Liquid

Brewed in Bruges

Pucker Up

Sweltering summer months are just around the corner, and there are few flavors that scream “refreshment” like the sweet and tangy shades of citrus. Most classic summer beverages — like lemonade, limeade, or iced teas brightened with a generous squeeze of lemon — incorporate citrus in some way, and let’s not forget the intense satisfaction of spending a scorching afternoon sipping margaritas by the pool. Or the TV. Or the bucketful.

Bar stars

Love ’em or loathe ’em, celebrities are easy targets, but they’re also a go-to source of inspiration when naming sandwiches or hairstyles or shades of lipstick. Or, of course, cocktails. Why a mixture of Maker’s Mark, peach liquor, peach nectar, and water constitutes the Matthew McConaughey ($10.50) at The Beehive (541 Tremont Street, Boston, 617.423.0069) or why the A-Roid ($11) at Bonfire (50 Park Plaza, Boston, 617.262.3473) depicts Alex Rodriguez’s drug habits with tequila and house-made spicy tomato juice (served up in a syringe, natch) isn’t important. Cultivate celebrity in a glass, make it taste good, and the giddy kitsch fiends will down this essence of notoriety by the martini glassful.

However, if you’re going to “honor” famous people with a beverage, why hold back? Botoxed bitches and man-eating ego monsters also deserve no less than an unadulterated jab in the metaphorical naughty bits. Turn your celebrity toast into a celebrity roast by mixing the following cocktails, dreamed up by the scheming celeb-o-philes at STUFF with help from the delightfully good-humored Kevin Kodiak at Eastern Standard (528 Comm Ave, Boston, 617.532.9100).


THE LINDSAY LOHAN
In honor of “Firecrotch” herself, this beauty is blond on top, red underneath, and sticky sweet — with just the right amount of attitude.
1 part Schönauer Apfel
1 part grenadine
Layer the ingredients in a cordial glass by pouring the Apfel and adding the grenadine down the side of the glass, tipping it slightly as you do so.


THE CHRISTIAN BALE
This British-inspired drink looks pleasantly tall, dark, and handsome but is surprisingly sour and volatile.
1 part Pimm’s
3 parts lemon juice
Worcestershire sauce
Mustard powder
Wet the rim of a glass with Worcestershire sauce and dip it in the mustard powder. Mix the Pimm’s, lemon juice, and a bar spoon of Worcestershire, then top with soda. Garnish with an English cucumber.


THE BERNIE MADOFF
The Bernie costs $10, but promises to give you back $15 at the end of the night.
5 oz Elderberry Manischewitz
All of the money you have, shredded
Salt
Lime
Muddle the money, lime, and salt at the bottom of a glass. Top with Manischewitz. Gulp the whole thing without considering the consequences.


THE CHRIS BROWN
A behemoth cocktail that’s strong, utterly classless, and a real punch in the face.
40 oz Colt 45
1 bottle Mount Gay Barbados Rum
Chug the Colt 45. Attempt to throw the bottle of rum out of your car, then wrap your hands around its neck and squeeze as hard as you can. Garnish with a raw T-bone steak.

Join the club

Whiskey is one of those spirits with multiple personalities: the sure sign of a seasoned palate, a stodgy accessory for ascot-wearing octogenarians, and a long-revered fix-it-all home remedy. However, it can be intimidating for people who don’t know much about it, especially because whiskey is, as a subject, incredibly complicated. Whether you’re already an aficionado or simply a curious whiskey-drinkin’ wannabe, Canadian Club 30 Year is a stellar way to enjoy the wonders of grain-mash spirits. This very limited edition whiskey (only 3000 bottles available!) was just released in celebration of Canadian Club’s 150th anniversary, and at around $200 a bottle, it is truly something special — luscious, golden, and smooth, with light notes of brown sugar, caramel, and a hint of freshly whittled oak. In fact, it’s so special that it’s tricky to find. It’s so exclusive, so doggone VIP that there’s not even information about it on Canadian Club’s website, giving the 30 Year the kind of untouchable mystique usually enjoyed by swank A-listers. It’ s the perfect way to pamper yourself when you want a relaxing night in, and it will catapult you to whiskey superstardom in the awed eyes of your friends when entertaining. Special order a bottle from Federal Wine & Spirits (29 State Street, Boston, 617.367.8605) or V. Cirace & Son (173 North Street, Boston, 617.227.3193) for a spectacularly sultry drinking experience.

Veg out

Cocktails are one of the only affordable self-pampering indulgences we have left in this terrible economy. Who can splurge on a car or a spa vacation or a pony right now? Most of us are freaking out because we have no money. But multi-taskers have reason to rejoice: you can combine your quest to find your inner Zen master with your self-medicating impulse to down cocktail after sweet, sweet cocktail.

