Kentucky Colonel

Sometimes I feel like all of my mixing and drinking cocktails has given me some kind of power to predict what a cocktail will taste like before it's mixed. That's part of my strategy for getting through undesired meetings (and worked well back in college too!). As I try to invent new cocktails, I imagine the taste combination. I could never have predicted the spicy, up front taste of the Kentucky Colonel.

from Dale deGroff's book:
Kentucky Colonel
2oz Bourbon
3/4 oz Benedictine (not B&B)
Dash Angostura Orange Bitters

Stir and serve either up in a cocktail glass or on the rocks in a whiskey glass.

This cocktail is delicious. If you've got set in your mind that "whiskey burns," then you are in for a surprise with this one. It doesn't burn even a little bit. I couldn't taste the orange bitters specifically until like the third sip, when the aroma of orange took over.

Put some color in your face,
Redface

Stormy Whiskey

I'm a sucker for a bourbon drink. This cocktail packs an old-fashioned soda taste and seems to get refilled far more often than an afternoon libation really should. A Stormy Whiskey is a simple whiskey variation on a Dark and Stormy. I've put in some Creme de Cassis for a sweet floral counter-taste to the bitter ginger and the warm and tangy Wild Turkey. Kick-Ass way to finish off an afternoon after work in the spring!

Stormy Whiskey
2oz Bourbon Whiskey (Wild Turkey 101)
1oz Creme de Cassis
4-5oz Ginger Beer (Reed's is what I had on hand)

Fill Collins Glass halfway with ice, pour in ingredients and give it a quick stir with a barspoon. Sit back, sip, and get sloshed!!

Mmminty Cocktails

Before the bottom of my first bottle, Creme de Menthe has become an ingredient I should have bought long ago. After drunkenly adding it to a shot of brandy a few nights back because I wanted a stinger to go, I decided I should go ahead and try out a few good looking recipes that make different uses of Creme de Menthe.

First off is the Consolation Cocktail. I chose this to start because of my love for gin and the simple ingredients. With ingredients only a step removed from a Gin Cocktail or a Gin Sour, the Consolation does a great job of smoothing over a bunch of pretty strong tastes.

Consolation Cocktail
1 1/2 oz Gin
1/2 oz Creme de Menthe
1/2 oz Lemon Juice
Dash Angostura Bitters

I thought the lemon was a little too much, so I lowered it to only 1/4 oz the second time around. I think this is a better balance of the four, but whatever you prefer. The refreshing quality of the mint goes well with the juniper taste of good strong gin. I'd drink one of these again!

Image from Absolut website recipe

Although I'm fairly certain it is not a problem too many men encounter, I'm sure there are times when your ladyfriend needs to be reminded not to be a bad girl? Anyway, I can't seem to find any information on where this cocktail comes from or what gives it its name. The base of brandy and sweet vermouth is such a palate pleaser that there are dozens of variations you can add to them to make a suave-tasting cocktail.

Lady be Good
1 1/2 oz Brandy
1/2 oz Sweet Vermouth
1/2 oz Creme de Menthe

The Lady be Good did not surprise me. It tasted like a Stinger with sweet vermouth, and I'll gladly try this one again.

The Irish Settler

This one is a straight cocktail recipe. I was after a boozy concoction that used Creme de Cassis a few nights ago and could only find a few recipes I had the materials for on hand. So I did what anybody in my situation would do - I adapted one of the ones I couldn't make to have my own invented cocktail.

The Settler (or Settler Highball)
2 oz Brandy
1 oz Creme de Cassis
Seltzer

Shake brandy and Creme de Cassis, then pour into a highball glass and add the seltzer

Not having any unflavored seltzer around, or any unflavored brandy, I opted instead for an Irish version. The result, the "Irish Settler," is delicious, aromatic, and definitely a keeper.

Irish Settler
2 oz Irish Whisky
1 oz Creme de Cassis
1/2 oz Orange Liqueur

Shake and pour into a small brandy snifter. The cocktail is purple, smooth, and has the botanical flavors of the elderberry and orange. Put another way, it tastes dandy, packs about 2 drinks worth of alcohol into a cup, and gets a nod of approval from my hardest-to-please taster.

Enjoy!

