Pink Squirrel 🥤🥤 #Drinks #DidYouKnow

The Pink Squirrel cocktail was supposedly invented in the 1940s at Bryant’s Cocktail Lounge in Milwaukee. Since then, it has lived on the fringes, enjoyed by those who know it and regularly ignored by the many more who don’t.

The drink has a lot in common with the Brandy Alexander and the Grasshopper, each containing creme de cacao and cream. But this cocktail differs in its inclusion of creme de noyaux, a once popular but relatively forgotten liqueur from the 19th century. It’s similar to amaretto but sports a singular herbal-meets-bitter almond flavor, and the liqueur’s red color traditionally comes from cochineal, an insect used for dye.

Considering that creme de noyaux was never a common sight on back bars, it’s not surprising that the Pink Squirrel hasn’t topped any top-10 lists over the years. And modern cocktails have gotten away from the sweet and creamy drinks that dominated the 1970s and ’80s. But this interesting cocktail is worth a sip.

Sourcing creme de noyaux can be problematic, assuming you don’t have a creme de noyaux guy on speed dial. However, that feat has become easier in recent years, with bottles available from Bols, Hiram Walker and Tempus Fugit. The latter released their version in 2013, hewing closest to the 19th-century examples. It’s made with apricot and cherry pits, bitter almonds and botanicals, and the liqueur’s color is achieved the old fashioned way, with cochineal.

Combining only three ingredients, the Pink Squirrel is easy to make; it’s also very easy to drink. The creme de noyaux joins white creme de cacao and heavy cream to create a rich, sweet cocktail that tastes of almonds and chocolate. Make a few glasses the next time you want to dive into the past or whenever you want to drink a cocktail that tastes similar to an adult milkshake.

Ingredients
3/4 ounce creme de noyaux
3/4 ounce white creme de cacao
1 1/2 ounces heavy cream
Garnish: freshly grated nutmeg

Steps
Add the creme de noyaux, white creme de cacao and heavy cream into a shaker filled with ice and shake until well-chilled.

Strain into a chilled coupe glass.

Garnish with freshly grated nutmeg.

Italian Cookie 🥤🥤 #Drinks #DidYouKnow

This rum-based drink from New Orleans’ Three Muses is an ode to the sprinkle-covered treats found in cookie tins in grandmothers’ homes everywhere. The sweet, creamy drink is best served as a nightcap or dessert cocktail, a fun birthday shot with colorful sprinkles dappling the surface.

While the bar at Three Muses calls for some specific ingredients in the Italian Cookie, there is room for substitutions, starting with the base itself. The recipe calls for Black Magic Black Spiced Rum, but that may not be readily available in all markets. Kraken is a popular and affordable brand of spiced rum, as are Captain Morgan Spiced Rum and Bacardi Spiced Rum. These days, though, there are plenty of options.

The Italian Cookie also calls for Herbsaint, a deeply botanical pastis flavored with anise and other herbs. Herbsaint originally grew in popularity as an alternative to absinthe, which was banned in the United States until 2007 for its alleged (and nonexistent) hallucinogenic properties. Herbsaint still sees use in drinks like the Sazerac, but can be switched out for absinthe, if desired. Similarly, while crème de noyaux is listed as an ingredient, amaretto is a suitable substitute; both liqueurs are almond flavored, though crème de noyaux has a bright red color to it. Those who do opt to use crème de noyaux can also use the red liqueur in a Pink Squirrel, another frothy-sweet concoction.

One more key ingredient in the drink is fig preserves. Three Muses uses Rouses’ fig preserves at its bar, a brand from a chain of supermarkets in Louisiana. As that might be difficult for people living outside of the South to get their hands on, any line of fig preserves, or homemade ones, will do nicely.

Finally, the drink is blended and then garnished with sprinkles. This enhances the similarity to the Italian cookies found in tins, also known as Italian wedding cookies. It’s certainly fun, and adds a sugary crunch to the drink, as well as some color, but it’s not 100% necessary to making the Italian Cookie.

