3 Cocktails We Love From Bars We Wish We Could Go To For New Year’s Eve
As we wrap up the year and look back at where we started getting so nostalgic. On the 31st of December 2019 we were in New Orleans spending time with family and making the most of the cocktail scene. Our tradition has been to bar hop our way to whatever New Year’s Eve party we end up at because of course what better day of the year to dress up and pretend to be glam.
Like many of you, we are spending our New Year’s Eve at home this year, prioritizing safety and reminding ourselves that in the grand scheme of things we have so much to be grateful for. We decided that we still wanted to do a little something to honor our traditions and give a shout out some of our favorite bars. We dug through some of our cocktail recipe books and picked three cocktails that we felt were an ideal 3 course tasting menu to end 2020.
Benjamin Barker Daiquiri
To start our pre-game we are traveling to New York for a drink at Death & CoThis is a great drink for getting your night started. With a nice amount of booze, a refreshing nose that echos into a delightfully complex body, and a rosy red hue, this drink feels like a party in a glass. We’ve always loved Death and Co, and recently received their book as a gift from a family member - it is amazing! Making this drink brings us right back to their wonderful NYC location, full of intoxicating orange oil scents and warmly lit ambiance. Their drink program has always been an inspiration, let’s just say we’re DYING to go back. 🍹
Ingredients
2 oz. Gosling's Black Rum - @goslingsrum
1/2 oz. Campari - @campariofficial
3/4 oz. lime juice
1/2 oz. demerara syrup (2:1 though we did 1:1 and thought it was still very very good)
2 dashes Absinthe
Tools
Shaker
Mesh strainer
Hawthorne strainer
Instructions
Shake
Strain into chilled coupe
Use a lime wedge for garnish (or in our case a lime wheel)
Recipe book:
Death & Co: Classic Modern Cocktails
Aquadisiac
Wouldn’t you agree it’s time for a tiki drink after you’ve warmed up for the night? We sure do! Our next stop is in New Orleans at Latitude 29. The Sippin Santa tiki holiday cocktail program has been a staple of our holiday regime. This year we sorely missed it and felt like we needed to get our tiki on to ring in the new year. This drink is a wonderful blue hue, it delivers ample sour notes from the lemon, and has a really nice nuttiness from the orgeat. For a tiki recipe, it’s simple, delicious and effective for transporting us back to the wildly decorated rum oases we missed so much this year.
Ingredients
Aquadisiac
2oz Barbados gold rum - we used @plantation.rum 5 year
1/2oz Blue Curacao - we used @giffardusa which tastes as good as it looks!
1 oz lemon juice
½ oz Orgeat syrup - we used @smallhandfoods local and delicious and available on Amazon!
Tools
Shaker
Mesh strainer
Hawthorne strainer
Instructions
Shake all ingredients with cube ice
Pour unstrained into chilled double old fashioned
Garnish as wild as you like!
We used some edible flowers for this that weren’t orchids which are the more traditional flower to garnish tiki drinks.
Recipe book:
Beach Bum Berry Remixed
French 75
And to end the night a toast-worthy New Orleans classic! Last year we had the pleasure of spending our NYE at @jewelnola with Chris Hannah, a treasure of the New Orleans craft cocktail revival. This recipe comes from his time at Arnaud’s French 75, where he brought the bar program back to life, and resuscitated this classic recipe for the French 75 that has Cognac instead of Gin. We find that the slight grapey/oakness from the cognac creates a complexity in the French 75 that we’ve never experienced. If you happen to ever be in New Orleans both bars are amazing and Chris sure treated us very well last year when we were in town!
Ingredients
French 75 - classic recipe
1.25oz Cognac, preferably Courvoisier VS - @courvoisierusa
0.25oz fresh squeezed lemon juice
0.25oz (1:1) simple syrup
Champagne (chilled), to top, preferably Chandon Imperial, @moetusa
Tools
Shaker
Mesh strainer
Hawthorne strainer
Instructions
Shake all ingredients except champagne with ice in shaker tin
Strain into champagne flute and top with champagne.
Garnish with a lemon twist.
Recipe book:
New Orleans Cocktails: An elegant collection of over 100 Recipes Inspired by the Big Easy by Sarah Baird