Revisiting Ouzo

It was a while ago that I first tried Ouzo - see the Satanic Cocktails post about it here - and I have been slowly working my way through bottle after bottle ever since. Most often I drink a tall glass of it as I cook dinner.

Take a quick read of Kerasma.gr for good info

Following Zane's experience in the Episode on Lesbos (Yes, I know I've mentioned that episode already), I pour a half a glass of ouzo on a few ice cubes and then add a few dashes of cold filtered water until it starts to emulsify. If 'emulsify' means nothing to you, watch the darn episode already! If three or four shots of 80º liquor is more than enough to put you over the edge before dinner, stick to a smaller glass.

To try out my ouzo in a few different and faster ways, I went for a few of these ouzo-based shooters. Overall, I still prefer a straight glass of ouzo, but since I have been taking more shots than mixing cocktails the last few months, these certainly did the trick.

World Famous TKO

One shot into the list I knew I was in trouble. The TKO seems odd by ingredient, but is smooth and warm. The combination of strong and herbal tastes in the tequila and ouzo was offset well by the coffee liqueur. After four or five of these, I started to have a little trouble getting the proportions right, and the taste suffered.

TKO
1/3 Tequila
1/3 Kahlua
1/3 Ouzo

When I'm taking a shot of a liquor I like, I tend to give it ever the slightest swish in my mouth. Contrary to a stiff shot of shitty whiskey or warm vodka, I like to treat a shot of something I enjoy sipping just like a larger than average swallow from a rocks glass. Whenever I try this with shooters I am a little wary - if someone has gone through the effort of publishing a recipe that doesn't always mean they have the slightest clue about whether something tastes good. I can't be the only one who's ordered or received some dishwater shooters in the past.

The Vulcan Mind Probe Shot was next - well technically I didn't make it past the TKO the first night so "next" really means a few days later in this case. Due to my trouble mixing smooth TKOs later into the night, I hoped that a recipe that's 1/2 and 1/2 ouzo and rum would be easy enough for my thick fingers to pour.

Vulcan Mind Probe
1 Part Ouzo
1 Part Rum

This works well as a double shot, though I would say the taste is anything but easy to take down. The combination of the black rum and ouzo I used made for a powerful taste that stayed in my throat. It was not especially pleasant, so I went back for more TKOs afterwards. In the end, I didn't really mind the powerful taste of bitter chocolate licorice I got from this, since by the time I'd had two or three of these, I was deep enough into my drinking night that it was fine.

Good luck trying some Ouzo. It's well worth it.

Cocktail - Stinger

While this cocktail is listed as a nightcap, I find it has a lot of potential in other situations as well. The thing about how your mouth tastes late into a night of drinking is that you're too drunk to care that your barbecue chicken tequila rum beer milk breath is gross. Luckily, I recently came across the Stinger. It's simple to make and uses ingredients that will (at least for me) stick around for a while. Plus, when you're done, your mouth is fresh and your belly cool and settled. 

Stinger
1 Part Brandy
1 Part Creme de Menthe

Shake hard with five or six ice cubes; err on the side of less ice in the shaker. The sloshing, foaming consistency you want requires a harder shake and less ice. Pour into any rounded glass, ice and all.

Was reminded of this from The 10 Manliest Cocktails. I didn't like their recipe as much as I like an even proportion, but as Cocktail DB says, "NOTE: Vary proportions to alter sweetness level"

The Maple Froth

A few weeks back I played a small but pivotal role in turning a relaxed picnic-dinner party for 35 into a 2AM affair. I overheard the host talking to a deputy host about how the wine was running low but he didn't have time to go get more. When the deputy replied with "We'll just wait to put out the last bottles, one per table with the main course" I cut in to offer my services on a liquor run.

Forty-five minutes later I returned with enough bottles of wine for the party to remain in full swing. With me also was the reason for this post, a bottle of maple rye. While the bottle was greeted publicly with derision by other guests, and privately by myself as well, I waited to open it until I got home. After a few drinks, I must confess I've added it to three or four different cocktails and found it to be an excellent rye whiskey variation.

