The Alabama Slammer cocktail, supposedly first mixed at the University of Alabama in the early 1970s, is a remnant of a dark time in cocktails. The libationary art had dwindled to a sad state affairs, dominated by colorful, syrupy-sweet fruit drinks designed to lure young women into discotheques.The Alabama Slammer ought to be a dusty relic of a dreary age - but surprisingly, the drink is actually kinda-sorta good when elevated with fresh ingredients and spirits and re-jiggered by Dale DeGroff.The sloe gin you use makes a difference - the corn syrup swill you find in most grocery stores in the US doesn't hold a candle to the real thing. For the best possible drink, use a high-quality true sloe gin, and squeeze your own fresh oranges. This drink is typically served as a shooter, but we love it as a long drink over ice, with an extra helping of orange juice on top to round it off.

vodka

sloe gin

bourbon liqueur

orange juice

alabama slammer

This layered shooter is named after the US B-52 Stratofortress bomber used in Vietnam. This drink takes advantage of the specific gravity of each ingredient, so you must build the drink in the order given in order to keep the layers from mingling. Building a shot like this is tricky, so don't be disappointed if your first attempts are a little murky. Using a larger shot glass will help, but pouring slowly is the key to this technique.This is often served as a "flaming B-52," but unless you already have the gear, we don't think it's worth the trouble. You'll need a heatproof glass and a metal straw to drink it through, and you may need to add a layer of overproof rum to get the triple sec to catch fire. If you do serve it this way, make sure that the glass has cooled before serving.

coffee liqueur

irish cream

orange curacao

b-52

A relative of the Sea Breeze and the Cape Codder, it's the pineapple juice that makes the Bay Breeze special.It's often made with vodka these days, instead of light rum. We've included it, but we find the rum version far superior. It's also nice with an amber rum.

light rum

cranberry juice

pineapple juice

bay breeze

Before Lebowski, there was Perle Mesta - Ambassador Mesta, that is. In 1949, a Belgian barman whipped this up in honor of the visiting US ambassador to Luxembourg, cementing coffee liqueur's place among the pantheon of "liqueurs you can put in vodka." If you have one the zillions of flavors of regrettable dessert flavors available these days, try a half-and-half blend of regular vodka with the flavored vodka, and make up your own goofy "Something-or-other Russian" name for it.

black russian

This drink goes way back, possibly earlier than the 1940s. Older recipes call for an even mix of sparkling wine (ideally Champagne) and stout, but we're with Gaz Regan (in his book The Joy of Mixology) in thinking the stout should be reduced for a better balance and flavor.

sparkling white wine

stout

black velvet

This is a simple, tasty drink that can also be reduced and served as a layered or mixed shot.

blanco tequila

brave bull

The Cosmopolitan basically the love child of a Cape Codder and a Margarita, and is a legitimately distinguished sour cocktail in its own right. This updated recipe comes from Sarah Morrisey from Ernesto's in New York, whose recipe took first place in a blind taste-test organized by PUNCH (an online cocktail magazine).

citrus vodka

triple sec

lime juice

cosmopolitan

Don't hate! Despite its 80s demeanor, this drink is pretty damn good if you use fresh-squeezed orange juice and a quality peach liqueur. It's also a fun way to experiment with all those weird vodka flavors everyone seems to accumulate without meaning to.

peach liqueur

fuzzy navel

The Horse's Neck is a classic American cooler, originating in Atlantic city sometime in the early 20th century. It's distinguished by its garnish: a long, loopy twist of lemon filling the glass, with the end draped over the edge of the glass like a horse poking his head over the stable wall.Given its age, the Horse's Neck has seen many variations on its recipe. Early recipes call for brandy, although we prefer newer variants with bourbon as the base spirit. It can be made with either ginger ale or sparkling water; we like the sweetness of ginger ale (or the bite of ginger beer), but it's refreshing with sparkling water too.

bourbon

aromatic bitters

ginger ale

horse's neck

This throwback from the 70s used to be served as a shooter, but these days you're just as likely to see it in cocktail format.

kamikaze

The traditional amaretto sour you'd get in any bar is a sickly-sweet mixture of amaretto and sour mix. We much prefer expert bartender Jeffrey Morgenthaler's version, with bourbon adding a little depth. He specifically calls for cask-aged bourbon, which stands up well to the otherwise-cloying sweetness of amaretto.Like all egg white (or aquafaba) drinks, you should dry-shake first without ice, and then again with ice, and you should double-strain it through both your shaker's strainer and a fine mesh strainer.

