Toast Obama’s inauguration with a Gerry Mandarin!

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 11:59:00 +0000

Rosie Schaap, the drinks columnist for the New York Times Magazine, spoke with us about her new memoir, "Drinking With Men," which comes out from Riverhead Books on Thursday. As a bonus, Schaap has created this special cocktail for Salon, to toast the inauguration of President Barack Obama's second term.

So today we'll be raising a coupe full to the president and to Vice-President Joe Biden. And to Rosie on her publication (thanks for the drink!). And to you, our readers!

Cheers!

The Gerry Mandarin

Created by Rosie Schaap.

For one cocktail:

2 oz rye

1/4 oz. sweet Vermouth

The juice of one half of a small Mandarin orange

Two dashes Scrappy's celery bitters

Shake all ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled coupe. Garnish with a thick strip of Mandarin peel, from which the pith has been removed.

A cocktail writer goes dry

Sat, 19 Jan 2013 00:30:00 +0000

I am standing in front of a roomful of New Yorkers, all sipping sample-size martinis. My husband is by my side, working the projector. Above us, "The Thin Man's" Nick and Nora Charles are wisecracking on the screen. I'd presented this seminar on cocktails in classic film a dozen times before, but tonight, something is different. I wonder if anyone will notice that neither of us has had a single drop to drink.

My husband and I had just made a New Year's resolution, and it was a doozy: abstain from alcohol for a year, or at least until we both crossed the finish line of the Chicago Marathon that fall. It was only the first week of January. We still had nine long, dry months to go.

We'd come to this unfamiliar, new teetotaling place partly out of a wish for a sit-up-and-take-notice new challenge, and partly out of the realization that our expanding waistlines, doughy faces, and frequent morning headaches weren't going to go away by themselves.

Salon.com > Cocktails

Toast Obama’s inauguration with a Gerry Mandarin!

A cocktail writer goes dry