Cocktails
Home bartending notes — classic recipes, amaro obsessions, and tiki detours.
This started with Swinford Spirits, a creative cocktail lounge in San Diego that I loved and that closed permanently during the pandemic. With bars shut down I started making my own drinks at home, experimenting with different base liquors, infusions, and garnishes, and never stopped. Current obsessions lean towards stirred drinks: Negroni variations, spec-forward Manhattans, and anything that involves a good amaro. I have a soft spot for funky rums and tiki cocktails.
Favorites
Negroni
stirred- 1 oz gin
- 1 oz Campari
- 1 oz sweet vermouth
Strained into a coupe, orange peel expressed. Endlessly riffable — swap gin for rum (Kingston Negroni) mezcal (Oaxaca Negroni), Campari for Cynar, or vermouth for Punt e Mes.
Manhattan
stirred- 2 oz rye
- 1 oz sweet vermouth
- 2 dashes Angostura
Strained, Luxardo cherry. Workhorse ryes (Rittenhouse, Wild Turkey 101) and fresh vermouth for an everyday sipper.
Paper Plane
shaken- 0.75 oz bourbon
- 0.75 oz Aperol
- 0.75 oz Amaro Nonino
- 0.75 oz lemon juice
One of the few modern classics that earns the equal-parts format. Every ingredient pulls weight.
Jungle Bird
shaken- 1.5 oz dark rum
- 0.75 oz Campari
- 1.5 oz pineapple juice
- 0.5 oz fresh lime juice
- 0.5 oz simple syrup
One of my favorite tiki cocktails to make at home. I prefer using a mix of Jamaican rums like Appleton Estate and Smith & Cross. Fresh pineapple juice is key here, usually sourced from Trader Joe's.
Saturn
shaken- 1.5 oz dry gin
- 0.5 oz orgeat
- 0.5 oz fresh lemon juice
- 0.25 oz passionfruit syrup
- 0.25 oz falernum
A classic tiki cocktail that feels like it shouldn't be because it lacks rum. I love this cocktail but the hardest ingredient to source is always the passionfruit syrup. One workaround is to buy frozen passionfruit juice cubes and blend with simple to make the syrup.
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