That's right! 3 Summer Bangers that will change your mind!

Today's drink comes to us from Clover Club in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, opened in 2008 by Julie Reiner and Susan Fedroff. It's a cozy, vintage-feeling spot, tin ceilings, leather booths, antique 1897 wooden bar. This bar has been on my list for quite some time, so it was a real treat to be able to pop in while we were in New York City. The service is top-notch, bartenders know their stuff, super friendly but still professional staff. Chill, yet polished. If you're into thoughtfully made cocktails in cool ambiance, this place is a must-visit. So just, you know, stop everything that you're doing and just go there right now, especially if you're in New York. And if not, buy a ticket on a plane and get there. Today's drink is the Port of Call and it comes to us from the Clover Club bartender, obviously, Tom Macy. Let's get into it. First things first, we're going to make some lemon juice. Fresh lemon juice with our handy-dandy squeezer, 3 quarters of an ounce of lemon juice, half an ounce of cinnamon syrup, one big bar spoon of cranberry preserves, one ounce of gin. I do not like those on a Caps. I do not like these little things they put over Caps, I don't understand the point of it. And then one ounce of Ruby Port. It's kind of like a gussied-up version of that Sasha Petrosky drink, not the Argonaut, it's the Cosmonaut. This is a whip-shake cocktail, so we're going to use... We haven't used actually pebble ice in a little while, dude, it's been a minute since we used pebble ice. So what we're going to do is just like a little, you know, about an ounce of pebble ice just straight into our tin, give it a whip-shake, you just want to shake until it's fully gone or mostly gone. We're just going to throw that into a glass like so, and then we're going to top off with pebble. You want like a nice ice crown on the top there. I like to have a very bushy mint sprig here. I don't love it when the mint bends at a right angle. So if that happens, I take my sprig and then I just try to like pinch it off like where it bends so that it goes like straight up a little bit, and then we'll just stick it in there like so. We're going to do one blackberry and one raspberry. I'll put it on a skewer just because, why not? Kind of a big straw, but just give it a little taste. Oh wow. Oh man. I really love the combination of cranberry and ruby port. It's like the cranberry deepens the flavors of the ruby port. You get to still get a little bit of the botanicals of the gin in there. The cinnamon syrup kind of gives this nice baking spice. It's nice and warm. But it's still really crushable and very refreshing for summer. And there you have the Port of Call. Today has been a long time coming. We have been working on this for the better part of almost two years. This is a tiki mug that we partnered up with Tiki Diablo to make. We commissioned this from Danny before he passed away, tragically. And what it is, is a shrunken head of friend of the show, Eric Andre's head. He gave us some pictures of his head. We had it reformulated through the imagination of Danny into a shrunken head, and now we have a tiki mug. I don't know how many we're going to make. It kind of is up to you guys. This is not something that is done in a large production warehouse. This is something that is done by a very small team of artisans here in Southern California. I created a cocktail specifically for this mug, so each one will ship with a little card. Of course, it is an Eric Andre themed cocktail. You can find the pre-order on our website, TheEducatedBarFly.com. Just note, it's not going to ship until maybe the end of the year. That's right. Way ahead of time pre-order, because it is a small team of artisans making it in California. Each of these are made in small batches. And so because they are made in small batches, depending on how many sell, we'll have to kind of like batch them out. I may sign some. I may even force Eric Andre to sign some, possibly, but I'm not promising that. But maybe a select few of you will have one signed by Eric Andre. Maybe not. I don't know. It'll be a surprise. So go get your Eric Andre shrunken head mug with companion cocktail today. Adding spice is something that has always been happening for Palomas and Margaritas, but it's really been trending for a lot of different drinks. Today we're going to be making one of those drinks, and we are going to be using a spiced tincture. So a lot of people like to add spice by taking peppers, the spicy peppers or whatever, and throwing them into some type of syrup or macerating it into the spirit itself. What I like to do is actually make a separate tincture with high proof spirits that we can macerate and then add in dashes so that we can really control the spice. You can absolutely do this with fresh peppers, but I like to go an extra step and freeze dry the peppers, removing the water, so you get a really amazing and flavorful infusion. So to make my pepper infusion, I like to have a scale, a little ball jar, Everclear. I can get 120. You can go higher proof on this, but I think the 120 works perfectly. And then I use a graduated cylinder. So first thing we're going to do here is we're going to take our peppers, and I like to do a different pepper mix. So in here I have jalapeno and habanero. It's a two jalapeno to one habanero ratio. I'm going to do three grams total. So we're going to three grams or so. And then I like to boost mine up with a little Carolina Reaper or ghost pepper. And the way that I do this is, and if you're doing this at home, definitely get rid of the seeds. The seeds are going to make it a lot more spicy. If you get rid of the seeds, then you will have a tincture that is pretty hot, but it's not crazy. And it won't like continue on the palate and really burn your mouth, but just give you a really nice spice inside your cocktail. Just like I just pick like one Carolina Reaper and one ghost pepper. Put it in there. I'm going to do 100 mils of our Everclear here. There we go. It's like a smidgen over, but that's all right. And then we're just going to add this to the jar like so. I like to get these little leak-proof lids that Ball makes. And then we're just going to give it a shake, and we're just