Southern Cocktails Dixie Drinks, Party Potions, and Classic
Libations
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s o u t h e r n co c k ta i l s
DIXIE DRINKS, PARTY POTIONS, AND CLASSIC LIBATIONS
By D E N I S E G E E Photographs by R O B E R T M . P E A C O C K
TA BLE OF CONTENTS
A C K N OW L E D G M E N T S
7
DON’T MIND IF I DO . . .
8
L I K E I WA S S AY I N ’
14
Chapter One: BAR NECESSITIES
16
RAISING THE BAR: Drink-mixing accessories 17
THE JIG’S UP: A liquor & liqueur checklist 19
IT ’S THAT SIMPLE: The must-have simple syrups 22
A GLASS MENAGERIE: What to have on hand—and in hand 23
CURLYCUES: Drink garnishes made simple 23
FL AVOR BOOSTERS: Add zip to your sipper 25
TOAST POINTS: Get-the-party-started sayin’s 26
Chapter Two: THE CLASSICS
text copyright © 2007 by denise gee. 28
photographs copyright
© 2007 by robert m. peacock. CL ASSIC MINT JULEP 33
all rights reserved. CREOLE BLOODY MARY 34
no part of this book may be reproduced in any form
without written permission from the publisher.
THE CRUSTA 36
page 117 constitutes a continuation of the copyright page.
THE HURRICANE 37
FRENCH 75 38
isbn: 978-1-4521-2618-0
The Library of Congress has previously cataloged this title
MILK PUNCH 41
under isbn: 978-0-8118-5243-2 ORANGE BLOSSOM 42
PL ANTER’S PUNCH 43
PIMM’S CUP 44
Prop and food styling by denise gee
RAMOS GIN FIZZ 46
THE SAZERAC 47
THE ROFFIGNAC 49
chronicle books llc THE VIEUX CARRÉ 50
680 second street
san francisco, ca 94107
www.chroniclebooks.com
Chapter Three: CHEERS! Chapter Five: NIBBLES
52 96
APPLE JOUJOU 53 BEER-BAT TERED STRING BEANS WITH
RIGHTEOUS RÉMOUL ADE SAUCE 97
BLUEBERRY MARTINI 54
BL ACK-EYED PEAS CON QUESO 100
’BAMA BREEZE 56
COUNTRY HAM AND GOAT CHEESE PINWHEELS 102
COL A HERBSAINT 57
CRAB LOUIS COCKTAIL 103
DERBY COOLER 59
DEVILISH EGGS 106
GUAVA MAMA 60
FEIST Y VIDALIA ONION CHEESE TOASTS 107
HIGH TEA 61
FREDDIE LEE’S CHEESE PENNIES 108
PEACH MOJITO 62
SHRIMP IN STOLES WITH DR PEP BBQ SAUCE 111
REFINED STRAWBERRY DAIQUIRI 64
SPIKED PIMIENTO CHEESE 113
SCARLET T O’HARA 65
SWEET AND SASSY PECANS 114
SEE-THROUGH SANGRÍA 67
THE ULTIMATE MARGARITA 68
EASY DOES IT
WATERMELON CRUSH 71
116
UPSY-DAISY LEMONADE 72
SOURCES AND PERMISSIONS
Chapter Four: PINKIES UP 117
74
INDEX
CHAMPAGNE PUNCH 75
118
ABSINTHE FRAPPE 76
TABLE OF EQUIVALENTS
THE BEE’S KNEES 79 120
BL ACKBERRY CORDIAL 80
CHIC COSMOPOLITAN 82
MEMPHIS BELLE 83
EUPHORIC EGGNOG 84
FIG PRESERVE MARTINI 87
HERBSAINT CHAMPAGNE COCKTAIL 89
MEYER LEMONTINI 90
SLOE GIN RICKEY 91
MINT JULEP MARTINI 92
PRALINE COFFEE 94
DE DIC AT E D TO
All the good people of the Gulf Coast. Onward and upward.
ACK NOW L EDGMENTS
T H A N K-YOUS TO…
Our dear friend Paige Porter, for thinking of us.
Our editor at Chronicle Books, Bill LeBlond, whose appreciation for Southern
storytelling—and the well-made mint julep—led to this project. And cheers as
well to Amy Treadwell for her kind guidance on the project; Catherine Bullimore
for her designing eye; Rebecca Pepper for her keen editing; and Doug Ogan, Evan
Hulka, Brett MacFadden, and Steve Kim for their many contributions.
Dempse and Anne McMullen, for letting us use their beautiful Natchez,
Mississippi, home as a prop closet, and Dempse, thanks for your help in styling.
