Spring is around the corner, better keep this bramble recipe in your back pocket just in case 🤌🏾

When you’re hosting and you want to serve something that actually matters, you make a decision: play bartender all night, or make one bottle and serve something uncompromising.

Inspired my friend Evie, this one combines Ciroc Vodka, dry vermouth, tomato water, champagne vinegar, and olive brine. It’s umami-forward, briny, and completely uncompromising. I added just a slight kiss of MSG to highlight the natural MSG already present in tomatoes, and it transformed the drink from savory into something people actually want to drink.

Here’s the hosting move: scale it up to a 1L bottle. Make it once, freeze it overnight, and you’ve got unlimited cocktails ready to pour. No measuring mid-party. No forgetting proportions. No apologizing because someone’s drink tastes different from the last one. Everyone gets the same thing. Everyone gets something that tastes intentional.

Garnish with black pepper, olive oil, a cherry tomato, and fresh basil. Pour into a coupe glass and suddenly you’re not just serving a drink, you’re hosting properly. Your guests will ask for the recipe. You’ll tell them to comment for it.

This is what happens when a bartender scales up something that matters and decides to invite people over.

Cheers, y’all!

I've created a seasonal cocktail that pairs perfectly with Añejo tequila. This recipe takes a traditional margarita and infuses it with the flavors of fall and winter — crisp apple, rich maple, and tart cranberry — for a drink that feels both festive and refreshing Cheers, y'all!

I’m your huckleberry 🤠

I just got back from Montana with my friends at @traegergrills. It was strictly a grilling event but given what I do, of course I had to get behind the bar. I knew I wanted to incorporate local Montana ingredients like huckleberry, juniper (grown on site) and honey but also wanted to incorporate smoke from the grill. So I had the idea to make a bramble type cocktail.

For the smokey element, I smoked some local raw honey along with some juniper berries on the Traeger to just get a kiss of smoke. I then constructed the cocktail originally using gin like a traditional bramble, but the juniper botanicals overpowered the recipe so I switched to a reposado tequila and knew it was the perfect fit. They also had some locally made huckleberry liqueur which was the perfect last ingredient to top the cocktail and bring that sweet/sour/fruity element to the cocktail. Finally topped it with that smoked juniper berry branch to give it that botanical pop and tricking your brain into thinking you’re drinking a bramble when you’re actually drinking something closer to a margarita.

Given the ingredients and location, it was just fitting to call this the ‘Big Sky Bramble.’ Cheers y’all.

Big thanks to @i_drewcifer for the R&D help!
🎥: @tobojosh / @grillvaultbbq

6 cocktail recipes to kick off pumpkin spice szn

5-frozen-cocktails-you-need-to-make-this-summer

Not all great bourbon comes from Kentucky, and this Old Fashioned proves it. I reach for an Old Fashioned whenever I want to know what a whiskey is really made of. Three ingredients, nothing to hide behind, so whatever is in the bottle comes through clean. First up is TINCUP 10 Year, made in Colorado on Rocky Mountain water. What sets it apart is the blend. There is Stranahan's single malt whiskey in there alongside the bourbon, so it drinks grain-forward and light at 84 proof, with cherry, pastry dough, and sweet fruit syrup carrying right through the sugar and bitters. Want a higher proof pour? Reach for Pendleton 1910 out of Hood River, Oregon at 90 proof. It brings more maple, clove, rye, and warm baking spice, with a longer oak finish on the back end. Same recipe, two very different drinks, and not a Kentucky zip code between them.