4 steps to making your own cocktails on vacation
Despite the rugged good looks and indescribable charm, this is not a world-famous model. It is me. I'm on vacation drinking a Negroni.
Despite the rugged good looks and indescribable charm, this is not a world-famous model. It is me. I'm on vacation drinking a Negroni.
Wiff and I love road trips almost as much as we love drinking cocktails while on road trips.
But it’s nearly impossible to find good quality cocktails on road trips. Hell, it can be tough to find good cocktails in major metropolitan cities. So that means we’re usually BYOB’ing it to every hotel/motel we stay in.
The first time we took a cross country road trip, we had a trunk full of booze. That may seem extreme. It was.
But we had a pretty good excuse: We were moving at the time. I didn’t want to throw away all those pretty, precious bottles!
Every stop we’d make, I’d grab the bags out of the trunk, and we’d make the decision, “What cocktail do we want tonight?” I’d then grab the appropriate bottles, my mixing equipment, and we’d be on our merry way.
But then we wisened up.
We started paring down our selection so we could pack less.
What?!? A trunk full of booze was too much?
Yeah. It got to the point where I’d skimp on clothes just to make room for bottles just in case we wanted a margarita. You can only flip your underwear inside out twice before you think there MUST be a better way!
And there is!
BATCH YOUR COCKTAILS!
As the family bartender, I usually pack premixed cocktails because the last place I want to be is standing at our room's wet bar mixing cocktails [I'd rather be drinking them].
So I premix cocktails and put them in Swell bottles.
My go to?
Here’s how I rock the CWV [cocktailing whilst vacationing] lifestyle:
STEP 1: CHOOSE A COCKTAIL
You're on vacation. You don't want to think. So do the picking and choosing before you leave. Pick a cocktail (or two) that you love and will still love by the time you reach your destination.
STEP 2: SCALE UP.
Most cocktail recipes are scaled for one drink. But since the invention of math, we've had the ability to multiply things to scale up to proper vacation quantities. Dust off your first grade multiplication tables and scale up that recipe.
My favorite drink is The Negroni. It's equal parts gin, Campari, and sweet vermouth, which makes batching quite easy.
The recipe is 1oz gin, 1oz Campari, and 1oz sweet vermouth.
A 750ml Swell bottle is 25 ounces. 25 ounces divided by 3 (1 ounce each per ingredient) is 8.33 ounces.
So I need to measure 8.33 ounces of each ingredient. 8.33 ounces is just about 1.25 cups.
Okay, Anthony, but what about a cocktail with different ingredients?
Let’s use a Manhattan as an example.
My Manhattan recipe is 2oz bourbon or rye, 3/4 ounce sweet vermouth, and 2 dashes of bitters.
THE FORMULA:
CONTAINER SIZE (in ounces) divided by TOTAL DRINK SIZE (in ounces) multiplied by EACH INGREDIENT (in ounces)
Here’s the Manhattan example for a 750ml (25 ounce) Swell bottle:
25oz / 2.75oz = about 9 cocktails
9 * 2oz bourbon = 18oz bourbon
9 * 3/4oz sweet vermouth = 6.75oz sweet vermouth
9 * 2 dashes bitters = 18 dashes bitters
One more, please. Just so I can get the math right.
Coming right up! How about the Mint Julep?
THE FORMULA:
CONTAINER SIZE (in ounces) divided by TOTAL DRINK SIZE (in ounces) multiplied by EACH INGREDIENT (in ounces)
My Mint Julep recipe is 2oz bourbon, 1/2oz simple syrup.
25oz / 2.5oz = 10 cocktails
10 * 2oz bourbon = 20oz bourbon
10 * 1/2oz simple syrup = 5oz simple syrup
STEP 3: MIX
I put everything in a Swell bottle. Why? Because they look like water bottles. Everyone carries water bottles these days [because they're going to places without potable water]. And people don't judge people carrying water as much as they do those carrying booze.
STEP 4: POUR
When you get to your destination, pour yourself a drink. You deserve it.