And quality goes beyond just the spirit itself. Everything from the glass used to the ice added to the way it’s imbibed — strawed, sipped, slurped, or anything in-between — is critical. It’s history in a glass. Or a coffee cup, or a tin, or a faux-copper mug imported from China to make your (also fake) Moscow Mules.

  I’m a fan of mixology, but I’m not a fan of mixology for mixology’s sake. What I mean by that is I like good drinks. I’m a huge fan of figuring out how to make a drink taste better, and be an overall better experience for the drinker. But I don’t unnecessarily garnish — no flowers just because they look purty. No skewered cornucopias of pineapple, maraschino cherries, and orange slices in my Mai Tais, and no inch-deep sludge of macerated cherry-blueberry-lime mush at the bottom of my Old Fashioned. I want to drink good things, and I want my customers to drink good things, and that’s that. If it doesn’t make it taste better it doesn’t go in my drinks.

  People have come to expect this sort of “quality control” from me. They visit me to get to the root of a drink. The essence of the elixir. The the clarity of the concoction. They don’t come in expecting two dollar you-call-its, because they know that what I’ll call it is a “get out right now.”

  That said, I’m an easy guy. If you want a real drink, made the right way, I’m the guy to ask. I’m happy to oblige your requests, within reason. Never tasted a blackberry Old Fashioned? You’re missing out, and I’d be more than happy to whip one right up. But if you ask for your Old Fashioned seasoned with those fake red nuclear cherries and topped with a spritzer of soda, because “that’s how Granddad made them,” then I’m sorry. You’re wrong. (Sorry Wisconsin).

  So if you’re here to learn a little about mixology from a guy who’s seen or done most of it, I’m your guy. If you’re here to cut through the crap, to learn how the masters and the legends the guys that actually invented this stuff did it, I’m your guy.

  At the same time, I fully recognize that you’re most likely not a bartender. You’re probably not interested in spending your last two months’ worth of paychecks at the liquor store in order to fill your home bar with every obscure liqueur and every shade of dryness of sherries and vermouths in order to make a thousand-ingredient-long drink recipe.

  You just want to impress yourself and your spouse, and occasionally a friend or three. You want a good drink that lends itself to smooth enjoyment, welcomes discussion, and brings people together. You may not be classy, but you want to feel classy.

  This book is for you.

  Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?

  Think about how you usually go about making a drink. You must first determine what you want to drink. A daiquiri? Margarita, maybe? Switch styles altogether and go for a rum and Coke? Get crazy and try to replicate that Fuzzy Navel shot you had in South Padre thirty years ago?

  Easy — you know what you want, then you go and find a recipe for it by typing it into a search engine on your phone. Or you wait a few minutes and totally forget about it because the lasagna’s about to burn, opting instead for that open can of beer that’s already in the fridge. Hell, why dig through an ancient piece of furniture to find the single bottle of rum (just rum, not Jamaican rum, or Cuban, or — God help you — coconut-flavored “rum”).

  Besides, it’s all the way in the other room.

  But the thought doesn’t go away. You’re at the supermarket. You remember last weekend with the gals, and aside from Lucy and her ridiculous laugh, it wasn’t an overly annoying night! You might even do it again next month! You had fun, actually. You even told them that next time you’d whip up a batch of mojitos — the ‘Perfect Summer Drink,’ you remember reading on Pinterest.

  So there you are in the supermarket recalling your glory days and what’s that? Right across the way from the off-brand diet sodas? A whole shelf full of mixers and drink starters. Everything from I Can’t Believe It’s Not Margarita Mix to pre-squeezed-and-somehow-maybe-it’s-magic-but-it’s-a-whole-bottle-of-it “real” lime juice. Pineapple juice that promises to wait at least a few months before it starts to go bad? Check. Cosmopolitan mix that urges you toward its beckoning curves? You know it.

  Then you spot it on the bottom shelf (but that’s just for picking out Scotch, right? Surely “bottom shelf” doesn’t mean anything in a supermarket?), but it’s there. “Mojito mix,” right there on the label. They even put the quotes around the words for you, so they won’t get sued for false advertising.

