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Category: Monday Booktails

Monday Booktails: Paper Plane

Monday Booktails: Paper Plane

Today I’m closing out my Monday Booktails series with one last drink from Sasha Petraske’s Regarding Cocktails. It was developed by Sam Ross (who also created the Penicillin cocktail) for fellow Milk & Honey alum, Toby Maloney, who was looking for a new summer cocktail for his bar in the Wicker Park area of Chicago called The Violet Hour. The drink is a riff on the amazing equal parts cocktail called the Last Word, which first appeared at The Detroit Athletic Club in the 1920s,

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Monday Booktails: Silver Fox

Monday Booktails: Silver Fox

For this week’s Monday Booktails post, I searched through Sasha Petraske’s Regarding Cocktails for something that I could serve before Easter dinner. A drink called a Silver Fox caught my eye because I loved its blend of gin, lemon, and amaretto, and because I was drawn to the fact that it’s a variation on a gin fizz. The most simple form of a fizz includes the base spirit, which is very often gin, a citrus juice, and sugar, all topped off with a carbonated something or other. It’s light and refreshing and perfect for

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Monday Booktails: The Perfect Daiquiri

Monday Booktails: The Perfect Daiquiri

A perfect Daiquiri is a study in elegant simplicity. Made with only three ingredients, it must be precisely measured and perfectly prepared. Otherwise it will taste different each and every time you make it. This kind of simplicity, precision, and perfection are the exact things for which Sasha Petraske was so well known. Today’s Daiquiri is the third cocktail that I’m sharing from his book Regarding Cocktails, which is filled with recipes from the many bars and bartenders that fell under his huge umbrella of influence.

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Monday Booktails: The Bicycle Thief

Monday Booktails: The Bicycle Thief

Since we are still freezing here on the East coast and expecting yet another Nor’easter this week even though it’s late March, I deliberately searched Sasha Petraske’s Regarding Cocktails book for a drink that would look and feel like spring. I landed on a highball called the Bicycle Thief because the ingredients list was irresistible to me. Anytime there’s gin, Campari, and grapefruit juice involved, I’m all in. The recipe for today’s cocktail was shared by bartender Zachary Gelnaw-Rubin who met and worked for Sasha Petraske at Little Branch, located in the West Village in NYC. He shares his memories of Petraske’s life lessons, particularly in the realm of men’s fashion, but also comments that “Sasha’s greatest contribution was his decency – not just in service and hospitality, but in human conduct in general.” Sentiments like these are repeated again and again throughout the book. Gelnaw-Rubin collaborated with his colleague Abraham Hawkins from Dutch Kills, another Petraske speakeasy-type bar in Long Island City. The Bicycle Thief is tart and bitter from the Campari, grapefruit, and lemon combo, which makes Bluecoat gin the perfect base spirit to go along with these components because of its strong juniper and citrus forward flavor profile. The simple syrup brings balance and just enough sweetness, and the club soda adds a refreshing effervescence that really had me wishing I was sipping this drink out on the deck in the shade. This Bicycle Thief is named for a classic 1942 Italian movie that tells the story of a poor father who is searching everywhere in post World War II Rome to find his stolen bicycle, without which he will not be able to work to support his family. Gelnaw-Rubin created a variation of this drink called the Tarzan Cocktail that swaps out the grapefruit juice for pineapple. Oh, don’t even get me started on that one! Cheers everyone. Happy Monday!

Bicycle Thief

1 oz Bluecoat gin
1 oz Campari
1½ oz fresh grapefruit juice
½ oz lemon juice
½ oz simple syrup
Club soda for topping off

Combine all the ingredients except the club soda into a cocktail shaker and add ice. Shake vigorously until cold and strain into a Collins glass over fresh ice. Top with club soda and garnish with a thin orange slice. Enjoy!

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Monday Booktails: Turnpike

Monday Booktails: Turnpike

For this week’s Monday Booktails post, I’m making the switch over to Regarding Cocktails, a post-humous compilation of Sasha Petraske’s recipes and essays that was published by his wife, Georgette Moger-Petraske in 2016. Petraske is almost single-handedly credited with bringing elegant cocktails back into fashion, as well as kicking off the cocktail renaissance at his bar Milk & Honey in New York City in 1999. Petraske influenced an entire new generation of bartenders whose priorities were to make

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