In the annals of literature on “how to be a proper lady,” there is no volume that instructs how to have a well-mannered bar crawl. We borrowed a page from history to see how a recent night out in search of female bartenders fits the “rules of decorum.” You can check that out in this Week’s Dig, though we don’t suggest setting foot on the path without a cocktail in hand.
Recipes for some of the drinks we tried that night are below…recipes for the ones we sheepishly admit to enjoying when no one’s looking…well, those will have to wait until we’ve had a few of these.
ALASKA
3/4 oz. Y. Chartreuse
generous dash Orange #9 bitters (made for Drink by Bitterman’s)
wimpy dash Angostura Orange bitters
Serve in a cocktail glass.
PEGU CLUB
3/4 oz. Senior Orange Curacao
1/2 oz. fresh lime juice
1 + dashes Angostura bitters
VIEUX CARRE
1 oz. cognac
1 oz. rye
1 oz. sweet vermouth
1/8 oz. Benedictine
2 dashes Angostura bitters
2 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
Mix all ingredients in a glass over ice; stir.
EL GITANO
Shake in iced cocktail shaker & strain:
2 parts Hendricks gin
1 part Meyer lemon simple syrup
.5 part Green Chartreuse
Garnish with a lemon wheel.
SAICAR
Shake in iced cocktail shaker & strain:
1 part Corzo Reposado tequila
1 part Brandy
1 part sour mix (home made, with juice of lemons & limes)
.75 oz Cointeau
Serve in a cocktail glass rimmed with Demerera sugar and salt.
VERDAD Y AMOR
Shake in iced cocktail shaker:
2 parts hibiscus infused tequila
1 part ginger simple syrup
1 part lime
Serve over ice in a glass half-rimmed with ginger powder-salt mixture.
CAVA COCKTAIL
Soak a sugar cube in grapefruit bitters. Place in the bottom of a champagne flute and cover with yellow Chartreuse. Top with cava, garnish with a lime twist.
Check out this post for notes on the SAZERAC.
FRISCO
1/4 oz Benedictine
LAST WORD
Shake well with ice and strain:
3/4 ounce gin
3/4 ounce lime juice
3/4 ounce green Chartreuse
3/4 ounce maraschino liqueur
Serve in a chilled cocktail glass.
AMPERSAND
Stir with ice and strain.
1 part Old Tom gin
1 part cognac
1 part sweet vermouth
Serve up in an old fashioned glass.
NEGRONI
fancybrandy
Hanky Panky
joseypackard
Pink Lady
Pinky Gonzales
Hoskins
thepinkgin
Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails - Boston 
The Alaska is a house fav – Could anyone weigh in on what are Bitterman’s Orange #9 bitters are like? If I wanted to play along from home what other bitters would folks recommend?
A tip that got from Hanky Panky years ago was to try an Alaska with Grapefruit bitters for a nice variation.
Mmmmm Chartreuse….
Great recipes and bars…but I have to say not really interesting or adventurous. You basically visited your favorite bars hoping that the female bartenders were working that night.
Instead of staying at Eastern Standard when you realized it had no connection with the point of your article, why not move on and try/advertise/promote a place you often don’t mention in your blog/articles?
Silvertone sometimes has female bartenders.
If that doesn’t float your boat, I’ve had several very good drinks (much better than Marliave, for instance) at Noir in Harvard Sq.–mixed by a female bartender. There is also a female bartender upstairs at Rialto.
Why not keep traveling instead of just checking the box at your expressed, known, and much referenced cocktail hunting grounds?
Point taken, Arnold. However, what you don’t know because our editors cut part of the story to make word count is that we had several more venues on the list. We called once we realized our plans at ES were foiled: Emily was not behind the stick at Green Street, Claudia wasn’t working at Highland Kitchen, Cedric was on the bar at Silvertone, and Rialto had already given last call. We thus learned that finding the ladies who tend great Boston bars behind the bar on an off night can be something of a challenge.
Point taken and “wrath” turned toward editors that didn’t realize the importance of such information. After I sent my article (besides worrying it sounded too harsh), I regretted not mentioning Green St., Highland, and Deep Ellum.
But overall I think I just underestimated the difficulty of moving a large group around to a decent cocktail establishment in the search of a particular gender to fill the need of a specific story line…
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