Pisco Punch Built San Francisco. Then America Forgot It Ever Happened.

I covered the Arsenic and Old Lace briefly in July — the name problem, the purple prejudice, the fact that it's been sitting in Crosby Gaige's 1944 Cocktail Guide and Ladies' Compa…

There's a ritual happening right now in bars across the UK. Bartenders are gathering — invitation only — to design the next official Fernet-Branca Coin. According to The Spirits Bu…

There's a version of the amaro story that's been told so many times it's become a kind of mythology: bartenders discovered bitter Italian liqueurs, put them in everything, and cock…

There's a specific kind of bar conversation that dates the amaro explosion better than any sales chart. It goes like this: someone orders a Negroni, the bartender nods approvingly,…

There's a 1944 Martini variation sitting in the back of cocktail history books that checks every box the current moment should love: gin-forward, violet-tinted, absinthe-rinsed, bu…

There's a Dutch tax ordinance from 1606 that names genever explicitly — a regulated commercial product, already widely sold, already generating enough revenue to be worth taxing. B…

There's a tell at bad cocktail bars. Order a Martini and watch what happens to the vermouth bottle. If the bartender reaches for it without looking — pours a splash by feel, maybe…

The clarified milk punch trend has a branding problem. Every bar that adds one to the menu frames it as innovation — a feat of culinary technique, a conversation piece, a sign that…

There's a bar in Philadelphia where the staff will tell you, with visible pride, that they have Chartreuse when nobody else does. According to the Inquirer, Sassafras has been quie…

There's a bottle of Luxardo on almost every serious back bar in America. It sits there, slightly sticky around the neck, getting pulled for Aviations and Last Words and the occasio…

I've written about the Algonquin twice now — once when it failed to get its revival, once when it finally did. Both times, the drink's core tension was the same: rye, French vermou…

The Aviation spent roughly fifty years as a gray drink. Not metaphorically — literally gray. Without crème de violette, the violet color that gives the cocktail its name and its re…

There's a cocktail that's been made in Lima for over a century, and American bartenders are currently "discovering" it. This happens every decade or so. The drink gets a write-up,…

The Algonquin cocktail has been sitting in cocktail history books for nearly a century, name-checked in revivalist bibles like Jim Meehan's PDT Cocktail Book and Ted Haigh's Vintag…

There's a number that stops people cold when they hear it. Argentina, despite having roughly 13% of the U.S. population, consumes approximately 75% of the world's Fernet supply. No…

The amaro section at a well-stocked American spirits retailer circa 2024 looks like a hostage situation. Forty, sixty, sometimes eighty bottles, each with a label that implies cent…

Most forgotten cocktails fail for one reason: they taste bad. The Algonquin fails for a stranger one: it tastes almost right, which is harder to fix. The original recipe — two part…

There's a ritual at every bar that stocks genever. The bartender reaches for the bottle, turns to the customer, and says: "It's kind of like gin, but older." The customer nods. The…

There's a bottle of Noilly Prat in most home bars. It's been there since 2019. The cap is sticky. This is the actual state of vermouth in America, and it coexists, somehow, with a…