I have my friend Rebecca to thank for a new drink to the repertoire: the Jasmine. It’s a surprising, but simple enough, combination of ingredients that a well-stocked basic bar would have:

Jasmine Cocktail

scant jigger gin
1/2 jigger lemon juice
a splash Cointreau
a splash Campari

She whipped up a batch Friday night, and for me it perfectly captured the late summer weather we’re having, with its sunny days and crisp nights. With plenty of citrus and just a hint of Campari, it reminded me a lot of the bitter-sour flavor of grapefruit juice. Like many great drinks, in any case, the balance meant that the ingredients added up to a whole greater than the parts. It’s now in my heavy rotation.

Margaritas are nearly as wonderful straight up as they are on the rocks. They’re even better if you make them with sour oranges. I know that I’ve been talking up various knotty, dirty looking exotic citrus fruits you find at hispanic markets. Sour oranges – or naranja agria – are worth seeking out. They’re the traditional bitter oranges used in making orange bitters (not to mention orange marmalade), and they have a nice tartness, like a lemon or lime, with a floral orange taste instead. They really shine in cocktails, and in particular the sour orange margarita is probably the only cocktail I can claim some originality in inventing. (Perhaps recreating the wheel someone else invented?) To this day, it’s my favorite summer cocktail.

It’s a simple variation. A straight-up margarita is just juice of a lime, a good portion of tequila and quality orange liqueur, maybe with a heaping teaspoon of sugar to take the bite off. Substitute sour orange juice, decrease the sugar, and trust me, you’ll have a crowd-pleaser. It’s a good occasion to wheel out a better than average tequila.

Sour Orange Margarita
Makes 2 cocktails in 5 oz. martini glasses

Juice of two sour oranges (or more if the oranges is not very juicy)
Few generous dashes simple sugar syrup, or heaping teaspoons sugar
4 jiggers (6 oz.) tequila, mid-shelf or better
1 jigger (1 1/2 oz.) Grand Marnier, Cointreau or good quality curaçao
Orange twist, for garnish, optional

Chill cocktail glasses. In cocktail shaker, add ice, then the main ingredients listed. Shake thoroughly to mix and chill. Pour into glasses and garnish.

Oh, and if you’re not a tequila fan, try an aged rum, like a nice oaky Jamaican rum. The resulting daiquiris, if untraditional, are just as good.

Sour oranges available at Hi-Lo in Jamaica Plain and at fruit stands near Jackson Square.

Angostura bitters are a wonderful ingredient – a necessity for any home bar and an item not used enough these days. But in the original days of the cocktail (pre-Prohibition) a number of proprietary bitters were on the market. Today, a couple commercially produced bitters remain… Angostura, Peychaud’s (most famous for its use in the Sazerac) and orange bitters. Angostura is available in the supermarket even, Fee Brothers orange bitters you can get at a couple places in Boston (Marty’s and I believe Liquorland), while Peychaud’s isn’t sold here.

Well, it turns out making bitters at home is not all that difficult. All you need to do is to infuse a high-proof spirit with a combination of citrus, spices and herbs, then dilute to get to a reasonable proof. Much like making limoncello. It probably won’t have the same shelf life as a store-bought bottle (I keep mine in the fridge), but its freshness will be noticeable.

The easiest place to start is orange bitters. Traditional recipes may call for spices, I don’t know, but I used simply the zest of the sour orange. For some reason these fruit aren’t generally popular, but Hispanic markets stock these (I get mine at Hi-Lo Market, or at the fruit stands near Jackson Square in Jamaica Plain).

Orange Bitters
Makes scant 1/3 cup
Zest of two sour orange (naranga agria)
4 T. 151-proof rum, or high-proof spirit of choice

Macerate zest and spices in liquor for a week, covered in the refrigerator. Strain into small jar. Add a two tablespoons pure water to dilute.

The result? The bitterness was accentuated over the Fee Brothers, but more importantly the floral scent of the orange was fresher and more powerful. I definitely prefer the homemade.

Even more successful was a grapefruit based recipe I created and called Jamacian bitters, not because they’re actually a Jamaican recipe, but because the spices and flavors are those you’d find in Jamaican cooking.

Jamaicain Bitters
Makes scant 1/4 cup
Zest of one grapefruit
one slice fresh ginger
few berries allspice
few whole cloves
1/2 in. of true cinnamon (canela) stick
1/4 t. black peppercorns
3 T. 151-proof rum, or high-proof spirit of choice

Macerate zest and spices in liquor for a week, covered in the refrigerator. Strain into small jar. Add a tablespoon or so of pure water to dilute.

A note on spices: you can improvise on the ingredients, of course, but be careful not to overwhelm with any one note. Ginger, for one, can be overpowering if too much is used. And use in moderation, if you can find it, true cinnamon (soft cinnamon, or canela), whose flavor is far milder than the Red-Hot-tasting cassia bark that’s sold in the U.S. as cinnamon. Hispanic markets like JP’s Hi-Lo and International sections of supermarkets sell whole canela; or, check out Polcari’s in the North End.

