Pina Colada - Coconut Fantasy

Soul of Latin

 There is drink known to be the same, which was mixed by pirates to boost their morale. The legend says that when the pineapple juice was poured into coconut with white rum, it went so far to the point of no return and inventing one of the best cocktails was inevitable. Sadly, they did not write the recipe.

 Long time passed since they re-invented the cocktail. A bartender in Buenos Aires told the world how to make pina colada, he mixed coconut cream, pineapple juice, rum and crushed ice in a blender. The result was trustworthy compared with the legend known about the forgotten cocktail.

 I do not say you have to blend it. It is matter of choice or , in my view, reliability. Go with the technique you are comfortable with, or leave the final word to your drinkers. So which one you choose?

Recipe of Pina Colada

1 and 1/2 oz - White Rum
3 oz - Coconut Cream
6 oz - Pineapple Juice

Mixing the ingredients

Fill with ice a Poco Grande glass and leave aside. Make decision, is it the shaker or you go with the blender. Fill a shaker with ice and crush it with the muddler. Drop it in the blender or if you will shake pour as follows. Pour the coconut cream first, then the pineapple juice and rum. Shake hard until reaching smooth mixture. Strain into the glass and garnish it with Maraschino cherry and Pineapple piece by decision. Now boost your crew morale and teach them how to make Pina Colada cocktail.

White Russian - the Defibrilator

Beware of the White Bear

 It dates back to 1949, when it first appeared. By this time they called it Black Russian, but later they added cream to the recipe, which made the drink White. Its origin is unclear, but it surely didn't come from Russia. It is called Russian, because the main ingredient is the Vodka, which comes from there.

 The first recipe of how to make White Russian was published at 21th November, 1965 in a newspaper, somewhere in California. This is the classic recipe of the cocktail and it calls for: "Equal parts of Coffe Southern, Vodka and Cream", where Southern is trademark of Coffee liqueur.

 The way you mix the ingredients depends on your style, but as long as this cocktail has no juices, all you have to do is stir. Maybe you can shake the cream, so it gets thin, but this is not necessary. Nowadays it is thought that White Russian is one of the best cocktails for dudes. Is this better than Old Fashioned, when it comes to young people's taste?

Recipe of White Russian

1 and 2/3 oz - Vodka
2/3 oz - Coffee Liqueur
1 oz - Fresh Cream


Mixing the ingredients

Fill old fashioned glass with ice and stir to chill faster. Then pour vodka and liqueur over the ice, stir briefly and top-up with cream. Stir one last time, but this time gently. It is easy to make cocktail, I know you will do it.

Pink Lady - the Notorious Beauty

Because water is lame

 It was initially mixed in the Southern Yacht Club, New Orleans. The Pink Lady recipe is invented by Armond Schroeder. He initially named the drink Pink Shimmy, but later the cocktaail was given new name, because of its creamy and girly nature. It is said the drink was made to compensate the low-quality of the gins in the past. This led the cocktail in the Top 10 Worst Cocktails of Esquire's Handbook.

 It seemed that only women, who do not understand much, drank it. But later, things changed so the cocktail became more desired, thanks to the celebrities, who loved it. With the years, drinker's taste changed the things even further, so now the Pink Lady cocktail is seen as top notch, when it comes to cocktails for women. 

 It is simple mix of gin, grenadine and egg white. There are many variations, most of which include lemon juice, but this is the most authentic one, which the mixed at first. On ladies focus, do you find this cocktail as one of the best cocktails for women?

Recipe of Pink Lady

1/2 oz - Gin
4 dashes Grenadine
An egg white


Mixing the ingredients

Fill martini glass and leave aside. Shake vigorously the ingredients without ice for half a minute, then fill the shaker with ice and go again for 15 seconds. Remove the ice and the excess water of the glass and pour the mixture. Garnish with Maraschino cherry. This is how to make Pink Lady dear ladies.

Cuba Libre - the Spirit of Cuba

¡Por Cuba Libre!

 During the American-Spanish war, the Coca-Cola and Rum was popular highball among the Cuban patriots. The Americans were on their side and when they won the war, they gathered in a bar to party. This took place in Havana, Cuba. There Captain Russel ordered the well-known highball with lime juice as addition. He drank the cocktail with such pleasure that all his fellows wanted to try it. They had one, then 2 and so, but the cocktail had remained unnamed. So we know it now as Cuba Libre, or in other words its name is behalf the Independece of Cuba.