Unlike the cheap-ass ginger brandy I bought earlier this summer, this is "not too sweet, ridiculously smooth." I couldn't describe it better than the Cabin Fever Homepage

The Maple Froth
5 oz Cold Black Coffee
5 oz Cold Milk
1 oz Cabin Fever
1 oz Coffee Liqueur
2 tbsp Ovaltine Powder

Fill a shaker halfway up with ice. Do not overfill. Pour ingredients into mixing glass - do not overpour these, as the cocktail will froth up and explode all over your mixing surface. Shake for a generous 20 seconds and then strain into a pint glass. I haven't yet mastered the pour on this one, I end up wiping the glass down with a wet rag before drinking because it bubbles up as you pour.

This delicious (and odd as hell) cocktail doesn't fit a category easily. It has a light flavor - with the ovaltine, liqueur and maple syrup all providing sweetness. The coffee and rye bite is offset by the sweet ingredients and the milk. I am a long time fan of a Redface White Russian, which this drink loosely resembles.

Redface White Russian
6 oz Vodka
2 1/2 oz Coffee Liqueur
24 oz Milk

Pour vodka and coffee liqueur into (clean) tall vase.  Add a few ice cubes for looks and fill with the milk. Suck it down like it's a glass of chocolate milk and you are a 7 year-old who just came in from playing outside all afternoon. Repeat.

Try a few of these with bourbon instead of syrup....

She was only a Whiskey Maker but he Loved her Still

Some drinks are meant to be sipped slowly. Full appreciation of these drinks requires attention to detail with drink ingredients and proper glassware.

Just in case you don't have time for all of that foofarah separating sober you and sauced you, there's always the one line jokes of drinking - shots. Not too much shakes your face like a nice stiff shot of high-octane ethanol. A good shot of whiskey down the hatch will tingle and burn up every limb. Toss back a few tequila shots and feel the now-rounded edges get slick.

While I do not usually drink shooters, I will mention the best one I have encountered in my time, the Liquid Cocaine Shot. A couple of these shots will get you a different brand of hosed than any traditional shot.

Liquid Cocaine
3/4 oz Jaeger
3/4 oz Goldschläger

Pour Jaeger into shot glass then slowly layer on Goldschläger. If done right the two will remain unmixed (don't worry, you don't need to be all that steady to get it to stay unmixed - if you have trouble, use the back of a bar spoon).

N.B. There are a bunch of other recipes for this, usually with Rumplemintz or º151, usually shaken with ice then strained into a shot glass. I only chose this one because it's the one I know, I can't honestly recommend any of the others having not tried them. Credit for the recipe goes to my friend Jake Itzkowitz.



I'm off to down a shot or two of Rye Whiskey. It's good to be back to Redfacery again.

A Tribute Cocktail to the 1927 Mississippi Flood

As will typically happen given the reality of 24-hour news coverage, I got bored with stories about the Mississippi river flooding several days ago. Having lived through one serious flood in my life, I certainly empathize with those effected, but don't have any need to hear the same story thirty-five times in a row.
That said, Wednesday afternoon I heard a story with a different take on NPR - the music of the 1927 flood. What really caught me was when they played a section from Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy's "When the Levee Breaks". The legendary Led Zeppelin song - yeah - it was a cover of this song.

 

Inspired by the music of the 1927 flood, and in honor of the current flooding, I present to you my very own Muddy Delta Cocktail. 

Muddy Delta
1 oz American Honey (Wild Turkey Whiskey)

3 Tbsp Demerara Sugar

1/2 oz Dark Rum

Guinness

I know this recipe is in a funny format - I put them in the order you prepare and not the way I usually put things down. 

First pour the whiskey into a pony shot glass (1 oz glass). Set aside. Spoon the Demerara sugar into a wet ~10 oz rocks glass. Swirl the glass to make sure the sides are coated about 3/4 of the way up. Add the dark rum and then pop open your Guinness and pour it in. Before the Guinness has cleared, turn to whomever you are drinking with and say: "If it keeps on rainin'"- Eliciting the response: "Levee's goin' to break" - Drop the whiskey in and take a long slow drought.

A few notes about this cocktail: You may use brown sugar or raw sugar if you don't have Demerara laying around. Though a few bucks at a natural food market will get you enough Demerara to last you a year or two. There is (obviously) too much sugar in this cocktail. The intention is for you to have some sediment on the bottom and froth all down the glass when you finish.

Finally, here is the original recipe I started with, which got the response "Uck, it tastes like muddy water" from my taster.

