From Boilermakers to Hanky Panky to the Best Martini in Michigan

A look inside The New York Times Essential Book of Cocktails

By Al Parker | Dec. 23, 2023

Whether your cocktail expertise is limited to an annual margarita on May 5 or your home bar is better stocked than most liquor stores, a newly updated book is here to help.

The New York Times Essential Book of Cocktails: Elevated and Expanded is 600-plus pages of cocktail love and respect, served up with a sidecar of witty humor. Its editor is Steve Reddicliffe, well-traveled journalist who’s been with the Times since 2004 and now calls Glen Arbor his home.

“The Times book division asked if we could do a bar book, and we did the first edition in 2015,” says Reddicliffe, who has also served as editor-in-chief of TV Guide and Parenting magazine, a senior editor at Entertainment Weekly, and the managing editor of Us.

Reddicliffe started work on this new edition in spring of 2020, just as pandemic regulations changed lifestyles across the nation, and finished in June of 2022.

“It was really interesting to do,” he recalls. “I have a natural interest in history, and it was fun to go back over 100 years of cocktail coverage. It was a lot to read, but fun to do the research.”

Conquer the Basics, Make the Best

Reddicliffe has compiled more than 400 cocktail recipes from the pages of the Times as well as dozens of clever essays by Times writers and contributors, including Rosie Schaap, Robert Simonson, Pete Wells, Amanda Hesser and Melissa Clark. With roughly half the pages of War and Peace, the book is twice as interesting and four times as humorous—at least for this writer. Dozens of high-quality photographs detail the lush allure of the drinks.

In the very first chapter, Simonson advises readers on “How to Make Cocktails,” a very readable primer on what’s needed to stock a basic bar, the gear you’ll want to have on hand, and more. The Brooklyn-based writer has penned five books on cocktails and offers interesting insights into what glassware is best for which drinks.

Readers will learn how Jeremy W. Peters found martini perfection in a Cedar Rapids, Iowa, strip mall. As a newspaper political writer, he launched a “bold reportorial experiment” to sample martinis all along the 2012 presidential campaign trail. The final leg of the journey took him to South Carolina, Florida, and on to Michigan. “That’s where I had my final martini,” he wrote. “An expertly poured Beefeater one. It was a simple and satisfying number from the Motor Bar in the handsomely restored Westin Book Cadillac in downtown Detroit.”

What’s in a Name?

Along the way, readers will chuckle at the array of amusing names that cocktails have acquired over the decades. Who wouldn’t like to engage in a little Hanky Panky or take a ride on a Pineapple Express? Or enjoy the company of Snowbirds and Townies?

And why are so many drinks named after folks? What’s a Dirty June and who’s Tom Collins? Or Dirty Shirley or those guys Tom and Jerry? Or Mr. October? Recipes for all these and hundreds more are gathered in this must-have tome for those who enjoy not only cocktails, but the spirited tales behind them.

Beer lovers are not excluded from this new publication either. Just turn to Chapter 27 and learn from Rebekah Peppler, a Paris-based writer and food stylist, that “Beer Truly Is the Champagne of Cocktails.”

And Simonson provides praise to one of the workingman's favorites in “A Shot and a Beer: The Boilermaker Stages a Comeback.”

“Most bartenders seem to enjoy boilermakers as much as they like beer and whiskey on their own,” he writes. “But they split on how best to drink them. Liam Deegan, a partner at Barred Proof, prefers to knock back the shot and then move on to the beer. Ms. (Natalie) David goes back and forth, sipping each in turn. Mr. (Morgan) Schick calls himself a ‘drop it in guy’; like many drinkers he drops the shot, glass and all, into the beer, then proceeds to drink. ‘For me,’ he said, ‘part of the fun of it is that satisfying clunk it makes.’”

The Recipes

So did Reddicliffe have to taste-test the hundreds of recipes he’s compiled, and did he have any favorites?

“I sampled almost all of them,” he says with a smile. “With some of them the ingredients were sometimes hard to get. But I enjoyed the Deathbed Martini. And I like the rye drinks and the gin drinks.”

Does he have any favorite cocktail locations near Traverse City?

“Little Fleet, Stella’s, The Parlor, Poppycock’s, and Mammoth Distilling are all good,” he says. “And the Riverside in Leland makes a good cocktail.”

For the days you can’t make it out to the bar, here are a few recipes to try.

The Boulevardier
2 ounces of rye or bourbon
1 ounce of Campari
1 ounce of sweet vermouth
Twist of lemon peel

Stir together all ingredients except the lemon in a mixing glass filled with ice. Strain into either a stemmed cocktail glass or a rocks glass with ice and garnish with the lemon zest.

Deathbed Manhattan
2 ounces rye whiskey, preferably Ragtime
1/2 ounce Punt e Mes vermouth
1/2 ounce Martini & Rossi sweet vermouth
2 dashes Angostura bitters
1 maraschino cherry, for garnish

Combine all the liquid ingredients in a mixing glass, three quarters filled with ice, and stir until chilled, about 30 seconds. Strain into a chilled coupe glass and garnish with the cherry. It’s so good, you may request it as your final drink.

Hanky Panky
1 1/2 ounces of Plymouth gin
1 1/2 ounces of Cocchi Vermouth di Torino
1/4 ounce of Fernet-Branca
Orange twist for a garnish

In a mixing glass filled with ice, stir together all ingredients, except the orange twist. Strain the mixture into a cocktail glass and garnish. “It’s a cross between a martini and a Manhattan,” says one bartender of the drink that originated at the Savoy Hotel in London.