Passenger Cocktail

The only thing you probably need to know about the Passenger Cocktail is that it is so good that it almost made Kathy like gin.  Almost.

I had this in Austin at Perla's Seafood and Oyster Bar on South Congress in Austin.  Outstanding place to eat.  Right next to Hotel San Jose (expensive), and a block or so from the Austin Motel (cheap), both great places to stay when you are in Austin.

You will note that there is no mint in this picture.  I didn't have any today when I took the picture. The Passenger Cocktail is much better with mint, but a splash of Peychaud Bitters is pretty good if you don't have any mint on hand.

The Passenger

Almost good enough to turn Kathy into a gin drinker.

Yield: 1 cocktail

Ingredients 1 1/2 oz Dry Gin 1/2 oz St. Germain 1/2 oz Fresh Lime Juice San Pellegrino Aranciata (a type of orange soda) Mint

How to Make Pour into an ice-filled Collins Glass and top off with San Pellegrino Aranciata. Stir and garnish with a sprig of mint.

Source: Perla's Seafood and Oyster Bar in Austin

Summer Treat - Fitzgerald Cocktail and Other Refreshing Gin Drinks

My recent posts have featured some of my favorite summer treats, and today I decided to talk about another one.


It's been a little while since I posted a cocktail of the week -- sometimes I just want to drink one of the old standards, or maybe even not have a cocktail. So this week after my cocktail of the week hiatus, I picked one of my favorite summer spirits - Gin.  Especially Bombay Sapphire Gin.

Gin and Tonic is maybe the best, most refreshing, summer drink of all times.  Imagine some British officers in India in their idle times, standing around in a rather fancy officers' lounge with pith helmets under their left arms and drinking cocktails served by guys in turbans. But I digress...  No recipe really required - a couple of ounces of Sapphire gin, about 6 ounces of good quality tonic water, and a big twist of lemon, served over ice. Sitting outside on a shaded back porch with friends on a hot summer day, trying not to imagine guys in pith helmets. 


This week's cocktail of the week is a nice change, though. And it is good enough that Kathy offered that it is probably the best gin drink she has tried. (That does not, however, mean that she now likes gin.)


The Fitzgerald Cocktail was invented by Dale DeGroff, author of The Craft of the Cocktail, my favorite cocktail book.  As you can tell from the linked recipe, it is really just a Gin Sour with a splash of Angostura bitters.  (Also, if you use lime instead of lemon, the Fitzgerald would become a Bennet Cocktail.)


Click on the picture to get a closer look at how pretty the drink is.  You can almost smell that wonderfully refreshing gin / lemon combination.  Enjoy!