Ingredients
1 1/2 ounces Black Magic black spiced rum
1 ounce heavy whipping cream
1/2 ounce Herbsaint liqueur
1/3 ounce creme de noyaux
1/3 ounce lemon juice
2 barspoons Rouses fig preserves
Garnish: sprinkles
Garnish: straw

Steps
Blend the spiced rum, whipping cream, Herbsaint, crème de noyaux, lemon juice and fig preserves with ice in a blender.

Pour into a highball glass, and garnish with Italian sprinkles and a straw.

White Russian 🥤🥤 #Drinks #DidYouKnow

The White Russian is a decadent and surprisingly easy-to-make cocktail. Combining vodka, Kahlúa and cream and serving it on the rocks creates a delicious alternative to adult milkshakes.

The White Russian came about in the ’60s when someone added a bit of cream to the Black Russian, rendering it white. Neither drink is Russian in origin, but the name refers to the vodka, a spirit often associated with Russia.

It would be a great story to say that the White Russian’s star rose from that point on, but that would not be true. The truth is the White Russian suffered a bit from a stodgy, antiquated reputation until the 1998 movie “The Big Lebowski” came along and breathed new life into the cocktail with Jeff Bridges’ character, the Dude, sipping it exclusively—and constantly. It’s one of popular culture’s best drinks-related successes, right up there with Carrie Bradshaw’s impact on the Cosmo. Of course, if you want to order it like the Dude, throw in the occasional call for a “Caucasian.” The barkeep will know what you mean.

When making a White Russian at home, choose a decent vodka (a Russian one, if you want to stay on theme) and a good heavy cream. Half-and-half can work in a pinch, but milk will produce a thin drink. Remember: You’re aiming for decadence.

Ingredients
2 ounces vodka
1 ounce Kahlúa
1 splash heavy cream

Steps
Add the vodka and Kahlúa to a rocks glass filled with ice.

Top with the heavy cream and stir.

Irish Affogato 🥤🥤 #Drinks #DidYouKnow

The Irish Coffee is one of the most popular drinks in the cocktail canon. Perfect for breakfast, midday snacks and after-dinner pick-me-ups, it’s a versatile drink that gets the most out of whiskey, coffee and cream. The Irish Affogato combines the classic Irish Coffee with a traditional affogato for a cold, boozy treat that’s the best of both worlds, and it might become your new favorite dessert.

This fun twist is made with Irish whiskey, Baileys Irish cream, coffee ice cream and cold-brew coffee. That’s a lot of deliciousness in one glass. You can make the cold-brew at home if you’re into such things, or just buy a high-quality bottled product. Mix the ingredients together in a glass—no stirring, shaking or blending required. You’ll soon enjoy the fruits of your labor, which, in this case, is not fruit but a spiked and caffeinated ice cream concoction.

Pro tip: If you want to scale back the dairy and amplify the buzz, skip the whipped cream garnish and add another half ounce of whiskey.

Ingredients
3/4 ounce Irish whiskey
1/2 ounce Baileys Irish cream
1 scoop coffee ice cream
1 1/2 ounces cold-brew coffee*
Garnish: whipped cream
Garnish: chocolate shavings

Steps
Add Irish whiskey, Baileys Irish cream, coffee ice cream and cold-brew coffee into an Irish Coffee mug.

Garnish with whipped cream and chocolate shavings.

*Cold-brew coffee: Use your favorite bottled cold-brew coffee or make it yourself by soaking 140 grams of coarse ground coffee beans with 32 ounces water for 12 hours. After steeping, strain through a coffee filter into a clean jar. Discard the solids. Store the cold brew in the refrigerator for a few days.

The Dead Rabbit Irish Coffee 🥤🥤 #Drinks #DidYouKnow

Along with the Hot Toddy, the Irish Coffee is the most famous and beloved of hot drinks (though more often than not it’s enjoyed in early spring, rather than winter, as it coincides with St. Patrick’s Day). And while it can be found at Irish bars and pubs across the country, and world, the one at New York City’s famed Irish bar The Dead Rabbit is especially celebrated. Though the Irish Coffee at Dead Rabbit is only slightly altered from how you would normally find it, the slight changes make a world of difference. Luckily, bartender Jack McGarry shared his recipe for the bar’s delicious hot Irish Coffee, so you can make it yourself at home.