  Lime(y something), preservatives, and sugar. A dash of mint-flavored juice (essential oil?), and shake it all up with your favorite (read: that dusty bottle from the bottom of Granny’s bequeathed furniture) rum, and you’ve got…

  Mojitos. Or is that… “mojitos?”

  Emphasis on the question mark.

  Something seems off, but you’re not sure what it is.

  You’ve had a mojito before, but it was after you’d already had six Mai Tais and a Bahama Mama when the guy at the bar in that place you’ve all but forgotten about that was probably Mexico whose head was perpetually shaking tried to coax you to a more reasonable — and respectable — drink choice. It was your honeymoon, after all, and you were going to… wait for it… get slammered.

  You did.

  You felt great.

  Or something. You definitely felt something the next day.

  But after the hangover wore off and the pictures were deleted, you kept that one special memory: “I like to drink Mojitos because the fancy guy at the bar told me in Spanish that I would like it.”

  So you grab for the mojito mix without thinking twice about it. Check out and go home, and whip up a batch.

  Again, something’s… different. You’re not wasted this time: maybe that’s it. Intelligently, you decide to drink fourteen of them in rapid succession, because that’s how the scientific method works (as you remember it from middle school chemistry class), and you need to set up the experiment exactly as the control specified.

  Still, something’s wrong. Not horribly wrong, but definitely something in the realm of okay-I’ll-drink-this-but-I-don’t-want-Lucy-to-because-she’ll-do-that-snorty-laugh-crap sort of wrong.

  Dammit Lucy.

  Lucy ruined your store-bought mojito.

  It’s okay, though. I’m here to help.

  I’m here to take your Faux-jito back out of Lucy’s sweaty fingers. Reclaim it for what it’s worth: an actual, real summertime pleasure.

  I’ll show you how to make it (hint: it involves three of the same ingredients we mentioned earlier. Most importantly, it leaves out something that rhymes with ‘preburvatives.’ I’ll also show you how to mix it. How to serve it. What to serve it in. When to serve it. When to think about it. When not to think about it. What to listen to when drinking it.

  And, maybe, even more.

  You’ll learn the basics of what a good drink is, and what you need to do to make sure it’ll taste as awesomely samely every single time, no matter how ‘slammered’ you get. Everyone at your parties will hail you as their official Drink Chief or Chiefess, handing you empty glasses and demanding that you pour them another, all night long.

  You’ll even learn a few of the tricks of the trade, the sort of thing that take drink-making from the miserable dregs of pseudo-housekeeping into the realms of Navy Seal-level awesomeness. You’ll learn how to mix drinks quickly, efficiently, and perfectly, making sure your concoctions are the same no matter if you’re making one for the hubby or twenty for the Bunco group that meets every other Thursday in your too-small living room.

  You’ll be a pro, or at least you’ll look like one. And that’s all that matters, right?

  It’ll be fun, unlike Lucy before she’s drunk.

  It’ll be like your honeymoon, but you’ll remember (most of) it.

  Ready?

  1

  Ingredients

  First things first: Let’s talk about what goes in the drinks you want to create. The stuff you’ll want to have on hand for those random drop-ins from friends and family. The stuff you’ll want to just buy whenever you’re doing the grocery shopping because it’s cheap, easy to find, and can last a little while in the fridge.

  Regardless of how much drinking you do, there’s not a lot of money required to get into having a decent setup for just about any occasion. People tend to either not buy fresh ingredients because they drink too much — they don’t want to be going to the grocery store for limes every ten minutes — or because they don’t drink often enough to make it worthwhile.

  This is exactly why the mixers, “just-add-whatever” mixes, and pre-mades got popular. They know you can store a bottle of lemony sugar water in the fridge a lot longer than you can store lemons. And the price seems right.

  But again, to reference the introduction (and beat a proverbial dead horse), you don’t like mixers. You don’t like pre-made drinks. You think you do, but you are wrong. I am right, so listen to me.

  And it might surprise you how little you can made do with. Ready?

