#80 Cocktail: Calvados

   As the name says the main ingredient is the calvados. The apple flavour is combined here with the sweet orange juice and with the sourness of the lemon juice, both in equal parts. If you look closely to this cocktail recipe, you will notice that is nothing more than a twist on the Sidecar cocktail, replacing the cognac with the calvados and adding a little bit of orange juice to balance a little the sour lemon.
    It's an interesting cocktail and it deserves a try.
Oh, no particular history for this one....or I couldn't find one. If you find something, please tell me too.

2 ounces Calvados

1/2 ounce triple sec

1/2 ounce fresh orange juice

1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice

angostura bitters to taste

#65 Cocktail: Bocce Ball

    Bocci is a ball sport belonging to the boules sport family, closely related to bowls and pétanque, with a common ancestry from ancient games played in the Roman Empire. Developed into its present form in Italy (where it is called bocce, the plural of the Italian word boccia which means "bowl"), it is played around Europe and also in overseas areas that have received Italian migrants
    As you can imagine, the name of this cocktail is after the ball that the game is played with. Why? I have no idea.
    The Bocce Ball is great highball juice drink that is very simple to make and can be enjoyed for any occasion. It's similar to a Screwdriver, only a little more interesting thanks to the amaretto and soda. You may also want to try this with aflavored vodka, either a vanilla vodka, one of the citrus options, or even a cake or whipped cream vodka.
    I would include the Bocce Ball on the list of drinks most bartenders will want to be aware of. Also, because of its relationship to the Screwdriver, it is an easy one to remember.
    As with many cocktail recipes, there are a few ways to make a Bocce Ball. Many recipes skip the vodka and others leave out both the vodka and soda. Enjoy this drink however you like it.

Colleen Graham- Cocktails Expert

2 ounces Amaretto 

3 ounces fresh orange juice

#43 Cocktail: Bolo's Pomegranate Sangria

    The recipe was created by Bobby Flay , chef owner of Bolo restaurant in New York. The drink is very tasty and sweet, but do not be fooled by that because you will not even realize when you will not be able to talk straight.

1 bottle dry red wine

1 cup American brandy

1 cup simple syrup

2 cups fresh orange juice

3/4 cup pomegranate juice

2 oranges sliced into thin rounds

3 green apples cut into thin rounds

2 lemons cut into thin rounds

#37 Cocktail: Black-Eyed Susan

     The official cocktail of the Preakness, the black-eyed Susan, was introduced in 1973. Since then, the cocktail’s official recipe has changed, several times, and often depending on what liquor sponsors have been lined up for the annual race.
    That 1973 mix, we know, was a base of rum and vodka, splashed with orange and pineapple juices. But details about the origin of the cocktail can be confusing. Cocktail lore often is.
    One version of the black-eyed Susan history says that the drink was created by the Heublein Co., a Hartford, Conn.-based liquor distributor and specialist in “ready-made” cocktails for the home consumer, everything from martinis and Manhattans to Star Stream Tiki and the Brass Monkey.
    In the Heublein version, the company created the black-eyed Susan but refused to divulge its recipe to Preakness officials, who had to come up with their own recipe.
    But credit really goes to the Harry M. Stevens Co., the longtime caterers at Pimlico, who asked Heublein to help them create a ready-made mix that would help them serve hundreds, if not thousands, of the cocktails, quickly, at the 1973 Preakness.
     After that, the story gets hard to pin down. It’s possible Heublein kept the exact details of the black-eyed Susan recipe to itself. It’s not clear when Pimlico’s caterers were compelled to, or decided to, start making black-eyed Susans without the Heublein mix.
    Some cocktail historians believe that Heublein repackaged the black-eyed Susan as the Brass Monkey.
    Heublein did market the black-eyed Susan. The promotional ad, dated to 1975, is gaily illustrated by a Gilded Age gathering on the Pimlico infield in 1873.

