Wine, Drinks and Entertaining from Saveur- SAVEUR.com

Jan 24, 2013

by Ceil Miller Bouchet

Credit: Todd Coleman

From SAVEUR Issue #153

Back in the States after a year of studying wine at L'Université de Bordeaux, I was worried. How would I quench my thirst for the French region's pricey reds on a limited budget? I craved their restrained sweetness, elegant structure, and long-lasting pleasure. Lucky me. Bordeaux's two most recent vintages—2009 and 2010—hit the weather jackpot: Sunny days, cool nights, and rain at just the right times helped ensure excellence—and lots of affordable wine. Keep reading »

Jan 18, 2013

Friday Cocktails: The Hurricane Club's #77

by Helen Rosner

Credit: Anna Stockwell

To toast the end of last year and the beginning of this one, the Saveur digital team headed not too long ago to The Hurricane Club, a beautifully baroque tiki bar a short hop from our office. We kicked things off with a rum-filled watermelon (with eight straws, of course), but soon drifted to a round of #77s, a tropical concoction of passionfruit, coconut, cardamom, and rum served spectacularly over ice in an umbrella-decked coconut hull. One round became two, two became three, and soon we realized that the real star of the party was this drink—even a somewhat rough morning after (it was a hell of a party) couldn't dull our collective enthusiasm for the #77, and so the Hurricane Club happily shared the recipe. Keep reading »

Jan 18, 2013

Vintage Punch Bowls

From SAVEUR Issue #153

Long before the cocktail was invented, 17th-century English sailors were mixing strong drinks directly in the bowl. During punch's heyday in the 18th century, the punch bowl, fashioned out of porcelain or silver, was considered a status symbol. Though today's thrift shop finds are likely mid-20th-century cut glass, we think they're priceless all the same.

Credit: Todd Coleman

Jan 11, 2013

Flaming Cocktails

From SAVEUR Issue #153

Legend has it that when President Ulysses S. Grant had his first Blue Blazer—a flaming whiskey toddy poured between cups in a pyrotechnic arc—he rewarded its inventor, Jerry Thomas, with a cigar from his own breast pocket. It was well deserved: Fire enhances aromatics, brings pleasing warmth, and caramelizes surface sugars, making the experience of sipping a cocktail all the more heady. While you're unlikely to land a presidential commendation for flambéing drinks at home, what you will get is showstopping libations, such as these from bartender Brad Farran of Brooklyn's Clover Club. See the recipes »

Credit: Todd Coleman

Jan 4, 2013

Friday Cocktails: Hot Chai Toddy

by Cory Baldwin

Credit: Helen Rosner

This past Christmas, I made the trip home to my parents' house in New Hampshire with my boyfriend Bryan in tow. My sister flew in from California to meet us, and we all enjoyed a quiet few days: holiday movie marathons with my high school-age brother, and cooking big, decadent meals with my mother. I guess it's bound to happen when you return to the house you grew up in, but soon enough we were starting to get antsy. My sister, Bryan, and I were all itching for a few cocktails, but the town's lone bar, luckily walking distance from my parents' house, was unluckily closed for the holidays. Mom and Dad aren't really drinkers, so the options at home were pretty slim—our choices were vodka or vodka, so we made do with beer, and the occasional virgin hot cider. Keep reading »

Dec 28, 2012

Friday Cocktails: 10 Celebratory Bubbly Cocktails

For a festive night, nothing beats a glass of sparkling wine—except maybe a sparkling cocktail. These ten recipes range from the classic to the new, but what they all have in common is their freshness and novelty—no tired old mimosas here, just drinks perfect for raising a toast to a good night and a good year. See the recipes »

Credit: Helen Rosner

Dec 24, 2012

The Original Swizzle Stick

Credit: Todd Coleman

From SAVEUR Issue #153

The swizzle stick, not to be confused with that plastic stirrer the bartender leaves in your lowball glass, is actually an age-old instrument for cocktail making—and a brilliant example of man adapting nature to his most pressing needs. It is the actual branch of the shrub-like Quararibea turbinata, aka the swizzlestick tree, a species indigenous to the Caribbean. Keep reading »

Dec 24, 2012

Preserves in Cocktails

by Jeffrey Morganthaler

From SAVEUR Issue #153

Fruit preserves have always been a reminder during colder months of the previous summer's bounty, and there's no quicker or lovelier path to those memories than with a cocktail. I combine tequila and black currant jam, mix rum and fig jelly, and, best of all, shake orange marmalade into my whiskey sour, where it adds texture, sweetness, and an extraordinary touch of citrus-peel bitterness.

See the recipe for Whiskey Sour with Marmalade »

Dec 21, 2012

Friday Cocktails: El Diablo de la Puebla

by Chris Onstad

Credit: Helen Rosner

At the forefront of the Hawaiian restaurant industry are chefs and bartenders working to aggresively distance themselves from the clichés of luau pig, pineapples, and Mai Tais. Gone are the days when Dole wrote the menu and Bacardi filled your coconut. The mixologists—that reluctantly embraced term for barkeeps—are poised abreast their stateside contemporaries, mixing their own clove-scented falernum into classics such as the Corn N' Oil, and flavoring their own allspice dram and jabong bitters. Keep reading »

Dec 21, 2012

Holiday Spirits

by Betsy Andrews

Need a last-minute host or hostess gift? If your friends and family like a nip or two, I can think of no better year than this one to give the gift of booze. Why? Here are ten great reasons, for a wide range of budgets. See the bottles »