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If you couldn’t get into the sold-out World Cocktail Day party at Green Street on Tuesday, I’m sorry to tell you that it was a ton o’ fun. In fact, it was an evening I was downright thankful for. It marked the end of World Cocktail Week, whose frivolity contrasted unavoidably with a coinciding spate of tragedies: the cyclone in Myanmar, the earthquake in China, tornadoes in the U.S. (not to mention the continuing grimness in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc, etc, etc). I’m not trying to bring anyone down here. I’m just saying there were times during the evening when I paused, soaked up the good vibe among the crowd and thanked my lucky stars.

Our guest bartenders, four knowledgable and talented New England gentlemen, each mixed a vintage cocktail of their choice, then went from table to table recounting that libation’s origins and moment in history. They time-traveled from 1870s San Francisco to an 1880s bartender’s manual to the Spanish-American War (1898) to an early 20th-century obsession with songs about maidens. The cocktails (below) were accompanied by flatbread pizza, beef tongue tacos and other tasty treats from the Green Street kitchen. We started with an innocent-seeming Maiden’s Prayer and ended with a brassy Remember the Maine, at which point the joke was whether anyone would remember the Maine.

Maiden’s Prayer
by Tom Schlesinger-Guidelli of Eastern Standard

3/4 oz Plymouth Gin
3/4 oz white rum
3/4 oz lemon juice
1/2 oz Cointreau
1 dash orange bitters
Shake well over ice, strain into a cocktail glass, and garnish with a flower. Based on a variation (circa 1930) of the original (circa 1907), which may have been inspired by a hit piano tune of the late 1800s.

Nicol’s Secret Pisco Punch (without cocaine)
by John Gertsen of No. 9 Park

6 parts BarSol pisco
3 parts lemon juice
2 parts pineapple syrup
1 part water
Shake, strain into a cocktail glass, and garnish with pineapple. The recipe originated with Duncan Nicol, the proprietor of San Francisco’s Bank Exchange saloon from the late 1870s until Prohibition. The secret’s out: a wee bit of gum arabic (which comes in a white powder — get it?) makes this a silky sweet punch.

Bijou
by Brother Cleve, cocktail historian and mixologist

1/3 Plymouth Gin
1/3 sweet vermouth
1/3 green Chartreuse
1 dash orange bitters
Stir well over ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a cherry or a lemon twist. A Golden Age cocktail dating back to Harry Johnson’s Bartender’s Manual in 1882.

Remember the Maine
by John Myers, Portland, Maine-based bartender and cocktail historian

1 1/2 oz good rye whiskey or bourbon (i.e. Maker’s Mark)
3/4 oz sweet vermouth
1-2 tsp of cherry brandy
1/2 tsp absinthe or Pernod veritas
Stir well over ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass with a lemon twist. Named for the rallying cry of the Spanish-American war, the cocktail is described in Charles H. Baker Jr.’s The Gentleman’s Companion (1939). Myers’ note: “Any absinthe substitute will work, but the ‘cherry brandy’ is up for some interpretation. Different drinks occur — but still work, so little is deployed — if Cherry Heering or maraschino are used.”

World Cocktail Day at Green Street benefited the Museum of the American Cocktail, which launched World Cocktail Week. Plymouth Gin, Maker’s Mark bourbon and BarSol Pisco were the evening’s sponsors. Many thanks to Green Street bar manager Misty Kalkofen, owner Dylan Black and everyone else in the kitchen, behind the bar and out on the floor for totally kicking ass.

I’ve been drafted to represent Tales of the Cocktail 2008 at the Boston Globe Travel Show this Friday and Saturday (February 22-23). TOTC Founder Ann Tuennerman is busy promoting her event elsewhere around the country, so I, along with Misty Kalkofen of Green Street, signed on for the job. Since Misty and I (and several of our fellow Boston cocktailians) are attending TOTC again this year, you’ll be hearing more about this be-there-or-be-square cocktail party as its time (July 16-20) nears. And, of course, there’ll be posts about the event during and after the fact, just like last year.

