The Chocolate Martini is an interesting member of our motley ‘tini crew this month, as it claims roots in the postwar era. The possibly apocryphal story is that Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor invented it on the set of Giant (1956), which is a stunning movie that was filmed mostly in Marfa, Texas. The sweet vodka-based concoction was adopted by the ‘tini craze in the ‘80s and ‘90s and it’s still ordered in bars today by lovers of dessert drinks.

The only thing that’s French about a French Martini is Chambord. The black raspberry liqueur produced in the Loire Valley for centuries. The French Martini combines it with a vodka base and pineapple juice and it originated at Pravda in the mid-nineties, introduced to the world by famous bartender Dale DeGroff. It tastes like grandma candy that features unidentifiable flavors but is actually really delicious.

What can one say about this absolute juggernaut of a drink? Though it was invented by Dick Bradsell in 1990s London, it has had a second life in recent years. There are a great many ways to make one, and countless variations proffered by today’s bartenders, but I designed this one to be almost identical to Bradsell’s original spec, with a couple slight changes. I increased the syrup and opted to use vanilla syrup and I added just a touch of saline to enhance the drink’s flavors.

This drink is the only one of this month’s recipes that was invented after the turn of the twenty-first century. It was invented in 2002 by bartender Douglas Ankrah. Originally called the Maverick Martini after a gentleman’s club Ankrah frequented in Cape Town, the drink combined vanilla vodka, passion fruit liqueur and passionfruit purée, and vanilla syrup, with a little glass of prosecco on the side. Since its inception, it has remained very popular in the U.K. and beyond.

It's no surprise that brandies have often been used in cocktails royale and these two drinks are excellent examples of the form. They have the same basic underlying concept: a champagne cocktail with absinthe and bitters and a bit of brandy (apple for the Deauville, grape for the Casino). I also give the option here of using pineapple syrup, which is a nod to the 1925 drink, Train Bleu, as well as Harry Johnson's Gilded-Age Saratoga spec.

I knew I really wanted to have a gin drink in the mix for our Parisian Cocktails Royale theme, and I found this one in a lesser known book called Recette des Cocktails pour 1929 by E. Milhorat and J. Alimbau. Its combination of London dry gin and cherry liqueur, plus Angostura bitters, makes for a spiced fruit-and-pine base upon which to layer dry, bubbly wine. It’s my favorite this month!

The I.B.F. Pick-Me-Up comes from Harry MacElhone’s book Barflies and Cocktails (1927). Its base resembles an Improved Cocktail of sorts, with Cognac as the main spirit and layers of orange, menthol, and eucalyptus from the combination of Curaçao and Fernet-Branca. I chose to put this one over a big ice cube as the base is quite strong—but very delicious.

Something I love about looking at Paris in the ‘20s and ‘30s is the parallels with Italian aperitivo culture. So when I found the Alfonso in Harry’s ABCs of Mixing Drinks, I took it in an aperitivo direction, choosing to style it as an early Negroni Sbagliato-type drink. The combination of rouge quinquina and now-defunct Secrestat Bitter looked too close for me to resist!

The inspiration for this recipe is an 1843 formula made by Texan soldiers held by the Mexicans at Perote prison. The recipe called for “vino mascal,” ass’s milk, eggs, and sugar. For our version, I decided to split the base between mezcal and añejo tequila, plus a little crème de cacao and cinnamon, resulting in a smoky, spiced chocolate-and-vanilla eggnog that will please all the agave-spirit lovers in your life!

Making a batch of eggnog is more like a baking project than it is like making a cocktail. And, as with punch, time is an important ingredient in its successful construction; with a little time, the concoction melds into a silky-smooth drink akin to boozy melted ice cream. This "classic recipe" is a kind of summary of many a 'nog past, combining the original duo of brandy and rum with the more rustic rye whiskey, which form a balanced triumvirate that counters the sweetness of the egg-and-dairy mixture beautifully.