Cucumber season is around the corner, and thank God. Everyone’s favorite phallic vegetable is an instant cure for those puffy eyes — you know, the ones that have swelled up to bee-stung proportions thanks to bouts of finance-related weeping. Take a deep breath, then a deep swig of the Cucumber and Pomegranate Mojito ($17) at Sensing (3 Battery Wharf, Boston, 617.994.9000); its hand-pressed English cucumber and fresh organic mint are lightly muddled in Bacardi Light and brightened even further with fresh lime and pomegranate. Or unwind over Le Gaston 76 ($9), a soothing elixir of cucumber, tarragon, and Lillet Blanc that’s the toast of Ten Tables (597 Centre Street, Jamaica Plain, 617.524.8810 and 5 Craigie Street, Cambridge, 617.576.5444).

Of course, the healing powers of cucumber are heightened when the veggie joins forces with fresh mint; cooling and sweet, it’s an essential ingredient for perking you right up and out of a slump. (Not a financial slump, unfortunately.) The Mint and Cucumber Cocktail ($12) at Rendezvous (502 Mass Ave, Cambridge, 617.576.1900), made from Hendrick’s gin with mint, cucumber, lemon, and lime, does the trick in an instant.

Aloe vera, a sort of natural Band-Aid and burn remedy, can fix your insides, too. Start the recovery with an Ello Ginny ($11) from OM (92 Winthrop Street, Cambridge, 617.576.2800), featuring aloe vera juice, Tanqueray Ten, and strawberry gel squares. It’ll cool down your recession-fueled rage.

As any half-assed aromatherapist can tell you, lavender can instantly coax you down from basket-case freakout mode. If you’ve got ten minutes and know how to boil water, you’re baby steps away from burying your face in a homemade lavender cocktail. Pick up some dried lavender (or any herb of your choice, for that matter) at Christina’s Spice & Specialty Foods (1255 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, 617.576.2090) to toss into simple syrup. Stirring constantly, heat one cup of sugar and one cup of water until the sugar dissolves, and then bring it to a boil. Add a tablespoon of the lavender, let it steep for a few minutes, strain, and let cool. Add to the vodka of your choice, and voila! Instant calm. If only the economic stimulus plan had been this easy to whip up.

Bittersweet Symphony

We’re still bitter.

Let me explain. Last summer, we wrote an insider piece on bitters that seems, in hindsight, to have been fueled by ESP. Bitters are finally starting to enjoy a tenure in the mainstream cocktail spotlight — which is confusing, because despite the fact that the herbal concoction is a foundational flavor element of many classic and reconstructed cocktails, most people won’t break their necks craning to see what selection of bitters is available behind the bar. And why would they? Bitters (generally pungent, tasting of herbs and citrus) are used drop by painstaking drop, making up approximately one one-billionth of a cocktail. Who cares?

Come to Grappa!

Grappa novices are often wary of this sturdy spirit, and with good reason. The grape brandy, distilled from the fruit “offal” (e.g., skins, stems, and seeds) left over after pressing grapes for wine, is one of the many epicurean prides and joys of Italy, but it can hit your palate so powerfully that it feels like you’ve just been on a nose-candy bender with an aging punk rocker. Still, developing a taste for this strong stuff can be enjoyable, especially if you ease into it as a cocktail component before starting to knock it back straight, as a digestivo (the way Italians do after a sumptuous meal). BiNA osteria (581 Washington Street, Boston, 617.956.0888) employs grappa in its Bassano Mule cocktail ($10), a fruity Italian twist on the Dark ’n’ Stormy: spicy ginger beer with Nardini Tagliatella, which is an infusion of grappa and cherry juice, with a hint of citrus.

At Prezza (24 Fleet Street, Boston, 617.227.1577), grappa kicks up another cocktail classic, in the Grappagroni ($12.50), inspired by the beloved Negroni, which calls for gin, vermouth, and Campari. Prezza’s version mixes Nonino Moscato grappa, Punt e Mes, and sweet vermouth, garnished with a slice of orange. Bellissimo.

Punch it up

Even crackerjack coquettes can use a little help chatting up a paramour every once in a while. Flirting is always easier when there’s liquid courage involved, and perhaps even more so when you’re ladling it à deux. Punch bowls appeal to multiple sensibilities: there are the classic, cut-glass nebulae of 1950s house parties; your grandmother’s favorite for fancying up the holiday kids’ table; or those vats of mystery bug juice at camp — later, at frat parties. Sharing a punch bowl at a smokin’-hot nightspot is an easy way to toast your friends, and make a few more in the process.