amaretto

lemon juice

egg white

simple syrup

amaretto sour

Most versions of this recipe call for the drink to be shaken with ice. That's all well and good, but we make ours like the Dude does: built in the glass while wearing our favorite bathrobe.

sweet cream

white russian

We really hemmed and hawed about including this drink in the app. On the one hand, this drink is awful. It's just a ton of different near-flavorless boozes mixed up and downed almost purely for drunkenness' sake. On the other hand... well, we'll let the master, Gary Regan say it (from his seminal tome, The Joy of Mixology): "This is not a well-thought drink, and the notion of mixing all these spirits together is horrifying. Nevertheless, it's undeniable that the Long Island Iced Tea works. It's pleasant, refreshing, and somewhat lethal."

cola

long island iced tea

Who ever thought a tomato juice cocktail could come this far? Since its invention sometime in the 20s, the Bloody Mary has been a staple of hungover mornings and fancy brunches alike.Like other drinks in this category, we've left the amount of seasonings up to you. Everyone has their favorite mixture, so experiment a bit to find out how you like it.

tomato juice

black pepper

celery salt

prepared horseradish

worcestershire sauce

hot sauce

bloody mary

The venerable Manhattan is the grandfather of so many cocktails we know as classics today. It was the very first cocktail (as far as we know) to use vermouth, and spawned a legion of children - including the Martini. This is the kind of drink you could spend your whole life mastering; we say it's a worthy investment of your time.

sweet vermouth

manhattan

If you'd ordered this peculiarly lovely drink in the early twentieth century when it was invented, you'd likely have been treated to a display of a half-dozen strapping busboys all lined up to shake the buhjeezus out of it in turn. Sadly, we have blenders nowadays, so those of us who would have liked the show must instead recreate it in our minds. Shame, that.

orange flower water

sparkling water

ramos gin fizz

This drink represents everything we love about New Orleans: the Southern heritage, the spicy flavors, the alluring hint of licorice. The technique is complicated, but the result is worth the labor.

absinthe

rye whiskey

creole bitters

sazerac

The earliest written reference made of this drink appeared in an issue of Time magazine from 1949, and casts the Screwdriver in a cooler light than we thought possible: "In the dimly lighted bar of the sleek Park Hotel, Turkish intelligence agents mingle with American engineers and Balkan refugees, drinking the latest Yankee concoction of vodka and orange juice, called a 'screwdriver'."Since it's such a simple drink, it's a great canvas for experimentation with a variety of flavored vodkas. It's also tasty with any type of gin you have, although there isn't a special name for it (as far as we know).

screwdriver

This drink gets a bad rap, and it's understandable. When you order it in a typical bar, you'll get a sickly-sweet rum and coke with a sad-looking wedge of lime on the side. The real one, though, is miles away. The difference is in the proportions; a real Cubra Libre needs one full part of lime juice to balance the sweetness of a mere 3 parts of cola.

cuba libre

The Suffering Bastard is the first in a trilogy of lime-and-ginger-beer cocktails invented by Joe Scialom. Scialom was a legendary barman, polyglot, and ur-mixologist who served drinks to the British Army at the Shepheard Hotel in Cairo as they defended the city again Rommel's tank assault in 1942.In response to a liquor shortage, Scialom invented the Bastard drinks, perhaps in an effort to use smaller shares of each spirit. Each uses lime juice and ginger beer, and an increasing number of liquors.The Suffering Bastard is the gentlest of all three, with the largest measure of ginger beer. Add bourbon to get a Dying Bastard, and to that add light rum for a Dead Bastard.

brandy

brown sugar syrup

ginger beer

suffering bastard

Another classic Gaz Regan dug up from Jones' Complete Barguide, this one expertly marries brandy and either light, amber, or dark rum.

between the sheets

The Brandy Alexander is a Roaring Twenties favorite that still enjoys a sizeable fanbase today. It's a great way to fancy up your next shindig! The traditional recipe calls for dark creme de cacao, but the light stuff works just as well.

cognac

creme de cacao

brandy alexander

This is just a Martini with a different garnish, so why come up with a whole new name for it? We think it should stand as a testament to Charlie Connolly, henceforth known as The Laziest Bartender Who Ever Lived. In the 1930s, a customer asked Connolly for "something different," and this is what he made: a Martini with a cocktail onion, named after the customer (perhaps as an ironic scolding, for daring to order off the standard menu?) The cocktail onion really does add a certain something, though, so if you like Martinis you oughta give the Gibson a shot.

