"Bottled Drinks"

[JAZ]

In The Joy of Mixology, Gary talks about a type of cocktail that the two of you developed for an article, which you call "bottled cocktails." The concept sounds like such a great idea for parties that I, for one, plan to use it.

Can you explain it for those who haven't read your book or the article on the subject?

[Gary Regan]

This is a fairly easy thing to prepare--I have a piece on the subject in the upcoming June issue of Gourmet. I can't really go into all the details here without writing the whole article, but basically you take a cocktail recipe that you enjoy, add the amounts of all the ingredients, and add 1/3 of that amount in bottled water. Pour it into a bottle, refridgerate, and when guests come over you can simply pour straight from the bottle into chilled cocktail glasses. If the drink contains fruit juice, shake the bottle before serving.

The water is added to make up for the water that melts from the ice when you shake or stir a cocktail.

Here's an example

Margarita

3 ounces tequila

2 ounces Cointreau

1 ounce fresh lime juice

That's 6 ounces total, so add

2 ounce bottled water.

Of course you wouldn't do this to make just one cocktail, so multiply ingredients to get a bottle full. To fill a 750-ml bottle the recipe would be

9 ounces tequila

6 ounces Cointreau

3 ounces lime juice

6 ounces bottled water