Umami Mart

Minty, refreshing, and undeniably potent, the Stinger cocktail is part reviver, part ultimate nightcap. The cocktail originates around the fin de siecle, but was not memorialized until Tom Bullock’s Ideal Bartender (1917). The Stinger was a favorite of the high society set who regularly had a brandy digestif after supper. The classic recipe is one […]

Over the last decade the cocktail renaissance has spread across the country and helped turn bartending from a mere side-job for college students and aspiring actors into an honorable profession. It has also resurrected previously unknown names like Jerry Thomas and Harry Johnson by turning them into prophet-like figures, and their recipes have become gospel […]

If you grew up in America, then chances are you’re familiar with the story of Elizabeth Griscom Ross, better known as Betsy Ross. If you didn’t, or if you had ADD during elementary school, the story basically goes like this: during the period when America was fighting for independence from the Brits, George Washington came […]

Infusions are pretty common at PDT, since they’re a great way to add a particular flavor to a cocktail without having to add more volume to a drink, which is what would happen if you added the flavor by way of say, a flavored syrup. This is because the particular flavor that you’re trying to […]

For the uninitiated, the term “flip” refers to a category of alcoholic drinks that involve a whole raw egg as an ingredient. So the Egg Nog is essentially a flip. Flips used to refer to hot beverages that had beer in them, whereby a hot poker was taken straight from the fire and dunked into […]

“Did you say you’d like an Apple Martini? I’m sorry but we don’t carry any Apple Puckers, and the year is not 2002.” -Me Perhaps you’ve been in jail for most of this century and you’ve recently been set free, and so you have nary a notion of the occurrences of the last decade. Now […]

The #2 drink in the PDT Cocktail Book is the #3 Cup. If you like the Pimm’s Cup, then you cannot pass up this one, which appeared on the PDT menu in the spring of 2009. Created by former PDT bartender Gerry Corcoran, the drink’s name is a reference to the now defunct Pimm’s No. […]

Sometimes I hear or read about something while going about my every day business and it inspires me to hit my liquor cabinet and create something. Sometimes it’s the other way around, where I’m playing around with different spirits and ingredients and I come across a combination I really enjoy. In the case of the […]

Looking for an angle when writing about a cocktail is for me the most time consuming–and sometimes agonozing–aspect of blogging.  Well, today I’m dispensing with the longwinded introductions about the reasons for talking about a particular cocktail, and instead featuring a cocktail for no reasons other than it’s deliciousness, and the fact that it’s a drink […]

Photos by Mike Brandeberry and Kayoko Akabori. ‘Tis true: there lives a kickass distillery named St. George Spirits, just east of San Francisco, right across the Bay Bridge, in a little town that bleeds into Oakland, called Alameda, in California. A group of us went a few weeks ago and experienced it in all its […]