“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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There’s just something about growing your own food.

In this Brave New World of global import/export where you can basically die from eating the wrong vegetable (big cucumber scandal in Germany with lots of casualties), is a home grown meal the new epitome of “comfort food” (as in “food that doesn’t kill you”)?

For an urban citizen like me it’s definitely an exciting feeling to pluck the fruit off the bush and instantly eat it.

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It feels good to return to normalcy (read proper hydration) now that the Manhattan Cocktail Classic (read Manhattan Hangover Classic) has concluded. For myself and the other Bar Fellows of this year’s cocktail classic, normalcy took a bit longer to reach, as we were in the Astor Center Kitchen 12 hours a day prepping and batching the cocktails served at all the seminars.

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This past Sunday I had rare the opportunity–via my cocktail consulting and event company, Life’s a Cocktail–to use the power of mixology to help the forces of good, serving up cocktails in the name of marriage equality as a vendor in the first ever Illegal Wedding Fair.  The event was held in an amazing West Village townhouse called 632 on Hudson (which notably housed MTV’s Real World 2001 cast), and featured a number of other wedding vendors willing to take a stand on this pressing issue. 

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My mom went to Paris and all I got was this lousy Edible Paper. Being a fan of everything fake and pink I had to give this a try.

Everyone across the world is probably constantly wondering: How do those French supermodels keep so beautiful and fit? What on earth are they eating? Well, here’s the answer: they eat paper. And they are probably not having a great time doing it.

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Back atcha this week to talk about an ingredient that is essential for so many cocktails, yet is usually given a mere cursory glance: simple syrup. I suppose the reason for this is, well, as the name indicates, it’s a simple ingredient; so simple to prepare and it so exponentially simplifies the preparation of many drinks, alcoholic and non-alcoholic alike.

Thus despite the obvious irony, I have decided to do a two part post on simple syrup in order to showcase the versatility it can add to drinks.

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When I committed to making the Happy Hour column a regular Wednesday thing, I realized that either I’d have it pre-written and ready to be posted at the designated time (ideal scenario) or that I’d write it on the day of and post it immediately. What I didn’t take into account is that I’m sort of a perfectionist, and like to constantly tweak something either until I consider it perfect, or until I no longer have the option of doing so, such as when there is a due date attached.

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With Valentine’s Day around the corner, I figured I’d have some strawberry liqueur on hand to toss in some cocktails, or if I’m feeling lazy, in some bubbly. And there’s no way better to do it than to make it yourself at home. Although I’m a little late on the planning of this, as I often prefer to age liqueurs for at least 4 weeks, I figured I’d still have something decent and usable by V-day, with the remainder being allowed to age even further.

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