Aurora Cocktail

A distilled, highly alcoholic (45-75% ABV), anise-flavored beverage derived from botanicals like wormwood, green anise, fennel, hyssop, melissa and other herbs. Technically a spirit, as it is not bottled with sugar. The green fairy.

A brandy produced in the wine-region surrounding Cognac, France. Cognac must be twice distilled and aged for at least two years in French oak.

A whiskey distilled from a grain mash that contains at least 51% rye, a grass and member of the wheat tribe 'Triticeae.'

A popular brand of elderflower liqueur, made with wild elderflowers and based with Eau de vie; 20% ABV.

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.

A once highly preferred brand of bitters produced in the 1830's by John G. Boker. Notably, nearly all of the recipes in Jerry Thomas' book How to Mix Drinks or The Bon Vivant's Companion specify the use of these bitters (misspelled Bogart's). Among the known ingredients were cassia, cardamom, and bitter orange peel. In 1906 U.S. Food and Drugs Act limiting medical claims caused Boker's and most other bitters producers to cease production. Until 2009, no samples of the bitters were known to exist, and as the recipe had never been published, recreating it seemed unlikely. That year, a man showed up at the London Bar Show with a small remaining sample, which was then combined with extensive research (including interviewing descendants of John Boker), to recreate a facsimile of the bitters.

A sparkling wine produced from grapes grown in Champagne, France. The carbonation is due to secondary fermentation of the wine after it's bottled. For our purposes we treat this the same as Brut and Sparkling Wine.

A yellow citrus fruit. The peel is often used as a garnish while the juice incorporated into the drink for a tart flavor profile (citric acid).

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.