Easy Cocktail Recipes

In common with most hangover cures, the tradition here is to down the drink in one!

The ancient Greek believed that ambrosia, a kind of honey mead, was the drink of the Gods, who lived high up on the summit of Mount Olympus. This modern-day version from across the Atlantic slips down equally nice.

This sweet, striped wonder is the original from which the whole idea of shooters sprang. The trick to making one successfully is to build the drink carefully, starting with the heaviest constituent and pouring each of the subsequent ones over the back of a bar spoon, so each colour remains separate until you tilt the glass as you drink from it.

Amongst some, Scotland’s capital has the reputation of being somewhat prim and prissy. You would never guess this, judging by the alcoholic potential of this particular cocktail.

For most people, Bombay, in drinking terms, is associated with Bombay gin, but this powerful cocktail must have raised a few eyebrows during the heady days of the British Raj.

A stiff mix of half a pint of Guinness and the same amount of barley wine, which the blacksmith saw as the ideal way of ending a day of labour. The cocktail version, though slightly more sophisticated, is equally delightful.

Here comes another seductive favourite in the form of the Bosom Caresser. This one relies on brandy for its punch.

This cocktail takes its name from one of the U.S’s most prestigious universities – though tradition does not tell us whether it was first devised on campus, or in the bar of Harvard Club in NY.

No one knows where, when, how or why this cocktail got it name: the only coffee that is involved in its mixing are the beans that are applied as the garnish before the cocktail is served.

Dating back to the 1890s, it was a non-alcoholic mixture of ginger ale, ice and lemon peel. By the 1910s, brandy, sometimes bourbon would be added for a ‘Horse’s Neck with a Kick’ or ‘~ Stiff’. The non-alcoholic version was still served in upstate New York in the late fifties or early sixties, but eventually it was phased out.  To give this an extra kick, you can substitute whisky for the brandy.