A local sports bar in Atlanta has a cocktail called The Tailgater that contains “Grey Goose Orange, Coconut Rum, Peach Schnapps, Pineapple, and a splash of Cranberry”. This is absurd. First of all, a tailgating drink recipe shouldn’t contain more than three ingredients. And those ingredients shouldn’t be totally devoid of anything manly.
The last couple of years has brought on the emergence of “Sweet Tea Vodka” and when it’s mixed with lemonade is called a John Daly. But I still haven’t a heard a name stick for adding bourbon to an Arnold Palmer. So I humbly suggest The Tailgater. It combines four favorites of Southern fans: Football, Bourbon, Sweet Tea, and Lemonade. Not a bad drink to take the edge off hot September games either.
The Tailgater Recipe
In a plastic Solo cup filled with ice add the following then stir and garnish with a lemon. You can also favor the sweet tea more than the lemonade in the proportion.
2 oz Buffalo Trace Bourbon (roughly the bottom indention of the cup)
5 oz Sweet Tea
5 oz Lemonade
Tagged as: bourbon, drink recipes
Gloves, hats, and layers will certainly warm your body during a cold weather tailgate, but who can afford gore tex? I suggest getting some hot liquid and liquor in one’s belly. And to that cause, it doesn’t get much easier and tastier than hot bourbon cider. You can heat up the cider on a camp stove and then pour it into a mug with bourbon. Sprinkle some ground cloves on top and then add a cinnamon stick. If it’s 30° and 7am on a Saturday morning you might as well try to stay warm and drunk.
1.5 oz Bourbon
6oz Hot Apple Cider
Ground Cloves
Cinnamon Stick
Tagged as: bourbon, drink recipes
A proper tailgating cocktail must to be easy to make. Wielding a cocktail shaker in a field is both impractical and asinine. Which brings us the two ingredient Dark and Stormy. Billed as the national drink of Bermuda, the Dark and Stormy is suitable on the beach or the hot tailgating temperatures of September. Combining Ginger Beer (which happens to be non-alcoholic) and Dark Rum (quite alcoholic) it provides a breezier and less sweet alternative to the average sorority girl’s Rum and Coke. The purist will insist on Gosling’s Black Seal Rum, whereas I decided to Release the Kraken Rum since I had it around. From what I can tell, people are as territorial about Ginger Beer as they are barbecue. I would suggest something, but really you’re going to end up with whatever you can find at your local high end grocery or liquor store.
Dark and Stormy
2 oz Dark Rum
4 oz Ginger Beer
Add rum and ginger beer to ice filled glass and stir. Garnish with lime. Talk like a pirate.
Tagged as: drink recipes, rum
Apparently if you hire a caterer to host a tailgating party they go a bit over the top on presentation. But there are a couple of basic ideas to be learned from the Hip Hostess.
1) Bloody Mary Bar. Perfect setup for early morning tailgate drinks after a rough Friday night. Set a table aside under your tent with tomato juice, vodka, Worcestershire sauce, and a large variety of garnishes including celery, olives, lemons, pickled okra and green beans.
2) Putting those garnishes in 4″ mini Galvanized Pails is a great idea. The pails are stackable, reusable, visually pleasing, and are less likely to flip over in the wind than other cups. You could also use these to set out plastic cutlery, ingredients for fajitas, etc.
Tagged as: bloody mary, drink recipes
I’m currently reading , which is just a magnificent book covering all aspects of alcohol. I suggest you pick it up tomorrow… like before noon. His recipe for a Whiskey Manhattan tickled my bourbon soaked fancy. For those who don’t usually drink bourbon straight it serves as a change up to using Coke or Ginger Ale as a mixer. For those who normally drink straight bourbon, it works a little sugary taste into a long day of tailgating. And luckily it’s not a hassle to make at a tailgate, especially if you have a traveling bar. I’ve modified Kingley’s take slightly to work in this context:
The (Whiskey) Manhattan
Ingredients:
2oz Buffalo Trace Bourbon
0.5oz Noilly Prat Sweet Vermouth
1 dash of Angostura bitters
1 maraschino cherry
Ice Cubes
Stir the fluid together very hard before adding the ice and fruit. Whatever the pundits may say, this in practice the not very energetic man’s Old-Fashioned, and is an excellent drink, though never, I think, as good as a properly made Old-Fashioned. And you really have to use bourbon (instead of the traditional rye whiskey).
Drunken Tailgate thoughts:
– Sweet Vermouth comes in bottles with red labels. Dry Vermouth comes in green labels. Sometimes they are not marked very well. That being said, it’s good to keep a bottle of dry and sweet vermouth in your bar.
– Angostura bitters is one of those things that looks ridiculous on a drink recipe, but you can get a bottle for a couple of bucks and it will last you a decade.
– Same goes for Maraschino cherries. Just keep them in the fridge and you should be able to use them over the course of a year if you enjoy cocktails
Tagged as: bourbon, Buffalo Trace, drink recipes, whiskey