And to George and Edith Peacock, for their love—and sweetly putting up with
our crazy schedule.
Brenda and Ricky Edgin, whose antebellum home, Rip-Rap, provided a beautiful
Natchez backdrop for some of these photos. And their neighbors Doug Mauro
and Donald McGlynn, whose hospitality in their historic home and bed-and-
breakfast, Oak Hill, was much appreciated. (Especially all that silver polishing!)
Dunleith Plantation in Natchez, for the glorious mint juleps and setting.
Sim Callon Jr., for hosting us at the Callon Building. The Center City Grill, for
inspiring the photo on page 115. And Leslie Sadler, whose lovely home also
served our cause.
Literary agent Angela Miller, for championing our dreams.
Leanne Bailey McMullen, and Susan, Larry, Phillip, Wesley, Mitchell, and Joshua
Bellan, for their love and enthusiasm.
The Natchez Historical Society’s Ron and Mimi Miller, for their encouragement
and guidance. And to the Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans, for being there for
us right after Hurricane Katrina.
Designer David Anger and his partner, Jim Broberg, for helping us test
the recipes in style. And to fellow Better Homes and Gardens editor Lisa Gaddy
Frederick, for helping keep the creative spark alive.
Sandy Johnson, for sharing her garden—and her friendship.
Charles E. Walton IV, for always helping channel Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin.
Southern Living and Coastal Living magazines, for allowing us to experience
wonderful Southern people and traditions.
Chef Scott Peacock of Watershed in Decatur, Georgia, and the late Edna Lewis,
for guiding our Southern foodways conscience.
Lee Bailey, Freddie Lee Bailey, and Freddie Jimerson Bailey in heaven, where we
can still look up to them.
The waiters at every party bar.
D ON ’ T M I N D I F I D O…
Someone once asked a group of us Southerners gathered at a cocktail party why
so many storytellers hail from our region.
“There must be something in the water,” he figured.
“Yes,” I said. “Bourbon.”
We’re not reared to be alcoholics, mind you, but we are taught how to be
hospitable and have a good time from the get-go. It’s what the late, great bon
vivant Eugene Walter—a Mobile native who spent much of his life abroad,
entertaining Southern style—called “dropping the mask”: loosening up and
tossing out pretension.
Cocktail hour has been a stressful day’s denouement for as long as I
can remember (blame it on the heat—or too much gossip to comprehend in
one day). I discovered this while growing up in my grandmother’s house in
Natchez, Mississippi, three hours upriver from New Orleans. (Legend has it
that Natchez was spared during the Civil War when quick-thinking homeowners
buried the silver in the backyard before dolling up to entertain the Union troops.
Grant and his men went on to Vicksburg with hangovers, and the rest, as they say,
is history.)
Nannie’s three-story Victorian manse held the clothing shop Tot & Teen and
Mom, antique bric-a-brac and homemade jellies for sale, our living quarters, and
a few apartments for rent. Her small galley kitchen overlooked an old carriage
house that held her jelly kitchen, which almost always reeked of vinegar (and so
did we, since our clothes were laundered there). Needless to say, since so much
went on at the corner of Commerce and Orleans Streets, to me and many others,
it was the center of the universe.
It was also the center of many a great happy hour. “Is it five o’clock yet?”
Nannie would ask, exhausted from batting her eyelashes at the hordes of tourists
that would (and still do) flock to Natchez each spring and fall for Pilgrimage
home tours. (Natchez has the nation’s largest concentration of pre–Civil War
houses.) “Yes. Or it is somewhere,” my mother, Freddie Lee, the shop’s book-
keeper, would chime in, and off they’d head to the little spot in the kitchen where
various bottles commingled. “It’s the witching hour,” Nannie would say with glee,
fixing herself a bourbon and club soda. I later learned that phrase actually means
midnight, but for Nannie and Mama, it was the time for catching up on the day’s
events with a certain lighthearted cattiness.
Throughout the evenings, neighborhood friends would rotate in and out,
many of them charm-braceleted socialites with bulletproof hair and domesticated
husbands, others Southern-gothic bohemians obsessed with their complicated
lives. Lots of laughter would ensue, as would trays of various tonics—mint juleps,
Bloody Marys, and the like—until dinner (always around 9), followed by the
slow road to sobriety (sleep). I can still picture a few of those elder statesmen,
dressed in pale seersucker suits and bow ties, legs crossed, quietly nodding at their
wives’ banter.
As I got older and more interested in hearing everyone’s stories, I was put in
charge of fixing the appetizers Nannie taught me to make: pimiento cheese spread
loaded into celery sticks, crabmeat dip for buttery crackers, cheese pennies pulled
from a freezer bag and heated in the toaster oven. Quicker nibbles to put out were
the spicy pecans we kept sealed in a Mason jar, and sometimes pork rinds, which
we gleefully dignified by offering them in a sterling silver bowl.