Muddy Delta 1.0

2 Tbsp Demerara Sugar

3-4 Dashes Fee Brothers Bitters

Guinness

1.5 Oz Scotch

A Day of Rosiness - Midday Tincture

That's right, it's time for the second installment of rosy drinks to get you through the day. Hopefully your Morning Effusion has put you in a perfect place to appreciate your very own Midday Tincture:

This drink started its life as a Rosy Deacon, but quickly morphed into something different. At first taste, the Rosy Deacon is a little jarring to me. The gin and grapefruit juice certainly pair nicely, but the sloe gin is too sweet and thick in your mouth and throat. Instead of leaving you hungry for more, it almost makes you want to - gasp - clear your mouth with some water.

Rosy Deacon
3/4 oz Gin
3/4 oz Sloe Gin
1 oz Grapefruit Juice
Sugar to Taste

Rosy Deacon (Try 2)
1 oz gin
1/2 oz Sloe Gin
1 oz Grapefruit Juice
Sugar

For the second try, I went with frosting the glass with sugar rather than actually mixing any into the drink, as the original was more than a little too sweet. This one was better, but still not a cocktail I'd recommend. I liked the dryness of the grapefruit juice, but since I know I won't usually have grapefruit juice on hand, I tried out a new recipe that substitutes vermouth for the fruit juice. The result is a cocktail I could happily drink to keep me Rosy.

Rosy Layman
1 oz Gin
1/2 oz Dry Vermouth
1/2 oz Sloe Gin
1/4 oz Grenadine Syrup
Sugar

Once again, I frosted the glass with sugar, which was very successful. The Rosy Layman has a sour taste, but the sugar from the rim sweetens it up just a little bit. The combination of dry vermouth and gin are crisp enough that they cut through both the sloe and the grenadine. I was a little afraid that this would be little more than a gin martini, as the scent when I make it is very similar. That ended up being a totally unnecessary worry, and the Layman is its own beast.

Until Alpenglow, stay rosy.

A Day of Rosiness - Morning Effusion

In several parts, I would like to present to you a day's worth of cocktails that will keep you rosy. To start things off, we have the Morning Effusion, a Rosy Navel:

Morning Effusion:

Rosy Navel
4 oz Rosé Wine
1 oz Curacao
2 oz Orange Juice
Lemon-Lime Soda

Add the wine, curacao, and orange juice to a shaker half full with ice and stir languidly. Do not shake, as this will really mess up the taste from the rosé (unless you're throwing a party with this stuff and you've gone for box o' wine in which case who the hell cares if you shake it?) Pour into collins glass with some ice, then top with the soda. Garnish if you wish with a lemon wedge.

This cocktail is obviously light on liquor, which makes it perfect for an early start to the drinking day. A few glasses of this will add the requisite glow to the morning and get you ready for our Midday Tincture.

Satanic Cocktails - Demon of Destiny

A vortex of taste greets your pallet - the scent is undefined, but crisp and fiesty. You get a feeling like there is someone waiting behind you, or is that just the hair on the back of your neck standing up as your tongue goes numb with the next sip?

The effervescent cocktail before you beckons you with riches, it's golden shade mocking your impoverished soul, daring you to dream of the riches your hellish desires contain.

You may have just been shown your demonic destiny.

Demon of Destiny
1.5 oz. Gin
.75 oz Sweet Vermouth
.5 oz Absinthe
.25 oz Tequila
.25 oz Agave Syrup

Add all ingredients into a shaker half full with ice. Shake like you want the minions of hell to break out of their fiery (icy) tombs. Double strain to remove all of the small ice chunks - you want this cocktail to glisten. Let the demonic struggle begin as the tequila, absinthe, agave, and gin all fight tooth and horn to be the last taste left in your mouth.

Progenitor: Destiny Cocktail

Midori Challenge

I bought a bottle of Midori in a weak moment a few months back - I'd heard quite a few recipes that used them, and though none of the recipes seemed like they were my type, I figured it had to have some redeeming qualities.
 When I got to the end of the Behind the Bar episodes I was interested in, I listened to some of the ones that didn't interest me at all - and since I can usually trust a Mr. Martini recommendation, I was unwisely swayed to buying Midori (Episode 27).  After several recipe tries, I can't yet find any that work - and this is in part because of its color.  It has that sickening sweetness of other products like sloe gin and Ecto-Cooler.  Ugh.  But worst of all, it's alien green.

