Happy November! By now you’ve probably accepted, beyond the shadow of any doubt, that you will have no use for your bathing suits for several months and that it is positively time to trade your flip-flops for boots, salads for soups, and raw veggies for roasted ones.
Have you also found yourself inclined to a glass of red wine instead of white? A Manhattan instead of a gin and tonic? Apple fusions rather than watermelon ones? Pumpkin flavored anything? Changing with the season can apply to beverages too.
Just as some chefs change their menus with the season, bartenders revamp their cocktail lists with drinks to warm the soul instead of ones to beat the heat, and that doesn’t necessarily mean sipping on Irish coffees until mojitos come back in vogue.
On its new cocktail list, The Wharf in Edgartown is offering a Sailor & Cider: hot apple cider, Sailor Jerry Rum, and a stick of cinnamon, as well as a Cinnamon Hot Toddy: fireball cinnamon whisky, hot water, honey, and lemon.
Check out the spiced apple infused bourbon Manhattan, coming soon to Eleven North in Edgartown, and stop by Seasons in Oak Bluffs to see Tatiana Pavlenko’s brand-new cocktail list.
If, in true “off-season on the Vineyard” spirit you’ll be entertaining friends, say hosting a dinner party, meeting with a book club, or just having a good old-fashioned get-together, wow your guests with some of these seasonal drinks.
Kara Newman’s cocktail book, “Spice & Ice,” is the essential guide to mixology for anyone who likes to play around with drink recipes. The Sparkling Ginger Daisy is her concoction. It calls for the Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur, which Ms. Newman calls her favorite liqueur of the season. You can buy it at most package stores here on the Island.
The Sparkling Ginger Daisy
You’ll need:
1 oz. Plymouth gin
1 oz. Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon grenadine
Brut champagne
Directions:
Combine the gin, ginger liqueur, lemon juice, and grenadine in an ice-filled mixing glass.
Stir until well chilled, and strain into a champagne flute.
Top with champagne.
I think an Old-Fashioned should be sipped from under a blanket, in front of a raging fire with a good book in the other hand. It’s a simple, to-the-point, old-fashioned cocktail with no frills.
Old-Fashioned
You’ll need:
1 sugar cube
3 dashes Angostura bitters
1 tablespoon club soda
2 oz. Bourbon
1 thin strip of lemon peel
Directions:
In a rocks glass, combine the sugar cube, bitters and club soda.
Muddle to a paste.
Stir in the bourbon.
Add ice and garnish with a two-inch strip of lemon peel.
