Your favorite real* mixed drink that nobody else has heard of

Cafe Society
1

Alcoholic is implied, but not necessary. By “real,” I mean it has to have some actual, valid record, whether in bar books or on the internet. It can’t be a drink you or someone you know submitted. It can’t be something you made one fateful night with your buddy, when all you had on hand was tequila, applejack, butterscotch schnapps, and mango-passionfruit juice. And kids’ cough syrup.

That and it has to be obscure. The kind of drink that you can ask 99/100 bartenders to make, and most will go “huh!?” (Yes, I’m sure your bartender is way cooler than that. If you’re in Portland or Brooklyn, remember that the rest of the world doesn’t drink Fernet cocktails for fun). Mixed = at least two ingredients, rocks/splash of water/soda doesn’t count.

Mine even has a Wikipedia page. Behold, the Pegu/Pegu Club.

I do:
2 parts gin
1 part triple sec (cheap kind seems fine, I don’t buy cointreau)
lime juice to taste
Angostura bitters
Orange bitters (I use a tiny dash of Campari just to use up that nasty, nasty stuff. Any uses for it otherwise besides negroni?)

And yes, it’s pinkish, and I don’t care. It’s manly dammit. Like the Pink gin, those who are into cutesy pink things probably can’t abide the taste. And it does end up tasting vaguely grapefruit-y.

Another obscure one that’s not my favorite but still good: the Cape Cod/Cape Codder. The majority of people have no idea what it is. And I’ll bet that they have it anyway from time to time, because they call it “Cranberry vodka.”

So, what drinks do you like which are easier to order by giving the ingredients rather than the name?

2

Harvey Wallbanger. People may have heard of it but few bartenders I have run into seem to know what goes in it. It’s actually pretty simple.
Tasty too.

3

Heretic. Campari is perfect, as is the negroni.

4

True story, I was In Gallup, NM with my wife, walking downtown and looking at jewelry when we decide to stop in at the American bar for a drink. There is a drunk Navajo couple seated next to us at the bar, drinking beer. Bartender asks us what we want. I order a beer. Wife orders a Cosmopolitan. We have to tell the bartender how to make a Cosmo. The drunk Navajo woman watches all this, and then leans over and tells us “You guys aren’t from around here, are you?”

Well, I am, which is why I ordered a beer.

5

I’m partial to a Portagaff on a hot day. It’s basically Stout and Lemonade (the fizzy soda pop/ soft drink stuff)

Cuts the heaviness of the stout a bit and makes it a tad more refreshing. Straight stout is best drunk on a cold day in front of a warm fire.

Another one is Gin and Bitter lemon. Tastier than tonic water, don’t know how common it is.

6

I don’t think most bars even have some of the fixings necessary to make a Singapore sling;

16 parts pineapple juice
8 parts gin
6 parts lemon juice
4 parts Heering
2 parts grenadine
1 part Cointreau
1 part Benedictine
Dash of bitters

Similarly, there’s the Jack Rose, which is an enjoyable drink that nobody carries the main ingredient of anymore;

2 parts applejack
1 part lemon juice
Dash of grenadine

7

Painkiller. We drink them on vacation, and were introduced to it at the bar where it was created.

8

Ha! Houston’s got a bunch of bars & restaurants proud of offering “artisanal cocktails.” Anvil was the first one–check out their PDF menu. I’m sure the trend hit other cities first.

Ancient cocktails? Familiar cocktails with a new twist? Obscure liqueurs? Handmade ingredients. They’ve got them all…

9

Unless you’re in a cocktail-specialty bar, most bars don’t make anything beyond the most trendy cocktails in my experience. Anything & soda, anything & tonic, Screwdriver, Cosmo, etc.

Most places in my town don’t stock lime and lemons for juicing. You get “sour mix” which is the work of the devil. With that one thing, they’ve precluded making almost every decent cocktail.

