Here's another great cocktail from the Instagram account, @fractionsofzero.  Basically, this is an old-fashioned with up-scaled sugar and orange bitters.  Very delicious when paired with our own up-scale Rabble Rouser!

2 oz Rabble Rouser Bottled-In-Bond Rye Whisky
1 tsp (more or less) of granulated maple sugar
dash of smoked blood orange bitters
Flared blood orange

Combine the ingredients in a rocks glass with a big rock.  Flare the blood orange peel over the drink by expressing a chunk of rind in front of a lighter.  You should get a cool flash of fire, to which everyone should clap and go, "Oooh!"

Recipe and photo courtesy @fractionsofzero and used with permission.

This cocktail was the winning cocktail from our recent Battle of the Bartenders, #RVA Edition!  This inventive cocktail comes to us from Jaclyn Beasley, who is the general manager over at Brunch in Richmond.  Jaclyn is recently relocated from the DC area and has moved down to Richmond to start making noise in the cocktail scene there. She is a proud member of the team over at Brunch, but wants to make her presence known and felt throughout Richmond. Keep a close eye on her because she is going to rise up quickly in the now thriving RVA cocktail scene! A champion who truly earned her spot.

2¼ oz Catoctin Creek Roundstone Rye
barspoon Novo Fogo Silver Cachaça
1 oz banana water*
¾ oz lemon juice
¼ oz vanilla syrup**
¼ oz 10 spice syrup***

Add all ingredients to shaker tin. Shake vigorously. Double strain cocktail into an old-fashioned glass, over ice. Garnish with dehydrated banana peel**** and edible flower.

*Banana Water:
2 bunches of bananas, in any stage of ripeness
Paper bag

Allow bananas to ripen until nearly black in color and very soft; they will begin to ooze. Peel skin (reserve) and mash the bananas with a potato masher. Add mash to a container and place in freezer for 24 hours. Once frozen, remove mash from freezer. Up-end container over another container and strainer to catch liquid, once it begins to thaw. Allow to strain for 24 hours in the refrigerator.

**Vanilla Syrup:
1 quart white sugar
1 quart water
1 cup light brown sugar
2 madagascar vanilla beans
1 teaspoon black peppercorns

Split vanilla beans, scrape seeds from pod. Add seeds, pod and remaining ingredients to a pot. Stir sugar until melted. Allow to lightly simmer for 15 minutes. Strain solids from liquid. You may reserve the vanilla pods again and use to make vanilla sugar, if so desired.

***10 Spice Syrup:
2 pieces of cinnamon stick, broken
2 ea star anise
8 whole cloves
¼ cup white peppercorns
¼ cup Indian Sasafrass
1 quart white sugar
1 quart water
¼ cup Togarashi spice (can be found in Japanese market)

Toast until fragrant, in order of list, all spices, except for togarashi. Add water and sugar. Simmer all spices together for 15 minutes. Add Togarashi spice, simmer for an additional 15 minutes. Strain all solids.

****Dehydrated Banana:
Using the peels from the ripened bananas, trim into rectangles (approx 2"x3"), usually 4 pieces per banana. Place peels skin side down on sheet pan lined with bakers rack, if using oven; Set oven to 150 degrees Fahrenheit and bake for 4 hours. If using dehydrator, follow machine instructions.

Recipe courtesy Jaclyn Beasley, and used with permission.

This cocktail was a feature cocktail of one of our recent distillery dinners.

2 oz Pearousia Pear Brandy
¾ oz matcha tea
¼ oz lavender infused honey syrup
¼ oz lime oleo saccharum (syrup from lime peels cured in sugar over night)
Blood orange paint garnish (blood orange dust, honey, orange bitters)

Serve shaken and strained over a large ice cube.

Recipe courtesy Lauren Barrett.

This cocktail was a feature cocktail of one of our recent distillery dinners.

2 oz Watershed Gin
1 oz yuzu juice
½ oz vanilla bean infused simple syrup
¼ citric acid water

Garnish with orange bitters and candied ginger. Serve stirred over ice.

Recipe courtesy Lauren Barrett.

This cocktail was a feature cocktail of one of our recent distillery dinners.

2 oz Roundstone Rye Distiller's Edition
1 oz fresh lemon juice
1 oz simple syrup
splash of aqauafaba (chickpea juice)
float of Cocchi Rosa

Shake first three ingredients with ice, strain, add aquafaba and dry shake. Pour over ice and float Cocchi Rosa. Garnish with a lemon peel and brandied cherry.

Recipe courtesy Lauren Barrett.

This cocktail was a feature cocktail of one of our recent distillery dinners.

