Drinks | Saveur

Autumn Bellini

SAVEUR Editors — Mon, 18 Mar 2019 22:46:37 +0000

Photo: Murray Hall • Food Styling: Jessie YuChen. Photo: Murray Hall • Food Styling: Jessie YuChen

Prosecco marries with richly spiced mulled cider and a splash of vodka in this seasonal take on the classic Bellini served at the now-closed Caffè Storico in New York City. While the original recipe called for a fig-flavored vodka such as Figenza, regular vodka works just as well in this fall cocktail.

Yield: 2 cocktails

Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients

For the mulled cider syrup:

1 cup apple cider
½ tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
4 whole cloves
2 green cardamom pods
2 cinnamon sticks
2 whole star anise

For the Bellini

1 oz. vodka
12 oz. chilled prosecco

Instructions

Make the mulled cider syrup: In a small pot, bring the cider to a boil over medium-high heat. Turn the heat to medium and cook, stirring occasionally, until the cider is reduced by half, about 2 minutes. Add the nutmeg, cloves, cardamom, cinnamon, and star anise, then remove from the heat and set aside to cool. Strain the syrup into an airtight container and refrigerate. (You should have about ½ cup of syrup.)
Make the cocktail: To a cocktail shaker filled halfway with ice, add the vodka and 2½ ounces of the mulled cider syrup. Shake until chilled, then strain into two champagne glasses, top each with prosecco, and serve.

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Persian Cantaloupe Drink

Farideh Sadeghin — Mon, 18 Mar 2019 22:43:36 +0000

Photo: Heami Lee • Food Styling: Jessie YuChen. Photo: Heami Lee • Food Styling: Jessie YuChen

SAVEUR contributing editor Farideh Sadeghin got the recipe for this refreshing melon drink from her Iranian-born father, who makes it by grating fresh cantaloupe and combining it with water, sugar, and mint. You can also add a little gin for a cooling summer cocktail.

Featured in “Chasing the Perfect Persian Rice.”

Yield: 6 cups

Time: 5 minutes

1 cantaloupe (about 3 lb.)
¼ cup sugar, plus more to taste
Fresh mint sprigs, for garnish

Instructions

Peel the cantaloupe, then halve it and scoop out and discard the seeds. Cut each cantaloupe half into two pieces and coarsely grate them into a large bowl. Stir in the sugar and 3½ cups of water, then taste and add more sugar if necessary. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for at least 45 minutes.
Serve in cups over ice, garnished with mint.

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Frozen Limeade Margarita

SAVEUR Editors — Mon, 18 Mar 2019 22:30:52 +0000

Photo: Murray Hall • Food Styling: Tyna Hoang. Photo: Murray Hall • Food Styling: Tyna Hoang

Canned frozen limeade intensifies the citrus flavor of this slushy libation, an easy drink for summer cocktail parties and cookouts. Pair it with any spicy dish—a frozen margarita is just the thing for taming the heat.

Yield: 4–6

Time: 5 minutes

1 cup silver tequila
¼ cup triple sec
1 Tbsp. agave nectar or simple syrup
½ tsp. kosher salt
One 12-oz. can frozen limeade
Lime wheels or wedges, for garnish

Instructions

To a blender, add the tequila, triple sec, agave nectar, salt, limeade, and 6 cups of crushed ice and pulse until smooth. Pour into a pitcher and serve in chilled glasses garnished with lime wheels.

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Cucumber Gin Cooler

SAVEUR Editors — Mon, 18 Mar 2019 22:20:39 +0000

Photo: Murray Hall • Food Styling: Tyna Hoang. Photo: Murray Hall • Food Styling: Tyna Hoang

This refreshing update on the classic gin and tonic is an easy sipper, thanks to summery cucumber slices and plenty of lime juice. You can use any gin you have on hand, but we’re partial to Hendrick’s, which has a slight cucumber flavor, for this cooler. A note on the cucumber slices: it may be tempting to nibble them out of your drink right away, but try to resist the urge. After several minutes’ contact with the lime juice, gin, and tonic water (about as long as it takes to finish the cocktail), they pickle ever so slightly, taking on a lovely crisp flavor.