Misty’s and my presentation will involve a few cocktail demos, of course. Two of the featured drinks celebrate New Orleans and its cocktail history; the third gives Travel Show attendees a taste of what’s happening in today’s Boston scene. Try them out yourself while you plan your trip to New Orleans this summer. FYI, we used Hendrick’s gin (a TOTC sponsor) in the recipes below.

Obituary Cocktail

2 oz gin
1/4 oz dry vermouth
1/4 oz absinthe (or Herbsaint)

Stir all ingredients well over ice and strain into a cocktail glass. This cocktail was created at Jean Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop on Bourbon St., one of New Orleans’ oldest saloons.

French 75

1 1/2 oz gin
3/4 oz fresh lemon juice
1/2 oz simple syrup
Champagne

Shake gin, lemon juice and simple syrup over ice. Pour into champagne flute or saucer and top with Champagne. The bar at the famous New Orleans restaurant, Arnaud’s, is named for this drink. The drink is, as you know, named for the rapid-firing cannon the French used in World War I.

Flapper Jane

1 3/4 oz gin
1/2 oz fresh lemon juice
3/4 oz Wu Wei tea-infused simple syrup*
dash of Peychaud’s bitters

Shake all ingredients over ice and strain into a cocktail glass. The Flapper Jane was created for the LUPEC Boston Tea Party.

*Wu Wei tea-infused simple syrup: heat 1 cup sugar, 1 cup water and 1 Tbsp Wu Wei tea in a saucepan until all the sugar dissolves. Pour into a container and let cool. Store in fridge.

Last night, the Boston Athenaeum, one of America’s oldest private libraries, threw a Roaring Twenties party for some of its members with the help of drinkboston. There was a password to get in (”Gatsby sent me”), a secret entrance to the Periodicals Room where the festivities were held, a jazz band, cucumber sandwiches and, naturally, vintage cocktails (see below). Also, every attendee was handed an antique playing card; the game was to find the other partygoer with the same card and write something down about that person in the guest book. In the end, a man in a smoking jacket tried to bribe the fuzz who raided the speakeasy, but nothing doing — they sent us off to where we belonged: the 21st Amendment.

The party was thrown for the Athenaeum’s “associate members” (aka members 41 and under), some of whom, like me, helped plan the shindig. Not surprisingly, I was in charge of making sure we had quality hooch. Enter some of Boston’s best bartenders — John Gertsen, Misty Kalkofen and Tom Schlesinger-Guidelli — and the signature cocktails they created just for the event. One of those drinks, the Red Rot Cocktail, was specially commissioned by the Athenaeum as an homage to book restoration. That’s right — many of the library’s old, red leather book covers suffer from “red rot,” a pinkish mildew whose remedy is a chemical solution known as “red rot cocktail.” The recipes below appear as I wrote them for the party’s program, in a style cribbed straight from Prohibition-era bon vivant Charles Baker, who wrote the Gentleman’s Companion.

The Athenaeum is trying to get the word out to potential younger members that you don’t have to be a Mayflower descendant to join. All you need is four references and $115 for a one-year associate membership. If you have even the faintest interest in history or are simply proud to say you live in Boston because of its intellectuals, join up and see how you like it. The recently restored building is gorgeous, there’s fine art all over the place, there are tons of events, and the items in the Special Collections are damned impressive. George Washington’s library? Yeah, it’s there. And they throw a smashing party, too.