One bad decision led to another - I took my first try directly from the little booklet that comes with a bottle of Midori. I figured, hey, that ain't a bad place to start...

And that leads me to the CHALLENGE:
Design and test a Midori drink that works.
Name it, post it here in comments, or send me an email with the details. I'll test it out if the ingredients aren't too hard to come by, and if I agree, I'll put it up.

White Dog

According to my research, the bottle of White Dog Whiskey I just picked up is a sign of the new small distilleries coming to the whiskey scene.  I have to make a stunning confession - I've never had moonshine.  I know, shocking, right.  Well, this is a 62.5% bomb that will burn your taste buds like a flask of 151º at Hallomass

Recipe attempts:

2 oz white dog
3/4 oz lemon juice
spoonful sweet vermouth
1/2 oz agave syrup (or simple syrup)
1 dash orange bitters

Taste not complete, strong white dog finish


2 oz white dog
3/4 oz lemon juice
1/2 oz sweet vermouth
1/2 oz agave (or simple syrup)
2 dash angustura bitters

Taste still not complete


1 1/2 oz white dog
1 1/2 oz london dry gin
1/2 oz sweet vermouth
1 oz lime juice
1 egg white
1/2 oz agave (or simple syrup)
2 dash angustura bitters


1 1/2 oz white dog
1 1/2 oz london dry gin
1/2 oz sweet vermouth
1/2 oz dry vermouth
1/2 oz agave
2 dash angustura
1 egg

I wrote down these recipes months and months ago when I first bought White Dog. I got drunk making this post and never finished it. I decided to post it despite not having a complete recipe to present. At some point I plan on finishing it and presenting a Redface Original.  TBA.

Guest Column - Fair Well Through the Stormy Seas

I have never been one to drink the same thing time in and time out, so it's nice to have new suggestions to try. However, I recently rekindled a fond relationship that has been dormant as of late. She goes by the name of Dark and Stormy, not sure if you are familiar with her but I thought I'd share.

http://www.goslingsrum.com/home.asp

Start with one of my favorite rums, Gosling's Dark Rum (or any dark rum for that matter). Gosling's isn't too strong, but it's inexpensive and I love the sweet finish. Then all you need is some ginger beer. The Gosling's brand will do in a pinch but I recommend Reed's if you can find it. Reed's is less sweet and more bitter/gingery, which I feel compliments the rum more, which is already sweet enough.

Dark and Stormy   
6oz Ginger Beer
4-6oz Dark Rum

I like to keep the rum in the freezer as apposed to shaking it with some ice to avoid watering it down but either will suffice. Ginger beer goes in first, then the rum, don't stir, and enjoy. The rum will settle at the top at first, making the glass seem like a dark horizon, but will eventually mix as you drink. Hope you like it.

-Lager 

The Preakness

Sometimes it startles me how lost I was in drinking before I found the Manhattan. It is such a quintessential part of drinking in the United States.  I know that I'd heard about it many times - maybe it's my contrarian nature, maybe it's the fact that when you're in college, anything more complicated than a screwdriver or a whiskey sour (using sour mix) is out of the question. 

Anyway, as I've delved into Manhattans, I've found a few fantastic variations along the way.  Tonight's cocktail is one of the many drinks in the fashion of the old standby.

The Preakness (Or The Bull Manhattan)

A couple ounces Bourbon
Around an ounce of Sweet Vermouth
A pour or two of Benedictine (or B&B if it's what you have)
A dash of bitters

Stir and serve in a manly-ass glass.

This will not overwhelm you with fine taste, surprise you with unexpected depth, or disappoint you by skipping the alcoholic punch.  It's a straightforward bourbon drink, and it will taste similar to a Manhattan.  Personally, I prefer it without the bitters, and with a heavy helping of B&B, but if you put too much in, you run the risk of creating a new bourbon-brandy cocktail, and not really following the flavor of the Manhattan. 

Palative Potables - Outraged

Now, to be perfectly honest, I turn to the Dry Gin Martini frequently, for a variety of reasons, and even when I have no particular reason.  However, there is at least one occasion in particular when I turn to the dry gin martini - when I am pissed off.

A dry martini doesn't mess around.  It doesn't compromise, and it doesn't hide.  A dry martini has few ingredients - and they are both easy to find.  You can make as many different dry martinis as there are gins, dry vermouths, and ratios between the two.  When you drink a dry martini, it takes about as much from you as you take from it.