dry vermouth

cocktail onions

gibson

This drink should really have kept the name "Gimlette," for the man who invented it: the Royal Navy's Surgeon General Sir Thomas D. Gimlette. He came up with this concoction as a way to convince his fellow sailors to drink lime juice to ward off scurvy. If only we could take all of our medications in such a fashion! A commercial lime cordial like Rose's will do alright, but it's not too hard to make your own infinitely superior cordial - just search online for a recipe.

lime cordial

gimlet

The classic Martini recipe has seen a lot of abuse over the years, from James Bond's "shaken, not stirred" to the 90s-era cavalcade of drinks named "something-tini" just because they were served in the same type of glass. We'd like to set the record straight: a Martini is a stirred drink made with gin, dry vermouth, and either a lemon twist or an olive garnish. That's it!The reason that vermouth-based drinks are rarely made in a shaker is simple - vermouth gets big, ugly, soapy-looking bubbles in it when shaken. To add insult to injury, shaking a Martini causes too much ice to melt in it, throwing off the delicate balance of ingredients.If you're disappointed that vodka is no longer listed as a substitute ingredient for gin, fear not! We've added the Kangaroo, the original "vodka Martini," as a standalone recipe with its own pedigree and proportions.

martini

Cocktail snobs have a bad habit of using the Negroni as the threshold through which all drinkers must pass before they can be considered true connoisseurs. There's an element of truth to this view; the balance of flavors requires an experienced tongue to appreciate. But make no mistake - it is a very bitter drink, and it's not for everyone.Some folks have a genetic variation which allows them to taste bitter compounds, while other people don't. Those who can are called "supertasters," and it's likely that no amount of epicurean taste-acquiring can make this drink palatable to those so afflicted.

campari

negroni

Legend has it that Soho Brasserie bartender Dick Bradsell invented this drink in the late 80s, for a model who waltzed into his bar and demanded something that would "wake me up, and then fuck me up." Consider yourself warned!Real espresso is ideal - regular drip coffee is simply too weak and watery to provide the strong backbone this drink requires.

espresso

espresso martini

Okay, let's talk pronunciation: it's KAI-pur-een-YA. There you go, now you too can sound worldy like us. Cachaca is another tough one - it's pronounced ka-SHA-sa. You could substitute regular rum for cachaca, but we don't recommend it; this drink is inexorably linked to the grassy, fruity, musty flavors of real sugarcane cachaca. Unaged cachaca is best here, where its vegetal brightness plays off the lime; aged cachaca is tasty, but muted.The amount of sugar and lime called for is a hot topic of debate among connoisseurs, as is the type of sugar (granulated, syrup, or cubes). Start with a teaspoon of sugar, or two teaspoons of syrup, or a single cube, and increase to taste. If your limes are small, out-of-season, or just not all that sweet and juicy, feel free to use a whole lime instead of just half.

unaged cachaca

granulated sugar

lime cut into quarters

caipirinha

We like ours with raspberry liqueur instead of grenadine, but we've included both versions.

aged tequila

grenadine

tequila sunrise

This is our version of a health supplement. A couple of these is almost 100% of your government-recommended daily intake of Vitamin C! We shoulda been doctors. Vodka is the traditional spirit for this drink, but we much prefer gin, especially a really lime-heavy gin like Tanqueray Rangpur.

grapefruit juice

greyhound

Need a perfect cocktail to sip on the deck of your yacht? Look no further - the Sea Breeze is easy to make with ingredients you probably have on hand, and the high proportion of fruit juice makes it oh-so-refreshing.

sea breeze

This 50's classic is essentially a fizzy Gin Sour. Cocktail wizard Gaz Regan suggests a lovely variation: instead of using simple syrup and lemon juice, muddle a heaping tablespoon of granulated sugar with a half a lemon in wedges, caipirinha-style.

tom collins

It's called an "Old Fashioned" because it's the literal definition of what a cocktail used to be: a healthy pour of spirit, a bit of syrup, and couple dashes of bitters. No mushed-up fruit, no soda: just Platonic perfection in a glass.The classic Old Fashioned recipe calls for bourbon, rye or blended whiskey, simple syrup, and aromatic bitters. That said, it's an endlessly flexible template - mix and match brown spirits, syrup, and bitters to your heart's delight.

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