Ok, so I know a lot of you are taking it easy on the booze, because it’s January. New Year’s Resolutions and all that. Well, bookmark this. 🙂 And if you aren’t on a cleanse, welcome! Let’s get a pizza together.

I’m curious to see what the year holds for cocktails, both for what I am inspired to make at home and what Portland’s top bartenders will be up to. Personally, I’ve been focused on rum for much of the past year. However, I am majorly crushing on a grapefruit mezcal cocktail I made last weekend for friends. I mean, Picasso had a blue period. Maybe I will have a rum period, and a mezcal period. I’m just like Picasso.

In the Portland bar and restaurant market, it seems like bartenders have been making delightfully nerdy drinks where the spirits are more hard-to-find than your standard vodka, gin and whiskey – from the sherry-based cocktails at Bar Casa Vale to the activated charcoal drink at Tusk. There’s some really cool stuff out there. I wonder what the future holds…

I’m going to start the year off with an easy one, focused on citrus – and if you have a few bottles of bubbly remaining from New Year’s (we bought enough for everyone, and then our guests brought more) – it’s a fun way to use them!

Plus, yesterday I got home from New Seasons, blood oranges in hand, and saw that my house was already full of citrus. Not only did we bring back oranges and grapefruit from Florida, but I have all the oranges I zested from my Christmas cookies still bagged up in the fridge, waiting to be juiced. *And* then I went and bought a bag of blood oranges. At least I won’t get a cold!

Blood Orange Winter Spritz

Ingredients

• 2 dashes grapefruit bitters
• 2 oz. grapefruit soda
• 1/2 oz. Aperol
• 3 oz. sparkling wine

Instructions

1. Add ice to a rocks glass, and add bitters and Aperol.
2. Top with grapefruit soda and then sparkling wine. Garnish with a grapefruit peel.