 Since then the cocktail walked its way to the second most popular cocktail of all times, ranking below only to the Mojito. Initially it was made with Gold Bacardi rum, but nowadays it is up to drinker's choice, whether the rum will be dark or light. It is served in highball glass.

 It started as exotic highball, which the euphory of the successful war kicked into new highs. It is thought that Mojito is better than Cuba Libre, even I think so. But what is your opinion, is Cuba Libre better and therefore the best cocktail of all times?

Recipe of Cuba Libre

1 and 2/3 oz - Rum
4 oz - Coca-Cola
1/3 oz - Fresh Lime Juice

Mixing the ingredients

Shake rum and fresh lime juice with ice for 10 seocnds. Pour into highball glass and drop some lime slices. Top the glass with ice and fill-up with coca-cola. Garnish with lime slice. Now you know how to make Cuba Libre at home, enjoy it!

Tequila Sunrise - the Sunrise of East Coast

California finest

 Once this cocktail was made with tequila, crème de cassis, lime juice and soda. The recipe was inveted by Gene Suilt and it was mainly served in Arizona Biltmore Hotel. Then the cocktail was reinvented by Bobby Lazoff and Billy Rice, who were working as bartenders at the Trident in Sausalito, California. Their modification is the popular cocktail we drink today.

 The initial mix was done during private party at the Trident, organized by Bill Graham, to promote the Rolling Stones'. In which Mick Jagger had one of the first Tequila Sunrises made with the new recipe. He and his circle started to bottom-up this, they took the recipe and they drunk it everywhere they went on their 'cocaine tour'. This way they quickly popularized the mixed drink.

 The concrete was laid down after they printed the cocktail recipe on the back of tequila bottles. Even more, they hired a group to record a song dedicated on the mixed drink. Its name comes straight from its look. But as long as there are 2 classic recipes, there will be competition. Which of two is better, the initial recipe or the official?

Recipe of Tequila Sunrise

1 and 1/2 oz - Tequila
3 oz - Orange Juice
1/2 oz - Grenadine


Mixing the ingredients

Fill with ice highball glass and leave aside. Squeeze some fresh orange juice into shaker and add tequila. Shake well with ice and pour over the ice in the highball glass. This was the easy part. Now take the bar-spoon and guide the syrup to the inner glass wall. This way it will fall on the bottom, without mixing. Because the grenadine heighs more than the mixture of the shaker. Thanks to this, we did cocktail that looks like sunrise. Garnish with orange piece and mint leaves. It's time to taste the sunrise.

Planter's Punch - the Best Refresher

Old Tikiowned

 What this cocktail outperforms others with is his cooling effect. I do not say, you can't cool down with Margarita, but when we replace the hot temper of the tequila with the softness of the dark rum, it may not be a delightful mixed drink, but will surely make-up with the flavor and taste rich qualities.

 Provided you know a little bit about the Tiki culture, when you try this the first on your mind will be is this Mai Tai variation. In fact, it is not. But it is part of Tiki's. After all the classic recipes of both cocktails call for the same Jamaican dark rum. And after all, they are not so different.

 What is unique for Planter's Punch is fruity nature. It is mixed with lime juice, wheter it will be still well balanced, used lemon juice, but this only softens the drink even further. And this is why it is so effective, just like the Mojito, it has fresh approach and aroma catches you off-guard. Tell me, how resisting this can be told possible?

Recipe of Planter's Punch 

3 oz -  Dark Rum
2 and 1/3 oz - Orange Juice ( preferably fresh )
2 and 1/3 oz - Pineapple Juice ( not necessary fresh )
1 and 1/3 oz - Fresh Lemon Juice
2/3 oz - Grenadine
2/3 oz - Simple syrup
Two or Three dashes of Angostura Bitters

Mixing the ingredients

Chill a Highball glass and pour everything without the bitters in a shaker. Fill with ice and shake vigorously for 20 seconds, here it is very important, because we have many juices. Strain into the chilled glass and garnish with mint-sprig. Do not bother using straw, you will be unable to smell the flavors so well, but taste remains the same, try now!

Tom Collins - the Gin Punch

"Floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee"

 Collins are cocktails that look like Fizz ones, but they do not have the body and the foam usual for the latter. This one for example was brought to live by 'the American father of Mixology' Jerry Thomas. They popularized the cocktail with jokes, because it has name of a person.

 I mean it has two first names, so you can find it as John Collins aswell. It was invented at 1876 and had its 'Up and Down'. Unlike the other legendary cocktails, this one has no competition of authority. The only bad news are they didn't invent it balanced, so couple of adjustments were done. Fortunately, today we have fine-tasting mixed drink.

