Filthy Gorgeous Mixology
Bob Guccione was not one to booze it up. Instead, he drank espresso like it was water and only slept three hours a night. Even though he didn’t enjoy a cocktail himself, he and his wife Kathy Keeton were famous for their dinner parties, rubbing elbows with New York’s brightest professors, authors, scientists, and cultural critics. Keeton was a huge sci-fi geek (she was the brains behind OMNI magazine), and the couple was always ready to pick the brains of their brilliant friends. Here are some cocktails inspired by the Guccione dinner table.
1. Fifth Gear
Created by Jesse Vida in New York bar The Dead Rabbit, this herbal Irish whiskey twist on an Old Fashioned is so good it will turn you into one of those dickheads who orders fancy cocktails at the bar.
Ingredients:
— pinch of salt
— 1 dash absinthe
— 1/2 teaspoon Giffard
— Crème de Banane
— 1/2 oz. crème de cacao
— 1/2 oz. Malmsey five-year Madeira
— 1 oz. Amaro Montenegro
— 1 oz. Powers John’s Lane
Pour all ingredients into a cocktail shaker with ice, shake well, strain into a tumbler with one ice cube and an orange peel.
2. Corpse Reviver No. 2
This beefed-up version of an old classic is like heroin for hungover gin lovers. And everyone knows that all gin lovers are permanently hungover, so lather, rinse, and repeat, you filthy lush.
Ingredients:
— 1 oz. gin
— 1 oz. Lillet Blanc or
— Cocchi Americano
— 1 oz. fresh-squeezed
— lemon juice
— 1 oz. orange liqueur
— 1/2 oz. absinthe
Rinse a chilled cocktail glass with absinthe, toss the excess (along with the remaining ingredients) into a cocktail shaker of ice, shake, strain into the rinsed glass, garnish with lemon peel, and pound that sucker back.
3. Blood and Sand
Even though the name of this drink conjures up images of sand being rubbed into an open gash, it tastes as good as a blowjob feels.
Ingredients:
— 3/4 oz. Scotch whiskey (we recommend Chivas)
— 3/4 oz. cherry brandy
— 1 strawberry
— 3/4 oz. sweet vermouth
— 3/4 oz. orange juice
Pour all ingredients into a cocktail shaker filled with ice, shake well, strain into a martini glass. Run an orange peel around the rim and garnish.
4. White Nixon
We like to think that Kathy Keeton was the kind of sophisticated power bitch that refused to sit down for a conference room meeting without a pitcher of White Nixon in the middle of the table. Please your lady and her friends with this one.
Ingredients:
— 15 ozs. brewed Bellocq White Nixon Tea, cooled
— 10 ozs. vodka, iced
— 1-1/4 cup fresh grapefruit juice
— 3/4 oz. sweet vermouth
— 5 ozs. Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur
Mix all ingredients into a pitcher and stir. Fill eight tall glasses with ice, pour, then garnish with candied clementines or whatever fancy fruit you have in your fridge.