“Champagne for our real friends and real pains for our sham friends.”
- A toast from Harry’s Bar in Paris circa 1920

This Valentine’s Day, make sure your pre or post-romantic dinner drink is the classic champagne cocktail. The French 75 is the grand dame of champagne cocktails and has been the basis for dozens of delicious variations. Basically, it is a sour (spirit, lemon, simple syrup) plus Champagne, which was most likely inspired by a Collins or Fizz recipes.

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The Blackbeard debuted on the PDT cocktail menu in the Summer of 2008. It’s another creation by former PDT bartender Daniel Eun, who now attends law school full time but occasionally manages to squeeze a few shifts every now and then at The Varnish in LA. Apparently the drink’s name came about when he ended up with a bunch of blackberries on his chin during recipe testing.

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There was a bit of bad weather last week that stole my focus away from the PDT Project, but now that Sandy’s been replaced by something more manageable for New Yorkers (a blizzard), I can refocus my attention and trudge on to the next recipe in the PDT Cocktail Book, the Bijou.

Bijou is French for “jewel,” and it is speculated that the various ingredients in the drink represent different precious stones.

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When creating cocktails, bartenders draw inspiration from a wide array of sources. The most common of those sources are other bartenders and other classic cocktails of the past. Today’s cocktail, the Berlioni, draws inspiration from both another bartender and a classic cocktail. Berlin-based bartender Gonçalo de Sousa created the Berlioni as a twist on the classic Negroni cocktail, supplanting the bitterness of Campari with that of the another Italian amaro, Cynar, and using dry instead of sweet vermouth.

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About a century ago, to call something “the bee’s knees” meant you considered it to be of top notch quality. It’s an apt name for this week’s cocktail, a simple combination of gin, honey, and lemon juice that proves sophistication doesn’t demand complexity.

The historic origins of the Bee’s Knees are murky, although the consensus seems to have gathered around the fact that it was a Prohibition-era creation.

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The Aviation is one of the last great cocktails created before Prohibition, having been invented just a few years before the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment. It made its first appearance in print in 1916 in Recipes for Mixed Drinks by Hugo Ensslin, who bartended at the Hotel Wallick gin Times Square near 43rd and Broadway.

It’s unclear whether Mr.

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Before Jim Meehan opened PDT, he honed his craft behind the bar at a few different bars and restaurants in New York City. One of those places was Gramercy Tavern, and the Astoria Bianco was among the notable cocktails he created while tending bar there. It is a variation of an old classic called the Astoria Cocktail, found in The Old Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book published by Albert Stevens Crockett.

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The Archangel cocktail was created in 2006, and is the collaborative effort of bartenders Michael McIlroy and Richard Boccato of Milk & Honey fame. After an enthusiastic discussion about soccer legend Gabriel Batistuta, the two bartenders came up with the name Archangel, for the Archangel Gabriel.

Archangel
2.25 oz. Plymouth Gin
0.75 oz. Aperol
2 slices cucumber
Lemon twist, as garnish

Tools: barspoon, mixing glass, muddler
Glassware: chilled coupe

Method: Muddle the cucumber along with the Aperol together in the mixing glass, then add the gin and ice.

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Albert Mathieu was a French mining engineer, who in 1802 proposed a plan to build a tunnel beneath the English Channel connecting France and England. Since the two countries were not the greatest of pals at the time, the idea had a tough time gaining traction. Heightened political pressure in England over national security concerns eventually killed the proposal.

It took nearly two centuries before the idea was revisited, when in 1988 construction on the project finally began, and was finished in 1994.

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The 20th Century is a cocktail created in the 20th Century (1937 to be exact) by C.A. Tuck (I don’t know what C.A. stands for–Cocktail Aficionado perhaps?). It first appeared in the Cafe Royal Cocktail Book written by William J. Tarling, and is named after the 20th Century Limited train line that operated from 1902 to 1967.

The train ran between New York City and Chicago, and could do so in 16 hours, making it one of the most advanced trains of its time.

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