Red Rot Cocktail, which Rather Resembles the Noxious Liquid Medicine for Moldy Red Leather-bound Books but Nonetheless Pleases the Palate

To one jigger of London dry gin add one half ounce each of St. Germain elderflower liqueur, Cherry Heering and fresh lemon juice, and two goodly dashes of Peychaud’s bitters. Shake vigorously with ice and turn into a champagne saucer. (Created by Misty Kalkofen of Green Street and Lauren Clark of drinkboston)

Foglia Noce (Walnut Leaves), being a Mixture Inspired by the Marconi Wireless and Evocative of Tuscan Autumns and Colonial Taverns

Into a bar glass turn two and one-half ounces of applejack, one ounce of Nocino and two judicious dashes of Fee’s Whisky Barrel Aged Bitters. Stir with lump ice, strain into a chilled Old Fashioned glass and finish with orange oil. (Created by John Gertsen of No. 9 Park)

Flowers for Murphy, being a Bracing and Bubbly Homage to Prince and Princess of the Jazz Age Gerald and Sara Murphy, who Inspired us with a Mixture Called the Bailey

Lightly chill one jigger of London dry gin, three-quarters ounce of simple syrup, a split of lime and grapefruit juices to equal another three-quarters ounce, and one-quarter ounce of green Chartreuse. Turn the mixture into a champagne saucer and top it with bubbly and a small mint leaf. (Created by Tom Schlesinger-Guidelli of Eastern Standard)

A friend of mine recently asked me to create a cocktail for her wedding. I was honored. I immediately began imagining cognac and champagne mixtures with fresh citrus and exotic liqueurs. Then my friend forwarded me the contract from the bartenders she had hired for the occasion. That brought me back to reality. How do you create a festive, wedding-worthy cocktail out of the raw materials found in the standard Marital-Industrial Complex bar setup (a phenomenon that persists no matter how fancy or distinctive the wedding)? You break out the bitters, that’s how.

You know the kinds of booze I’m talking about: Canadian Club, Seagram’s VO, a couple types of vodka, and liqueurs that were big in the ’80s, i.e. Peachtree Schnapps. No bourbon, no cognac and, obviously, no fresh citrus juice. There’d be gin and champagne, though, so I decided to work around those. My friend loves French 75s, after all.

I realized that the cocktail would have to be very simple, given that I would need to batch up the spirits beforehand and transport them to the wedding myself in my Executair 101; there was no prayer that the speed-pouring M.I.C. bartenders would follow a recipe, even if I supplied the called-for ingredients. I could only rely on them to chill the spirit mixture and top it with champagne. Since I love the combination of bitters that make another champagne cocktail, the Seelbach, so distinctive, I thought I’d use two kinds of bitters to bring my gin-champagne mixture to life. After a few experiments, I settled on a 2:1 proportion of Regan’s orange bitters and Peychaud’s bitters.

The bride-to-be sampled my creation and proclaimed it worthy of toasting her union with a man named Jones. I think it’s pretty tasty. See for yourself:

The Mrs. Jones Cocktail
makes 2 drinks

1 oz gin
1 tsp simple syrup
4 dashes Regan’s orange bitters
2 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
Champagne

Shake first four ingredients in a mixing glass with ice and strain into 2 champagne flutes. Top with enough champagne or sparkling wine to make the cocktail light pink. Drop a very thin slice of lemon into each glass.

Endnote: I went to cocktaildb.com, and the only other drink I could find that combines orange and Peychaud’s bitters is:

The Metropole Cocktail

1 1/4 oz cognac
1 1/4 oz dry vermouth
1 dash Peychaud’s bitters
1 dash orange bitters
Add cherry

Stir in mixing glass with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

If you just can’t wait for the LUPEC Boston Tea Party (scroll down), and you’re dying for a tasty vintage cocktail that’ll help Boston-area women, you have until the end of September to visit some of the restaurants participating in LUPEC Boston’s “This One’s for the Ladies” drink promotion. Be sure to ask for the cocktails those establishments chose to raise money for Jane Doe Inc. (the Massachusetts Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence). Examples: the Pegu Cocktail at the Independent, the Hanky Panky at Eastern Standard and the Barbara West at Green Street.

