Dan Coonan

I love few things more in life than tending bar and mixing drinks for a party.  

Following years of very enjoyable trial and error that I wouldn’t trade for anything, here are my go-to concoctions at my bar at the house, and on the dock at Lake Almanor:

The Perfect Margarita

Perfect for my taste at least.  It works for me. This comes after hundreds of attempts to achieve perfection.  Some quality research there. :)

Wet the outside rim of a standard 10-ounce drink glass with water and salt the outside of the rim.  I prefer to moisten it with water rather than lime – and just the outside so the salt doesn’t fall into the drink.  A prechilled glass is preferable – but so often these are spontaneous moments and that may be hard to come by.  

If you can squeeze your limes in advance and let them sit at room temperature for as many as four hours they taste better.  Again – hard to pull off if it is spontaneous.  And it’s always impossible for me to gauge how many drinks I’ll be needing four hours later. And using fresh limes really makes a huge difference.

Hold onto the pulp as you squeeze the limes.  I like a lot of lime pulp in margaritas and always add that back.

I pour the liquid into the glass before adding the cubed or crushed ice because the agave needs to be mixed in really well otherwise it settles on the bottom.

I pour in two 2 shots of 1800 Tequila.  3 if it’s for my buddy Jason.  One and a half shots for Donna.  Then add one and a half shots of lime juice – and throw in some pulp too.  Then 2/3rds of a shot of agave nectar, ½ shot of Triple Sec, and then squeeze just a dash of an orange over the glass.  Mix really well to fully dissolve the agave.  Then fill the remainder of the glass with ice (I prefer cubed) and add a lime wedge.  If you are like me, you may never want a sugary restaurant margarita again. 

 I like to think this version would make even Marjorie King herself proud - the tequila-loving Ziegfeld Follies dancer for whom the drink was named nearly a century ago. ( Heck, I should have put her in the saloon! Although I think she may warrant an entire book unto herself.)

These always taste better when paired with The Eagles’ Hell Freezes Over album.

Mai Tai

This is a derivation of how they serve them on King’s Beach in Lake Tahoe – my favorite of many mai tai variations I’ve enjoyed through the years.  I fill a mai tai glass or standard rocks glass about 2/3 of the way with cubed ice.  Then I add a shot of Malibu rum,  one and a half shots of fresh squeezed orange juice, one and a half shots of pineapple juice (ideally fresh squeezed but that’s a challenge).  Mix that up in the glass.  Then fill just a bottle cap of Grenadine and pour it slowly around the inner edge of the glass.  Shake the glass just a little.  Then finish by pouring a shot of Meyers Rum as a floater (or ¾ of a shot).  This is best served with a straw.  The drink should be separated into three colors – brown at the top, orange in the middle and red at the bottom.  Using the straw, the drinker can then select how sweet or strong he or she wants each sip to be.  Sweet at the bottom where the grenadine has settled or strong at the top with the dark rum.

If I have another bottle of rum handy (I usually do) I may split the first shot between the Malibu and another rum so the coconut taste is still very present but not dominant.

Don’t let it bother you that this was one of Richard Nixon’s favorites. Drinking needs to remain a nonpartisan vice!

Pairs best with a chill, island music playlist - Bob Marley, Jimmy Buffet, IZ, UB40.

Irish Coffee

This might be a tad more elaborate than most recipes, but I love it toward the end of the night.  In a six ounce Irish coffee glass, I pour water and then microwave it to get the mug piping hot.  Toss out the water and pour in a little bit of coffee, add 1 teaspoon of brown sugar (I never said it was healthy!) and mix – melting the sugar.  I then add ¾ of a shot of Bailey’s, ½ shot of Jamesons,  and then more coffee almost to the top but leaving room for whipped cream.  I add the whipped cream by holding a spoon at the surface of the drink to keep the cream from sinking if it’s heavy whipping cream.  Then I sprinkle hot cocoa powder lightly on the cream and serve right away.  

So many musical possibilities with this. How about The Dropkick Murphys? Or The Waterboys. Slainte!

Moscow Mule (or Paris Mule)

Perhaps a more appropriate name would be Paris Mule, as I use Grey Goose rather than any Russian brand of vodka - I’m not yet over all their efforts to influence that last election.  :)

Use prechilled copper mugs if you’ve got them – and you really should, by the way.  Mandatory these days for a well-stocked bar. :) Add a shot and a half or more of vodka, about a half of a bottle of ginger beer (6 ounces) - I like using Cock N Bull ginger beer the best, I think it makes a real difference - and 3/4ths of a shot of fresh-squeezed lime juice. Fill the rest of the mug with ice and a lime wedge, add the lime pulp above the ice and you are all set.  Gotta give a nod to my brother in law Neal for first turning me on to these.

BLOODY MARY

Bloodies have become mandatory in the Coonan family when cooking holiday meals during the day. Particualrly Thanksgiving. Done just the way the pilgrims served them that very first year in the New World. At least in the history books I read. (Or was it the ones I wrote? I get confused. :) This is how Big Time and MaryAnn serve them in the saloon.

I always start with a tumbler - never a pint glass like many bloodies - that’s way too much tomato. I line the rim of the glass (inside and out) with Everything-But-The-Bagel spice. I add a shot and a half or more of Grey Goose, squeeze all the juice from a good-sized fresh lime wedge, add 3/4ths of a shot of olive juice from a store-bought bottle of green olives, and then pour in a little bit of Zing Zang Bloody mix (or any other standard mix). I’ll mix that good - perhaps add a little black pepper, tiny pinch of horse radish or dash of Worcestershire depending on whom I am mixing it for (but none of that is a must), and then fill the rest of the glass with cubed ice. That recipe works just great for me. So much so that it caused me to abandon my efforts to perfect a scratch bloody.
But the party then really begins with the garnishes. Gotta start with a green olive. A slice of freshly cooked extra thick bacon is a must. I add a sea scallop that has just been sauteed in olive oil and brown sugar that forms a nice glaze on each side, and top it off with lobster meat from a tail or claw that has been lightly brushed with butter. The whole thing makes for a pretty impressive display, of course, which is really important in a “proper” bloody mary, particularly when entertaining a crowd. But in this case the taste absolutely lives up to the presentation - and then some. Believe me, if you’ve got enough swagger and game about you to pull this off, it will go over big time. :) It might even make a Puritan like William Bradford proud . . .

HOT ALE FLIP

OK, I’ll admit I’ve never really had one of these, or made one, but this is what Matty and Haskell served up for McFadden and all the boys the first night he stumbled upon the Presidential Spirits Saloon. These were all the rage in colonial times. George Washington is said to have enjoyed these at Samuel Fraunces’ historic tavern on Pearl Street in New York (which is still there, by the way.) That’s the tavern in which Washington bade farewell to the officers of the Continental Army during an extremely emotional goodbye following the war.

They made them by combining molasses, egg whites, rum, and ale, finished by plunging a red hot fireplace poker straight into the mug to heat it up. Sounds lovely. Now that I have included this here I know that means I have to have one. I will. We build a few fires here in the winter and I do have a poker. Not sure I’ll have any takers lining up to enjoy that with me though…

Let me know if these work for you, or what variations improve on them.  I love this stuff.  The quest for perfection is never quite complete.  And that’s a good thing.

Cheers!