Beverages

Essentially Somali chai, this spiced tea with milk is served most often during the Somali afternoon tea tradition known as casariya.

Super fresh soy milk is easy to make at home and, frankly, tastes leagues better than the stuff sold in boxes.

I created this sparkling cocktail for the menu at Keith McNally’s Morandi Italian restaurant.

This luscious drink gives hot chocolate a run for its money. Really caramelizing the sugar keeps the drink from tasting cloyingly sweet. Add a glug of good rum or skip it as desired.

This winter cocktail is bright and fizzy, spicy with ginger, and smoky with Scotch. Think of it as a Penicillin, gone extra-festive.

No new drink of the twenty-first century has gone further in terms of fame than this complex, spicy, smoky turn on a Whiskey Sour. 

This easy-to-make cocktail was one of the earlier drinks I created for the bar menu at our Brentwood restaurant, Tavern. It is made with a honey syrup infused with fresh ginger and chiles de árbol, so you get those flavors and that heat in the cocktail. I added grapefruit to make it tangy.

Warm up with this concoction of bourbon, hot sauce, and Worcestershire sauce. It’s not a Southern classic, but it certainly drinks like one.

In this cocktail, Riesling (Marrero favors dry Rieslings from the Finger Lakes or Alsace) adds brightness to a mix of fresh apple cider and bourbon. Blending dried figs with honey syrup gives you a sweetener that’s full of earthy, nutty notes, and a small amount of floral liqueur gives the tart, refreshing drink a subtle luscious quality.

The campfire smokiness of the Lapsang Souchong (which is brewed strong, so that the tannins intensify) is a great counterpoint to sweet, tart stone fruit.

Serve this with a bowl of potato chips (Utz, please) and another little bowl of extra olives and sit outside with a friend. That’s all I have to say about that!

This festive, refreshing cocktail balances bittersweet Campari with tart, unsweetened 100% cranberry juice. The drink’s tartness and bitterness awakens the palate for whatever you’ve got cooking.

Apple butter is a brilliant shortcut to a robustly flavored fall cocktail. Spiced with cinnamon and sometimes ginger, nutmeg, or clove, it brings in every essential autumn note in a teaspoon or two.

The earthy, floral flavor of chamomile soothes the spice of reposado tequila in this easy, cozy spin on the hot toddy.

This luscious combination of hot cider and Averna is our favorite way to spike cider these days. Sweetened with citrusy Grand Marnier and enriched with salted butter, it’s the perfect hot drink to enjoy outdoors.

This golden-hued turmeric hot toddy from Claire Sprouse of Brooklyn’s Hunky Dory is wonderfully savory from the combination of nutty Amontillado sherry and earthy turmeric.

This sherry-Cynar Negroni riff was created by bartender Dan Greenbaum at The Beagle in New York City.

While it is not uncommon to find ginger blended into limeades, lemonades, and fresh sugarcane juice in India, it also pairs nicely with tamarind. Serve cold and give it a good stir before drinking.    This recipe is made with tamarind pulp, which contains large seeds that you will need to remove. Avoid the temptation to use concentrates. They’re more convenient because they don’t have seeds, but they don’t taste nearly as fresh.

Unlike a strongly acidic lemonade or limeade, this sumac syrup is tart but mild. The saffron and cardamom are pounded to release their color and flavors into the hot syrup.

I suggest this in place of your usual mimosa.

Strawberries, rosé, Aperol, and mild carbonation yield a refreshing, barely sweet tipple. 

I dubbed this aperitif the Nurse thanks to its restorative quality for a hangover I woke up with after visiting Noilly Prat’s production facility in Marseillan, France in 2015.

Throw chopped celery stalks into a juicer (or blender) for a refreshing cocktail base. The vegetal flavor is mellowed by citrusy Lillet blanc and lemon juice, while its savory side is supported with mezcal and a pinch of smoked salt.

Tart, bitter orange kisses roasted agave.