Blue Paradise

Featuring two obscure ingredients, here is the Blue Paradise:

• 2 ounces cognac
• 1 ounce Dubonnet Rouge
• 4 dashes Parfait Amour

Shake in an iced cocktail shaker, and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.

This cocktail features both Dubonnet Rouge, which I was introduced to in Arnaud’s Special Cocktail and Parfait Amour, which was used in the Jupiter Cocktail. While this drink was invented in the late 1940s in Brussels, which is kind of modern, the use of these ingredients qualifies it as a vintage cocktail, and it is definitely forgotten.

Diki-Diki Cocktail

A drink with a Tiki name, the Diki-Diki Cocktail:

• 1.50 ounces Calvados
• 0.50 ounce Swedish Punsch
• 0.75 ounce grapefruit juice

Shake well with ice, and strain into a cocktail glass.

While this drink sounds like it would be part of the Tiki tradition, it isn’t. Those drinks tend to be sweet and rather strong, while this is a nice, simple cocktail.

The main spirit, Calvados, is an apple brandy which is offset by the spicy rum-like flavor of the Swedish Punsch. I used fresh grapefruit juice which lessens the sweetness of the Calvados just a bit.

The Fred Collins Fiz

With lemonade from England I was finally able to make the Fred Collins Fiz:

• 2.0 ounces bourbon or rye whiskey
• 0.5 ounce simple syrup
• Juice of one lemon
• 1 teaspoon orange curaçao
• 6.0 ounces lemonade

Mix the bourbon, simple syrup, and lemon juice in an iced cocktail shaker and shake. Strain into a large bar glass that is half filled with shaved (or finely crushed) ice. Add the curaçao. Pour the lemonade into a collins glass and port the contents of the bar glass into it.

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The Amarosa Cocktail

From halfway around the world comes The Amarosa Cocktail:

• 1.0 ounce Amaro Cora
• 1.0 ounce gin
• 1.0 ounce kirschwasser

Stir well and enthusiastically. Strain into a stemmed glass of your choice, but use something pretty, because this cocktail has a very pretty color. Twist a small lemon peel directly over the drink and drop it in.

Okay, I’m not a huge fan of amaro. I just find it to bitter, and while I love what it can do in a cocktail, I was very worried about drinking an amaro-centric libation.

Leatherneck Cocktail

Did you say you wanted a blue drink? Try the Leatherneck Cocktail:

• 2.00 ounces blended whiskey (Crown Royal recommended)
• 0.75 ounce blue curaçao
• 0.50 ounce fresh lime juice

Shake in an iced cocktail shaker, and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a lime wheel.

Okay, I don’t like blue curaçao. Curaçao is supposed to be a colorless spirit, but it is often dyed blue to add a weird color to drinks. Seriously, there is no blue food so there should be no blue drinks.

La Floridita Daiquiri

As summer comes to a close I wanted to make the La Floridita Daiquiri:

• 2 ounces rum (such as Havana Club from Cuba or Brugal from the Dominican Republic)
• Juice of 1/2 lime (If your limes are small, use the whole thing)
• 1 teaspoon sugar or sugar syrup (increase if too tart)
• 1 teaspoon maraschino liqueur

Blend with crushed ice. Serve in a saucer cocktail or champagne glass. Garnish with lime wheel and a maraschino cherry

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The Modernista

Another rare Scotch-based cocktail, The Modernista:

• 2.0 ounces Scotch
• 0.5 ounce dark Jamaican rum
• 1 teaspoon absinthe or pastis (Pernod, Herbsaint and Ricard all work.)
• 0.5 ounce Swedish Punsch
• 0.5 ounce fresh lemon juice
• 2 dashes orange bitters

Shake in an iced cocktail shaker, and strain into a cocktail glass. Add a lemon twist.

This is Dr. Cocktail’s name for The Modern cocktail, and the references I’ve found in the intertoobz all have Scotch, pastis or absinthe, and orange bitters in common, but in vastly different proportions. A couple include sloe gin. The drink is supposed to have originated just after the turn of the century (1900, not 2000), hence the name.