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Hot Cocktails for the Cold Season

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The holidays are behind us, the novelty of the new year has worn off, but we in the Midwest are still left with the season’s cold weather. If this year is anything like the last, we might even get another visit from the polar vortex, which is way less exciting than its name implies.

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And far less exciting than the Snowpocalypse.

Rather than let our spirits plummet along with the temperatures, the season is a perfect time to invite friends and family over for a few hot cocktails. A lot of these are aromatic, and their recipes are often flexible enough to allow us to riff on the traditional version of the cocktails. As with last month’s look at New Year’s Eve drinks, the goal is to provide you with templates, using specific recipes as examples.

Put on a kettle of water, and let’s warm up with some tasty libations.

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World Cup Cocktails: Group E

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Like the England/Italy combination in Group D, I’ve been looking forward to France/Switzerland in this group. That’s because these two countries are closely tied with the scandalous spirit of absinthe.

This also means I have an excuse to include a gratuitous image of L’Absinthe by Degas:

Boom. ART.

I used a tiny dash absinthe in a previous group’s cocktail, but here it’ll take the center stage. France is popularly associated with this spirit, as its artists and celebrities brought it prominence in 19th- and 20th-century Paris. But the creation of absinthe goes back to 18th-century Switzerland, and Swiss politicians are trying to prevent other countries from using the term “absinthe.”

This is actually why I enjoyed the French drubbing of the Swiss team last week. I imagine that a soccer victory has somehow invalidated their silly politics.

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World Cup Cocktails: Group D

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I have been looking forward to Group D ever since I envisioned this series, because it offered some of the most interesting possibilities for cocktails.

The cocktail selection hasn’t been static, either. As this group has played its matches in the World Cup, I’ve changed one of the cocktails based on the way its team has played. That team is Costa Rica, who have laughed at this so-called “group of death.” To be sure, it still is such; it is Costa Rica who is that Death.

Along those lines, I started to think about something celebratory for Los Ticos, something that also hearkened to their status as a harbinger of woe unto all other Group D teams. This brought me to sparkling wine, and champagne cocktails like the infamous Death in the Afternoon. Riffing off a couple such cocktails — the Old Cuban from Jeffrey Morganthaler, and the classic French 75 — we have a balanced, herbal drink that will surprise you after a couple games:

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Los Ticos de la Muerte

1½ oz – Zhumir aguardiente (or rum)
¾ oz – simple syrup
½ oz – fresh lime juice
barspoon of absinthe
2 dashes of Bolivar bitters (or Angostura)
dry sparkling wine

Combine everything except the sparkling wine in a shaker. Add ice, shake until chilled, and pour into a champagne flute.* Top with sparkling wine, and garnish with and orange curl.
*Champagne flutes have different volumes; adjust proportions accordingly.

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World Cup Cocktails: Group B

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One of the reasons I enjoy international competitions like World Cup is the opportunity to lace both humor & drink-mixing with history:

He’s referencing the defeat at the Spanish Armada at the hands of English (and Dutch) naval forces. Naturally. This little tete-a-tete was a part of the broad, bloody epic of the Eighty Years’ War, a continent-spanning conflict that was ostensibly about Protestant Netherlands revolting against Catholic Spain.

If you look closely, you’ll see a Van Persie launching cannonballs with his head.

What better way to celebrate the Netherlands dispensing a revenge-fueled soccer beatdown against highly-favored Spain than with a cocktail? If we’re going to build a drink that pays homage to these two belligerents, it’s only fitting that we build it around their nationalistic alcohols: genever and sherry.

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