1 ounce vodka

1 ounce rum

3/4 ounce triple sec

1 1/2 ounce fresh orange juice

1 1/2 ounce pineapple juice

#28 Cocktail: Blood and Sand

  In 1922 Rudolph Valentino starred in the movie “Blood and Sand”, a movie that shortly before his death in 1926 he declared as the part he liked the best. He had just undergone a touchy surgery for appendicitis and gastric ulcers and told the gathering press “The part I like best was my role in ‘Blood and Sand’. If I had died, I would have liked to be remembered as an actor by that role – I think it my greatest.” He died a few days later from peritonitis. It is unknown who actually created the recipe for Blood and Sand, but its first appearance seems to be in “The Savoy Cocktail Book” by Harry Cradock in 1930.

3/4 ounce scotch 

3/4 sweet vermouth

3/4 cherry brandy

3/4 fresh orange juice

#23 Cocktail: Bronx

    The story of the creation of this drink is detailed by Albert Stevens Crockett's "The Old Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book" and although the book claims that it was created prior to 1917, no clue is given as to the precise date of it's birth.
    According to the book, the bartender who created the Bronx cocktail was a certain Johnnie Solon and he made the cocktail as a response to a challenge from a waiter by the name of Traverson. The Bronx is a variation of a popular cocktail of the time named Duplex and it became so popular that the bar was son using more than 1 case of oranges per day.
      The book quotes Salon as saying: "I had been to the Bronx Zoo a day or two before , and I saw, of course, a lot of beasts I had never known. Customers used to tell me of the strange animals they saw after a lot of mixed drinks. So when Traverson said to me, as he started to take the drink to the customers "What'll tell him is the name of the drink?"  I thought of these animals and said "Oh, you can tell him it is a Bronx""

2 ounces gin

1/4 ounce sweet vermouth

1/4 dry vermouth

1 ounce fresh orange  juice

2 dashes angostura aromatic

#19 Cocktail: Artillery Punch

    On Dec.4 at the Feast of Saint Barbara it is traditional to conduct the 'punch ceremony'.  Starting with a bottle of last year's punch, ingredients are added one by one in a theatrical fashion, with humor and imagination creating the list of ingredients.  The battery commander tastes the punch after each ingredient is added, and keeps saying 'it's not quite right, something is missing' until all the ingredients are added and stirred.  once the concoction is satisfactory, all the artillerymen dip their tin cups into the punch and toast one another until there is only enough punch to fill the bottle for next year's ceremony.
   The punch originated with the Chatham Artillery, Savannah, Ga., and has been served in that city for almost 200 years. It is delicious, seductive, powerful.

The Chatham Artillery was organized in 1786.  The earliest mention of their punch, however, was in 1819, when it was considered a worthy refreshment for President James Monroe, who was in Savannah, GA, for the launching of the first steamship to cross the Atlantic.

This is the punch that knocked out Admiral Schley when he visited Savannah in 1899 after the Spanish War.  Admiral Cervera's Spanish shells were harmless to the brave American admiral, but Artillery Punch scored a direct hit which put him out for two days.

1 bottle (750 ml) rye whiskey

1 bottle (750 ml) red wine

25 ounces chilled strong tea

12 ounces dark rum

6 ounces gin

6 ounces brandy

1 ounce Benedictine

12 ounces fresh orange juice

6 ounces fresh lemon juice

6 ounces simple syrup

1 large block of ice

lemon wheels for garnish

#16 Cocktail: Alabama Slammer

     The legend has it that the Alabama Slammer was invented  at the University of Alabama in 1975, although further details about the origins of the cocktail are hazy. It is claimed to have been made famous by Green Bay Packers quarterback, Brett Favre. However, the drink was popular with the college crowds as early as the 1980s when it was served as a shaker shot in many bars and also available as a pitcher in T.G.I. Fridays and other chain restaurants

1 ounce Sloe Gin

1 ounce Southern Comfort 

1 ounce amaretto

2 ounces fresh orange juice