Island spirit

Warm up this winter with rums from around the world 

The spirit of postcard-perfect islands the world over, rum has long been associated with balmy climates and fruity potables. Distilled from sugar-cane by-products (usually molasses) and often regarded as the nectar of the Caribbean, this sweet liquor has actually popped up, historically, all over the world, earning shout-outs in pirate ditties and rendering groggy members of the British Royal Navy, well, groggy.

Happy Accidents

Sometimes a bar mistake can be a beautiful thing

A little imagination and a willingness to experiment can transform a potential disaster into a culinary triumph. Need proof? How about famous “oops” moments such as chocolate-chip cookies, ice-cream cones, and the microwave? And plenty of classic cocktails were purportedly created when bartenders ran out of specific ingredients and made heat-of-the-moment substitutions. The mark of a seasoned beverage professional is the ability to think creatively and use slip-ups to his or her advantage. Risky, sure, but sometimes downright fantastic.

A faulty soda machine was the inspiration for the Broken Machine ($10.50) at the Beehive (541 Tremont Street, Boston, 617.423.0069). Legend has it that a server went to fill a glass with Coke and got nothing but syrup out of the fountain. Quick-thinking bartenders added the syrup to dark rum, topped it with ginger beer, and voilà — enter a twist on a classic that kicks it up with spicy panache. It’s a great gateway cocktail for people who love rum and Cokes and Dark and Stormys but are looking for a change.

’Tis The Season

 

There’s nothing that can lift us out of an old-man-winter slump quite like the sight of this season’s gray-leather stacked-heel Chloé riding boots (hear that, Santa?). Well, that and a perfectly crafted — and much more wallet-friendly — glass of eggnog. There’s something about the decadently sweet drink that makes us want to cozy up on the couch and sip our way through the snowy nights. And now some local restaurants are celebrating by adding the cold-weather pick-me-up to their seasonal cocktail lists. For starters, there’s the eggnog ($14) at Excelsior (272 Boylston Street, Boston, 617.426.7878), a classic combination of cinnamon, Myers’s rum, and a hint of coconut cream. If you want to kill two cravings with one drink, opt for the white-chocolate eggnog ($14) at RumBa (InterContinental, 510 Atlantic Avenue, Boston, 617.747.1000), where housemade eggnog is blended with spiced rum and Godiva chocolate liqueur and finished with whipped cream and a piece of white chocolate. And for an Italian twist on the drink, try the Botticelli cocktail ($12) — an elixir made with Absolut Vanilla, Faretti Biscotti liqueur, and eggnog — at Da Vinci Ristorante (162 Columbus Avenue, Boston, 617.350.0007). There’s just one minor catch: we actually have to kick off our slippers and head out into the cold to enjoy these cocktails — which is where those Chloé boots come into play.

Northern Exposure

Champagne Dreams

Have your bacon and drink it, too

Believe it or not, bacon is working overtime, spending mornings on breakfast menus and nights on cocktail lists. ìBacon should be its own food group,î says Don Yovicsin, owner of Jake’s Dixie Roadhouse (220 Moody Street, Waltham, 781.894.4227). ìAnything you put bacon on, it just gets better.î So he put his theory to the test and infused Absolut vodka with bacon to create drinks like the Bacon: My Greasy Lover ($6), a bacon-flavored screwdriver garnished with a Slim Jim. Paul Westerkamp, beverage director at 33 Restaurant & Lounge (33 Stanhope Street, Boston, 617.572.3311) and STIX (35 Stanhope Street, Boston, 617.456.7849), is combining bacon with its smoky-liquor counterpart — Woodford Reserve bourbon — to create the cocktail equivalents of our favorite breakfast indulgences. Which begs the question: is drinking bacon as delicious as eating it? Our bacon vodka taste-testers had some pretty animated responses after taking a few swigs: ìYou could pour it on your eggsî; ìIt’s like the taste of an after-bacon burpî; ìIt’s like a bacon memory. The STIX bacon-and-bourbon cocktails conjure up in our taste buds memories of crisp fall mornings eating pancakes with sticky maple syrup, bacon, and eggs. Smoky-sweet bourbon, muddled blueberries, and maple syrup mix surprisingly and seamlessly in the Woodford Blueberry Pancakes with Bacon cocktail ($14), and a pineapple garnish adds a fruity layer to the Woodford Bacon and Eggs with a side of Pineapple ($16) — a modern version of a flip, topped with bitters. But bacon, if this whole cocktail thing takes off, promise us you won’t quit your day job.

Fall For It: Local Bartenders Think Seasonal

On a chilly November night two years ago, an old friend and I slid into a booth in a quiet, candlelit New York bar for what was to be a quick drink and a chat. Several hours later, we slid out, in tears and in love — drunk on the potion that was hot buttered rum.