Tiki drinks always have a lovely balance of sweet and sour, and when you use fresh juices it can make the entire drink glow. Bourbon isn't quite sweet enough to carry a tiki drink all on its own, and I wanted to have that molasses, sweet sugary rum flavor to bolster the drink. I decided to go up on the bourbon proof, to give it a little more bite than a typical tiki drink, but I kept the substitutions simple. You'll want to make two of these at a time. 

Tai'ms Up!
1 oz Appleton Rum
1 oz Maker's Mark Cask Strength
0.75 oz Lime juice
0.75 oz Orgeat
0.5 Trader Vic's Macadamia Nut liqueur
1 barspoon St Elizabeth's allspice dram
lime wedge
Garnish: mint sprig

Squeeze the lime wedge in the bottom of a mixing tin and drop in. Add the other ingredients and fill with ice, Shake until the outside of the tin id ice-cold. Double strain into a tiki glass filled with ice and garnish with a mint sprig.

Count me in for any classic cocktail that has a whiskey in it. The Paper Plane has equal parts bourbon, lemon juice, amaro and Aperol. In my version, I used Averna amaro rather than the traditional Amaro Nonino, so I had to cut back a bit on the lemon juice. Since Michter's is a lower proof bourbon that also factored in that decision. Lemon easily overpowers whiskey at that lower proof. With a 100 proof or higher Paper Plane, you could probably keep up the equal parts ratios.

But, here's what worked with my Michter's:

Paper Plane
3/4 oz Michter's bourbon
3/4 oz Averna Amaro
3/4 oz Aperol
1/2 oz lemon juice

Add the ingredients to a cocktail shaker, fill with ice and shake until the outside is frosty-cold. Double strain into a chilled coupe glass. Garnish, if you like, with a lemon peel. Cheers.

Blood Oranges appear this time of year, and before I fell in love with creating cocktails, I never knew what to do with them. Now, the possibilities seem endless. The deep red color of their juice is sweet, although some look almost black when you cut them up.

I tried several versions of this, but until I started to add lemon juice back into the cocktail, it didn’t have that classic sweet-sour balance that a good whiskey sour has. To dress it up, you can add different bitters to it, but keep them light and sweet, not anything too earthy or deep.

To get that lovely foam and soft mouth feel, the egg white is a must. If you worried about using raw egg-white, you can use pasteurized eggs that come in a carton. Some people are sticklers for raw egg white, but there are times I’ll choose the easy option over something a little more complicated. Using the egg white changes the flavors, mutes them a bit, makes them meld together, and makes the drink taste completely different.

I do advocate, however, always making sours with fresh juice. Actually, if it’s possible, make all cocktails with fresh juice. I do suggesting you strain the juice before putting it in the cocktail shaker, even if you are using an egg white.

Bloody Orange Sour
1 oz Blood Orange juice
1/2 oz lemon juice
2 oz bourbon
1 oz simple
2 dashes orange bitters
3/4 oz egg white
Garnish: Orange wheel
​
Combine the ingredients in a cocktail shaker. Seal the shaker and shaker for about 30 – 45 seconds to froth up the egg white. Crack the seal, add ice and shake again for 15-20 seconds. Double strain to a chilled coupe glass express an orange peel over the foam. Garnish with an orange wheel.