Maureen Petrosky

It's sexy, smooth, and perfect for happy hour tonight.

Sweet and buzzy.

Scotch may not be your usual drink, but stir it with some sweet red vermouth and a dash of bitters, and you may just find you like it.

It's the ultimate summer pitcher cocktail.

A true three-ingredient delight.

If you’ve ever tasted an ice-cold glass of limoncello on a hot summer day, you know how amazing this Italian liqueur can be. Mixed into a sangria with fresh fruit, it’s quite possibly even better. This sangria is all of summer captured in one delicious pitcher.

Every summer since I can remember, we drive the back roads to the beach. While the highways are much faster, we’d miss out on one of the best parts of the trip if we took them: pit stops at farm stands. Sampling from the trays to pick the best plums and juiciest peaches is as much a part of our family tradition as our yearly week at the beach together. And now, so is this stone fruit sangria.

Farmers markets offer so much more than just fresh fruits and veggies. These days you can find everything from local cheeses to honey, and this sangria recipe was inspired by all of the above. On a recent trip to my local market, I stopped for chats with a cheesemaker, a farmer, and an apiarist (beekeeper), and left with a bag full of cucumbers, a log of fresh goat cheese, and a jar of local honey.

In my book, summer calls for a spritz, and while this sangria is hot pink and bubbly, don’t be fooled — it’s anything but delicate. It’s loaded with fresh cherries straight from the farmers market, spiked with cherry liqueur, and finished with cherry bitters. This sangria is as pretty on the palate as it is in the pitcher. A dry rosé wine, not a blush or white Zinfandel, is the base here.

It’s the time of year when farmers market stands are bursting with gorgeous berries and their sweet smells fill the air. Don’t resist. Go ahead grab a pint of each! If you can keep yourself from eating them all before you get home, make yourself a pitcher of this sangria — the first in a series this month of sangrias inspired by the farmers market. Blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries have this sangria screaming summer!

Sparkling rosé wine is my choice over and over in the spring and summer, for both casual sipping and for sangrias. This week I chose a demi-sec rosé champagne. Demi-sec translates to “half dry,” which is another way of saying “semi-sweet,” so expect a little inherent sweetness here. That touch of sweetness also makes rosé perfect for an icy pitcher drink. When making sangria, you need four things: wine, a spirit, usually sugar, and fruit.

A traditional mimosa is an ounce or two (depending who is pouring!) of fresh-squeezed orange juice topped with chilly Brut Champagne. Today, we’re replacing those navel oranges with the brilliantly-hued juice from blood oranges. This makes a striking and delicious pitcher drink to serve at brunch. And, as we know, nothing makes brunch better than a fabulous cocktail.

Complete with toasty marshmallows, of course.

My cocktail world has grown infinitely due to lots of taste-testing, but also thanks to some of the greatest books on the topic. As I gear up to host holiday parties and start knocking boozy friends off my gift list, there are a few titles I’m continually drawn to with insane magnetic force. This gathering of books is just a little taste of what’s out there on the topic. They have guided me from being a curious drinker to a savvy at-home mixologist.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year to put on a pot of hot cocktails and call up some friends for some holiday cheer. This week for our 10-Minute Happy Hour, the classic Buttered Rum cocktail gets nutty with a little browned butter. Butter in your cocktail is a bit odd, but even I can admit that this drink — like anything with a little butter — is delicious.

When I entertain, I make drinks that can do double duty as delicious offerings and gorgeous centerpieces. Whether placed on my bar or in the center of the dinner table, this seasonal cranberry sangria is perfect for your next holiday gathering. Cranberry sangria is typically made with red wine, but I’ve been on a white cranberry juice kick lately.

As our wardrobes change from flip flops to socks, fall cocktails typically turn golden brown (just like the leaves!) and pick up some warm spicy notes to keep us toasty. This pretty pitcher drink is a serious sip that captures all of the above. It’s a great choice for any fall gathering and it was a perfect match for the menu we planned for The Kitchn’s Thanksgiving Dinner Outdoors! Sangria and fruity Champagne pours aren’t the only cocktails that can be served in a pitcher!

Ever since this little cocktail named The Black Lily scored the signature drink spot at San Francisco’s Cocktail Week a few years back, I’ve been dying to share it with you. Three little ingredients and your weekend will be made! Credit goes to Remy Cointreau’s mixologist Kyle Ford for creating this weirdly addictive sip. It’s based on two ingredients we don’t typically see as the stars at the bar: Cointreau and Fernet Branca.

Fall festivals are in full swing here in the Northeast. Weekends are full of apple picking, pumpkin patches, corn mazes and hay rides — not to mention insanely gorgeous foliage. Inspired by the season and a childhood game I once adored comes this week’s 10-Minute Happy Hour. Bobbing for apples used to be a fierce competition between me and my siblings.

Everybody knows that Brooklyn has made a huge comeback in real estate, restaurants and the cocktail scene. It’s only fitting this old school sip, named after the popular New York borough, is also showing face again. Like a Manhattan, the Brooklyn is a whiskey-based drink — preferably made with spicier rye whiskey. However, that’s where the similarities end.

If you spend time with or are even remotely associated with a writer, you must know you are fair game for material. My husband of almost 15 years knows this all too well, and this week’s happy hour proves it once again. Though I had never seen a blood orange until I was in my twenties and in culinary school, my half-Sicilian husband has been eating them since he was a kid.

