I have an affinity for Mulled Wine, not only because my father is a certifiable wino (in the fact that he turned my mother’s office into a walk-in wine cellar, not that he is homeless and drinks out of a brown paper bag… not that there’s anything wrong with that…), but mostly because when I was 16, I spent 2 weeks of winter with a family in Grenoble, France, along the glorious French Alps.
The act of drinking began for many of us as a means to an end: a way to escape, a little liquid courage, or a social lubricant. As we grew into our drinking habit, that fast and loose attitude of ‘any drink will do’ was replaced with ‘I will never drink Merlot’ or some other distinction that we had developed over the course of testing our palate. As with boyfriends, over time, we figured out what we liked by test driving a number that we didn’t like.
One of my favorite things about cocktails, is the the ability to drink a piece of history. With the advent of bartenders reaching for the classics and online communities like the Chanticleer Society built around finding lost and forgotten recipes from the pre-prohibition era, we are lucky as imbibers to be able to taste something that links us to our American roots.
[dropcap2]M[/dropcap2]y mother gave me a basil plant. It has been growing like a weed this summer with all the sunlight that it gets on my balcony. I love savory elements in cocktails so I thought I’d mix some of that fresh basil into my evening cocktail.