Cocktails Archives - Nerds with Knives

Clover Club Cocktail

April 27, 2021February 10, 2021 by Emily

The Clover Club: Dry gin, fresh raspberry syrup, tart lemon juice, and a splash of vermouth.

Yes, this pink, frothy cocktail is perfect for a romantic Valentine’s celebration but don’t let its good looks fool you, the Clover Club is a serious drink. And one originally imbibed exclusively by men – specifically the literary, legal, and financial men who, from 1882 until the 1920’s, met once a month in Philadelphia. The drink, named after their gentlemen’s club, was published in the New York Press in 1901. It called for gin, lemon juice, sugar, raspberry syrup, and egg white. Fast forward to modern times, and it’s also the name of a gorgeous cocktail bar in our old Brooklyn neighborhood. This new Clover Club, the bar, is where we first sampled Clover Club, the drink.

Thai Basil Gimlet

February 19, 2021July 20, 2020 by Matt

We’re very fond of our herb garden. A few years ago, we built a step stand on the back deck, and this holds enough aromatic greenery to pinch for the kitchen all summer long. Having herbs so close to hand means that it’s easy to get inspiration for a food or drink recipe. Herb pots are easy to set up, don’t require any digging, and can be positioned wherever you have a sunny spot. A few years ago, in our garden-less apartment in Brooklyn, we’d sneak herb pots out onto the fire escape in defiance of the landlady. When Emily lived in an industrial loft building, the roof was always the sunniest location and where herbs thrived. The pride of our raised bed garden is always late-summer tomatoes, but there’s a hero of the herb garden that brings us delight from early summer onwards. To paraphrase T S Eliot, we can measure out our summer in basil leaves.

This is about a third of the herbs we’re growing, though the shiso (bottom left) is trying to take over the world.

Aviation Cocktail with Homemade Violet Syrup

February 19, 2021May 7, 2019 by Emily

One thing we should mention upfront, if you haven’t gleaned it already from our occasional disorganized garden posts, is that we’re not really “lawn people”. We do have, behind the house, a stretch of grassed yard, but it’s not flat (so we can’t put tables or chairs out there), it’s kind of public (we live on a busy road with a lot of hiking traffic), it does nothing for the biodiversity of the area, and we hate mowing it. In short, it gets a little neglected. And because of that benign neglect, we have areas that sprout whatever the hell they want to, and luckily for us, in early spring, that’s violets. Lots, and lots, of tiny, pretty, violets.

So in our ongoing quest to rid our garden of weeds — by eating them — we bring you homemade Violet Syrup, possibly the prettiest concoction ever. And we’re using that syrup to create a version of the classic Aviation cocktail, which just happens to be perfect for a celebratory Mother’s Day brunch!

The Notorious F.I.G. – a Fig and Rye Valentine’s Day Cocktail

January 25, 2021February 4, 2019 by Emily

We’ve officially been seriously flipping busy lately. Besides our day jobs — did we mention we have day jobs? sadly this blogging lark doesn’t keep us in dog treats, cat ointment or chicken vests — we’ve been working extremely hard on a super secret Nerds with Knives-related project that we’ll tell you about in detail in a couple of months.

All of this to say that it had been so long since we’d gone out to dinner — food that somebody else plans and cooks and hands to us —that when we finally ventured out to Heritage for Matt’s birthday, we had kinda forgotten how the whole thing works. We poked and flapped the menus in front of our faces as though they were coded missives from another planet.

We sat, glassy-eyed and startled, as a waiter explained specials. When the delicious food arrived on our tables, we started discussing how we were going to photograph it before realizing that, actually, we weren’t obliged to. And then we actually were able to relax and start having a good time, and it was in no small part due to the delicious Fig and Bourbon cocktail we picked out from the drinks menu. This recipe is our loose interpretation of that cocktail, made with Valentine’s Day love. We call it “The Notorious F.I.G.”

Real, Homemade Egg Nog

March 24, 2021December 10, 2018 by Emily

Rich, creamy, and unapologetically boozy, this is an egg nog whose virtues are sung by poets. Probably. Once they’ve had a few.

Spiced Rosemary Old-Fashioned

March 24, 2021October 22, 2018 by Matt

As the weather turns chilly, we want a cocktail that will warm our cockles, and this Spiced Rosemary Old Fashioned is the perfect drink to take us straight through the holiday season. Heritage Distilling has us covered.