Like most of the homes I visited, our pantry had more glasses than anyone
could imagine or possibly need. There were old-fashioneds, highballs, pilsners,
souvenir jiggers, martinis, brandy snifters, Pat O’Brien’s hurricane goblets
(trophies from the famous Bourbon Street bar), julep cups, and even small jelly
jars for serving sherry. An assortment of china platters were on call to serve the
edibles. And mismatched linen cocktail napkins stood in for plates (which, truth-
fully, no one cared to juggle while pursuing their drink).
This anything-goes attitude was even more evident at Natchez’s grander
parties, of which there were many, since there were many reasons for them—wed-
dings, engagements, debutante announcements, graduations, first communions,
promotions, Mardi Gras, Easter, Spring Pilgrimage, and the Kentucky Derby
(and those were just the ones during the first five months of the year). Years ago
(a little less so now), it was perfectly acceptable to see older children, dressed in
their finest, milling about with small cups that got a little bigger every year. At
late-afternoon soirees, white-jacketed bartenders would allow us “just a taste,
now” of milk punch, mimosas, and mint juleps. Meanwhile, as darkness fell, party-
goers would either leave (many without saying a word of good-bye to anyone), be
found napping in an upstairs guest bedroom, or glibly announce that they were
returning home to brush up on their Bible studies.
We youngsters were knocked off our feet by everyone’s lust for life—
especially by whoever ate the plastic grapes out of one tabletop’s faux-fruit
ensemble—but also by our family’s trust in us to be responsible in the face of so
much temptation. “It’s good for you to have a sip or two,” my mother reasoned.
“It’ll keep you from going overboard later.”
Fortunately, I’ve not fallen overboard—there have been day jobs and
relationships to consider. And moderation is today’s mantra. But there’s no doubt
that traditional Southern cocktails are officially in my blood, as are many of the
newer concoctions I’ve met along the way. I also love sharing my favorite recipes
with friends eager to learn more about the South’s culinary heritage. I’m pleased
as punch whenever they take their first sip of a mint julep and their eyes light
up from the icy, minty, bold sweetness. Afterward, as the famous French epicure
Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin so beautifully put it, conversation sparkles. As a
dutiful Southerner, I serve the juleps in engraved silver or pewter cups so cold they
practically freeze to your hand. I pair them with linen cocktail napkins I’ve inher-
ited as well as collected over the years—napkins that still serve as “plates” for fes-
tive, easy-to-eat appetizers that never fail to have people asking for the particulars.
Nannie and Mama would be proud to know their joie de vivre lives on in
these pages.
Now then, that’s enough out of me. Is it five o’clock yet?
— Denise Gee
L I K E I WA S S AY I N ’
Some of the best stories stem from an encounter with a cocktail—or three. These
legendary Southern natives and transplants say it best.
Tallulah Bankhead told a friend that her doctor had advised her to eat an apple
every time she had the urge to drink. She arched an eyebrow and added, “But
really, dahlings, sixty apples a day!”
— Tichi Wilkerson, The Hollywood Reporter, 1984
Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough.
— Mark Twain (1835–1910)
I stay close to home most of the time—unless, of course, someone’s buying din-
ner, and then I’m a boy with bells on. Otherwise I simply rise and do a bit of son-
net writing, then take a nap, then eat a little, read a little, and then, when there’s
an emergency—and there most always is—I fill my bathtub up with
Jim Beam and swim my way to safety.
— Eugene Walter, to this writer, Southern Living, 1998
When one reporter asked if he had any hobbies, [Shelby Foote] replied:
“Absolutely not.” Then he added, “I drink from time to time.”
— Natchez, Mississippi, native Lewis Lord, U.S. News & World Report, 2005
What [Papa-Daddy had] really done, he’d drunk another bottle of that prescription.
He does it every single Fourth of July as sure as shooting, and it’s horribly
expensive. Then he falls over in the hammock and snores. So he insisted on
zigzagging right on out to the hammock, looking like a half-wit.
— Eudora Welty, “Why I Live at the PO,” 1941
You’re not actually getting anything out of that little cocktail straw, are you?
— Lee Bailey, to this writer, 1989
Well, between Scotch and nothin’, I suppose I’d take Scotch. It’s the nearest thing to
good moonshine I can find.
— William Faulkner, National Observer, 1964
A good heavy book holds you down. It’s an anchor that keeps you from getting up
and having another gin and tonic.