I have to admit I’m partial to the latter, because … well, every LUPEC (Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails) member has a cocktail alias, and Barbara West happens to be mine. Not only is this dry, appetite-whetting drink delicious, it reminds me of those two great “forebroads” I knew as my grandmothers: one was named Barbara, and the other (Marion) drank sherry. Here’s the recipe for the BW, from Ted Haigh’s Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails:

Barbara West Cocktail

2 oz. gin
1 oz. sherry (preferably amontillado)
1/2 oz. fresh lemon juice
1 sm. dash Angostura bitters

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

The sun never sets on the British Cocktail Empire. It seems that every week there’s some redcoat cocktail consultant and/or liquor brand representative jetting into Boston and concocting drinks for a promotion party. In the past six months, I’ve met Jamie Walker, brand ambassasor for Bombay Sapphire, Angus Winchester, founder of Alconomics Ltd., and, now, Charlotte Voisey, “brand champion” for Hendrick’s Gin and company mixologist for William Grant & Sons USA. She was in town recently for a Hendrick’s party at OM in Harvard Square.

OK, I’m jealous. Charlotte is young and gorgeous, and she travels around the world promoting gin and mixing cocktails. How the hell do I get a job like that? Apparently by running cocktail bars in Barcelona, Buenos Aires and London, being named UK Bartender of the Year (2004), winning a silver medal at the World Female Bartending Championships (2006), and consulting on cocktail programs at London’s Dorchester Hotel and Manhattan’s Gramercy Park Hotel. That’s what Charlotte did before moving to New York for her current gig.

At the OM event, Charlotte struck me as someone who takes her job seriously but doesn’t take herself too seriously. She wasn’t swanning around the room talking up her brand — she was actually behind the bar mixing drinks with the stuff. Two of her Hendrick’s cocktails stood out for me: the Cucumber Collins and the Rose & Lychee Martini (see recipes below).

Afterward, Charlotte and I were part of a small group that headed downtown to check out the newly opened KO Prime (formerly Spire) in the Nine Zero hotel. We sampled a few nouveau cocktails, some of which were quite good (more on that in another post). Finally on to No. 9 Park, where John Gertsen mixed us up a tasty smorgasbord of spirits, including an elegant mixture of scotch, Lillet and Drambuie whose name escapes me. The drink was fitting, since Charlotte used to represent Glenfiddich and promote scotch-based cocktails. How does a woman represent a scotch brand? “Communicate in terms of flavour and allow for marketing that is not just about golf and celebrating bonuses,” said Charlotte in an Adams Beverage Group interview last year. Yep, she’s alright.

Cucumber Collins
1½ oz Hendrick’s Gin
3 oz cucumber puree
Shake and strain over fresh ice in a Collins glass, garnish with a long cucumber rod.
(To make a batch of cucumber puree: blend 1 cucumber with 3 oz fresh lemon juice and 3½ oz simple syrup.)

Rose & Lychee Martini
1½ oz Hendrick’s Gin
½ oz rose syrup
1½ oz lychee juice
¼ oz fresh lemon juice
Dash egg whites
Dash Angostura bitters
Shake very well and strain up into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with an edible flower.

Hendrick’s, with its delicate flavor and rose and cucumber notes, naturally works well in these drinks. I have no idea where to get lychee juice and rose syrup. I’d try Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, or Christina’s Spice & Specialty Foods in Inman Sq. Cambridge. Also, you might find lychee juice at Asian markets.

A couple of drinks articles this week made me really thirsty. The first was Eric Asimov’s gin roundup. He and his NY Times tasting panel rated 80 (!) gins, and the way they did it was super smart: they made martinis.

“…because gin is often consumed in a martini, we decided to taste the gin as expressed through the world’s most famous (and perhaps least understood) cocktail. We discovered that while great martinis require great gins, great gins don’t necessarily make great martinis,” writes Asimov.