This season kicked off with a bumper crop of strawberries and now our melons just won’t quit. From watermelon and honeydew to this year’s winner, Boule d’ Or, our garden has offered up more than we can eat or share. That’s why we’ve taken our melons to the bar for this week’s 10-Minute Happy Hour. While many of you have already finished harvesting melons, we will be picking and enjoying these sweet beasts until mid-October, barring any killer early frost.

We’re savoring the last days of summer with grilling and some killer cocktails. Combine the two and you’ve got a head start on an amazing happy hour this weekend. The muddler is one of my favorite tools on the bar. No special instructions required for use; just insert and smash away. This tool can take pretty herbs, fruits and even vegetables, and make sure they release all their amazing flavors and aromas into the cocktail.

I’ve never met a Bloody Mary I didn’t like, but thick tomato juice in the dead of summer isn’t exactly something I crave. Take a quick trip to farmers market, and you can have this fresh Bloody Mary makeover instead, perfect for summer sipping. The secret? Tomato water. Savory and cool, tomato water is a far more refreshing base for a breakfast cocktail. What’s tomato water, you say? You really should find out.

Soccer fans across the globe are still spinning from the Germany smack down on Brazil a few weeks ago. If you’re among the mourners, cheer up. This Brazilian-inspired sip is sure to score a win this weekend. You may know cachaça from its appearance in the caipirinha (which is much like the mojito but with cachaça in place of rum and without mint).

When it comes to cocktails, by no means does “frozen” necessarily translate to “frilly.” In fact, one hot spot in the Midwest has a menu of high-end, rock-star cocktails all served frozen. Inspired by the heat and in a toast to the 4th of July, this week we decided to follow suit and take the gin and tonic, that most sublime summertime sip, to the frozen side of cocktails. I took some tips from the pros, Kansas City’s Snow & Co.

Happy hour in the summer is just a little bit happier. Combine an artisanal gin made from wine along with that dose of sunshine and we’re off to a delicious start for the weekend. Tasting all sorts of spirits is part of my job. While many spirits in the same respective category can tend to present themselves as almost identical, gin is a category that continues to be exciting.

Combine killer spicy Thai food with the first few hot days of summer, and all you need to cool down is this simply delightful, little cocktail. Pok Pok is a very popular Thai restaurant with spots in Portland, Oregon, and Brooklyn, New York. Both locations serve up fantastic flavors from Thailand with that mix of chile, garlicky, herb and sour flavors that just work perfectly together. Sticky rice, lots of pork dishes and dried fish make numerous appearances on the menu.

While the Cosmopolitan Cocktail (Cosmo for short) may be pink, it is anything but a frilly drink. When made correctly, the Cosmo delivers a delicious sip of cold smooth vodka flavored with a splash of cranberry juice, orange-flavored Cointreau, and a squeeze of fresh lime to finish. Like many cocktails, this one is often made incorrectly with way too much cranberry juice, so I wanted to make sure readers of The Cocktail Club get to taste what a great Cosmo is.

For some reason, with the warm weather also comes a plethora of sweet cocktails. But if you like your drinks dry — which is to say, the opposite of sweet — then you’re going to love my new must-have mixer behind the bar, not to mention this sparkling cucumber cocktail. I recently discovered Dry Soda when grocery shopping and was intrigued by the low calories.

The term “tiki drink” conjures images of a cocktail suitable only for an island oasis or for sipping while sinking your toes in the sand. With the Jungle Bird, no frilly accessories are necessary, and even the sunshine is optional. This throwback cocktail has layers of dark rum, Campari, pineapple and lime juice — it works in a weirdly wonderful way. Just grab a glass and some ice and you’re halfway there. I had my first Jungle Bird at Nomad in New York City.

In a time when snow in the southern states isn’t unheard of and power outages have become the norm, the arrival of spring has been suspect. So today when something woke me up and it wasn’t a snow plow, a generator, or even a chainsaw, I blinked my eyes open and thought, Sunshine? Birds chirping? Could it really be spring? Bursting with excitement like a child on Christmas morning, I bound from my bed and threw open the curtains. What was this bright light that seared my eyes?

Beer, wine, and cocktail lovers alike unite in their affection for this big batch drink. At first the idea of beer sangria may not appeal to the traditional sangria sippers, but fruity lambics are a game changer. Lambics are the most wine-like beers out there. They are fruity, Belgian wheat beers, often higher in alcohol than other ales. With flavors like raspberry (framboise), cherry (kriek), and peach (pêche) you have plenty to pick from when whipping up your next batch of sangria.

St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated with all things green, including beer and cocktails. This cocktail however, skips the green food coloring and celebrates with the most recognized Irish stout in the world: Guinness. What better mate to pair it with than champagne? I mean, we’re celebrating after all! The Black Velvet cocktail is all about the pour. First you pour your bubbly into the glass. Then slowly pour your Guinness on top.

Sloe gin is not gin at all. This plum-colored and plum-flavored spirit is sweet to sip, but plays nicely with citrus. Add some lemon and some spritz, and we have a lovely drink perfect for brunch. Sloe gin comes from little fruits called sloes, a relative of larger plums. On their own, they are tart and unpleasant but our friends across the pond discovered how to turn them into a lovely spirit. It’s not so popular these days, but at one time, it was consumed as a morning sip.