Blushing Yakima

In cocktails, cherries are sweetened in a brine, like maraschino cherries (marr-ə-SKEE-noh) or in brandy, like brandied cherries. They are usually used as a garnish, muddled into the cocktail, or used simple for their sweetened brine.

A Brazilian spirit made form sugar cane juice (as opposed to cane molasses like rum), similar to rhum agricole. This is the aged or dark variety of Cachaça, aged in differnet types of wooden barrels each lending its own flavor to the spirit.

Dark lager, brown ale, stout, porter, barley wine, these beers are characterized by their darker color and often relatively high alcoholic content.

The second most common juice used in cocktails. This citrus juice is about 6% acid; 4% from citric and 2% from malic, with small amounts of succinic acid (this is what gives it a little bloody taste). Lime juice should be used the day it is squeezed, some like it freshly squeezed and others like it a few hours old.

Italian for 'a little bitter,' this sweet, almond-flavored liqueur is made from either apricot pits, almonds or both. It can be drunk by itself, in coffee, or in many mixed drinks.

A syrup made from dissolving granulated sugar (sucrose) in water. Regular simple is made by combining 1:1 sugar:water by mass, rich simple is 2:1 sugar:water by mass although only 1.5 times as sweet as regular. We always use 1:1 syrup unless otherwise noted in the recipe itself.