Yield: Makes 4 cocktails

Time: 5 minutes

8 oz. gin
8 Tbsp. fresh lime juice (from about 4 limes)
½ cup thinly sliced Persian or Kirby cucumber, scrubbed but not peeled
Tonic water
Lime wedges, for garnish

Instructions

To a cocktail shaker filled halfway with ice, add the gin, lime juice, and cucumber slices. Shake vigorously for 1–2 minutes, then strain into four ice-filled glasses, making sure the cucumber slices are evenly distributed. Top each glass with tonic water and garnish with a lime wedge.

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Rossini

SAVEUR Editors — Mon, 18 Mar 2019 22:29:23 +0000

Photo: Murray Hall • Food Styling: Pearl Jones. Photo: Murray Hall • Food Styling: Pearl Jones

A luscious take on the bellini, the Rossini swaps in strawberries for the latter drink’s white peaches, and prosecco for champagne. Serve this versatile cocktail in place of mimosas at brunch, as an aperitif, or with dessert.

Featured in the October 2012 issue.

Yield: Makes 4–6 cocktails

Time: 10 minutes

½ lb. fresh strawberries
One 750-ml bottle prosecco, chilled

Instructions

Set aside a few strawberries for garnish, then hull the rest. Transfer the hulled strawberries to a blender and process until smooth. (You should have about 1 cup of purée.)
To serve, add 2 tablespoons of the strawberry purée to a chilled champagne or coupe class. Top with the prosecco, stir to combine if desired, and garnish with a reserved strawberry. Repeat with the remaining purée, prosecco, and strawberries.

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Mango Lassi

SAVEUR Editors — Mon, 18 Mar 2019 22:47:54 +0000

Photo: Heami Lee • Food Styling: Jessie YuChen. Photo: Heami Lee • Food Styling: Jessie YuChen

Use the ripest, sweetest, smoothest mangoes you can find, such as Champagne or Haitian varieties, to make this yogurt-enriched Indian fruit shake. Striking the perfect balance between sweet and tart, this mango lassi makes a fine breakfast smoothie, or cooling accompaniment to spicy meals.

Yield: Makes 4

Time: 1 hour 5 minutes

3 cups plain yogurt (not Greek-style)
¼ cup sugar
½ tsp. kosher salt
1 large ripe mango, peeled, pitted, and coarsely chopped
Coarsely chopped pistachios, for garnish (optional)

Instructions

To a blender, add the yogurt, sugar, salt, and mango, and pulse until smooth. Refrigerate until chilled, at least 1 hour. Pour into glasses, garnish with pistachios if desired, and serve.

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Painkiller Cocktail

SAVEUR Editors — Mon, 06 Apr 2020 19:54:13 +0000

Jenny Huang. Jenny Huang

Very boozy and very well-shaken, this British Virgin Island classic gets a creamy frothy head similar to a flip or fizz from the addition of cream of coconut. While Pusser’s Rum trademarked the name in the 1990s, it was the iconic Soggy Dollar bar on Jost Van Dyke that invented the Painkiller in 1970. Pusser’s rum is a non-negotiable in the drink today; for the best results, look for their “Gunpowder Proof” (black label) bottle.

Yield: Makes 1 cocktail

Time: 5 minutes

4 oz. fresh pineapple juice
3 oz. Pusser’s dark rum
1 oz. cream of coconut, such as Coco Lopez
1 oz. fresh orange juice
Lemon wedge
Lime wedge
Freshly grated nutmeg, for garnish

Instructions

To a cocktail shaker filled halfway with ice, add the pineapple juice, rum, cream of coconut, and orange juice. Squeeze the lemon and lime wedges into the shaker, then add them too. Shake until chilled and frothy, 20–30 seconds. Pour into a chilled collins or rocks glass, garnish with freshly grated nutmeg, and serve immediately.

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Punch Romaine

Kellie Evans — Mon, 18 Mar 2019 22:27:02 +0000

Photo: Matt Taylor-Gross • Food Styling: Jessie YuChen. Photo: Matt Taylor-Gross • Food Styling: Jessie YuChen

Punch Romaine, a rum-spiked shaved-ice palate cleanser served to first-class passengers during the fateful last dinner aboard the Titanic on April 14, 1912, was based on a recipe from famed French chef Georges Auguste Escoffier, who championed alcoholic shaved ices during the early 20th century. The original recipe, essentially a granita, is updated here as a drinkable, citrusy cocktail poured over an iceberg of crushed ice.

