Celtic Cocktails: Enjoying Irish Whiskey on St. Patrick's Day

For most people, St. Patrick's Day is all Guinness and green…and sometimes even green beer—blech! Not that Guinness isn't good for you (it is) but sometimes the celebration calls for a cocktail—in this case, a Celtic Cocktail. We pulled together a list of lesser-known drinks featuring Irish whiskey to put us in the mood for St. Patrick's Day festivities. Mix up one of these shamrock sippers and you'll put your party right over the rainbow.

Tipperary Cocktail
Yael Vengroff, a mixologist at a hip downtown cocktail club, passed along her favorite adaptation of a recipe that first appeared in the 1916 book Recipes For Mixed Drinks by Hugo Ensslin, a bartender at the Wallick Hotel. The Tipperary Cocktail gives us both Irish whiskey and a touch of green for the Irish county it's named after. It later reappeared in the famed Savoy Cocktail Book. Today, bartenders up the whiskey (thank goodness) and reduce the amount of chartreuse to balance the sweetness and alcohol.

INGREDIENTS:
2 oz. Redbreast Irish Whiskey
1 oz. Carpano Antica sweet vermouth
1/2 oz. green chartreuse

PREPARATION:
Stir ingredients with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

Cameron's Kick
For something more refreshing, Yael also sent along her version of Cameron's Kick, a drink that first appeared in the Savoy. This unique cocktail contains equal parts of both Scotch and Irish whiskey. The refreshing element comes from the lemon juice and the use of orgeat syrup as a sweetener—a concoction of sugar, almonds and rose or orange flower water. Tip: Yael notes that, "you can adjust the scotch depending on how peaty you want the drink to taste. For those that enjoy the taste of peat, I would recommend using something like Laphroaig 10 year or Compass Box Peat Monster."

INGREDIENTS:
1 oz. Famous Grouse Scotch
1 oz. Jameson's Irish Whiskey
3/4 oz. orgeat syrup
3/4 oz. lemon juice

PREPARATION:
Shake over ice. Strain into cocktail glass. Garnish with an orange twist.

The Black Derby
A twist on the very old school Brown Derby cocktail, the Black Derby version replaces Bourbon with Irish whiskey for a powerful punch balanced out with a duet of tart and sweet. A favorite of the bartenders over at Five Points, the updated version was first served by a bartender from the Manhattan speakeasy Milk & Honey.

INGREDIENTS:
2 oz. Irish whiskey
1 oz. grapefruit juice
1/2 oz. of honey syrup

PREPARATION:
Fill a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake ingredients and strain into a rocks glass. Technique: To make honey syrup, mix one part honey with one part warm water until honey is completely dissolved. The result will be much like simple syrup.

Powers Irish Whiskey
If you'd prefer to forgo the shaking and the stirring and drink your whiskey straight up, Bobo Restaurant's Beverage Director Adam Rothstein recommends Powers Irish whiskey. Already the most popular whiskey in Ireland, Powers is growing in popularity this side of the Atlantic. There's something very soothing and warm about this particular bottle—it's got the right combo of smoky and smooth flavors. Trick: To enjoy whiskey on its own, drink it neat or add a little water to your taste. Now that's a good pot of gold. You can also add it to coffee sugar and heavy cream for an eye-opening Irish coffee.

— Written by Celeste Hughey

Photo credit: sloshed.hyperkinetic.org

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