FOOLPROOF drinks you don't need a recipe for

Welcome back, friends. It's Anders. I've got a fun one for you today because we are making five cocktails. Are you sick and tired of ratios or are you simply not a math person? Are you a simpleton? These cocktails are five equal part cocktails that are exceptional. You can't screw them up even if you try. I guess you could screw them up if you really tried. If you're new to the channel, hit that subscribe button for more sips, tips, and recipes. Behold, five all equal parts cocktails to the bar. Number one, the Charlie Chaplin. I love this drink. Three ingredients and it is two liqueurs and one citrus. So there's some things to talk here about balance, but we will do that after we have the drink in our hand. So to make it in a shaking tin, start with one ounce of sloe gin. To that, add one ounce of apricot liqueur and one ounce of freshly squeezed lime juice. That's it. Add ice and shake. Double strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a lime wheel. Dehydrated if you've thought ahead of time and you have a dehydrated lime wheel. Otherwise, a regular lime wheel will be fine. There it is, the Charlie Chaplin. Cheers. Looks quite pretty. Still good. Oh yeah. I really, I really do like this because it is tart. Now it's balanced. It's not super sour, but you definitely notice that it is tart because right now I'm salivating. The corners of my mouth are kind of like tightening up. Why is it balanced? Well, sloe gin is not gin. It's a gin-based liqueur. Apricot liqueur is an apricot liqueur. Those are two sweet things going up against straight lime juice, which is very acidic. So they balance each other out. But this next one, we are going to add a stronger base spirit. That's right. This one doesn't have a strong base spirit, so it is lower ABV, which is one of the reasons why I really like it. This next one is going to be a little bit stronger. It's called First, a quick word from our sponsor. 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Right now, you can still take advantage of their 4th of July sale exclusive partner offer and get 27% off sitewide. Just head to helixsleep.com slash Andres Ericsson or scan the QR code to check it out. That's helixsleep.com slash Andres Ericsson or you can scan the code right here and treat yourself to 27% off. Thanks, Helix. On to the film. Number two, the Monte Cassino. So the thing about the Monte Cassino is it has, again, the two liqueurs, citrus, and then the base spirit. In this case, it's going to be rye whiskey. That template is known as the last word template because that's the most popular cocktail that's all equal parts, four ingredients, blah, blah, blah. But there are so many variations. I thought, why would I make a last word when there are so many great variations? In fact, I think I like this drink that we're about to make, the Monte Cassino, better than the last word. So let's make it. In a shaking tin, start with three quarters of an ounce of rye whiskey, three quarters of an ounce of yellow chartreuse, three quarters of an ounce of benedictine, and three quarters of an ounce of fresh lemon juice. Add ice and shake. Double strain into a cocktail glass, no garnish necessary. There we have the Monte Cassino. Cheers. Yeah, that's really nice. Like the Charlie Chaplin, it's bright, not quite as tart because we have that rye whiskey in there. The benedictine and the yellow chartreuse work really well together. The rye that I'm using, I like 100 proof rye because it's all equal parts and I want that rye to hold up to everything else. You can try it with a different whiskey if you'd like. I've tried it with bourbon. It works really well too. But this one, there's something about these four ingredients makes me happy. I do like this better than the last word. Oh, this drink was created 2010 by Damon Dyer. He won a benedictine cocktail competition with this recipe, and it's a simple build. It was a smart move and a great cocktail. So cheers, Damon, Mr. Dyer. That brings me to the next cocktail, which is yet again, another last word variation called the paper plane. A lot of you know this one. Let's just make it and talk about it later. To make the paper plane in a shaking tin, start with three quarters of an ounce of bourbon. To that, add three quarters of an ounce of Amaro Nonino. That's a very specific Amaro. It's a lighter Amaro. If you can't find it, use another lighter Amaro. You could try Montenegro, but it's going to be a little bit different. Add three quarters of an ounce of Aperol and three quarters of an ounce of fresh lemon juice. Add ice and shake. Double strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with a paper airplane. You're supposed to. You don't have to, but I recommend it. It's fun. And there we have the paper plane. Cheers. I've got my paper plane separately because I've dropped this into my drink too many times. The paper plane's cool, right? I believe this is a Sam Ross original. Well, the drink sure is, but I'm guessing that Sam Ross put the paper plane on there. Anyway, Sam Ross created this in 2008, two years before the Monte Cassino. And it, again, follows that last word template, but instead of two liqueurs, he swaps in an Amaro, which has sugar in it. So technically it's like a liqueur, but it's not quite as sweet. Yeah, that's really nice. And that's nice because it's pretty complex, actually. It's all equal parts, but you get a richness from the bourbon. There's a fruitiness from the Aperol and the lemon juice. There is something there that, from the Amaro, that gives it kind of a vegetal note and then a slight bitterness on the finish. We're going to