Toby Cecchini

Toby Cecchini · NYT Cooking

Toby Cecchini

Toby Cecchini · NYT Cooking

The Corpse Reviver #2 is one of a small family of drinks originally concocted as hangover remedies, of which Harry Craddock, cataloging them in the “Savoy Cocktail Book” in 1930, wrote, “To be taken before 11 a.m., or whenever steam and energy are needed.” (He also famously cautioned: “Four of these taken in swift succession will quickly unrevive the corpse again.”) You can occasionally find it on cocktail lists. But there’s no point in waiting on chance: learn to make this.

Toby Cecchini · NYT Cooking

The dark ’n’ stormy has become a cult highball due to a felicitous combination of its no-fault simplicity and the balance of its headstrong ingredients, each of which is perfectly suited to the common goal: reviving the flagging, heat-pummeled constitution. It is simply dark rum — very dark rum — with ginger beer and some fresh lime. The rich spirit is shaken awake by the buoyant piquancy of the ginger beer, while the lime slashes through the sweetness of both. The drink has its roots in Bermuda, and emigrated up the Atlantic seaboard with the sailing set. Gosling’s rum has a rather sniffy and debatable lock on the recipe, having in fact trademarked its version, even going to the point of threatening with the specter of litigation anyone who might suggest concocting one with another rum. Gosling’s is a delicious rum, and being the dark rum from Bermuda, it is unquestionably synonymous with the dark ‘n’ stormy. But, any number of dark rums are interchangeably lovely in this drink, inclu

Toby Cecchini · NYT Cooking

Toby Cecchini · NYT Cooking

This refreshing summer cocktail for a crowd came to The Times by way of Toby Cecchini, a bartender and the inventor of the once ubiquitous cosmopolitan cocktail. This recipe originated with his father, Andrea Cecchini, a research chemist who “brought his scrutiny to bear on cocktails.” A few things the senior Mr. Cecchini would insist upon here: Use a pitcher because proportion is crucial, and you need plenty of room for the ice, tonic and limes. The limes should be room temperature. The tonic chilled, and the ice cracked, preferably by hand. Of course, do what you can, and if you want to make a single cocktail, simply divide the amounts by four (use the juice of one lime per cocktail and have another on hand for garnish). Toby likes to use Tanqueray for “its punchy botanicals and authority; it is 94 proof to the more common 80, making it cantankerous in a martini, but perfect for a G and T.” Toby Cecchini

Toby Cecchini · NYT Cooking

Making grenadine, the pomegranate-based simple syrup that was favored in many cocktails in the 19th and early 20th centuries, is really quite simple. And homemade is a vast improvement on the red-dyed sugar water in markets. Once you’ve rounded up the materials, 15 minutes’ light work will make enough to last you.

Toby Cecchini · NYT Cooking

Mai tai recipes call for a seldom-employed artificial almond syrup called orgeat, or orzata, depending on whether you’re buying the faux-French version or the faux-Italian one. The problem is that faux-ness. Though orgeat is conceptually tethered to tiki, its twisted history predates tiki’s by a long stretch. Orge is the French for “barley,” and orgeat, orzata or, in Spanish, horchata, originally referred to a common method of making barley water, a nourishing drink, by crushing the grain in a mortar and pestle and adding water to it to emulsify the fats. Along the line, almonds were added to the mix, and eventually the humble grain got shoved out in favor of the rich and aromatic nut.

Toby Cecchini · NYT Cooking

This lean milk punch is concocted with vanilla-macerated bourbon. It takes only a few minutes to prepare (maceration aside), and delivers an outsize glow on a chilly night. Though it might make a flu sufferer feel better, don’t wait for the flu to try it.

Toby Cecchini · NYT Cooking

The Jack Rose is the classic cocktail that never got invited to the oldies reunion. While other sours, such as the daiquiri, the Daisy, the Sidecar and select others, are revered and reinterpreted in their dotage, this mainstay of the 1920s and ’30s has fallen so far out of circulation that few still know its name. More’s the pity, for when properly made it is one of the canon’s stronger pillars, and a perfect sip when the post-equinox winds set in. The drink is simply a sour made from apple brandy — or applejack, as it was known from Colonial times through Prohibition — with grenadine syrup as the sweetener. Its name is attributed to any number of colorful characters, including a famous gangster stool pigeon, but it most likely comes from the shortening of applejack and the dusty rose color the drink attains from the grenadine and citrus.