 Finest is not always hard to deliver. To be honest, all you need for this is fresh lemon and soda at hand. Before you even start making the cocktail, dissolve 2 parts sugar into 1 of water to make gomme syrup. And you are good to go. For best happenings I suggest you to use Old Tom Gin, which is designed for this mixed drink. But every Gin you choose will work in this cocktail. Just tell me which one will you use and why do you prefer it over the one from above?  Just make sure you know the ratio of the ingredients we will mix ..

Recipe of Tom Collins

1 and 1/2 oz - Gin
1 oz - Fresh Lemon Juice
1/2 oz - Gomme Syrup
2 oz - Soda


Mixing the ingredients

Chill a Collins glass and leave aside. Fill shaker with the ingredients and ice, but without Soda. Shake for 10 seconds and pour over the ice. Top-up with soda and stir gently. Use peel zest of a lemon to squeeze it over the cocktail and then drop for a garnish. You can optionally drop a Maraschino cherry. Now let cool down.

Ramos Gin Fizz - the White Void

Unique antique

 In 1888, Henry C. Ramos used to drink Fizz cocktails, which were made from citrus acid and carbonated ingredient. He was gin lover, so logically he was drinking Gin Fizz, which is very close to Sour mixed drink. He had the shiny idea to make a modificiation, that is little bit more hrunchy, so he added egg white and sugar to the mix. This way he found the best known Fizz of all times.

 The issue with this cocktail is that it took 12 minutes to prepare, from a bartender that knows the recipe. Everyone that was ordered one was shaking the hell out off the ingredients - two times. First without ice, so the egg white will dissolve the sugar and will get 'cooked' from the alcohol, and then with ice, so the drink will get extremely cool, so it can be drunk at summer.

 The love toward the cocktail spread so much, that the hotels were hiring about 20 bartenders to work at the same time and doing only Ramos Gin Fizz, so it doesn't take more than 30 minutes to serve. Unbelievably they still struggled to fit in the time-frime at times. A hotel hired 32 bartenders for a private party night, so they could shake in time.

 The issue was solved by Gary Regan who had the genius idea to use Blender for this cocktail, if you do not want to tone up your arms. And this was turning point in the history, because everyone learned how to make Ramos Gin Fizz the other way. Nowadays, both options are acceptable, as long as you do it for yourself. Tell me, which one will you use and why?

Recipe of Ramos Gin Fizz

3 oz - Gin
1 oz - Fresh Lime Juice
1 oz - Fresh Lemon Juice
1 oz - Simple Syrup
4 oz - Cream
An egg white
Few dashes of Orange Flower water
2 drops of Vanilla extract
Top up with soda water


Mixing the ingredients

Blend gin, lime and lemon juice and simple syrup with the egg white. Pour the hrunch mix in a shaker and add cream, Orange Flower water, little bit of Vanilla extract and ice. Shake vigorously until it is chilled down. Pour the liquid in a Collins glass without ice. Top-up with soda and garnish wih lemon wheel. Now refresh yourself.

AK-47 - the Death Banner

Hardcore Blast

 For a cocktail, it was given a name that already struck fear in the hearts. Behalf on the legendary machine-gun from the World War II, which has the honor for saving Russia. Even more, not only their name is equal. Both they are easy-to-do, or in other words, simple but effective. Because you do not have to be Mixologist to make an AK-47 cocktail. Just mixing equal parts in shaker with ice and straining. To be honest, the hardest part is to finish it up.

 Compared to the best cocktails known, this is relatively new. Comes from Russia and also finds best use there, because not every human can deal with tons of alcohol. But not only there, I have friends that will drink this with ease and will go insane for the night. So it is more to personality, if you can take the risk of losing mind, you can bottom this up.

 And this is easy-to-make cocktail, so you will not waste too much time to quench your thirstiness. All we can do is to rim and chill the glass and if we have the skills to forget for the shaker and make semi-layered mixed drink, if not perfectly layered. This requires three things. First of all, we have to know the height of every liquid we will use. Second, we need a bar-spoon. And last, we have to use the bar-spoon properly. I suggest you to learn the technique of making layered cocktails. Because I can't dive in the topic, so I will provide only the basics. Let's make one!

