Follow the Lone Star State’s spirited highways with this indispensable cocktail book and its recipes.
Too many cocktail books and recipes rely on the flash and the liberal use of ingredients home drinkers might find difficult to procure or require planning and prep that might not be worth the pay off.
Then there’s the utility. A collection of cocktail recipes should be useful not just as an instruction manual. The book should also deepen a reader’s knowledge on the subject with touches of context and history beyond the straightforward recipes bolstered by a smattering of recipes geared toward the advanced cocktail aficionado. Fun flourishes give the book a tiki umbrella.
Thankfully, there is Texas Cocktails: An Elegant Collection of Over 100 Recipes Inspired by the Lone Star State by Nico Martini.
Martini (yes, that’s his legal name) takes readers across the state via the cocktails and the establishments that serve them as signposts and rest stops. Take one of the Texas’ most iconic cocktails: ranch water, a carbonated water-based tipple thought to have been invented at the Gage Hotel in Marathon, Texas, in the 1960s.
Thing is, the drink wasn’t officially on the hotel’s bar menu until 2010. Its increasing popularity has resulted in needless gussying up, Martini writes. “There are plenty of bars in Texas that have tried to fancy or sweeten up the ranch water by adding simple syrup or clarifying lime juice or even swapping the tequila for a different agave spirit, but simplicity is best, my friends.” The ranch water cocktail is “Texan as all get out.”
Topo Chico is also how you start to drink like a Texan, Martini notes.
All of Texas’ major metropolitan centers are spotlighted, as are major players on the cocktail scene. Martini knows them all, being involved in the state’s premier spirits symposium, the San Antonio Cocktail Conference, and being a founder of Bar Draught, provider of party-facilitating cocktails tap system. Two of the spotlighted personalities in Texas Cocktails are Omar Yeefoon and Michael Martensen, longtime fixtures of Dallas’ cocktail community and owners of Shoals Sound and Service, a no-nonsense but welcoming spot specializing in “classics, done perfectly, no bulls**t.” As Martini notes, “Shoals might as well be Omar’s living room.”
The ranch water cocktail is “Texan as all get out.”
Living rooms — whether in the guise of a dark-wood appointed watering hole or your own living room — need a soundtrack, and Texas Cocktails has you covered with a playlist recommendation that includes Waylon Jennings, Charlie Crockett, St. Vincent, Beyoncé, and Lyle Lovett.
And since drinking spaces are spaces for conversation, Martini peppers his book with sketches of Lone Star State distilleries — many of which have been featured by C&I — an essential topic of cocktail banter.
Smaller towns also get their due. Take Midland, for example, a dusty settlement known for its oil booms, but not so much for its refined adult beverages. Thanks to The Blue Door bar, that has changed. We’ll let Martini take it from here and we’ll let you pick up a copy of your guide to the Texas Cocktail trail.
Living rooms — whether in the guise of a dark-wood appointed watering hole or your own living room — need a soundtrack, and Texas Cocktails has you covered with a playlist recommendation that includes Waylon Jennings, Charlie Crockett, St. Vincent, Beyoncé, and Lyle Lovett.
Desert Spoon - The Blue Door
Sotol means “Desert Spoon.” Now that we have that covered, I’m so glad there are a few sotol cocktails in this book. Maybe by the end of it, I’ll have you convinced that you should give sotol a try. Really, you should give it a try.
It also makes me happy that I can get a proper drink in Midland now. Ever seen the critically acclaimed, NBC documentary, Friday Night Lights? That’s pretty much what we’re talking about.
The Blue Door is at its core, a neighborhood bar. In the five years they have been open, they have developed a family that gives back to the community, cheers each other's marriages, babies, and promotions, and supports each other through sickness, hard knocks, and loss. It’s kinda like it’s a great neighborhood bar in a small(er) Texas town. Owner Erica Mann said, “Being able to experience all of this while also introducing our region to fizzes, egg whites, and crustas, is the cherry in my Manhattan.”
2 ounces sotol reposado
½ ounce Cointreau
2 ounces ruby red grapefruit juice
1 ounce lime juice
½ ounce agave syrup
2-inch sprig of rosemary
Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass, and shake vigorously with ice. Strain into iced Collins glass. Garnish with fresh rosemary sprig.
The Barringer
Run by the husband and wife team of Robby and Chieko Cook, Barringer Bar & Lounge [in Houston] takes its name from the old Barringer Norton Tailors, where the bar originally resided. The bar has an intimate, warm vibe, and the Texans running the bar couldn’t be more hospitable. The bar’s namesake cocktail is a great twist on a daisy.
1½ ounces whiskey (we try to use Texas brands like TX Whiskey, but it tastes great with any)
¾ ounce dry curacao (Pierre Ferrand preferred)
½ ounce turbinado simple syrup
½ ounce fresh lemon juice
Lemon wheel, for garnish
Combine ingredients in a shaker with ice and shake vigorously. Fine strain into a coupe glass. Garnish with a lemon wheel.
The Texas Gentleman
This will warm you up with some TX Whiskey and pep you up with Austin’s own Caffe Del Fuego. Think of this as a coffee old fashioned.
2 ounces TX blended whiskey
½ ounce Caffe Del Fuego
3 dashes Fee Brothers Aztec
3 dashes chocolate bitters
Orange peel, for garnish
Combine whiskey, Caffe Del Fuego, and bitters in a rocks glass over ice. Garnish with an orange peel.
The South Texan
1 ounce Caffe del Fuego
1 ounce quality Anejo
¼ ounce quality orange liqueur
1 drop Ancho Reyes
2 dashes orange bitters
2 dashes chocolate bitters
Orange peel, for garnish
On the rocks, stirred, and garnished with an orange peel.
Texas Cocktails: An Elegant Collection of Over 100 Recipes Inspired by the Lone Star State (Cider Mill Press, 2018) by Nico Martini is available at Amazon.com and online and brick-and-mortar retailers. Recipes reprinted and edited by permission. Photography: © Cider Mill Press Book Publishers.
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