One of our feature tasting room cocktails for February this year.

2 oz Roundstone Rye 80 Proof
1 oz cranberry juice
½ oz lemon juice
Dash of Angostura bitters

Combine the above ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice.  Shake and strain into a glass and garnish with a cherry.

One of our feature tasting room cocktails for February this year.

2 oz Roundstone Rye 92 Proof
¾ oz strawberry simple syrup
½ oz citric acid water
½ oz creme de cacao

Combine the above ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice.  Shake and strain into a glass and garnish with grated dark chocolate.

One of our feature tasting room cocktails for February this year.

2 oz Watershed Gin
¾ oz Campari (less if you don't like bitter, or substitute Aperol)
¾ oz Sweet Vermouth

Combine the above ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice.  Stir and strain into a glass and garnish with magic (aka pearl dust).

This cocktail comes to us from Kara Newman's newest book, Shake. Stir. Sip., featuring easy cocktails done in equal parts.  What I love about this cocktail, besides its refreshing taste, is that the four (five, really) ingredients combine in such a pleasant way, while being individually unidentifiable in the final drink.  In other words, they blend so well into something wholly new, you'd never know that there was (for instance), St. Germain in the beverage.  I guess the word I'm looking for here is "synergy," where the end result is greater than the sum of its parts. Regardless of how you analyze it, this drink has been our staple drink through the winter this season.

¾ oz Watershed Gin
¾ oz St. Germain
¾ oz Curaçao or orange liqueur
¾ oz fresh lemon juice
Absinthe rinse

Rinse a chilled coupe with absinthe, then combine the ingredients into a shaker of ice.  Shake well, strain into the coupe, and serve with a lemon peel garnish.

Recipe courtesy Kara Newman, Shake. Stir. Sip.

We enjoyed yet another holiday dinner this year, with wonderful drinks made by our Operations Manager, Lauren Barrett.  Here they are, in order of the menu.  Sorry, but we were so busy eating dinner, we forgot to take photos!

Welcome Cocktail:

1 oz Pearousia
½ oz Aperol
1 oz OJ

Combine ingredients in a flute and top with sparkling wine.

Gin-gle All The Way:

1 oz Watershed Gin
½ oz lemon
¼ oz rosemary simple
½ oz Domaine de Canton

Combine ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice.  Shake and strain into a cocktail glass.

Chim Chim Cherry:

1 oz Roundstone Rye 80 Proof
⅓ oz lemon
⅓ oz grapefruit
¼ oz agave syrup
⅛ oz Luxardo
Brandied cherry

Combine ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice.  Shake and strain into a cocktail glass.  Garnish with cherry.

Come On Krampus:

1 oz Roundstone Rye Distillers Edition
¼ oz brown sugar syrup
½ oz Quarter Branch Apple Brandy
¾ oz OJ
2 bar spoons Pratt Standard grenadine

Combine ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice.  Shake and strain into a cocktail glass.

Nipping At Your Nose:

1 oz Roundstone Rye 80 Proof
1 oz apple cider
1 oz 1757 amaretto (almond extract, vanilla bean, brown sugar, granulated sugar)
Black walnut whipped cream (heavy cream, black walnut bitters, powdered sugar)

Serve warm in a coffee cup; top with cream.

Recipes courtesty Lauren Barrett, and used with permission.

Here's a new account for you to follow:  @theboozygay from Spring, Texas.  Eddie Harris is the owner of the account, and also happens to be the son of the founders.  When he's not full-time ambassador for Catoctin Creek in Texas, he enjoys walks on the beach, piña coladas, and making cocktails. This one is his latest.  "This week's cocktail of the week says Merry Christmas in a very boozy way!"

1 oz Copper and Kings Brandy
1 oz Catoctin Creek Roundstone Rye
⅔ oz of cranberry syrup*
Dash of bitters

Stir and enjoy over a big rock in a rocks glass.  Garnish with cranberries on a toothpick.

Cranberry syrup
½ cup light brown sugar
½ cup granulated sugar
1 cup water
1 bag of cranberries
1 tsp nutmeg

Combine all over low heat until mixed, at least one hour.  Strain and remove the cranberries.  Keep syrup in refrigerator for up to three months.

Recipe and photo courtesy @theboozygay and used with permission.

This cocktail is a modification of one that was in Whisky Advocate. The original recipe had a rather complicated pear/persimmon/clove brown simple syrup, which I'm sure is lovely, but I just finished canning a dozen cans of fresh persimmon jam, and so I wanted to use that instead. I've tweaked things around a bit while still honoring the original ingredients and proportions. And honestly, it came out great!!

This cocktail is the embodiment of November. You can serve it as a sling (cold, with an ice cube), or warm it gently and serve as a toddy.

3 oz Roundstone Rye 92 Proof
1 oz Nonino amaro
½ oz brown sugar syrup or molasses syrup
½ oz persimmon jam
2 oz pear juice
dash of vanilla extract
dash of woodland bitters

Vigorously shake all the ingredients in a shaker of ice. Double-strain and serve with a big rock in a rocks glass. Serves two.