For starters, and arguably the most important aspect of the drink, is the whiskey used. There are countless Irish whiskeys to choose from. But you’ll want one bold and rich enough to stand up to the coffee and cream, and mellow and smooth enough to not be overpowering. It’s also best to use a high quality but affordable enough bottle so that the cocktail doesn’t cost $20 a mug. For this recipe, McGarry advises using Clontarf Irish Whiskey, which hits all the aforementioned marks.

Naturally, the choice of coffee is also important, and again you’ll want one that is bold, smooth and assertive without being overly chocolatey or overly fruity. Since coffee roasting and distribution can vary city by city and town by town, McGarry doesn’t specify a particular brand, though the bar menu refers to it as being “aromatic.” Coffee snobs can have some fun pairing different roasts and brands to the whiskey to find what works best.

For the rest of the recipe, there are only some minor differences from a standard Irish Coffee recipe. The bar uses a one-to-one simple syrup made with Demerara sugar, which is a raw sugar extracted from sugar cane. Its flavor and color is somewhere between brown and white sugar, and it adds depth and nuance that a normal simple syrup does not. The other difference is that rather than whipped cream, the bar uses unsweetened heavy cream, whipped until it’s frothy and can rest smoothly on the top of the drink without immediately sinking. This gives a sturdy platform on which to grate fresh nutmeg, and the cream will slowly incorporate as you enjoy the hot beverage.

Ingredients
1 1/2 ounces Clontarf Irish whiskey
4 ounces brewed coffee, hot
3/4 ounce demerara syrup (one part demerara sugar, one part water)
Heavy cream, lightly whipped
Garnish: nutmeg, freshly grated

Steps
Fill an Irish Coffee glass with hot water and let stand for a few minutes to warm.

Discard the water and add the whiskey, coffee and demerara syrup.

Stir to combine and top with a layer of heavy cream the width of your thumb.

Garnish with freshly grated nutmeg.

Irish Coffee 🥤🥤 #Drinks #DidYouKnow

The Irish Coffee may not be the first coffee drink with alcohol, but this cocktail has become one of the most famous. Combining coffee with Irish whiskey, brown sugar and lightly whipped cream, the Irish Coffee is a hot, creamy classic that can wake you up on cold mornings or keep you going after a long night.

There are many tall tales about the Irish Coffee’s origins. The most credible version attributes the cocktail to Joe Sheridan, the head chef of the restaurant at the Foynes Flying Boat terminal in County Limerick in the early 1940s, who wanted to add a little local hospitality to the establishment’s coffee. Legend has it that when he first served it and was asked if it was Brazilian coffee, Sheridan cheekily replied that it was “Irish coffee.”

The drink was later made famous by Pulitzer Prize-winning "San Francisco Chronicle" columnist Stanton Delaplane, who frequented the Buena Vista Cafe in San Francisco during the 1950s. After tasting one in Ireland, he and the bar’s owner, Jack Koeppler, attempted to recreate the warming elixir. They succeeded, and Delaplane wrote about the drink in his column, which was read widely across the States. This helped to earn the drink a following at Buena Vista and beyond. On a busy day, the San Francisco bar can serve more than 2,000 Irish Coffees. With its comforting blend of whiskey, caffeine and cream, it’s easy to see the drink’s appeal.

According to bartending legend Dale DeGroff, the Irish Coffee should not be a large drink. He says that bars, particularly in America, go too big, which ruins the balance of an otherwise great cocktail. "Choose the vessel wisely," he says. "The small bell-shaped glass that Libbey has been providing to The Buena Vista for decades is a nice size at six ounces."

Then you can build your drink right in the glass, starting with the whiskey, sugar and coffee, and topping it with a dose of thick cream. "At The Buena Vista Cafe, the concoction is finished with a white cloud of hand-whipped cream," says DeGroff. "This topping serves two important purposes: It creates the drink’s signature dramatic black-and-white look, and the unsweetened coolness of the cream tempers the alcohol and the hot, sugary coffee." If you’d like to decorate that gorgeous white head, you can optionally add a dusting of fresh cinnamon or nutmeg for a fragrant garnish.