— Roy Blount Jr., “Reading and Nothingness: Of Proust in the Summer Sun,”
The New York Times, June 2, 1985
When you work hard all day with your head and know you must work again the
next day, what else can change your ideas and make them run on a different plane
like whiskey?
— Ernest Hemingway, Selected Letters, 1935
I’ve been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in
a library.
— F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, 1925
Chapter One: BAR NECESSITIES
if you build it—a proper bar, that is—i can assure you,
they will come.
FPO
Glass_Menagerie.tif
R A I S I NG T H E B A R : Drink Mixing Accessories
To build your bar, find a spot near the dining room and then engage a sturdy
accent piece, preferably one with small drawers (or use little baskets to stash
your small wares). Here are the basic goods.
BAR SPOON: A long-handled teaspoon works well for stirring and muddling;
otherwise, go for the garden-variety twisted-handle type. Just don’t use metal
ones with carbonated beverages; they can react and turn an unfortunate
shade of black.
BLENDER: What better way to soothe a Southern summer than with frozen elixirs?
A blender is imperative. Glass canisters are more fun to look through, but
stainless-steel ones keep the mix well chilled. Go for one with a powerful motor
that doesn’t have to scream through getting the work done; powerful ones have
lower speeds to get the task accomplished more quietly.
BOTTLE/CAN OPENER: Heirloom ones make conversation pieces.
CITRUS JUICER: Best not to get seeds in your drink, er, mouth.
CITRUS ZESTER/PEELER: Use the zester for fine shreds, the peeler to make
quick curls.
COCKTAIL NAPKINS/COASTERS: Cloth ones are more civilized; decorative paper
ones are good conversation starters. Avoid plastic coasters—your drinks will
slide hither and yon.
COCKTAIL SHAKER: Trust me—buy a good one. The cheap ones will freeze and
expand and won’t let you remove the strainer lid until a week later. Find one
with a lid that’s easy to get on and off (but will stay put when you need it to);
many even have jigger tops.
CORKSCREW: Otherwise known as a wine bottle opener.
CUTTING BOARD AND PARING KNIFE: So you can work mostly at the bar and not
have to traipse back to the kitchen.
DECANTERS: To create a high-style bar, now’s the time to ask for your grand-
parents’ glass bottles with those beautiful little “Bourbon,” “Gin,” “Scotch,”
and “Vodka” labels hanging round the necks. Or start your own collection after
searching antiques shops.
GARNISHES/ACCESSORIES: Be prepared. First impressions are everything. See
page 23 for the scoop.
ICE BUCKET/TONGS: Make sure it’s beautiful—you don’t want one that looks as
though it’s been lifted from the Sheraton Sarasota. Save those hulky ones for use
on a picnic table or boat.
JIGGER: Funny how the more one drinks, the stronger the drinks get. That’s
because a jigger isn’t present. Measure wisely (keep most pours at 1½ ounces)
and let the party linger (you don’t want to be dragged from the party feet-first).
Note: 1 jigger equals 1½ ounces, or 3 tablespoons.
LITTLE PARASOLS: Don’t use them regularly (you’ll get a wince with your
martini), but do pull them out when the fun mood or drink strikes.
PITCHER: Not to be confused with “pitchers” of our relatives. Covet ones that
have a pinched tip and molded rim that holds back ice.
MALLET: Use only if your refrigerator doesn’t offer crushed ice (or someone’s get-
ting on your nerves). Otherwise, find a heavy-duty plastic zip-top bag and give
your ice a cracking.
MEASURING CUP/SPOONS: I adore my little mixing glass that holds 3 to 4 ounces;
seek out sleek measuring spoons that look nice on the bar.
MIXING GLASS: A much more civilized way to make stirred, not shaken, drinks.
Find one that’s discreetly marked in ounces and cups.
MUDDLER: A utensil for mushing cherries and mashing mint in the mixing glass.
You can also use a bar spoon for this.
NOVELTY ICE TRAY: When you want your drinks to make an extra splash.
POUR SPOUTS: If you fear a heavy hand with the bottle, a spout will help you
pour with sound mind. It also helps you avoid a sticky mess.
SMALL PLATE FOR COLORED SUGAR/SALT: They’re increasingly making “rimmer”
containers, so if you can find one of those, good for you.
STIRRERS/SWIZZLE STICKS/PICKS: Use what you’ve got, but my favorites are vin-
tage hotel bar stirrers and chewable sugarcane sticks. A friend favors chopsticks.
Use glass or plastic stirrers, not metal ones, for carbonated beverages—carbon-
ation causes metal stirrers to turn black. Little swords or pronged picks are good
for spearing olives, pearl onions, or berries.