You got that right, brother. The panel’s number-one gin for martinis? Supple and balanced Plymouth English Gin, no surprise.

The second article was Boston drinks/arts writer Liza Weisstuch’s size-up of artisanal tequila. I don’t know why I can say “artisanal beer” or “artisanal cheese” without batting an eye, but the concept of “artisanal tequila” still makes me smirk. I know, I should get over this prejudice. If a tequila producer uses good ingredients (aka 100 percent blue agave) and proper barrel aging, his spirit is just as worthy of respect as good brandy or whiskey, right? Right. It’s just the trendiness of the stuff that makes me roll my eyes. As with every other spirit, there’s great tequila, and there’s overrated tequila that comes in a neat bottle and is priced to make poseur boys look cool in the eyes of poseur girls.

So, I was surprised to find myself thirsting for tequila while reading this article. Actually, I was thirsting for cocktails made with tequila. Apparently, Eastern Standard’s Tom Schlesinger-Guidelli has created something called the Jaguar: “a blanco mixed with herbaceous Green Chartreuse, Amer Picon, and Fee Brothers Orange Bitters and garnished with a flaming orange rind,” writes Weisstuch. Now that’s a cocktail that would make me stop laughing about tequila. See you soon, Tom!

LUPEC invaded my home last night — and it was good. The Boston chapter of Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails launched a few months ago and has already created cocktails for and otherwise helped promote several local benefits, like the Operation Frontline Dinner at Tremont 647 and the Taste of the South End. Every month, the Ladies get together for a cocktail party celebrating a theme of the hostess’ choosing. Last night’s theme was Drinkin’ Dames in Classic Cinema, and several attendees dressed for the occasion in polka-dot blouses, pillbox hats, fishnet stockings and Mary Jane pumps. I am proud to say that these discerning tipplers approved of the five dame-influenced cocktails I served.

Ginger Rogers

• 1 oz dry gin
• 1 oz dry vermouth
• 1 oz apricot brandy
• 4 dashes lemon juice

Shake well over ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass. The liquid equivalent of Ginger floating elegantly in a feathered gown.

Barbara West

• 2 oz dry gin
• 1 oz dry sherry (Amontillado works well)
• 1/2 oz lemon juice
• 1 dash Angostura bitters

Shake well over ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass. Lemon twist. Thanks to Ted Haigh for resurrecting this excellent aperitif cocktail. (Who the hell was Barbara West? No one knows. When serving this drink, make up your own story about her.)

Roman Holiday

• 1 1/2 oz vodka
• 1/2 oz Punt e Mes
• 1/2 oz sweet vermouth
• splash of fresh orange juice

Shake well over ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass. Thin orange slice. Refreshing!

Ann Sheridan

• 1 1/2 oz Myers dark rum (recipe called for Bacardi dark rum; other recipes call for Bacardi light rum)
• 1/2 oz orange curacao
• 1/2 oz lime juice

Shake well over ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass.

Marlene Dietrich

• 2 oz rye whiskey
• 1/2 oz orange curacao
• 2 dashes Angostura bitters

Shake well over ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass. Lemon twist and flamed orange peel. (OK, I took liberties with the original recipe, which called for 3/4 wineglass (!) of rye and only two dashes of curacao. A lightly adulterated glass of rye was probably just right for Marlene, but I wanted a little more balance.)

What better way to spend a Monday night in February than at a cozy neighborhood restaurant drinking champagne cocktails mixed by some of Boston’s best bartenders? That’s the sound reasoning that brought 60+ people to Green Street last night for drinkboston.com’s sold-out champagne cocktail party. Misty Kalkofen of Green Street and the B-Side Lounge, Ben Sandrof of Noir, Dylan Black of Green Street and John Gertsen of No. 9 Park mixed four distinctive classic cocktails using champagne: the Diamond Fizz, the Black Velvet, the B₂C₂and the Seelbach (recipes below). Not only that, they visited each and every table in the room, explaining the drinks’ origins (or alleged origins, given that the history of cocktails is usually as unverifiable as the provenance of traditional folk songs). The evening was festive and informative — well worth the price of a small headache on Tuesday morning.