As with punch and flip, eggnog began as a large-format drink that eventually also became available in single-serving form. This shift reflects the changing nature of drinking and bartending in the nineteenth century. Single-serving eggnog is very similar to a flip, with the addition of dairy. This recipe is written for our “classic” mix of spirits; see the fortified wine and Texian recipes for variations.

Making a batch of eggnog is more like a baking project than it is like making a cocktail. And, as with punch, time is an important ingredient in its successful construction; with a little time, the concoction melds into a silky-smooth drink akin to boozy melted ice cream. This "classic recipe" is a kind of summary of many a 'nog past, combining the original duo of brandy and rum with the more rustic rye whiskey, which form a balanced triumvirate that counters the sweetness of the egg-and-dairy mixture beautifully.

We've covered a few different fizzes (which emerge in the 1870s), but this one is the golden type (c. 1882), which means that there's no egg white in it, just egg yolk! We'll get into this more, but the "coffee" part comes from the Coffee Cocktail, a drink from our period of interest that contains no coffee but does contain brandy and port. Cacao and vanilla accent this drink perfectly.

This is a riff on the Harvard cocktail, which is basically a Manhattan with brandy in place of rye. But I didn't like the ratios with the port, so I turned it into a kind of Improved Cocktail (my favorite variation on the Old-Fashioned), with a base of Cognac plus small measures of cacao, ruby port, and Alpine amaro. A splash of Champagne makes it feel quite fancy and dries out the cocktail a bit.

The Ladies’ Delight is a brandy, rum, and coffee drink featured in William Schmidt’s The Flowing Bowl, published in 1892. The original spec is topped with ice cream and berries. I've wanted to recreate this drink for years now and this month's theme gave me the opportunity. In addition to Cognac and coffee (in the form of cold brew), it has crème de cacao, amaro, vanilla syrup, and a touch of salt. After a little experimentation, I love the way the styling on this drink turned out.

This delicious little number takes inspiration from several classics, including a variety of brandy sours and punches and, of course, the New-York Sour. A base of brandy, lemon, cacao, and vanilla gets topped off with a classic "claret snap" for a tannic note that fits really well with the dried fruit and chocolate in the drink.

For this flip, I took post-Civil War technique and style and applied it to pre-Civil War ingredients. As we saw with our At Loggerheads a few years back, flips in the eighteenth century were ale-based and served hot. But the Gilded Age brought ice and shakers into the equation and, though beer-based versions did exist (especially with porter), fortified wine as well as spirits took over as the most common base. I love the flavor of this drink, the walnut adds this really pleasant bitterness to the whole thing; it kind of tastes like melted pumpkin ice cream with walnuts on top.

Spirit-forward drinks were exceedingly popular in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century–from Bumbo to Slings, Toddies, Cock-tails, and Black Strap, they’re all just variations on sweetened, diluted spirits. The Cock-tail, of course, is the one with bitters in it. I love maple and walnut together and it works beautifully with the sherry base. Though this recipe features a complex “Improved Cocktail” structure (which dates to later in the 1800s), it could very well have existed during our period of interest!

I always like to include a beer cocktail when we travel to this time and place because they were so incredibly common, it’s almost lying not to have one! Beers brewed with a pumpkin base (once known as pompion ales) originated in the years before the Revolutionary War and pumpkin ales line shelves every fall to this day. This autumnal beer cocktail is named for the original town center in Conway, Massachusetts, which is also the name of this month's theme. This drink is, then, sort of like a title track!

This is an imagined punch that might have been from the early republic with favorite products of the period, all of which would have been available for purchase in olde New English taverns. Aged rum and brandy is just about a classic eighteenth-century punch base as you’ll find and the sherry gives it this wonderful nutty, oxidized flavor. There’s a noble history of using oranges in punch and I really like what it’s doing here! And I really love orange with maple, it’s such an autumnal combination for me; this combo is also featured in my most popular BA recipe ever, the Applejack Sour. And in fact, we’re doing this with apple brandy instead of rum at Gigantic this fall, and it’s delicious both ways!