the Rum Mojo in a rare 1929 cuban bar guide by Juan A. Lasa called Libro De Cocktail It returned to prominence in the U.S. in a James Bond film Die Another Day in 2002. Traditionally the mint is bruised at the bottom of the glass with granulated sugar and lime juice but more clean ways have overtaken the old traditional way for speed and accuracy.
There’s more where that came from! Check out our extensive list of classic cocktails here for even more options. Cheers!