going to let this infuse for 24 hours. And when you're dealing with hot peppers, I should have said this to begin with, but when you're dealing with hot peppers, it's nice to have gloves on so that you don't put it on your hands and then accidentally mace yourself. We're just going to leave this for 24 hours, and then we'll have our spice tincture. So we got our spice tincture here, and now for the cocktail. Half an ounce of lime juice, half an ounce of Sybil syrup, three quarters ounce pineapple juice, five dashes spicy tincture, or six. I kind of like to do a one and then boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. So it's more like five and a half. It's like a tip over plus five, I guess. And then you got two ounces of our Navy Strength Gin. Now, the peppers are going to pair very well with the botanicals in the gin, but it's also going to pair really well with the pineapple, which a lot of people don't know. Throw some ice into our tin here, give it a shake, and give it a strain. And we're going to go no garnish on this one. Tropical Spicy Gin Sour. Is that too much of a mouthful? What did you say you wanted to call it, Marius, did you have a name for it? The Spicy Pineapple Sour. Cheers. Oh, yeah. Nice and spicy. And you have all the green notes from the jalapeno habanero, a little bit of that ghost pepper in there. It gives it a nice spice. But what's really great about the spice is that it sits on the back palate. It doesn't build. So you feel the spice, it is spicy, but it's not going to kill you. And then you've got the pineapple in there pairing really nicely with the peppers, and then the gin with all the botanicals, and the pineapple making it a little tropical-y. This is a good one and crushable for summer. There it is, guys, the Spicy Pineapple Sour. Every single year, we are inundated with cocktail recipes from some golf tournament that is just selling either a viral or sometimes non-viral recipe, mid, usually vodka-based cocktails that they sell, probably hand over fist for 25 bucks a piece at various golf tournaments. Today we're going to be making the Azalea cocktail, which is the official cocktail of the Masters. Well, today we're going to be making a version of the Azalea cocktail. I think that these cocktails can be improved. And so in, you know, true Barfly fashion, I'm going to be over-complicating, but keeping it kind of simple. Does that make sense? I'm going to be adding steps. The thing is, is that when people make cocktails at home, not a lot of people like added steps, but I promise you these will be easy, somewhat advanced, but like nothing you can't do. If you want to make this cocktail, you can. I just think that you guys deserve better. And I think that, you know, we can put a little bit of, put a little bit of stank on these cocktail recipes. If you catch my drift, anyway, the Azalea cocktail is the official cocktail of the Masters, which takes place at the Augusta National, which is a golf course, very famous golf course in Augusta, Georgia. You didn't know from the name, it happens every single April and every single April people are going down and drinking this Azalea cocktail and getting hammered while they watch your favorite golfers, you know, win, lose. All right, let's get into it. All right. So we're going to do one ounce of lemon juice. And then because we like quality cocktails, we're just going to make a, like a house-made lemonade, basically is what we're doing. We're going to do half an ounce of simple syrup, and then we're just going to split that with half an ounce of grenadine here. And I thought it might be kind of fun to use a lemon cucumber gin, which I think will actually go really well. You're thinking like, ooh, does cucumber go with grenadine? I think it might. Anyway, we're trying it. We're doing two ounces. All right. I'm going to fill this up a good way with some ice here. Give this a shake and give it a strain right into the glass. There we go. It's a little bit more than a blush. The official recipe calls for a quarter ounce, but I wanted to balance this properly with that ounce of lime juice, lemon juice. I wanted to balance it properly with the lemon juice and need a little more grenadine for that. This is like kind of an old lemon. I mean, it's still good, nice and juicy, but the peel is not great for peeling. So we're going to try and pull a really big peel to do a fancy, fancy garnish with this. Let's just actually spritz it. Get those oils on there. Feel like this needs a fancy, I don't know. I'm not great at like these like non-functional fancy garnishes. I don't know if my idea is going to work, Marius. Like a wing. Ha ha! Behold the azalea cocktail. Let's take it. Take a sip. Oh yeah. Nice. Big lemon flavor. You're getting lemon not only from the fresh lemon and the lemon zest, but also the lemon gin. You got a little bit of those botanicals and cucumbers on the back end, and then it's nice and tart with that simple syrup balancing everything out. And then you get a little bit of the savory sweetness of the pomegranate. If I were going to do this again, Marius, I might actually cut that pomegranate down to a quarter of an ounce. So if you like your cocktails a little sweeter, go half an ounce of pomegranate with half an ounce of simple syrup. Or if not, cut it down to a quarter, keep the simple syrup at half, and cut the pomegranate down to a quarter. So there it is, the official master's version of the azalea cocktail. But first, we must find a knife. And the knife, the knife is in the kitchen. And you know, why not grab a couple lemons while we're at it? You know, just in case we need lemons for our, ah! I can juggle better than that, I think. Here, watch. I'm going to juggle some lemons. Oh, oh! I'm kind of out of practice, though. I haven't done this since I was 12. I mean, that's not true. We juggled in a video a couple of months ago. No, not for any length of time. It's not like I'm... I'm just trying to make the point that I'm not practicing this, you know? Let's get into it. I said, let's get into it. I don't do that anymore, really, which is weird. You know what? Maybe we forgot to get, but we can get around it, is a mint sprig. I think I forgot to get mint, but I do get the other stuff that we need. We'll see. Oh! Yes. No mint. No mint!