Inspired by Miracle on 34th Street (1947) and the “double-strength” Martinis prepared so Mrs. Shellhammer will agree to letting Kris Kringle live with her and her husband, who is the toy department chief. I decided to make them “double-pine” with extra juniper-y gin, rosemary-infused vermouth, pine liqueur, and a touch of Chartreuse Élixir Végétal. It tastes like a Christmas tree. Garnished with a quick-pickled cranberry on a pick, which looks stunning in a coupe or Martini glass.

I got this idea in my head watching The Bishop's Wife (1947), the story of an angel played by Cary Grant who's trying to save a self-imporant young bishop from losing sight of what's important. In the movie, there's rag-tag children's choir at the little inner-city parish of St. Timothy's (the bishop's former post); given that sherbet punch is thoroughly postwar, I thought the kids in the choir would appreciate this one, and so might the kids in your world! I also made it balanced to please those adults who aren't partaking.

Christmas in Connecticut, a 1945 comedy set in New England features a character called Jefferson Jones who is a returning war hero who had been stuck on a life raft for 18 days and fantasized about real food, including chocolate cake and ice cream. I adore Tom & Jerry and I’m super into this version which features rye whiskey and chocolate stout–it’s the most custardy hot chocolate you’ve ever had. Best enjoyed in a horse-drawn sleigh.

During the part of It’s a Wonderful Life when George Bailey is seeing what the world would be like if he’d never been born. They’re in the town’s bar, which, without George, has turned into a rough and depressing rather than convivial spot. Clarence tries to order a flaming rum punch, then asks instead for “mulled wine, heavy on the cinnamon and light on the cloves.” I decided to combine the two and made sure to use ingredients popular during Clarence’s day, including a mulled wine recipe from Jerry Thomas’s 1862 book.

There are two very similar crème de noyaux-laced recipes for Martini-like drinks that emerged in London and Paris during the 1920s: the Old Etonian and the Fairbank Cocktail. The former features a 1:1 ratio of dry gin to blanc quinquina, while the latter tips the scale in the gin direction and calls for dry vermouth instead of quinquina. Both have a slight almondy flavor and reflect the “wetter” Martini style of the period.

Dating to 1922 and Harry’s ABC of Mixing Cocktails, the original recipe for the Jockey Club is basically like a Brandy Crusta with London dry gin in place of the brandy and crème de noyaux in place of maraschino. I decided to take these ingredients and structure it more like a Sidecar, upping the liqueur and citrus components while still retaining the bitters, which I quite like.

Given how intertwined the histories of cocktails and musical theater have been, it’s no surprise that Gilbert & Sullivan’s most problematic operetta has a cocktail named after it. The Mikado–originally an Improved Brandy Cocktail with crème de noyaux, Curaçao, orgeat, and Angostura bitters–has an ancestor in the Japanese Cocktail (brandy, orgeat, bitters) from 1862. Our version ditches the Curaçao and orgeat in favor of crème de cacao and blanc quinquina; a grapefruit twist bolsters the bitterness.

This Alexander cousin is, by all accounts, original to Bryant’s Cocktail Lounge in Milwaukie, circa the early 1940s. Like the Grasshopper, the Pink Squirrel is traditionally made with two flavorful liqueurs and either cream or ice cream, but our version dries things out and adds a touch of bitterness with brandy, blanc quinquina, and a barspoon of Peychaud’s. I like the dusting of cocoa powder, both aesthetically and for the way it bolsters the crème de cacao.

The Sling and the Toddy are sort of like fraternal twins. Emerging during the eighteenth century, both are essentially sweetened, diluted spirits. Key differences are the dilution level (slings were 1:1, toddies were weaker at 1:2) and garnish. Though both could be served hot or cold, eventually the sling became associated with cold (or at least room temp) preparation, while the toddy was more likely to be served hot. This two-pronged recipe calls on popular spirits of the day, spiced rum-based liqueur, “apple molasses” and raspberry leaf tea. Note that these are true-to-period as far as their dilution—a real (delicious) history lesson for you!

Bang is essentially a warm 50/50 mix of ale and cider, fortified with gin or whiskey, sweetened (traditionally with treacle), and flavored with ginger and spice. It is differentiated from other beer cocktails we’ve studied because it doesn’t contain citrus and it isn’t a flip because it doesn’t call for eggs. Bang is kind of it’s own thing, and it’s just what I want to drink on a cold fall evening.

Ginger was an absolutely essential ingredient in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century American drinks, a fact borne out by flipping through period household manuals. These contain all manner of gingery “receipts,” from ginger wine to ginger pop, beer, and lemonade; it was also called upon as supporting character in all kinds of recipes. Our spicy ginger syrup provides a perfect base ales, beer, and pops!

With its cider, perry, and sherry, Drink Divine seems more a descendant of wassail than anything else, especially with the bit about putting a “toasted biscuit” into it. (Represented in our recipe by the suggestion of serving with digestive biscuits!) To this simple mixture, I added ginger and allspice dram, but otherwise kept it simple; after all, the original recipe lives up to its name with no help!

The second iteration of the cocktail template known as “Daisy,” this turn-of-the-century version uses grenadine as the primary sweetener and features a variety of spirits as the base, with the most popular choice being gin. I like the idea of making this super citrusy, hence the inclusion of Curaçao, which is a nod to the Daisy 1.0, and three different juices.

One of the only cocktails to be most closely associated with Boston, the Ward Eight is a Whiskey Daisy with orange juice. For our version, I decided to include sherry as part of the base (it appeared in a 1930s Mr. Boston recipe for the drink), use acid-adjusted orange juice, and offer both a long, Daisy version, and a Sour style presentation, as well.

The Jack Rose is a turn-of-the-century cocktail that has that golden age vibe–cool name, cool vibe. And the Pan Am Clipper (basically a Jack Rose with absinthe), a Charles H. Baker, Jr. drink, has the same caché, just a few decades later. There’s a lot of ways to make these cocktails well, but for this version, I cut back the grenadine and added rich simple for improved texture, plus a sneaky small measure of Jamaican rum to add dimension.

The Pink Lady is a drink originating in the 1910s that features a split base of dry gin and apple brandy. Most specs include egg white and some include cream. I based our version on Harry McElhone’s recipe from his ABC of Mixing Cocktails, published in London in 1922, which does include both egg white and cream. Gorgeous color, delicious, and looks so good with a bitters design on top.

One of the most famous tropical drinks of all time, the Piña Colada as we know it emerged in the late 1950s and early '60s in Puerto Rico, though close antecedents had existed before. This is Molly Gajdosik's excellent recipe, which they say was inspired by Garret Richard's spec. It's complicated but so worth it!

The only drink this month that comes from the continental United States, the Rum Runner is a 1970s classic hailing from the Florida Keys. This drink is basically a tropical fruit punch with usual suspects like pineapple, banana, grenadine, and lime, but the wildcard here (and what distinguishes it from other similar drinks) is the berry liqueur (blackberry or [black] raspberry). Some versions are frozen, while others our shaken; ours is flash blended!

I had never heard of this drink before researching this month’s theme, but I really like the combination of coffee and banana in this milkshake-like frozen treat from the Caribbean resorts of the late twentieth century. Layers of different rums, spices, and vanilla go beautifully with the two star flavors.

Drinks traveling under the "Bahama Mama" name have existed since at least the early 1960s, but known formulas date to the 1970s. Usually a combination of rums, lemon or lime, pineapple or and/or orange, grenadine, coconut in some form, and coffee liqueur, the drink in various forms has been popular from Caribbean resorts to chain restaurants for over fifty years.