Toby Cecchini · NYT Cooking

It’s one of those things you never think about, limoncello, until it pops up as a suddenly great idea: that dazzling bright yellow, half-frozen, lemony tang, like an adult slushie. Though it is also sweet, its penetrating citrine pop cuts like the Jaws of Life at the close of a hearty meal. It helps to have another pair of hands while setting this up, but once you’ve gotten the initial setup in place, it takes care of itself. Toby Cecchini

Toby Cecchini · NYT Cooking

Briny clams come together with smoky bacon and sautéed leeks in this showstopper. Quick to prepare, this weeknight recipe is decidedly sophisticated. First, sauté the bacon, add the garlic and leeks and add some good white wine and tomatoes. Toss with al dente linguine and top with clams and lemon juice. Finish with it with parsley and pine nuts, and pour yourself a glass of that wine. With this simple, elegant meal, you’ve earned it.

Toby Cecchini · NYT Cooking

There are raging debates about the invention of and the proper recipe for this drink among tiki connoisseurs. The more accepted versions are granted to Victor J. Bergeron, the irascible, wooden-legged “Trader Vic,” from his eponymous restaurant bar in Oakland, Calif., in the ’40s. Contrary to what you might think, the mai tai is actually just a rum sour, employing orgeat alongside Curaçao or triple sec as the sweetener, and using two rums to add complexity. The rest is just lime juice, and that’s it. No coconut, no passion fruit, pineapple, mango or orange juice. No umbrellas. It’s a relatively simple drink, but as such, each element has to be of the utmost quality; great rums, fresh lime juice and prefab orgeat syrup equal disappointment. But when concocted with homemade orgeat, all the tumblers click. The rums, the lime, the orange aromatics and the heft of the almond all play in stupendous balance. Toby Cecchini

Toby Cecchini · NYT Cooking

Here is a recipe for homemade quinine syrup, which will take the staid gin and tonic up a few notches. The syrup is made from cinchona, the bark of a shrub originally from Peru but now cultivated in various tropical climes worldwide, from which is extracted the alkaloid quinine, the original anti-malarial medication. It is available at a well-stocked herb store or, as always, online.

Toby Cecchini · NYT Cooking

Cordials can be a bit cowlick-y, sticking out here and there: kind of tart, kind of sweet, a bit bitter, and all a touch in disarray. But giving them 24 hours to mellow or cure in the refrigerator somehow brings them into harmony. This uncooked cordial requires a lot of time but none of it at the stove, and results in mind-boggling flavor: a dense, sweet syrup with a magnified fresh lime aroma and the perfect tart zip.

Toby Cecchini · NYT Cooking

Rhubarb cooks down so quickly, this project takes less than an hour and the payoff is astonishing. It also has a pleasing economy: you get a lovely syrup to make drinks with, alcoholic and nonalcoholic, while the fibrous pulp that you strain off may in fact be the best part, spooned atop yogurt with fresh strawberries, or as a silky, tart ice-cream topping. This could be made as a simple syrup, but it's hard then to adjust the sweetness for differing tastes and applications. Sometimes you want to incorporate it as a sour into drinks that have other sweetened ingredients; and if you want to use the pulp on ice cream or sweetened yogurt, keeping it tart is a better option. So, just just simmer down the fruit with one vanilla pod and use it unsweetened, which offers more room to maneuver.

Toby Cecchini · NYT Cooking

Toby Cecchini

Toby Cecchini · NYT Cooking

This recipe is a loose template; use any spice that seems festive and appealing to you, but bear in mind you are adding a relatively small amount of syrup per drink, so it pays to make it forceful. This blend includes cinnamon, allspice, star anise, cloves, vanilla and ginger root.

Toby Cecchini · NYT Cooking

This salad is light but fulsome, a scoop of punched-up tuna paired with the summer's best greens and some carefully considered vegetables. Serve a soft cow or goat's milk cheese on the side with some crusty bread and a crisp, chilled rosé to cut into it all. The goal is this: On a sweltering night, dinner must leave enough room for fresh peaches and vanilla ice cream, a fitting reward for finishing your vegetables.

