Sipping Hour

Sharing cocktail experiments, favourite bars and other drinking delights.

[Sipping Hour @SippingHour]

Dead of the Dead cocktail: tequila meets chocolate in this tasty sour.

For "Ashes to Ashes", shake together reposado tequila (45ml), Pedro Ximenez sherry (15ml), lemon juice (30ml), cocoa (1 tsp), agave (10ml)—and then a pinch of cinnamon to garnish.

💀🍸😋

[Sipping Hour @SippingHour]

Mixing up a little geography with my evening sippers recently with these New York-area-named cocktails: Bensonhurst (SW Brooklyn) and Greenpoint (N Brooklyn). Both are variations on the Brooklyn cocktail, itself a riff on the Manhattan. Do keep up. 🍷🍷🍷🍷

[Sipping Hour @SippingHour]

Well, it is Friday after all. Happy sipping!

(Illustration from Cocktail Parade, 1933)

[Sipping Hour @SippingHour]

Cheers to William Faulkner, born this day 1897. A whiskey man, he counted amongst his favourite drinks a Mint Julep and his own recipe for a Hot Toddy that cold cure anything "from a broken leg to a broken heart".

[Sipping Hour @SippingHour]

Sutter's Mill, ie, a Gold Rush with grated cinnamon. (Recipe also calls for a pineapple wedge garnish, but hey, not something I had lying round the house.)

Shake with ice: 22ml honey syrup; 22ml lemon juice; 60ml of bourbon. Grated cinnamon on top to finish.

[Sipping Hour @SippingHour]

Apple Old Fashioned—30ml rye whiskey, 30ml Calvados, orange bitters and a little sugar. I also did that thing when you burn a cinnamon stick under the glass and quickly add the drink. It's getting quite fancy these days 🥃🥃

[Sipping Hour @SippingHour]

It's about time I made a longer drink. Presenting the Bicycle Thief: https://t.co/sSHwxybknV

Normal service will resume tomorrow 🥃🍷🥃🍷

[Sipping Hour @SippingHour]

Two Yellow Chartreuse cocktails worthy of your time:

Naked and Famous
https://t.co/HETfM2F2CB

Greenpoint
https://t.co/LeuIL5wYxH

[Sipping Hour @SippingHour]

Cherry Old Fashioned!

Soak a brown sugar cube with 4 dashes of orange bitters and muddle it up. Stir in 30ml @CherryHeering and 30ml Rittenhouse Rye, finish with an orange twist garnish. Then you have yourself a delicious drink!

[Sipping Hour @SippingHour]

It's too hot to do anything other than nap and sip Mint Juleps - that's if you can muster the energy to muddle and swizzle! ☀️

[Sipping Hour @SippingHour]

Finishing off the bank holiday weekend in style with an enduring classic, the Old Fashioned... The hardest decision was rye or bourbon (bourbon won a rare victory this time).

[Sipping Hour @SippingHour]

In praise of Cynar, the often overlooked cousin of Aperol and Campari. It might lack the vibrant colour of its fellow Italian amaro, but I'm enjoying getting to know this dark-brown tipple.

Try a "Too Soon?": https://t.co/SmDuJx9GsD
Or Cynar Manhattan, swapping in for vermouth.

[Sipping Hour @SippingHour]

Calling this one "Triple B"—a lovely blend of bourbon, banana liqueur and butterscotch:

3 dashes of @DashfireBitters mole bitters
60ml bourbon @MichtersWhiskey
15ml banana liqueur @briottetliqueur
15ml butterscotch syrup @Monin_UK
Garnish with an orange twist
🥃🥃🥃🥃🥃

[Sipping Hour @SippingHour]

Now the proud owner of this @BDSpirits Silver Birch Vermouth. England's first white vermouth, it's made from the sap of the silver birch trees that surround the distillery. This will make for a fine bank holiday weekend sipper! 🍸🍸

[Sipping Hour @SippingHour]

Decided to pair up creme de menthe with apple in this sour. Pretty pleased with the result!

Make it by shaking with ice: 15ml lemon juice, 15ml cloudy apple juice, 15ml creme de menthe and 25ml gin. Happy sipping!

[Sipping Hour @SippingHour]

When life gives you an underused bottle of vodka and a thriving mint plant... make creme de menthe.

https://t.co/IJxJJM1MGg

Any suggestions for something exciting I could make with this? 🥂

[Sipping Hour @SippingHour]

Here's a floral-flavoured mule for you—and the perfect reason to get your copper mugs out.

Syrup made by adding 1 cup of sugar to 1 cup of @hampsteadtea's hibiscus and rose hip tea 😋

[Sipping Hour @SippingHour]

Quick-and-easy Paloma, build in salt-rimmed glass:
60ml reposado tequila @AltosTequila
30ml lime juice
top up grapefruit soda @lovemyTing
garnish with lime wedge
🍹🍹🍹🍹🍹

[Sipping Hour @SippingHour]

Sometimes things just fall into place... 🍻

https://t.co/laDjuNOhJ9

[Sipping Hour @SippingHour]

Put my Cynar straight into action with this magnificent aperitif—bitter but light, with a splendid rounding off of orange. Cheers!