This is the time of year TD searches out bars and restaurants with fireplaces. I’m lucky: there are two in the Town of Woodstock, a stone’s throw from where I live—The Bear and Cucina. Sure you can have your favorite cocktail, but why not a cocktail that complements the fire. Here are two recipes.
From Park restaurant and bar in Harvard Square, off the Charles River in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in an old-timey gentlemen’s club-styled room, slide into a sleek leather couch or large armchair in front of the fireplace and order the Fireside Poet. Bar manager Chris Balchum describes it as a “high-octane, sipping-bourbon drink.” It’s named for a group of New England writers whose poetry was among America earliest and best, including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow(“Paul Revere’s Ride,” “The Song of Hiawatha,” and “Evangeline”) and John Greenleaf Whittier(“Snow Bound,” “Barabara Frie Tchie,” and appropriately for this post, “Burning Drift-wood,” with the opening line: “Before my drift-wood fire I sit,”
Their poetry, like the cocktail, is straightforward with a twist or two. Balchum says they wrote poetry that “could be understood and re-read by American families, often around a fireplace, but also in schoolrooms and church settings—unlike some of the more esoteric British poetry of the time.”
Here is the Park’s recipe: I’ve tried it with a different bourbon and my on-the-shelf orange liqueur. (A splash was left—on purpose—for the iPhoneography shot in my living room.)
Fireside Poet
Ingredients
- 2 oz Corner Creek Bourbon
- 3/4 oz Clément Créole Shrubb
- 1/2 oz Santa Maria al Monte
- Barspoon of Luxardo cherry syrup
- 2 dashes of Fee Brothers Whiskey Barrel-Aged Bitters
Glass
- Old-fashioned glass
Method
- Stir and strain into a single old-fashioned glass over one perfect cube.
Fireside Cocktail
The Fireside Cocktail was created by Bill Norms of FINO in Austin, Texas, for Maker’s Mark.
Ingredients
- 1 ½ oz Makers Mark Bourbon
- ½ oz Lemon Juice
- ½ oz Honey Syrup
- 1 oz Apple Cider (unfiltered)
- 2 dash(es) Angostura Bitters
- 4 piece(s) Ginger (crystalized)
Glass
- Old-fashioned glass
Method
- Muddle Ginger, lemon and honey in mixing glass. Add apple cider, Maker’s Mark, bitters and ice. Shake and strain into iced double old fashioned glass. Garnish w/skewered crystallized ginger.
If you have a favorite, share it with us in the comments section below.