"You also don’t need a giant pour of Irish whiskey," says DeGroff. "Delaplane and Koeppler’s recipe calls for a one-ounce shot. I know it seems stingy, but do not be put off—it’s actually good news. That liquor, along with three-and-a-half ounces of steaming-hot sweetened coffee and three-quarters of an inch of lightly whipped cream, is so delicious you’ll want to consume at least two more." Liquor.com’s recipe below calls for slightly more than that, but it's still not enough to knock you off your bar stool.

Degroff offers three additional tips for creating a perfect Irish Coffee:

1. Use a stemmed glass no larger than eight ounces. (With an eight-ounce glass, you can go up to one-and-a-half ounces of Irish whiskey. I am partial to Jameson.)

2. Top with no more than four ounces of steaming-hot sweetened coffee.

3. Lightly whip the cream. It should not form peaks, but it should be frothy enough to float, creating that perfect separation of coffee from cream, which is, after all, the signature of the drink.

Ingredients
1 1/2 ounces Irish whiskey
2 teaspoons brown sugar
Hot brewed coffee, to top
Garnish: whipped cream

Steps
Fill an Irish Coffee mug with hot water, let sit for 2 minutes, then discard the water.

Add the whiskey and sugar to the heated glass, fill with the coffee, and stir.

Top with an inch of unsweetened lightly whipped cream.

World Vegetable Soups ranked best to worst 🇵🇭 🇹🇷 🇱🇹 #Food

World Seafood Soups ranked best to worst 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 🇫🇮 🇮🇪 #Food

World Egg dishes ranked best to worst 🇵🇭 🇮🇷 🇲🇽 #Food

World Rice dishes ranked best to worst 🇮🇷 🇻🇪 🇳🇬 #Food

Southeast Asian dishes ranked best to worst 🇵🇭 🇮🇩 🇹🇭 #Food #Asia

Asian dishes ranked best to worst 🇲🇾 🇮🇷 🇯🇵 #Food #Asia

Grasshopper 2.0 🍸🍸 #Drinks #DidYouKnow

“Creme de menthe is very versatile, but it needs a steady hand and a good-quality brand to use it successfully and not overpower the drink,” says Naren Young, the creative director at Sweet Liberty in Miami.

It’s an ingredient that’s seen most commonly in the classic Grasshopper, a drink that dates back to the early 1900s but these days is most often associated with the 1970s disco era. The sweet mix of creme de menthe, creme de cacao and heavy cream is a retro dessert drink that, while not bad, could use some modernizing and livening up.

That’s exactly what Young has done in his update to the classic. He has added mezcal, the minty Italian amaro Branca Menta and a touch of absinthe to the mix, heightening both the mintiness and boozy factor and deepening the drink’s flavor.

If you’re using high-quality brands, the white and green versions of the liqueur should taste nearly identical within the same brand; the difference between the two is merely a matter of aesthetics. Young likes the flavor of Tempus Fugit, which is available only in a white version, so he adds a bit of food coloring to make his Grasshopper variant look like the original green iteration of the classic cocktail. You can do the same if you like, but even if you don’t have any food coloring on hand, the drink will still taste just as good.

Ingredients
3/4 ounce Tempus Fugit white creme de menthe
3/4 ounce Giffard creme de cacao
1/2 ounce Del Maguey Vida mezcal
1/4 ounce Branca Menta
1 barspoon absinthe
1 1/4 ounces heavy cream
1 drop food coloring
Garnish: grated dark chocolate
Garnish: mint sprig

Steps
Add all ingredients into a shaker with ice and shake until well-chilled.

Strain into a double rocks glass over crushed ice.

Garnish with grated chocolate and a mint sprig, and serve with a straw.

Grasshopper 🍸🍸 #Drinks #DidYouKnow

You might’ve seen this old-school mint-flavored recipe in the form of a milkshake. But the original combination of creme de menthe, white creme de cacao, and heavy cream is pretty perfect as it is.