  Here’s what every aspiring mixologist’s kitchen needs to have, in terms of fresh ingredients:

  - Limes

  - Lemons

  Did you get all that?

  Now, you cheapskates out there (looking at you, Lucy) might think something along the lines of, “aw, well, citrus is citrus, and when I bake tilapia I just use whichever one I have on hand.”

  Stop it.

  Stop thinking that.

  Lemons are not limes. And limes are definitely not lemons. Limes are probably more unlike lemons than lemons are unlike limes, though (don’t worry it, it’s science).

  You need both, but — good news — if you live in a place that rhymes with Juhmurica and it’s not 1950, lemons and limes are copious and affordable.

  Last I checked, I’m nowhere near where limes and lemons are born, and they’re still like eight-hundred-for-a-dollar. Or at least six for a dollar. If you need a dollar, send me an email — I’d be glad to spot you, just so I can watch your head explode when you try a real Whiskey Sour for the first time.

  Now, let’s get a bit more down and dirty.

  There are other things you’ll probably want on hand, but there’s a good chance you already them. Things like:

  - Eggs

  - Oranges

  - Mint leaves

  - Some sort of berries (strawberry, raspberry, blueberry, chokeberry, dingleberry)

  - Lemon-line soda

  …And that’s it.

  Seriously — making fine cocktails is an art as much as it is a science, but there’s a universal truth that I just made up about it: use the finest ingredients and it doesn’t really matter what the hell is in it.

  If you start with some fresh, real fruit, add in some not-shitty liquor, and pop an ice cube or three, you’ll have a drink. It might not win a mixology award (those are real, by the way), but it’ll work in a pinch.

  There are special fancy ways to mix that drink and those ingredients together, but the gist of it is simple:

  Fresh, real ingredients + not-shitty spirit = good drink

  It doesn’t really get any simpler than that.

  Okay, let’s continue. You’ll need sugar, but I didn’t include that on the lists above because there’s really no such thing as “fresh” sugar (it doesn’t matter if you have to tear it out of a tiny packet or scoop it out of a bag) and just about everyone already has sugar. If you don’t have sugar, you’re a hippie and need to go live in Boulder, Colorado with all the other hippies. And then go buy sugar.

  You’ll also need some way to make ice or buy ice, but cold water would, technically, work. You’d be able to make an historically accurate Old Fashioned with no ice, but your frozen margaritas will be a little bit squishy.

  Finally, if you want to get really fancy before you even get started, do yourself a favor and find a liquor store that sells some of those ridiculously expensive cherries.* Luxardo is highly recommended, as is Woodford Reserve, but with the latter you’ll pay an extra dollar because their name shares a name with a popular whiskey. Luxardo cherries are just the right amount of sweetness and real cherry flavor, without taking over whatever drink you’re popping them in.

  *If you just thought to yourself, “my gosh, I could save the money and just use the jar of those bright-red maraschino cherries I’ve had in my fridge since my daughter’s eighth birthday party when they wanted to make sundaes,” then stop reading this book right now, go grab that jar, and smash it over your head**

  **I assume no liability whatsoever if you actually smash a jar of any kind over your head.

  * (continued) Maraschino cherries, at least the kind that we Americans know about, are not anything close to real maraschino cherries. To make them, they’re marinated in high-fructose corn syrup and Red #5 for weeks, but only after they’ve been bleached with some crap called calcium chloride and sulfur dioxide until they turn yellow (hence the Red #5 later in their life). Don’t buy bright-red nuclear maraschino cherries***

  ***DO NOT BUY BRIGHT-RED NUCLEAR MARASCHINO CHERRIES.

  Okay, back to the ingredients. You’ve got a short list of inexpensive list (with the possible exception of the fancy cherries) of fresh ingredients to buy for drink-mixing. If you went to the store and bought nothing else, then went to the liquor store and bought what you find in the next chapter, you’d be set.

  All of the drinks in this little manual can be made with those items on those lists, and when it’s appropriate, I’ve included some substitute ingredients that can either make the drink more exciting, more fun, or just more interesting.

