Cocktails for Everyday Drinking

By Risa J. Weaver-Enion

Picture it: you're out at a bar, looking at the menu, and thinking, "I don't know what most of these ingredients are or what they taste like. I wish I could just make good cocktails at home." Well, friend, you can, and this book will forever change your

• Language: English
• Publisher: Risa James Enterprises LLC
• Release date: Nov 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9781737798651

Risa J. Weaver-Enion

Risa Weaver-Enion is a professional photographer based in Sacramento, CA. She acquired her first camera, a Kodak 110, circa 1984 by selling wrapping paper door-to-door and has been a photography enthusiast ever since. After shooting film cameras for high school yearbook and spending too much time in the darkroom for a college photography class, she's thrilled to be able to shoot digitally these days. Between her trusty Nikon Z6II and the latest Pro iPhone model, she's never without a camera. When friends and family dine out with Risa, they all know not to touch anything until she's had a chance to photograph it!She inadvertently niched into cocktail photography when a friend with a rum brand asked her to make cocktails with their rum and take photos of the drinks for their website and social media. She subsequently discovered an avid community of cocktail lovers on Instagram and has built a business around creating content for small and medium-sized companies in the wine and spirits industry. Along the way, Risa has become a student of mixology and amassed an enviable home collection of spirits and mixers. She lives in West Sacramento with her husband, Rhead. When she's not mixing and photographing cocktails, you can find her traveling the world, visiting distilleries and wineries as she goes.To keep up with Risa on social media, find her on Instagram @risajamesphotography or on Vero @risajames. If you have questions for Risa, feel free to email her at [e-mail]. You can also fill out a contact form on her website www.risajamesphoto.com if you would like to work with Risa.

Book preview

Contents

Introduction

A Brief Primer on Spirits

Glassware

Stocking Your Home Bar

Terminology

Garnish & Syrup Instructions

Notes on Shaking & Stirring

Notes on Ice

GIN

Gimlet

Martini

Bee’s Knees

Appassionata di Rosa

Katrina van Tassell

Corpse Reviver No. 2

Aperol 75

A Lunatic’s Cocktail

Cranberry 75

Southsidecar

RUM

Daiquiri

Fibonacci’s Negroni

Jungle Bird

Sexy Beast

Spice Up Your Life

Mojito

Holiday Daiquiri

Into the Night

Holiday Highball

Advanced Amaretto Sour

TEQUILA or MEZCAL

Tequila Daiquiri

El Diablo

Rising Sun

Equality Is For Everyone

Margarita

Paloma

Tequila Mockingbird

Sweet Jalisco

Mexican Thanksgiving

El Fin de Semana

VODKA

Cosmopolitan

Bay Breeze

Vesper 111

Moscow Mule

Very Cherry Mule 115

Blueberry Collins

Cherry Delight

Sugar Plum Fairy

Cranberry Christmas Martini

Fernet & Chocolate

WHISKEY

Old-Fashioned

Apple Boulevardier

Atlas Obscura

Smashing Strawberries

Sherpa

Vieux Carré

The Kessel Run

Holiday Spirit

Library Bourbon

Whiskey Sour

About the Author

Index

Introduction

Welcome, and thank you for buying this book! So much hard work and love went into creating what you are now holding in your hands. If this is the first cocktail recipe book you’ve ever owned, you’re in a safe space here. I created and curated these recipes to be approachable for any home bartender, even one who has never mixed a drink in their life!

Cocktails can be quite complicated, and you practically need to be a professional bartender with an unlimited supply of ingredients to keep up with all the recipes you can find on Instagram and the Internet. On the other end of the spectrum, you can find some really terrible cocktails in restaurants and bars. This book threads the needle between those two extremes. These are good cocktails that aren’t too hard to make, and that’s the dream!

The recipes are organized into five sections, one for each of the major spirits: gin, rum, tequila, vodka, and whiskey. Each section contains 10 recipes, mostly organized from easiest to make to hardest to make. (But hard to make is relative. They’re all still reasonably easy to make.)

When selecting recipes to include, I worked hard to ensure that every ingredient you might need to buy is used in at least three cocktails. Everyone in the cocktail community has that one bottle of some esoteric ingredient that they bought for that one drink…and then it just sits in the back of their bar cabinet, dusty and forgotten. I don’t want that to happen to you!

Mind you, there are a couple of lesser-used ingredients in some of these recipes (absinthe comes to mind), but there are three recipes in here that use that ingredient, and if you search the Internet or Instagram for recipes with that ingredient, you’re sure to find others. The Index will help you locate each cocktail in this book that uses any given ingredient.

I want this book to be a jumping off point for you in your home cocktail life. Most of these recipes have five or fewer ingredients, and none has more than seven ingredients. The section titled Stocking Your Home Bar gives you the complete list of everything you need to make every cocktail in this book, including mixers and garnishes.

The section titled A Brief Primer on Spirits is a high-level overview of the five main spirits. One bottle of each spirit will allow you to make every cocktail in this book. I also recommend the four specialty types of glassware that will enhance your cocktail experience.

There’s also a Terminology section to give you a base of knowledge. Feel free to refer back to this section as you make the recipes if you forget what a certain term means. As with any profession, bartending/mixology comes with its own jargon, and I want you to feel in the know.

I hope this book brings you joy and teaches you a few things about cocktail craft. The most important thing to remember is that making cocktails at home should be fun and easy. A bit of prep work makes everything run more smoothly, and I think you’ll be amazed at how nice it can be to enjoy a craft cocktail in the comfort of your own home. Before you know it, you’ll be making cocktails for friends and family!

Cheers!

Risa

A Brief Primer on Spirits

If you are very new to the cocktail world, this section is a high-level overview of each spirit used in the recipes in this book. Entire books have been written on each of these spirits, so I encourage you to dive further into a given category as it interests you.

Gin

Gin comes in a few different varieties, but the most common is London Dry. All gin must be distilled with