Cocktails typically include a healthy dose of lore and legend—we might by no means know who poured the primary mai tai, as an example. The cosmopolitan cocktail isn’t any exception.
Earlier than Intercourse and the Metropolis made it a nationwide sensation, the pink drink was common within the queer communities of Provincetown and San Francisco. Legendary bartender Dale DeGroff and a Miami girl named Cheryl Cook dinner are sometimes credited with inventing the fashionable cosmo recipe. However Toby Cecchini, who owns Lengthy Island Bar in Brooklyn, appears to have essentially the most believable story from his days bartending at New York icon The Odeon.
As he informed former BA editor Priya Krishna in an oral historical past of the drink, a colleague’s associates had been visiting from San Francisco within the late Nineteen Eighties and confirmed them the drink. “It was gross, nevertheless it appeared fairly,” Cecchini recalled. He reconstructed it with Absolut Citron vodka, Cointreau, contemporary lime juice, and cranberry juice to approximate Rose’s grenadine. The drink turned a success with the employees and their celeb and downtown Manhattan clientele.
A traditional cosmopolitan recipe—like this one—ought to be vibrantly hued and candy from a “cranberry juice cocktail” like Ocean Spray (a bottle labeled 100% cranberry juice will likely be too tart right here). The drink ought to have a floral citrus be aware from a triple sec (like Cointreau) or one other orange liqueur and a refreshing tang. The kind of cocktail glass can also be essential: Solely a martini glass will do. (Nonetheless, we may even settle for a coupe.)
Take a look at extra traditional cocktail recipes like an extra-dry martini with a lemon twist, a Moscow mule, and a negroni.