  The key to drink-making, in my mind, is to learn the fundamentals first. Learn the formula for a sour, a martini, an old fashioned. Then branch out with your ingredients and experiment. Or don’t. It’s up to you, but let’s make a deal right off the bat:

  You will no longer purchase mixers of any kind.

  Got it? Good.

  Full shopping list for this section:

  - Lemons

  - Limes

  - Oranges

  - Berries

  - Mint leaves

  - Eggs

  - Lemon-lime soda

  - Sugar

  - Ice

  2

  Booze

  Ah, the booze. The reason you drink. The only thing separating an ice-cold cola from a dammit-I-drank-too-much hangover. The juice of champions.

  Booze is, surprisingly, a required ingredient in every single cocktail, mixed drink, and alcoholic beverage (I know, right?). It’s found in many forms, and none of the styles within those forms are created equal. For that reason, I’ve dedicated an entire (albeit short) chapter on the subject.

  First things first: let’s talk through what your home bar setup needs to have, in generic terms. Don’t go rushing out to the store yet, as we’ll get specific later. For now, here’s an overview of what liquors you’ll want to have on hand at any given time (I mean any given time! If I come over to your house before 7am, I’m going to want — need — a mimosa, or a bellini, or at least a shot of bourbon).

  Your basic liquor cabinet:

  - White rum

  - Bourbon

  - Gin

  - Vodka

  That’s it. Again, dead-simple and to-the-point. Now, let’s get into why I’ve chosen these and not others.

  First, I like them. All of the things on this list, with the slight exception of vodka, because it’s flavorless if it’s any good, tastes great by itself. Rum can be close to vodka in terms of neutrality of taste, but since there are about a million different styles of rum that all have completely different flavors, it’s still a great I-want-to-feel-like-a-pirate shot if you’re being lazy.

  Second, these four magical liquids will allow you to create countless mixed drinks. Mix one of these with any of the ingredients in the previous chapter, and you have a specific, unique beverage. It probably already has a name, so don’t get too excited, but you can already see how easy it is to experiment.

  These four will get you through a party where you play bartender, and your guests should all be able to order something they enjoy that you’ve got the ingredients and recipes for. Sound crazy? It is. It is crazy easy to make drinks that taste amazing.

  So, let’s get a little fancy. There are a few other things I’ve left off the required liquors list that you may want to grab if time and budget permits:

  - Dark rum (or spiced rum if you must, though these aren’t exactly interchangeable)

  - Tequila

  - Scotch

  Again, a short list (see a theme here?). And, what’s better, all of the liquors in your cabinet, not including Scotch, should be pretty close to bottom-shelf in terms of price. Don’t get the cheapest one you can find, but certainly don’t drop $50 on the top-shelf version of “tequila” at your local liquor store.

  Why? Well, you’re just starting out — you may not know what you like. If you do, then realize that in these recipes, you’re mixing these liquors with other ingredients, so some of the stuff you’re paying for with high-dollar versions — age, smoothness, auxiliary flavors — gets a bit lost in some of the drinks. I’ll always be an advocate of using the finest ingredients — especially liquor — you can afford, but when you’re looking at an initial purchase of over $500 just to get started, I’d say start slow. Start cheap. Make the drinks I’m talking about here, and get to know them. Make them again. Ask yourself if they wouldn’t taste a bit better with better spirits to start with, or whether you’d like it with a different type of rum or whiskey (or whisky, if you want to get pedantic).

  Then drop the cash. Splurge on the best bottle of VSOP you can find, or the go-to favorite rye that you know will just absolutely crush your Manhattans and make Sarah’s new rich husband so damn happy he’ll just have to invite your family to the company picnic.

  That’s not to say you shouldn’t get the most expensive brand that you can reasonably afford now. Like I said, don’t grab the plastic bottles. Get glass. It’s not exactly science, but the shitty stuff goes in plastic and the not-quite-shitty stuff and above goes in glass. That’s about all you need to know the first time you’re standing in the aisle of a big-box liquor outlet, hoping for inspiration from the spirit spirits. The bathtub booze-flavored stuff is in plastic, and that’s as bad as using bright-red maraschino cherries*

 

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