Recipe of AK-47

1/3 oz - Brandy
1/3 oz - Vodka
1/3 oz - Bourbon
1/3 oz - Rye Whiskey
1/3 oz - Rum
1/3 oz - Gin
1/3 oz - Triple Sec
1/3 oz - Fresh Lime Juice


Mixing the ingredients

 If you will not make it layered, just chill a Highball glass. Fill a shaker with the ingredients and ice. Shake them hard to make homogenous mix. Clean the chilled glass to make sugar-rim. If you do not know how, use piece of lime to cover the rim edge of the glass. Just make sure it do it fine, so the sugar will not be everywhere on the outside of the glass. Thereafter fill with ice the glass and pour the shaker content over. Enjoy it, if you like it more enjoyable try harder. Garnish with lime wedge, Maraschino cherry and an umbrella.

 Provided now you know how to use the bar spoon, you have to avoid chilling, because water will help the ingredients to mix better, even in low ammounts. But we can chill it a bit in a fridge and then polish it with clean wash-cloth. Now it is time to do the research. List your alcohols by their height. Pour from the highest to the lightest, following these rules. Use the spoon upside-down and pour slowly in the center, especially the initial drops. Keep the spoon deep in the glass, just to make sure the liquid doesn't fall to hard, but never touch the other. Here we go with every liquid one after the other. In my view the lime juice will dissolve even using this technique, so I suggest doing the cocktail without it.

 Making the cocktail this way requires steel nerves and a lot of undisturbed time, because even the silence matters now. I couldn't do it the first 10 times and you will understand why, but keep on trying the result is just unexplainable. It can't be bought, nor possessed, not narrated, only experienced. It feels like shifting gears of moods and emotions, but requires guts to drink at once. Just remember to not bother garnishing, nor using ice. This has to be pure alcohol pyramid. If you happen to make one, please make a picture of it with good-quality and send it to me. After you try it, tell me. What it feels like to bottom-up an AK-47?

Mint Julep - the Mint Blackhole

Whirlwind of mint

 Mint Julep is something between Mojito and Old Fashioned. It can be named mint bouquet, this cocktail is well-known out there. The problem is that it has lot of variations that just doesn't work. There are suggestions that talk about Pineapple slice for garnish, using rum, rye whiskey and so on. These are just the ideas of beer drinkers, the classic calls for Mint, Bourbon, Sugar and Water. This drink reaches perfection in simplicity. Let's find best use of mint.

Recipe of Mint Julep

2 oz - Bourbon
2 tsps - Simple Syrup
10 fresh mint leaves



Mixing the ingredients

Add 10 ml ( 2 tsps ) simople syrup in a Highball glass rimmed with sugar. Take mint leaves and lightly press them to get darker. Swab the top inside of the glass with a leaf and drop them in the glass. Fill it with broken ice to the half and pour the Bourbon while stirring. Then top the glass with ice and garnish with Mint sprig. Use short strap for best moments.

Irish Coffe - the Hrunch Breakfast

Drinking from hapiness, sadness or the morning

 Some people have sense how to invent things, other just try things that are supposed to not work and this is the way the Irish Coffe was invented. Just replace the milk with Irish whiskey and you are good to go. It appears that this cocktail is strong aphrodisiac and can turn-on every man. But it comes way to strong for the opposite sex, so be careful. Now let's wake yp!

Recipe of Irish Coffe

2 oz - Irish Whiskey
4 oz - Warm Coffe
2 oz - Simple Syrup
Top with Heavy Cream

Mixing the ingredients

Mix the Simple Syrup and the coffe in a Sturdy Wine glass and try to use Simple Syrup made from  brown sugar. When the sugar dissolve in the coffe, add thw Irish whiskey to the mix. Stir steadily and gently with moving up and down until reaching homogenous mixture. Top-up with Heavy Cream. Here you are.

Daiquiri - the Citrus Mindblower

Daiquiritos citrusification

 Reasonably this can be ordered as "Mojito no mints" and for tried it with every possible fruit. But the classic says lime and sugar, no cherries, no lemons, no oranges, plain and straight - Lime. Although it is not too distinct it remains great choice. The lime flavor is going to catch you off-guard, provided it will be complimented from rum different than white, which is the lightest. Mix it now.

Recipe of Daiquiri

2 oz - Light Rum, but not white
3/4 oz - Lime Juice
1 tsp - Superfine Sugar

Mixing the ingredients

Disolve the sugar into the lime juice in a shaker. Thereafter, pour the rum over and fill with ice. Shake shortly and strain into desired cocktail glass. Here you can be picky, because there is no specific glass for this cocktail, but Highball shouldn't be your choice. Garnish with lime wheel or drop it in. Enjoy the citrus breeze!