Recipe and photo courtesy Scott Harris, variation on a recipe in Whisky Advocate.

This cocktail comes to us from Nathan Wilkinson, @jollybartender on Instagram. It is a wonderful celebration of Commonwealth featuring two of its best distilleries:

This cocktail shows off Catoctin Creek’s Distillers Edition Roundstone Rye with Mt. Defiance Sweet Vermouth—two great Virginia distilleries.

3 oz Catoctin Creek Roundstone Rye Distiller's Edition
½ oz Mt. Defiance Sweet Vermouth
½ oz Ramazzotti amaro
3 dashes Hella orange bitters
Lemon zest garnish

Combine all ingredients in a shaker of ice. Stir and strain into a coupe and garnish.

Cocktail and photo courtesy Nathan Wilkinson, and used with permission.

Blueberries are underappreciated in cocktails.  Their flavor is unique, but one thing you can always count on from blueberries is a gorgeous natural color.  In this recipe, to preserve that beautiful deep violet hue, we opted to use citric acid water instead of lemon juice.  The flavor will be nearly the same, but the citric acid is clear, whereas the lemon would be cloudy and dull the color in the blueberries.  You can get citric acid (as with most things) online in granulated form.

2 oz Roundstone Rye 80 Proof
1 oz citric water (6 tsp citric to 4½ cups of water, more or less to taste)
½ oz honey simple (1:1 honey with hot water)
½ oz blueberry simple syrup (steep blueberries in simple syrup for at least an hour, remove solids)
lemon wedge garnish

Combine the ingredients in a shaker of ice, shake, and strain into a Nick and Nora glass with ice.  Garnish with lemon.

Recipe courtesy Denise Petty.

This one comes to us from Nightcap Cocktail Company, which you can find on Instagram at @nightcapcocktailco or on their web site.

The air is misty. You just woke up. Your flannel shirt is exuding the smell of last night’s campfire. You leave the log cabin that you built by hand, pick up your axe, and head out for a day’s work.

or... it’s five o’clock on a thursday and one sip of Catoctin Creek’s cask-proof edition rye has you literally dreaming. Spec below, so you can dream, too.

2 oz Catoctin Creek Cask Proof Roundstone Rye
¼ oz black birch syrup
2 dashes star-anise bitters

Stir over ice. Smoke glass with applewood, anise, and cinnamon. Strain into old fashioned glass with large block of clear ice. Garnish with torched orange wedge.

Recipe courtesy Nightcap Cocktail Company; photo by Hilary Hyland and used with permission.

Summer is upon us, and so too are summer flavors: berries, berries and peaches! Enjoy these on a hot, humid afternoon.

Black ‘ramble

1½ oz Watershed Gin
½ oz Blackberry syrup
½ oz Lemon juice
Top with ginger beer
Garnish with lemon slice

Island Hopp’n

1½ oz Roundstone Rye 92 Proof Distiller's Edition ¼ oz Strawberry syrup
¼ oz Pineapple gomme syrup
2 dashes Cherry bitters
3 dashes Typhoon (tiki) bitters
Express and garnish with lemon peel

Peachy Fiend

1 oz Rroundstone Rye 80 Proof
½ oz Peach syrup
½ oz Sour water (citric acid water .25tsp to 1.5oz)
¼ oz Aperol
Top with float of Angostura bitters
Garnish with fresh mint leaf

We frequently will dive into the Tiki genre with our whiskey.  Some may regard rum as the sole heir to Tiki cocktails, but quoting Matt Perkins, the beverage manager at Magnolias at the Mill, "If you argue about whether or not it's Tiki, you're entirely missing the point of Tiki."

This cocktail comes to us from @adventuresofriad on Instagram, and we're very impressed with this cool summertime refresher:

The #cocktail group I’m in feels like that this summer should be dedicated to #mezcal tiki cocktails, and I whole-heartedly agree! Here’s a #riff on one of my #favorite tiki cocktails the #Saturn

The Saturn is initially made with gin, falernum, orgeat, passion, and lemon and it’s blended as well!

My take is a little more #fun than that! I’m calling it the Uranus because there’s a lot going on in Uranus! 😘 it features some of my #favorite ingredients in a fantastic #amalgamation of #love in a glass!

¾ oz El Silencio Mezcal
¾ oz Catoctin Creek Roundstone Rye
½ oz lemon juice
½ oz passion fruit juice
¼ Luxardo maraschino liqueuer
2 barspoons creme de violette

Split base of mezcal and rye whisky with passion fruit purée, fresh squeezed lime juice Luxardo maraschino and creme de violette strained over crushed ice in a glass rimmed with tajin and garnish simply with mint (but go crazy because the bigger the garnish the better ).

Cocktail and photo courtesy of @adventuresofriad and used with permission.