Follow our easy instructions to make your own simple syrup. Use a channel knife to create thin strips of orange peel for the garnish.

Yield: Makes 1 cocktail

Time: 5 minutes

1 egg white
1 oz. white rum
1 oz. white wine
1 oz. fresh orange juice
½ oz. fresh lemon juice
½ oz. simple syrup

2 oz. Champagne or sparkling wine

Orange zest, for garnish

Instructions

To a cocktail shaker filled halfway with ice, add the egg white, rum, wine, orange and lemon juices, and simple syrup. Shake until well mixed and frothy, then strain into a large coupe glass mounded with crushed ice, being careful to pour the drink around the ice. Top with Champagne and garnish with orange zest.

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9 Amazing American LGBTQ Bars, Clubs, and Restaurants

Benjamin Kemper — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 02:50:35 +0000

Ben Hider/Getty Images

LGBTQ bars have had a tough run lately. Shuttering in concerning numbers, many have been struggling with soaring rents and an increasingly challenging business model (not to mention dating apps, which make it easy to flirt from the couch). But happily, and against all odds, many of our go-to LGBTQ spaces are still standing—thriving, even. What’s more, they need your business more than ever in light of discriminatory anti-transgender legislation and distressing Don’t Say Gay laws. To that end, here’s a pared-down list of our favorite queer bars, restaurants, and clubs in major cities across America. Drop in for a drag show, catch a late-night DJ set, or simply pull up a stool at the bar. No matter your gender or orientation, you’re in for a good time.

The Stonewall Inn, New York City

“We really are like the gay Church,” said co-owner Kurt Kelly. Mecca for America’s gay liberation movement, Stonewall is the site where a dayslong protest for LGBTQ rights ensued in 1969 after police violently raided the establishment. In 2019, an estimated 5 million people made the pilgrimage to Greenwich Village to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the pivotal event. Today, Stonewall is more than its brick-and-mortar location; behind the scenes, the Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative is taking the “Stonewall Inn legacy to the most marginalized in our community and in the toughest places to still be LGBTQ+,” said Stacy Lentz, Stonewall’s co-owner and CEO of the nonprofit.

Round-Up Saloon, Dallas

Courtesy of Round Up Saloon

Next time you’re in Dallas, lasso up your friends and take them to this kitsch Oak Lawn dance hall where queer culture meets line dancing and twangy country music. Thursdays are the best nights to go for the uninitiated; that’s when instructors give free lessons on, say, how to do-si-do your partner and dance the “Hoedown Throwdown.” Nobody goes for the gastronomy (the menu is basically burgers, fries, and wings)—though it helps to have something to nibble on to mitigate the dangerously generous pours.

Cheer Up Charlies, Austin

Courtesy of Cheer Up Charlies

Austin’s LGBTQ residents are up in arms: It may be too late to protect three emblematic Fourth Street queer bars from the wrecking ball as they’re slated to be replaced with luxury highrises. That makes Cheer Up Charlies—which is safe, for now—all the more important to support. With a well-furnished outdoor patio, bubbly staff, and a vegan food truck always parked outside (sweet potato fries! blood orange hard cider!), this bar is our favorite spot for partying in Texas’ blissfully “weird” capital.

Atlantic House, Provincetown, Massachusetts

The “A-House,” as locals call it, is so old that its original owner was a mounted postman who died of cholera. Opened in 1798 as a stagecoach inn, it became a hub of Bohemian life at the turn of the 20th century as artists and writers fled gritty, industrial Boston for a freer and more solitary life. As early as the 1950s, the A-House was an openly gay establishment, a badge it wears proudly to the present day.

Big Chicks, Chicago

Courtesy Big Chicks

The first thing you notice when you walk into Big Chicks in Chicago’s Far North Side is the diverse clientele: a wonderfully motley mix representing virtually all ages, races, physiques, and gender identities. Translation? Everybody feels seen at Big Chicks. Consider starting your evening with updated diner fare at Tweet (the sister restaurant) next door, before unbuttoning your shirt and heading over to the dancefloor.

Akbar, Los Angeles

Courtesy Akbar

Akbar is all “good vibes and pretty guys,” according to Los Angeles-based music and travel writer Taylor Henderson. But it nearly shuttered due to the pandemic, when it was running up debt to the tune of $10,000 per month. In a do-or-die plea for aid, the owners created a GoFundMe page that, to their surprise, met its goal within 24 hours. Such is the commitment of this cozy watering hole’s clientele, which doubles as a community space and open mic venue.

