The Cocktails.
“Bottoms Up”
Much like the character, Nick Bottom, this drink is not subtle, not complicated, but gosh it’s fun to revel in. We’re taking cues from the Athenian setting by using Ouzo in a classic “formulae”. This flamboyant and overstated flavor combo has a magical property such that, if you drink too many, you will also be transformed into an ass. Break a leg!
“Bottoms Up”
2 oz Ouzo
4oz Coca Cola
Cherry
Pour the Ouzo and coke over ice in a highball glass, and garnish with a cherry and a big home made flag that says, “Handsome and good at Acting!”
“A Change of Heart”
Edmund is an elaborate schemer, so his cocktail requires some planning. Bloody oranges and fiery cinnamon befit the illegitimate son of the Earl of Glouscter, but the silky smooth egg white masks all treachery. This is a drink you will have to work for, but the end result should quench any thirst for land or recognition you’ve been dealing with, if only temporarily.
“A Change of Heart”
2 oz Grand Marnier
1 oz Blood orange juice
1 Egg white
¾ oz Cinnamon syrup
Soda water
2 dashes Angostura bitters
Assemble the Gran Marnier, blood orange juice, egg white, and cinnamon syrup in your shaker (a mason jar will work just as well) and shake vigorously for 30 seconds. Then add ice and shake again. Add a splash of soda water and strain it into a chilled cocktail glass. Finish with 2 dashes of Angostura bitters, and using a toothpick, do your best latte art to form a small heart in the foam.
Bonus recipe!
Cinnamon Syrup
1 cup granulated white sugar
1 cup purified water
3 cinnamon sticks
Boil the water and cinnamon sticks together, let simmer for 10 minutes. Fish out the cinnamon sticks and add the sugar, stirring until it dissolves completely. Boom, cinnamon syrup that will keep for 2 weeks in the fridge. You can also add a few dashes of cayenne pepper during the simmer phase if ye nasty.
“Il Reggente”
The headstrong nun deserves a drink as pure and as powerful as she is. This cocktail is based on the classic italian tipple, Il Cardinale, a stiff beverage that has been around almost as long as the patriarchy. Here we reclaim and reinvent the drink with a fresh, aromatic orange liquor. There’s also more gin, because it takes courage to stand up to a viceroy/sexual predator, liquid courage in this case.
“Il Reggente”
½ oz Amaro Angelino
½ oz Dry vermouth
2 oz Gin
Orange twist
Pour the amaro, vermouth, and gin in a chilled old fashioned glass, over plenty of ice. Stir. Garnish with a sliver of orange peel, avoiding the pith. Sip. Speak truth to power.
The Drowning Ophelia
From Shakespeare not Stirred
1 oz vodka
¼ oz blue curacao
¾ oz st germain elderflower liquor
Juice of ½ lemon
For garnish:
Edible flowers
1 egg white
Dusting of sugar
Shake all ingredients and pour over ice, adding garnish to your liking.
Sip and be sad.
Regan’s Mad Eye Martini
For the Eyeball Garnish:
1 lychee
1/4 teaspoon fruit preserves (cherry, raspberry, or strawberry)
1 blueberry
For the Mad Eye Martini:
1/2 ounce Hpnotiq liqueur
1 ounce vodka
2 ounce lychee juice
Instructions for making the cocktail can be found at The Spruce Eats
Et Tu Cocktail?? Ides of March Special
1.5 ounces bourbon
1 ounce Aperol
.75 ounces blood orange syrup
Juice from 1/8 lemon
Combine in a shaker with ice, shake with the ferocity of stabbing your mortal enemy, and strain into a chilled glass. Lemon twist garnish optional.
Plot the downfall of your enemies.
Cocktail recipe and image from www.wulfcocktailden.com
Puck’s Violet Meadow
1 ¾ oz Empress 1908 Gin
¼ oz Creme de violette
¼ oz bergamot liqueur
¾ oz lemon juice
1/4oz basil syrup
Garnish with Basil and Blooms
Combine, shake with ice, strain over fresh ice. Garnish.
Put a girdle round about the Earth.
Recipe from @thebitterfairy
Cleopatra’s Dry Vesper Martini
3 ounces gin (Gordon's)
1 ounce vodka
1/2 ounce Lillet Blanc (or dry vermouth)
Garnish: lemon peel or olives
Combine ingredients in a cocktail shaker. Shake well and strain into chilled martini glass. Garnish with two olives or lemon peel.
