The Spirit World

The October issue of Food & Wine reports on a growing trend - cocktails made with wine. Actually, it’s a returning trend as in the early 1900s many cocktails included fortified wines and we are now coming back around to that, if in a slightly different manner. Today’s wine cocktails are commonly made with a wine syrup made by combining wine and sugar and then reducing to a viscous consistency.

This new focus seems to be based on the desire to better pair cocktails with food - something we are more comfortable with when talking about wine than hard liquor. And, according to the expert mixologists quoted in the article, Dale DeGroff and Ryan Magarian, wine brings acidity to the drinks. If you’ve been following Robert’s Mixology 101 column you’ll understand the importance of this balance.

As we close out the summer, here’s a wine-based take on the Pimm’s Cup. This cocktail can be found at Little Owl in New York City, where every drink on the cocktail list uses wine in some form.

The Duke of Bedford

• Crushed ice
• 3 ounces Manzanilla sherry
• 6 mint leaves, crushed, plus 1 mint sprig
• 1 ounce Aranciata (orange soda)
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 3 dashes of Angostura bitters
• Cucumber slice

Fill a julep glass with crushed ice. In a cocktail shaker, combine the sherry, mint leaves, Aranciata, sugar and bitters and shake well. Strain over the ice and garnish with the mint sprig and cucumber slice.