Slammers, Columbus, Ohio

Here’s a not-so-fun fact: There are only 33 lesbian bars left in the entire country. And Slammers, fortunately, is one of them. A downtown Columbus standby since 1993, this indoor-outdoor establishment serves pizza and jalapeño poppers and strong drinks against the backdrop of live performances. There’s also karaoke, darts, and pool for those who like some friendly competition.

Jolene’s, San Francisco

Photography by Heather Alarab; Courtesy of Jolene’s

A relative newcomer on the Mission District scene (est. 2018), Jolene’s is a casual queer bar whose Insta-famous neon sign says it all: “You are safe here.” At a time when lesbian bars are closing at an alarming pace, Jolene’s is bucking the trend as a non-male-centric space that doesn’t feel exclusive. The bar food punches well above its weight with dishes like craggy fried chicken served with mashed potatoes and succotash, and cheese-cloaked sliders served alongside thick-cut fries.

Pony, Seattle

Courtesy Pony, Seattle

Whenever Mark Stoner wears his Pony hat in another city, he can’t believe how many people stop him to say, “I love that bar!” The owner of this Seattle institution housed in a defunct 1930s gas station loves the compliments, but to Stoner, what “feels even better” is “when marginalized people in our own LGBTQIA+ community tell me that it’s one of the only spaces where they truly feel safe and relaxed,” he said.

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Classic Mojito

SAVEUR Editors — Mon, 18 Mar 2019 22:32:46 +0000

Photo: Matt Taylor-Gross • Food Styling: Jessie YuChen. Photo: Matt Taylor-Gross • Food Styling: Jessie YuChen

There’s no better way to cool down on a hot day than with a mojito. Imported from Cuba, one of the rum capitals of the Caribbean, it’s light, minty, and entirely refreshing. At celebrated Havana bars, mojitos are an essential part of the nightly proceedings. A straightforward mix of rum, muddled fresh mint, lime juice, and soda, they’re as easy to make as they are to drink. They’re also the perfect partner for any of our Cuban recipes.

Featured in the January/February 1999 issue.

Yield: Makes 1 cocktail

Time: 5 minutes

3 fresh mint sprigs
1 tsp. sugar
½ oz. fresh lime juice
1 oz. dry white rum
2 oz. club soda

Instructions

In a tall cocktail glass, muddle two of the mint sprigs with the sugar and lime juice. Fill the glass with ice, then stir in the rum, followed by the soda. Slap the remaining mint sprig between your palms to help release its aroma, then drop it into the glass. Serve with a straw.

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Hemingway Daiquiri

SAVEUR Editors — Mon, 18 Mar 2019 22:44:38 +0000

Photo: Matt Taylor-Gross • Food Styling: Jessie YuChen. Photo: Matt Taylor-Gross • Food Styling: Jessie YuChen

At Havana, Cuba’s El Floridita bar, this special daiquiri was a usual order of author Ernest Hemingway. It was created by then-head bartender Constantino Ribalaigua Vert, who was known as “Constante” to regulars and “El Rey de los Cocteleros” (“The Cocktail King”) to locals. Legend has it that Hemingway requested a daiquiri with less sugar and more rum, and Vert obliged by doubling the rum, adding grapefruit juice to the customary lime, and swapping out the simple syrup for maraschino liqueur. And that’s how the Hemingway Daiquiri, or the Papa Doble (Papa was a nickname for Hemingway, and “doble” referred to the double jigger of rum), was born. While we prefer including simple syrup to balance out the tartness, feel free to omit if you want to stay true to Hemingway’s original version.

Featured in “Papa’s Favorite Poison” by Robert Simonson.

Yield: Makes 1 cocktail

Time: 5 minutes

2 oz. agricole or white rum
¾ oz. fresh lime juice
½ oz. fresh grapefruit juice
½ oz. maraschino liqueur
½ oz. simple syrup
Maraschino cherries or lime wheel, for garnish

Instructions

To a cocktail shaker filled halfway with ice, add the rum, lime juice, grapefruit juice, maraschino liqueur, and simple syrup. Shake until chilled, about 15 seconds. Strain into a chilled coupe glass and garnish with cherries.

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