How to use these homemade bitters? Well, you can use the orange bitters in any recipe calling for them… I use a tad more in the recipe than I would with storebought, as the flavor is less saturated. But if you want a drink to really let these shine, particularly the Jamaican Bitters, I’d recommend the simple summer highball, the Gin Rickey.

Gin Rickey

1/2 juicy lime
1 jigger dry gin
Club soda
Several dashes citrus bitters

Fill highball glass with ice. Coat ice with bitters. Squeeze lime and drop in spent shell. Add gin, then top with club soda. Stir briefly.

As is, the rickey is a lovely mixed drink, the unfairly overlooked homely cousin to the gin and tonic. The bitters are my addition, not traditional, but try them and I think you’ll find that they pick up an understated drink and take it somewhere interesting.

I should have sorted through all the Summer-Drink themed Carnival submissions before firing off my own post, so I would have seen that Jiggle the Handle already had a good bit on the Pimms Cup. Apologies for the duplication.

Some other entries…

Jeff at the Bottom Shelf sings the praises of Pyramid Hefeweizen.

Days that End in Y covers the mojito.

Martini Lounge profiles a few drinks, including a Cucumber martini and a highball that I’m eager to try, the Paloma.

Ken Goldstein, meanwhile, posted a review of a Johnny Walker event in SF.

Did I miss anyone? Let me know. Thanks to all those who participated at such short notice. Perhaps participants (and readers) will be interested in submitting to the New York Times summer drink recipe open call.

Next Carnival of Drinking to be hosted by Rick of Martini Lounge. The other Rick, I should note, has a call up for the next Mixology Monday, for this upcoming Monday. The theme: mint.

One of the most refreshing warm-weather drinks I can imagine in Pimm’s Cup. Pimm’s No. 1 is an herbal-infused gin spirit, but it tastes nothing like gin, nor is it overly herbally or bitter. The closest relative to flavor I can point to would be angostura bitters – clove-y and slightly sweet. Made in England and long associated with the upper class there, it used to be produced in eight varieties, each with a different base spirit, but now is made in three, only one of which is distributed in any quality: the traditional Pimm’s No.1, consumed almost strictly in the simple, exquisite Pimm’s Cup.

Pimm’s Cup is merely Pimm’s No.1, lemon soda, citrus and cucumber slices. British “lemonade” is traditional, but since I can’t find a reasonably priced brand of the stuff here, I use Sprite, whose blandness works well against the liqueur. Originally a punch, it works equally well as a highball, the recipe for which follows. Equally suited for a picnic along the Charles as it is for punting on the Thames.

Pimm’s No. 1 Cup
Sprite or other lemon soda
Citrus slices (always lemon, lime and orange optional)
Couple cucumber slices
Mint spring, optional

Fill highball glass with ice. Fill a third the way with Pimm’s, top with Sprite and add garnishes. Stir briefly.

Mike of Days that End in Y has started a blog carnival devoted to drinks of all sorts, not just cocktails. I thought I’d take advantage of the holiday weekend to host one devoted to drinks that you like to serve at the barbecues, grill outs, picnics or what not that you’ll be attending this weekend, or in the summer months in general. Are you whipping out the tiki cocktails, do you have a new favorite summer beer, or are you strictly a planter’s punch person? Submissions at the Blog Carnival site are slated by midnight on Sunday, but if you let me know by Tuesday (in comments, or at bostoncocktails AT yahoo DOT com), I’ll post a roundup of your recipes, stories and posts here. Have a great and safe weekend.

As my friends know, I like to have a drink of the season. Something that captures my mood and complements the climate. Maybe even that uses seasonal ingredients. A drink for which I can have the ingredients on hand for company or for myself.

Well, after my trip to B Side, the drink of spring for me is the Last Word. Its fruity-dry balance, its pale green color, its perfect alchemy that needs no garnish: I can’t think of a better spring cocktail. It was popular among my friends too, who couldn’t remember the cocktail name so kept calling it the L Word.

It’s not in most guidebooks, even the encyclopedic Trader Vic’s. Thankfully, Paul at Cocktail Chronicles comes to the rescue. I urge you to go read his post for the history of this long-forgotten Prohibition-era drink (that’s half the fun), but for convenience I’ll reproduce the recipe:

The Last Word

1/2 jigger dry gin
1/2 jigger maraschino liqueur
1/2 jigger green Chartreuse
1/2 jigger fresh lime juice

Put ingredients with ice in a shaker and shake well. Strain into chilled cocktail glass. No garnish.

I only see a couple of drawbacks. First, some people don’t like Chartreuse. I love the stuff myself and have a hard time keeping a bottle around, I like it on the rocks so much. But to some, the herbal flavors will remind them of a Ricola cough drop. To them, I’ll just say that in the Last Word, the interplay holds everything in balance; like a Long Island Ice Tea, you don’t so much taste the individual liquors, as the sum is greater than the parts.

Then there’s the ingredients: maraschino liqueur isn’t too cheap and can be a pain to find; and Chartreuse is expensive, often topping forty dollars a bottle, though Martignetti’s currently stocks it for 34 bucks. If you’re unsure about committing to the liquor, or are leery of odd-tasting liqueurs, go try a Last Word at B-Side for a test run. I predict that many of you, even the gin-haters, will fall in love with this one.