keep moving forward. Another four ingredient cocktail. Now we're stepping into the world of tiki. And this is one of my favorite tiki drinks called the Shrunken Skull. Now it is a four ingredient cocktail, but it is not a last word variation because there are no liqueurs in this drink. It's simple to make though, because you already know the ratios. To make it, in a shaking tin, start with one ounce of a Demerara rum. To that, add one ounce of a gold rum, then one ounce of fresh lime juice, and one full ounce of grenadine. The grenadine is very important here. Once you taste it, you will know. You want a nice, bright, pomegranate forward grenadine for this drink. If you can't find one, grab mine. If you can't get mine, make your own. I'll leave a recipe down below. Add some crushed ice, and you can either shake this up, or if you have it, blend it real quick in a milkshake blender. That adds a lot of air, makes it nice and fluffy, and then open pour into a chilled lowball glass. For garnish, add pineapple fronds, an umbrella, and drop in a straw. That's it, the Shrunken Skull. Cheers! Look at that, huh? I mean, yeah, it's bright, it's fruity, it's refreshing, super easy to drink, dangerous, and what I taste, oh well, a few things, four things to be specific, but those two rums that we're tasting. Now, if you only use one rum, you're going to add two ounces of rum, and now it's no longer an all equal parts cocktail, but it's still going to work. The one thing that's non-negotiable is you want a good pomegranate grenadine for this drink. It has to be nice and tart and hold up to all these other bold flavors in here. I know some people say that originally, grenadine may not have been made with pomegranates. I looked into it. I'm not sure. I'm not completely convinced. What I do know is that today, grenadine is supposed to taste of pomegranate. That's what people expect. Even if there isn't pomegranate in it, they kind of mimic the flavors of pomegranate. That's why I say use a good one, because a good one is going to be made with pomegranates. On to number five. So, oh wait, one thing I want to mention. What's different about the Shrunken Skull from these other two is that the sweetness all comes from one syrup as opposed to two liqueurs. That's why this is not a variation on the last word. This is its own thing, and we're going to take it one step further with the next cocktail. Number five, the Tradewinds. So, following the template we have here with the Shrunken Skull, we're going to add one more ingredient. We're going to add a liqueur. It's going to add some depth and interest, and it's actually a really, really good cocktail. So, to make it in a shaking tin, start with one ounce of gold rum. To that, add one ounce of dark rum, one ounce of apricot liqueur, one ounce of cream of coconut. This is not coconut cream. It's cream of coconut. You can make it yourself. I'll leave a recipe down below. Otherwise, Coco Lopez is the standard. And one ounce of fresh lemon juice. Now, once again, I'm going to blitz this with the blender, but you can swizzle this drink. You could give it a quick shake and open pour into your favorite glass. For a garnish, I'm going to once again do the pineapple fronds. I'm going to grate some nutmeg across the top, drop in an umbrella, and again, a straw. And there we have the Tradewinds. Cheers. Look at that. That is fluffy. If you do what I did with the blender, the milkshake blender, you're going to get really foamy coconut on top, for better or worse. I don't know if you like that or not. But anyway, let's go in for a sip. Now, I love apricot. So, anything with apricot liqueur is probably going to be okay on my list. But I got to tell you, this is one of my favorite tiki drinks. Number of reasons. Number one, it's balanced. Number two, it's tasty. Number three, it's easy to make, and it's five ingredients. So, how does this work? Like, we added more sweetener and more flavor, and why does it come out not tasting like a big muddy mess? And that's because of the crushed ice. These tiki drinks, you got to have a lot of sugar in them. I'm sorry. If you're sensitive to sugar, then maybe stay away from tiki drinks. They tend to have a lot of sugar, also a lot of acid, because those big flavors are going to get diluted with the crushed ice. So, in this case, it works out great. Quick disclaimer, I do think that me saying, oh, yeah, you can throw in all these ingredients into a tiki drink and it's going to work because of the crushed ice and the dilution and all that stuff. Well, here's the thing. I do think that there are a lot of tiki drinks that call for a million ingredients that end up tasting muddy because there's just too much going on. I'm not saying that all these tiki drinks with a million ingredients are bad, but you got to balance them out and you need some skill to do so. So, that's why you got to watch this channel. There we go. Five cocktails, all equal parts, and they're all bangers. What a list. And remember, if you are trying to create a cocktail, a new cocktail, a good starting point is all equal parts because you can scale it up or, more importantly, you can scale it down. If you are sampling cocktails and you're workshopping, if you can get away with making half cocktails, there's less waste. Let me know in the comments down below which ones you're making. If you need any of these bottles, grab them from House of Bitter Bear, powered by Curiata, curated by me. Cater to the recipes on this channel. Great place to get booze delivered right to your face. Thanks, Helix, for sponsoring today's film. Thank you, as always, for watching. I'll see you next time. Cheers.