Put on your robe and crown. Cheers.
Recipe courtesy of www.thespruceeats.com
Nurse’s Slippery Wormwood Nipple
½ oz sambuca
½ oz Bailey’s Irish Cream
3 dashes wormwood bitters
Drop of grenadine
Pour the sambuca into a shot glass. Carefully layer the Irish cream on top by pouring it over the back of a spoon. Add the bitters. Tilt the glass slightly and slip the grenadine in at the lower edge to produce a “nipple” effect.
Help Juliet escape the confines of an arranged marriage.
Courtesy of Shakespeare Not Stirred by Caroline Bicks, PhD, and Michelle Ephraim, PhD
Lady M’s Bloody Mary
32 ounces (4 cups) tomato juice
8 ounces (1 cup) vodka
1 medium-to-large cucumber
⅓ cup distilled vinegar
1 teaspoon celery seed (not celery salt!)
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
½ teaspoon hot sauce
1 teaspoon (about 50 twists) freshly ground black pepper
2 medium cloves garlic, pressed or minced
Lemon or lime wedges
Lots of ice, for serving
Garnishes (choose any): Celery stalks, skinny carrots with leafy tops, mini bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, dill pickle spears, pickled okra, and/or green cocktail olives
In a blender, combine the tomato juice, vodka, cucumber, vinegar, celery seed, Worcestershire sauce and hot sauce. Securely fasten the lid and blend on high speed until completely smooth.
Taste, and add more hot sauce for more heat (it’s going to taste quite intense now, since the mix hasn’t cooled over ice yet). Add the black pepper and garlic. Securely fasten the lid and blend for just a few seconds. Set aside. If you’d like to rim your glasses with salt, run a lemon or lime wedge around the outside rim. Pour kosher salt onto a small plate (mix in chili powder if you’d like), and roll the wet edge of the glass across the salt at a 45-degree angle. Fill the glasses with ice, and pour the Bloody Mary mix on top. Stir with a spoon, and garnish with a lemon or lime wedge and garnishes of your choice.
Convince your husband to commit murder. Serve immediately.
Richy’s Champagne Well
1 oz Chambord
6 oz Champagne (chilled, more or less to fill glass)--any sparkling wine will do
Pomegranate seeds
Pour the Chambord into a champagne flute. Top with champagne. No stirring necessary--the bubbles from the champagne stir for you! Garnish on top with pomegranate seeds
Enjoy the glamour before you’re deposed.
Recipe courtesy of thespruceeats.com
Helena’s Raspberry Lime Love Potion
4 fresh raspberries
2 lime slices
3 oz Absolut Raspberry Vodka
¼ cup fresh lime juice
½ ounce simple syrup
Splash of seltzer
Muddle 2 of the raspberries and 1 lime slice together in a heavy glass. Fill the glass with ice and stir in the vodka, lime juice, and simple syrup. Top with seltzer and the remaining 2 raspberries. Garnish with the remaining slice of lime.
Start dreaming about your seating charts.
Recipe courtesy of Shakespeare, Not Stirred by Caroline Bicks, PhD, and Michelle Ephraim, PhD.
Juliet’s Sleeping Potion Lavender Martini
1 ounce vodka
½ ounce fresh lemon juice
¼ ounce lavender syrup
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon dried lavender buds
To a cocktail shaker filled with ice add vodka, lemon juice and lavender syrup; shake well. Strain into a martini glass and garnish with a lemon slice. For Lavender syrup: Bring water and sugar to a boil, stirring until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat, add lavender buds and allow to infuse for 20 minutes. Strain, allow to cool completely. Enjoy, take a deep nap, but wake up before your partner comes home!
Recipe courtesy of sweetilfebake.com
Iago’s Get Up and Go Irish Coffee
1 cup freshly brewed hot coffee
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 jigger Irish whiskey (1 ½ oz or 3 tablespoons)
Heavy cream (slightly whipped)
Fill a mug with hot water to preheat it, then empty. Pour piping hot coffee into warmed glass until it is about 3/4 full. Add the brown sugar and stir until completely dissolved. Blend in Irish whiskey. Top with a collar of the whipped heavy cream by pouring gently over back of spoon. Serve hot.
Plan your revenge.
Recipe courtesy of Food Network