The Grasshopper is a green blast from the past featuring green creme de menthe, white creme de cacao and heavy cream. Creme de menthe is a liqueur made by adding mint leaves or extract to neutral alcohol, after which it’s filtered, sweetened, lightly aged and bottled. And white creme de cacao is a sweet, chocolate-flavored liqueur with a buttery mouthfeel.

The drink was allegedly created in 1919 in New Orleans, but it didn’t become a household name until the 1950s, as Prohibition squandered the growth and familiarity of many cocktails born just before the restricted-drinking era began. The original recipe calls for the three ingredients to be combined in equal parts, resulting in a cocktail that looks like melted mint-chocolate-chip ice cream and kind of tastes like it, too.

The rich, green-hued dessert cocktail became a mainstay at bars during the disco era, while in contemporary times, bartenders have upended the core blueprint, creating clarified grasshoppers, grasshopper milkshakes and other playful riffs on the flavorful classic.

This version comes from New York bartending legend Dale DeGroff, who breaks the equal-parts formula and cranks up the heavy cream to round out the drink. Shake your ingredients with ice and, if you’re feeling fancy, dust some nutmeg on top. The Grasshopper can be consumed any time of day, of course, but given its sweet and creamy nature, it’s particularly effective after dinner. Order one after a good meal or make one at home in lieu of dessert.

Ingredients
1 ounce green creme de menthe
1 ounce white creme de cacao
2 ounces heavy cream
Garnish: nutmeg, freshly grated

Steps
Add the green creme de menthe, white creme de cacao and heavy cream into a shaker with ice and shake vigorously until well-chilled.

Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Grate nutmeg over the top of the drink, if desired.

Espress Ya’self 🍸🍸 #Drinks #DidYouKnow

New York City bartender Anthony A. Baker created this riff on an Espresso Martini, calling it “a much smoother version of an Espresso Martini that has more layers of flavor.”

“I really don't enjoy the bitterness you get from espresso, or even coffee for that matter,” says Baker. “With this recipe, I can control the level of bitterness in the cocktail.” He swaps out bitter espresso for flavorful cold-brew coffee and the typical Kahlúa for more intense cold-brew liqueur and adds vanilla extract and chocolate bitters instead of relying on those notes from the brew. Agave spirits form the drink’s base rather than the usual vodka, and agave nectar takes the place of simple syrup. The unexpected addition of firewater bitters throws the drink’s flavors in an entirely new direction, while the final touch is edible glitter in the colors of the pan-African flag.

“In the end, you'll have a smoother full-bodied Espresso Martini-esque cocktail with just hints of smoke, bitterness, chocolate, vanilla and spice” says Baker.

Baker admits the result of swapping most of the cocktail’s typical ingredients may throw some people off. “Because this cocktail doesn't have the typical ingredients of an Espresso Martini, people will probably take a look at this recipe and think it's going to be terrible,” he says. “But that's what I find so fun about creating cocktails: putting unusual ingredients together and making believers out of people.”

As for the drink’s name, Baker says it reflects him expressing himself through a cocktail, taking a standard and making it his own through the use of unexpected components. “I'm really excited for people to taste it, become a believer and consequently get inspired to step outside of the box and try something new,” he says. “Rather than following the typical cookie-cutter method of creating cocktails, I want them to be inspired to step outside of their comfort zone and imagine what kind of cocktail they would like to create and make it come to life.”

Ingredients
1 1/2 ounces blanco tequila
1 ounce cold-brew coffee liqueur (such as Mr Black)
1/2 ounce mezcal
1 ounce cold-brew coffee
1/2 ounce agave nectar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 dashes Hella Mexican chocolate bitters
4 dashes Scrappy’s Firewater bitters
Garnish: black, green and red edible glitter

Steps
Add the tequila, coffee liqueur, mezcal, cold-brew coffee, agave nectar, vanilla extract, chocolate bitters and Firewater bitters into a shaker with ice and shake until well-chilled.

Strain into a coupe glass.

Garnish with black, green and red edible glitter.