The BEST delicious whiskey cocktails you can make

Whiskey is one of my favorite foods. I’ll take the trouble to describe the way it makes me feel and especially how it behaves in craft cocktails. What? Whiskey cocktails? Don’t look away; It is perfectly acceptable to mix cocktails with whiskey. By the way, if you enjoyed a whiskey smash or a mint julep, you drank a whiskey cocktail. And if you’ve added a splash of lemonade or fruit puree to your glass of whiskey, that’s a cocktail too.

Yes, your world just got a little bigger and you haven’t gotten to the Manhattan’s or the Rob Roy cocktails yet!

Related: 3 Original Craft Cocktails to Make with Bitters

One of these creative cocktails from my recently published book “The Craft Cocktail Compendium” is titled “A Pleasant Little Gentleman.” You take some rye whiskey, simple honey syrup made from raw honey and bitters aged in whiskey barrels and refine them a little.

A pleasant little gentleman

• 2 ounces. Fernet Branca
• 1 oz. Rye whiskey
• 1 oz. Raw honey simple syrup (1 cup raw honey to 1 cup hot but not boiling water)
• 2-4 shakes of barrel aged bitters
• Boiling water for hot tea (Lapsang Souchong)

To brew tea. Add the liqueurs. Sweeten with raw honey to taste. Add bitter substances. surcharge

Another small sample of delicacy is the “Late Summer Fizz”. It includes Pimm’s Cup. Now you know what to do with this cucumber-scented piece of heaven.

Late summer fizz

(Page 110 of the Craft Cocktail Compendium)

• 2 ounces. rye
• ½ ounce. Pimm’s No. 1. Mug
• ½ ounce. Cider
• ½ ounce. sweet white vermouth (I used Carpano Antica Formula)
• ¼ oz. Pimento dram
• Sprinkle with sea salt
• Lemon bitters
• Splash of lemonade

In a Boston shaker ¾ filled with ice: Add the spirits and apple cider. Add the sip. Seal and shake vigorously for 15 seconds. Pour over fresh ice into a rocks glass. Squirt lemonade. Drizzle with lemon bitters. Sprinkle sea salt on top. Surcharge.

Related Story: 5 Brilliant Cannabis-Infused Daiquiri Recipes

Next is my take on the classic Old Fashioned. These are roasted fruits that you cut up, add light balsamic vinegar or apple cider vinegar and Demerara sugar, roast, cool and puree. Pretty spectacular.

Grilled peach and Thai basil roast

• 1 oz. roasted peaches (split, sprinkled with sugar and 1 teaspoon balsamic, and roasted at 350 degrees for 1 hour until soft and charred)
• 1 oz. roasted oranges (split, sprinkled with sugar and 1 teaspoon balsamic and roasted at 350 degrees for 1 hour until soft and charred
• 4 oz. Bourbon whiskey
• 1-2 sprigs of Thai basil

Mix the roasted peaches and oranges very lightly with Thai basil to release the flavors and add some bourbon along the way, mix some more and add more bourbon (I used Barrell Bourbon Batch 11). Strain the mixture into a rocks glass without ice or, if you prefer, with a large ice cube and some of the stirred mixture. Garnish with a sprig of Thai basil.

Related Story: 5 Great Ways to Use Fresh Herbs in Your Craft Cocktails

How can you survive the summer without a variation of the Moscow Mule but with whiskey instead of vodka? This one takes a slightly different route. The idea is to make a very quick shrub – no, not a shrub, but a small mixture that adds a little apple cider vinegar to the usual ginger beer. A kind of ginger snap in your mouth!

Son in the Foreign Legion

• ¼ oz. Apple Cider Vinegar
• 3 ounces. Ginger beer (cane sugar based)
• 2 ounces. Blended Scotch Whiskey (like Johnny Walker Red)
• 4-6 drops of Angostura bitters (or similar)

In a cocktail mixing glass: fill ¾ with ice. Add the whiskey. Add the ginger beer. Add the apple cider vinegar. Stir well to cool, but do not dilute. Pour into 2 coupe glasses. Sprinkle with bitters and serve.

The last cocktail is also from my book The Craft Cocktail Compendium. The simple name “Bill Monroe’s Country Cooler” is a tribute to the mandolin master himself.

Bill Monroe’s Country Cooler

• 1 oz. Peach nectar
• 1 oz. Apricot nectar
• ½ ounce. freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 2 ounces. sweet iced tea (sugar to your own taste, of course!)
• 2-4 ounces. white (unaged) whiskey
• 2-5 dashes of Angostura bitters
• Fresh mint (picked from the shade of the roots of an old oak tree, where sweet twig water bubbles up in a belly laugh)

Pour all liquid ingredients into a cocktail mixing vessel ¾ filled with ice. Stir well to cool. Strain into spherical glasses. Drizzle with bitter substances. Smash the mint against your palm and garnish. Serve and prepare more quickly! They’re going down quickly!