Toby Cecchini · NYT Cooking

This cocktail, by Dan Greenbaum of The Beagle in Manhattan, plays Armagnac's subtle marzipan against the salty, mineral tang of Manzanilla sherry. A deceptive drink, it looks in the glass like an innocuous saucer of pinot grigio, but enrobes the senses with nuts, flowers and confectionary. There’s a spritz of orange oil atop to knock it all even: a perfect dessert tot. Toby Cecchini

Toby Cecchini · NYT Cooking

A marvel of a cocktail with an enviably colorful peerage, the Boulevardier is effectively a cross between a Manhattan and a Negroni. In colder months, it’s a magnificent drink to have as a fallback when you want something richer and more complex than just a whiskey but can never seem to think of what else to order. It’s composed of two parts American whiskey, with one part each of sweet vermouth and Campari. Taken one way, it’s a Manhattan with a portion of Campari swapped in for the regular few drops of Angostura or other aromatic bitters. Seen the other way, it’s a Negroni with whiskey in place of the gin.

Toby Cecchini · NYT Cooking

The bramble, invented in 1984 by Dick Bradsell, the patriarch of England’s cocktail uptick, at Fred’s Club in London’s SoHo, is essentially a short gin sour with a drizzle of crème de mûre, a French blackberry liqueur, over the top. Served on crushed ice, it gets a quick garnish of a lemon slice and, to be true to Bradsell’s original, two blackberries. In the winter there’s nothing to this, and the drink is great as is. But something as elemental as the bramble invites toying, and with summer’s berries arriving, you can up the ante in one of many.

Toby Cecchini · NYT Cooking

For a Valentine, a cocktail made with rum — and a fulsome one — plays the obvious lead. This recipe calls for, Zacapa Centenario, a magnificent 23-year-old Guatemalan rum aged in an unusual Solera system employing both bourbon and sherry casks. Just as viable would be any of a dozen less pricey amber or añejo rums, like Pampero Aniversario, St. James Hors d’Age, Flor de Caña’s Centenario 12-year, Pyrat XO or Plantation’s 5-year Barbados. The drink also includes flavors of hibiscus, tangerine, lemon and pineapple.

Toby Cecchini · NYT Cooking

Toby Cecchini · NYT Cooking

Toby Cecchini · NYT Cooking

The biggest mistake people tend to make when setting up for parties is to try to duplicate an actual bar, with a bottle of scotch, some tequila, a bourbon, some gin, a fancy vodka, etc., alongside some bottled mixers. You can’t turn your living room into a bar, nor can you please everybody, but you can gain massive points by making the bold move: choose one great cocktail and declare: “This is what we’re drinking tonight.” This Spiced Pear Fizz is a great choice for the holidays. Mull some wintry spices overnight in the simple syrup, and from there fashion this delicious concoction. Top it with a good-quality prosecco or a nonvintage brut Champagne for a spot-on seasonal drink.

Toby Cecchini · NYT Cooking

This drink is sweet, bitter, citrusy and sparkling — even slightly salty — but with minimal punch. It is a graceful way to begin an evening, and a thing of perfection on a sultry afternoon. The spritz can be made several ways, but the best and most common is simply a glass of prosecco with two or three ice cubes and a dash of sparkling water, topped with Aperol, a twist of lemon or slice of orange and — importantly and strangely — one green olive. The drink also can be made with white wine and sparkling water, and Campari or Cynar turn up in some varieties, but the spritz a l’Aperol is the benchmark, and handily trumps the others.

Toby Cecchini · NYT Cooking

This recipe is a far departure from the mayonnaise-based tuna concoctions that Americans expect. Tuna (packed in olive oil, please) is mixed with peppers, fresh herbs and nuts and dressed in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, lemon juice and two types of mustard. It can sit in the fridge for up to three days, making it excellent picnic food or just a departure from the usual sad desk sandwich.

Toby Cecchini · NYT Cooking

Puréeing fresh white peaches, a main ingredient in Bellinis, the signature Venetian drink, creates a perfect simulacrum between baby food and wallpaper paste — a dull, brownish pap with a smattering of bright pink rags scattered through it. Worse yet, this dubious pudding begins almost immediately to oxidize, turning into a brown-gray of even less distinction. But add a splash of lemon juice and something much better happens. The lemon leaches the brilliant pink hue from the skins of the peach and incorporates it into the whole, brightening the mix, amplifying the aroma and transforming it all into the very manna you’d want from this fruit.

Toby Cecchini · NYT Cooking

The Sgroppino is an old between-course palate cleanser, dessert or aperitif drink that marries prosecco with sorbet and a touch of vodka. It’s a simple enough affair once you have the sorbet, in this case made from white peach puree. You very gently whisk the spirit (in this case, peach brandy or peach vodka) and wine (in this case, prosecco) into the sorbet and turn it into a glass, to be consumed, ideally, quickly, while it still retains a bit of the semifreddo intact.