I am in the middle of nowhere, but even if I’m in a city, I’d be surprised if a standard bar could make a decent Sidecar, Daiquiri (the class one, not the overly sweet slushy thing that passes nowadays), or Vesper. None of these are difficult drinks, but you do have to stock certain ingredients.

Of course, a cocktail-specialty bar would be able to make any of them with no problem.

5 years ago, it was 50/50 if the cocktail-specialty bars could make Old Fashioneds, but they’ve since become trendy, so you can get 'em all over. A blessing!

10

Calimaxto. Half and half red wine and Coke. Popular in Spain, I guess, but most people think it’s an abomination.

Horse’s Neck - brandy and ginger ale, with an optional lemon peel. Good stuff.

11

I’m a fan of the La Floridita / Hemingway Daiquiri (I mentioned it in another thread, actually)

2 oz light rum
1/2 oz Maraschino Liqueur (I’m partial to Luxardo)
1/2 oz Grapefruit juice (fresh squeezed)
3/4 oz lime juice (fresh squeezed)
1/2 oz simple syrup (more or less; try it and adjust the sweetness)

Shake w/ice, and serve.

I’m also a fan of the caipirinha, although that’s not that uncommon, I guess.

2 oz cacacha (Brazilian rum-like distillate)
1/2 lime, cut into quarters
Sugar (can’t remember the quantity; maybe 1 tsp?)

Muddle the limes and the sugar together, add the cachaca, shake well with crushed ice, dump the entire shooting match- lime peels ice and all into your glass. Serve. Works well with just about any fresh fruit added to the limes as well.

And unless you’re straight-up Mexican, here’s the least well-known, and tastiest cocktail I know of.

It’s called a Paloma (dove).

2 oz silver tequila
juice of 1/2 lime
grapefruit soda (Jarritos Toronja is the best I’ve found, and I tried every one I can find)
ice
very tiny pinch of salt

Basically, you put the tequila in a tall glass, add the lime juice, salt and ice, and top off with roughly 4-6 oz of grapefruit soda.

It’s a lot like a margarita, but subtly different, and really REALLY good.

I live in Texas, am kind of a cocktail dork, and I never heard of these until about a year ago, so I figure they can’t be that common north of the border.

12

The Pear-asol (signature drink at Parasol Up in Las Vegas)

3 oz Absolut pear vodka
.75 oz simple syrup
.75 oz pear liqueur
.75 oz sweet & sour mix
splash Luxardo maraschino liqueur

Shake with ice. Strain into martini glass and garnish with maraschino cherry.

Absolutely great way to start the weekend Friday evening.

13

Bloody Caesar

I had no idea it was primarily a Canadian cocktail, until I attempted to order one in South Carolina many years back.

14

The TKO

1 part Tequila, 1 part Kahlua, 1 part Ouzo

The are a few other versions with the same name and vastly different contents. This is simple and surprisingly good.

15

Ouzo and OJ, with a cherry. It’s an Archimedes’ Screw.

Amaretto and OJ, with a cherry. It’s a Voulez Vous Screw.

Used to order these occasionally in my 30s. I stay with bourbon, two drops these days.

16

Tequilla sunrise. Most bars use an altered version, but the original is:

1 part tequilla
1 part gin
1 part vodka
Orange juice
grenadine syrup

And, of course, sloe gin, southern comfort, vodka, and orange juice: a sloe comfortable screw.

17

Add a float of Galliano and it becomes a slow comfortable screw up against the wall.

18

…leading to one of the reasons a lot of us stop drinking cocktails; we get too old to be asking for drinks with clown-barf silly names.

19

No different then a Vodka Tonic, but saying Tito’s 'n Tonic will catch most people off guard. If they’re not familiar with Tito’s it’ll just sound like you mumbled something at them.

20

Port of Call in New Orleans makes a Hurricane-like cocktail called Neptune’s Monsoon. The recipe is a secret but it’s basically OJ, Pineapple juice, Hawaiian Punch, and lots of light and dark rum (w/ a 151 floater). One will get you pretty wobbly.