Classic Summertime Cocktails with Cocktail Historian Phil Greene

This cocktail demonstration features Philip Greene, an award-winning attorney, writer, and cocktail historian. Philip is the author of To Have and Have Another – A Hemingway Cocktail Companion, The Manhattan: The Story of the First Modern Cocktail, and A Drinkable Feast: A Cocktail Companion to 1920s Paris.

Curated Summertime Cocktail Recipes from this video:

WATERLOO

• 4 (1 x 2-inch) chunks of watermelon
• 3/4 ounce simple syrup
• 1 1/2 ounces Plymouth gin
• 1/2 ounce freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1/2 ounce Campari
• 1 watermelon wedge, with rind, for garnish

Muddle the watermelon chunks and syrup in the bottom of a mixing glass until the fruit has turned into a juice. Then add the gin, juice, and Campari and fill the glass with 5 large cold ice cubes. Shake briefly and pour unstrained into a tall Collins glass. Garnish with the watermelon wedge.

RICKEY

• 2 oz Bourbon or London dry gin (the original Rickey was Bourbon but it’s more commonly made with gin now.)
• ½ oz lime juice
• 4 oz mineral water

Build this drink in the glass, stir well. Drop the lime hull into the glass after squeezing out all the juice.

SOUTHSIDE

• 2 oz London dry gin
• ½ oz simple syrup
• ½ oz fresh lemon juice
• 3 mint leaves

Shake well with ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a mint leaf. TIP: Serve it on the rocks and add seltzer to make it a tall drink, like a Tom Collins

NOTE: This is a classic “sour” cocktail, meaning it’s got something strong (gin), sweet (simple syrup) and sour (lemon juice). I’ll go into great detail about this category of drinks, since so many sours are the same drink just different components. The Margarita (tequila, triple sec, lime), Daiquiri (rum, sugar, lime), Jack Rose (applejack, grenadine, lemon or lime), Aviation (gin, maraschino liqueur, crème de violette, lemon), whiskey sour (whiskey, sugar, lemon), pisco sour (pisco, sugar, egg white, lemon or lime), Bees’ Knees (gin, honey syrup, lemon) and so many others ARE ALL THE SAME PLATFORM, once you master this you can invent your own drinks!

GIN & TONIC a la Hemingway

• 2 oz London dry gin
• 4 oz tonic water
• 2-3 dashes Angostura Bitters

Build this drink in the glass, stir well. Garnish with a lime wedge.

JUNGLE BIRD

• 1.5 oz Jamaican rum
• 1.5 oz pineapple juice
• ¾ oz Campari
• ½ oz simple syrup
• ½ oz lime juice