To get on the email list for future drinkboston.com events, email drinkboston at comcast dot net.

The cocktails

B₂C₂
1 oz each of brandy, Benedictine and Cointreau shaken over ice and strained. Top with champagne.
Misty learned of this drink from David Wondrich’s Killer Cocktails: An Intoxicating Guide to Sophisticated Drinking. It was “created by American intelligence officers at the end of WWII. They had all of these wonderful goods that had been looted from the French by the Germans and then left behind during the Germans’ retreat,” she says. Luxurious bubbles.

Diamond Fizz
2 oz gin, 1 oz lemon juice and 1/2 tsp powdered sugar shaken over ice and strained. Top with champagne.
A dressed-up gin fizz (which uses seltzer instead of champagne). Also similar to the French 75, only it contains less sugar and no garnish. The Cocktail Database recipe calls for a highball glass with ice, but we served it straight up in a saucer. Delicious either way.

Black Velvet
1/2 stout and 1/2 champagne in a wine glass or flute.
Said to have been created at London’s Brooks Club in 1861 during mourning over Prince Albert’s death. Also called the Bismarck, as the drink was a favorite of German statesman Otto von Bismarck. Dylan used Mackeson’s Stout for this drink. Dark and rich.

Seelbach
1 oz bourbon, 1/2 oz Cointreau and 7 dashes each Angostura and Peychaud’s bitters poured into a flute and stirred. Top with champagne.
Invented at the Seelbach Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky, circa 1917. The recipe was lost, probably during Prohibition, until being rediscovered by the hotel in 1995 and later printed in Gary and Mardee Regan’s New Classic Cocktails. This is one of the great whiskey drinks.

A couple of months ago, a guy named Goran Berntsson emailed me and asked, “Would you kindly answer my question on Sidecars? I wonder about the word ‘Boston’ in ‘Boston Sidecar.’ Does it just mean the drink is shaken in a Boston shaker or is there anything more, something historical, behind ‘Boston’ in this connection? I do think there should be, but if so: What?”

I had no idea. How embarrassing — drinkboston.com had never heard of a Boston Sidecar. I found the recipe in the Old Mr. Boston De Luxe Official Bartender’s Guide (1961 edition) I received for Christmas: 3/4 oz brandy, 3/4 oz rum, 3/4 oz triple sec, and the juice of half a lime shaken on ice and strained. But I didn’t know why it was called the Boston Sidecar. I asked around, but none of my bartender pals had any answers about the drink’s origins. I was only able to tell Goran that the Boston shaker likely had nothing to do with the drink’s name, since most cocktails are mixed in this apparatus. I noticed that Goran asked the same question on squidoo.com but didn’t get an answer there either.

Which brings me to the fact that I still have no background on this drink, but that this site ought to at least compile a list of drinks either with “Boston” in their name or that originated here. Here are a few:

• Boston Sidecar (recipe above)
• Boston Cocktail (from Michael Jackson’s Bar & Cocktail Companion: 1.5 oz dry gin, 1 oz apricot brandy, 1 tsp lemon juice, dash of grenadine)
• Ward Eight (probably the most famous forgotten Boston cocktail. From CocktailDB: 1.5 oz bourbon or rye, 1 oz lemon juice, 1 tsp sugar, 1/4 oz grenadine)

Of course, it being the Old Mr. Boston guide, that book has recipes for the Boston Collins and the Boston Sour, but those appear to be simply variations on the Rum Collins and the Whiskey Sour. I’ll do some cross-referencing and start a page of Boston cocktails whose recipes come from more than one source. In the meantime, if anyone knows how the Boston Sidecar, or the Boston Cocktail for the matter, got its name, chime in under Comments, will you?