Jalapeño Black Bean Dip

Easy and spicy, this Tex-Mex fave also makes a terrific spread

The Super Bowl is rushing toward us like a 300-pound lineman. So get those party platters spinning!

You’ll need plenty of munchies and goodies. One of our favorites is this spicy Jalapeño Black Bean Dip. It’s an easy recipe, and fast to make. So you’ll have more time to spend with your guests.

And watch your team win. Or not.

The Stork Club Cocktail

 

The signature drink of an iconic NYC nightclub

The Stork Club delivered. Founded in 1929, it gave New Yorkers a classy place to eat and imbibe – away from the prying eyes of Prohibition enforcers.

And its namesake drink made the cloak-and-dagger worth it. A smooth combo of gin, Cointreau, and citrus juice, the Stork Club Cocktail offers the perfect start to your night on the town. No password needed.

The Volcano Bowl Cocktail

Long straws keep your hair away from the flaming “lava”

Tiki drinks strive to be exotic — which is why they’re often served in unique mugs and glasses.  And one of the best Tiki potions is the Volcano Bowl Cocktail (sometimes called the Flaming Volcano). 

Traditionally, this drink is served in a communal volcano-shaped bowl (usually one adorned with “South Sea” images — the tackier the better).  It tends to be prepared in hefty quantities — enough for four people (or at least two particularly enthusiastic drinkers).  Everyone sips from long straws to avoid getting singed by the flaming crater at the center of the bowl.

Unless you’ve been to a Tiki- or Polynesian-themed restaurant, you may never have sampled one of these.  After all, your local housewares shop probably doesn’t carry volcano bowls.  And unless you’re serving a crowd, the quantities that most recipes yield are a bit unrealistic for a casual before-dinner drink.

But no worries.  You can easily scale down this recipe and serve the drink in an ordinary glass. 

Or, if you’re planning a party, why not go all out?  It’s easy enough to buy volcano bowls online.  And this recipe is perfect for a crowd.

So light those Tiki torches, don a flower lei, and mix up a Volcano Bowl Cocktail.  (Just check your fire insurance first.)

The Last Word Cocktail

This “Lost” Drink Is a Favorite with Aficionados

The Last Word Cocktail has had an erratic history — which is fitting, I suppose, for drink that was born (surreptitiously) during Prohibition.

It was created sometime in the 1920s at the Detroit Athletic Club — by a vaudeville performer, not a bartender — but didn’t become particularly popular (maybe because of that bathtub gin they used?) The drink was all but forgotten until 1951, when Ted Saucier described it in a book about cocktails called Bottoms Up, reintroducing this cocktail to a whole new audience. But most of his readers promptly forgot about it, and the drink was lost again.

It was rediscovered about 8 years ago, when Murray Stenson (of Seattle’s Zig Zag Café) saw the recipe while flipping through Saucier’s Bottoms Up. He put it on the cocktail menu at Zig Zag, where it became an instant hit. After its successful (re)launch in the Pacific Northwest, The Last Word made its way to New York — and then to cocktail glasses around the globe. It’s still not widely known to the general public, but it’s a drink that cocktail aficionados cherish for its pungent, rich flavor.

The Last Word is a refreshing drink with a bit of a bite — pleasant in warm weather, but with enough substance to stand up to crisp fall evenings. And because it helps sharpen the palate, it’s one of the best pre-dinner drinks I know.

Give it a try, and I promise it won’t be the last one you have — you’ll return to it again and again.

Bermuda Rum Swizzle

The Drink That Inspired the Swizzle Stick

We all know what a swizzle stick is — or at least think we do.  It’s one of those colorful rods made of florescent plastic that bartenders put in some drinks because . . . because why?  To stir it?

Today swizzle sticks are more decorative than functional, but originally they were an important part of drink making.  In fact, it was impossible to make a drink called a “swizzle” without a swizzle stick.  (A swizzle is an entire class of drinks, like a sour, or a fizz, or a Collins, or a punch.) 

The original swizzle sticks were cut from bushes and measured maybe a foot long.  The root end of the stick was trimmed to form little “blades.”  You would put it in a glass filled with crushed ice, booze, and mixers, and then quickly rotate the shaft of the stick between your palms so the root end would spin back and forth, churning your drink.  This propeller action would help froth and chill the cocktail — no shaking necessary!

The Bermuda Rum Swizzle is by far the best drink in the swizzle family, IMO.  It’s a tall, delightful  combination of rum and citrus.  Refreshing and thirst quenching. 

Just the summer sipper you need for Labor Day weekend.

Planter's Punch

The Great Grandaddy of Tiki Drinks 

Let’s begin by acknowledging that Planter’s Punch originally had nothing to do with Tiki.  How could it?  It started out in Jamaica about 200 years ago, while Tiki is an American invention that was born in the 1930s.

Still, if Planter’s Punch had not existed, Tiki might not either.  I’ll explain that later.

But first we need to introduce today’s drink:  It’s tall, cool, rum-laden, and delectable.

Anything this refreshing has got my number, especially with the miserably hot summer we’re having.

Pegu Club Cocktail

A Smooth-Tasting Drink from Exotic Rangoon

Back in the days when the sun never set on the British Empire, its soldiers and civil servants could face any crisis with equanimity as long as they had a gentlemen’s club to retreat to at day’s end — and something to drink therein. That “something” usually contained gin.

In Rangoon, Burma — today known as Yangon, Myanmar, but once a tough corner of the Empire — the  Pegu Club Cocktail was the house drink of The Pegu Club, a meeting place for British military officers and civilian administrators (visitors welcome). The club got its name from the Pegu (Bago) river, which flows through the city.

This is the perfect drink for late summer/early autumn. We’ve still got our share of hot days ahead of us, so something citrusy-cool appeals. But Labor Day has come and gone, and we know the chill temperatures will soon start to descend. We’ll want a beverage that stiffens our spines against cold weather ahead.

The Pegu Club delivers. It’s a drink with authority, but its hint-of-grapefruit tang is mighty soothing.

And you won’t have to go to Rangoon to sample it.