So fun that once again, my friend — accomplished playwright, sommelier and wine & spirits writer — Gaetano Marangelli tapped me for a recipe for his annual holiday cocktail column for The Shepherd Express, an alternative newspaper in Milwaukee.
This year, I submitted my retested and tweaked Whatever Gets You Through the Woods recipe from Peterson’s Holiday Helper. It was one of three tasty recipes in the article, the others from Brandon Reyes, director of operations at Bittercube, a Milwaukee-based manufacturer of carefully crafted cocktail bitters. Brandon, if you’re reading, I love me a coquito. And, I’m needing to update my bitters selection — to be continued …
Last year (2023), I adapted the Spice Cookie recipe for the column and two years ago (2022), Peterson’s Holiday Helper owned the column — if I do say so. I contributed a punch recipe (“Christmas Consolation”), a coffee drink (“Double-stick Spiked Coffee”) and a cocktail (“Santa’s Helper Scotch Holiday Sour”). Check out that 2022 article with recipes, here.
In 2021, I contributed one of my holiday punch recipes — “Liquid Mistletoe” — inspired by office party shenanigans. (Dan Salyer contributed the accompanying photo for the article and for here).
And for the 2021 New Year cocktail season article, Gaetano included one of my favorite (Swedish, Italian, easy – and resonant for writers) recipes — the “Lucialini”.
The out-of-print (aka limited and therefore “collectors”) edition of Peterson’s Holiday Helper continues to sell on Etsy — watch this space for a potential reprint as well as a boozy holiday sketch show based on the situations and antidotes in the book.
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