A Martini Moment

When I am angry and need to clear my head, I often turn to a dry martini.  It's no-nonsense complexion demands my attention at the same time that it oils my gears.  No matter how sour the thoughts on my mind, the cutting combination of dry spiced wine and London Dry Gin will force me to grimace and grin in a way that only the martini-drinkers of the world will understand.

My personal dry gin martini recipe (I am playing around with the classic touch of adding orange bitters, give it a try)

Redface's Personal Dry Gin Martini
5 parts London Dry Gin
1 part dry vermouth

Place 4-5 ice cubes in shaker, 3-4 cubes in a small cocktail glass.  Add the dry vermouth (or add a full shot and then strain it, your call) and the gin.  Shake three times lightly.  Slowly and deliberately double strain the martini into the cocktail glass (discard the ice obviously from the glass).  Add no garnish.  Gripping the glass fervently by its stem, think angry thoughts and then snarl into the glass as you suck in a full first sip.

You Always Thought You Were Smarter For Loving Booze.... Now You Know

The beauty in this new report on "Why Intelligent People Drink More Alcohol" is that it defines things so methodically that I couldn't find a single hole in the logic in two full reads (one sober as a monk at matins, the other a few degrees in).  Evolutionarily speaking, smarter individuals try new things - and alcohol is new.

I love it!  Plus, that zinger that finished off the third paragraph had me laughing my ass off.

The final paragraph also had a tidbit of sense that I find refreshing: 

That such behavior [binge drinking and getting druuunk] is detrimental to health and has few, if any, positive consequences, is irrelevant for the Hypothesis.  [The hypothesis] does not predict that more intelligent individuals are more likely to engage in healthy and beneficial behavior.  Instead, it predicts that more intelligent individuals are more likely to engage in evolutionarily novel behavior.  

 Intelligent people are not, ceteris paribus, more likely to make good (healthy, moral, salacious) decisions, they are just more apt to do novel evolutionary things.  Brilliant!  This means I can still plausibly claim to be intelligent while also explaining why I am ombibulous and spent the whole day Sunday feeling like crap.

The Duchess

Simple cocktail recipes always make me happy.  There's something rewarding about mixing a cocktail with even proportions, simple combinations, or easily accessible ingredients.  Well, the recipe I have in mind today fits two of those three - absinthe is still not quite as accessible as most liquors. 

You might remember the Duchess Cocktail from A Night of Vermouths.  The Duchess was a pleasant surprise, and one that has set me down a whole different path in cocktails since then.  There's something snooty about vermouth to me.  Maybe it's the fact that Jungle Juice was about the flavor complexity available in college before the Slickheel Saloon opened up.

Either way, the Duchess is a perfect example of a simple cocktail that uses the flavors of strong ingredients to craft a unique taste.

The Duchess
1/3 Sweet Vermouth
1/3 Dry Vermouth
1/3 Absinthe

Last time I said give it a light shake, this time I'll advocate stirring it.  It won't make too much difference, so do it however you'd like.  Now after a few of these, I decided the flavors were a little too touchy - one of the ones I made had a little too much anise aftertaste, one had too much dryness.  So to remedy both, I decided to add (what else?) some bitters.  My call was Peychaud's bitters, as it darkened the drink a little (I was having a little trouble with the color being a sickly mix of green absinthe and sweet vermouth, so some peychauds darkened it up). 

Gan Bei!

Satanic Cocktails - 吃 火 魔鬼

This installment of Satanic Cocktails is the Meehouland - The Fire Eating Devil.

吃 火 魔鬼
1 1/2 oz Sloe Gin
1/2 oz Sweet Vermouth
1/2 oz Dry Vermouth
1 Dash Orange Bitters
Lime Wedge


Stir and strain.

I would suggest that you pour this into a thin, curvaceous glass, rather than a more angular glass like a rocks glass.    I'm not sure about the taste, because of the Sloe Gin, it has that sticky sweetness that a fake colored liqueur gives, and it stays coloring the glass.  I've come to love the effect perfect vermouth has on most simple liquor mixtures.  I'm glad my distaste for dry vermouth in my martinis (which endures) did not prevent me from learning to love vermouth in all sorts of cocktails.