2 oz Roundstone Rye 80 Cream*
½ Luxardo
Coffee
Chocolate whip cream
powdered cocoa

Add first two ingredients in a coffee mug, top with coffee then whipped cream, sprinkle with cocoa.

*Roundstone Rye Cream

1 cup heavy cream
14 oz can sweet condensed milk
2 Tbsp chocolate syrup
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp instant coffee
1⅔ cup Roudstone Rye 80 Proof

Blend together, and store in refrigerator for up to 2 months.

Recipe courtesy Lauren Barrett.

This cocktail was a feature cocktail of one of our recent distillery dinners.

1½ oz Watershed Gin
¼ oz thyme infused simple syrup
¼ oz rose cordial (like Guapo's)
Ginger beer topper
Hibiscus Tea float (we like Dominion Tea in Purcellville)

Serve stirred over ice with a sprig of thyme

Recipe courtesy Lauren Barrett.

This one is another great cocktail from Instagram personality @fractionsofzero.  He's doing a lot of amazing stuff on his Instagram feed right now, including some pretty wacky fish-based mocktails.  (We'll save those for your consideration.)

This is his take on a Blood and Sand cocktail classic:

¾ oz Catoctin Creek Chicken+Whisky Barrel Select Rye
¾ oz Luxardo cherry liqueur
¾ oz Drapo vermouth
¾ oz Blood orange juice
Dehydrated blood orange wheel to garnish.

Shake, strain into a coupe, and balance the orange delicately, poised to fall backward or forward at any moment in time. ⌛

Recipe and photo courtesy @fractionsofzero. Used with permission.

The mint julep is perhaps the most iconic American cocktail, among a field of cocktails which are, by definition, American. The julep is the cocktail of the south, evoking images of horse-farms, warm summer breezes, and sipping cool beverages on a wide porch. The history of the julep dates back to the 1700s, when it was prescribed as a medicinal. This variant uses rye, not bourbon, and uses a brown sugar syrup, which to us has more flavor and is truer to the sugar that would have been found in colonial America.

[Part of the Art of the Cocktail series, season two.]

6 mint leaves, plus additional for garnish
½ oz brown sugar syrup
Crushed ice
2 oz Roundstone Rye

Muddle the mint in the bottom of the glass, add the syrup and whisky, stir, and add crushed ice and more garnish mint.

Recipe from Colonial Spirits by Stephen Grasse.

This is a classic cocktail that is served the world over, first appearing in Jerry Thomas's The Bartender's Guide in 1862. We've changed it only slightly to add maple syrup as the sweetener, since any class on American beverages must consider maple as an ingredient. The maple matches surprisingly well with the lemon and the whisky. For what it's worth, this is a very similar cocktail to our very popular Colonel Langdon, except the spirit has been aged in oak for a time.

[Part of the Art of the Cocktail series, season two.]

2 oz Roundstone Rye
1 oz fresh lemon
½ oz fresh orange juice
½ oz maple syrup
½ oz aquafaba (optional)

Dry shake, then stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass, garnish with a lemon twist.

A type of drink that was common in the early 1800's and now mostly forgotten is the cobbler, a drink usually using a large amount of cobbled (chip) ice. (It has nothing to do with the pie-like dessert called a cobbler.)  The most common variant of the drink was the sherry cobbler, but there are several varieties using fruit which we enjoy. In this cocktail, the ginger really gives the peach a nice backbone.

[Part of the Art of the Cocktail series, season two.]

2 slices ripe peach (previously frozen OK)
1 tsp freshly grated ginger
½ oz fresh lemon juice
½ oz peach simple syrup
2 oz Roundstone Rye

Combine the peaches, ginger, lemon and syrup. Muddle to break the fruit. Add the whiskey and ice, and shake until chilled. Pour unstrained into a rocks glass and add more ice.

Recipe from Colonial Spirits by Stephen Grasse.

This cocktail tastes like Christmas.  From Kara Newman's book, Nightcap:

“At Brooklyn's Sauvage, bar director William Elliott batches up large quantities of this refreshing drink, then sets it in the freezer for a wonderful syrup-like viscosity. While Elliott favors white crème de menthe, particularly Giffard Menthe-Pastille, for a crystal-clear drink that resembles a minty Martini, green crème de menthe can yield a striking variation.

[Part of the Art of the Cocktail series, season two.]

1½ oz 1757 Brandy
¾ oz crème de menthe (Kara prefers the white variety, not the Dayglo™ green variety.)
dash absinthe
lemon peel garnish
Coupe glass

Combine ingredients in a shaker of ice and strain into the coupe. Garnish with the lemon peel.

Recipe courtesy Kara Newman and her book, Nightcap.