Three Ways To Drink For a Cause This Autumn
photo courtesy Campari USA
Mix up these cocktails for a cause
These days, there’s nothing quite like stirring or mixing up a cocktail at the end of the day (that is, if we even know what time it is at all). What’s even better, that ritual can not only bring a much-needed sense of calm to oneself, but it can also help others in need.
This autumn, you can mix up a drink for causes that help make the world go round.
Negroni Week, September 14 to 20
What it is:
Typically, this equal parts fun global charity event celebrating the historic aperitivo cocktail and all its variations, sponsored by Campari and Imbibe, is held in June, when participating bars serve Negroni cocktails to be sold to benefit individual charities of choice. Since 2013, the event has raised nearly $3 million for charitable causes worldwide. However, like many things, Covid-19 forced a change of plan.
How it works this year:
Within these new dates, the event, which will raise funds specifically for hospitality workers through various charities, including Another Round, Another Rally, will be held virtually, and for the first time, accept direct donations through the month of September.
For a list of charities to donate to directly, please click here.
You can also shop limited edition Negroni Week gear for a cause here, as well as buy fabulous Negroni merch at Love & Victory, with 10% of proceeds going toward Another Round, Another Rally.
The Drink:
Was the Negroni invented, as the most popular legend has it, in 1919 at the Caffè Casoni (formerly Caffè Giacosa) in Florence when Italian Count Camillo Negroni asked for something stronger than an Americano and resident bartender, Fosco Scarselli, obliged? Was there another Count, Pascal Olivier Count de Negroni, a Corsican war hero who much earlier, in 1870, invented a similar drink (though Campari itself didn’t exist yet)?
It’s so good, does it really matter?
To make a Negroni to sip along to (and if posting on social media, be sure to tag using @campariofficial @campariusa @imbibe and the #NegroniWeek hashtag) here’s the basic recipe. Some people like to add a bit more gin and play around with the ratios, or switch up the base spirit to whiskey, tequila, mezcal, rum, etc., but really, you can’t go wrong with the classic.
Negroni
1 oz dry gin
1 oz sweet vermouth
1 oz Campari
Build in cocktail glass, add ice, stir. Easy peasy.
For more variations on the cocktail, please click here.
photo courtesy Caledonia Spirits
Bee’s Knees Week, September 18 to 27
Caledonia Spirits, the Montpelier Vermont distillery producing Barr Hill Gin—a gin made with raw northern honey, which won Double Gold in the 2019 NY International Spirits Competition—is once again launching its annual Bee’s Knees Week fundraiser to protect honey bee populations. However, instead of accepting direct donations to honey bee charities, Caledonia Spirits will be planting 10 square feet of bee habitat for every Barr Hill Bee’s Knees cocktail consumed.
To participate during the week of September 18 through the 27th:
Order a cocktail made with Barr Hill Gin at a participating restaurant or bar, see the list here.
Or order Barr Hill gin to have at home here direct from the distillery, or see here for a list of stores, and make the cocktail at home.
Share a photo of the cocktail on social media, using #beeskneesweek2020, and be sure to tag @barrhillgin, plus tag the bar, restaurant, or store where Barr Hill Gin was purchased if possible.
Why:
For every photo that fulfills the above requirements, Caledonia Spirits will plant 10 square feet of pollinator habitat. Additionally, for the participating venues whose cocktail photos account for a square footage that equals or exceeds their location’s footprint, the distillery will be giving out a special gift.
The Drink:
It is common lore that the Bee’s Knees—the name is a play on the honey component, but also a popular flapper era slang phrase, referring to something delightful—is a gin, honey and lemon drink invented with no specific credit in the 1920s Prohibition era to mask bad hooch. Which is ridiculous because a) there was actually quite good gin to be had during that time if you knew where to look (psst!! Not in the states!) and b) it’s honestly too sophisticated to have had that purpose.
In fact, very recently, as drinks historian and Sipsmith Gin Master Distiller Jared Brown wrote in the 2019 book SIP: 100 Gin Cocktails with only 3 ingredients, the inventor of the drink can be traced to none other than Mrs. JJ Brown—which it turns out is one and the same as Molly Brown, as in the “Unsinkable Molly Brown” (no relation to Jared Brown), the Titanic survivor, who is documented in a 1929 Paris article for ordering the drink (“a rather sweet combination with honey and lemon”) in a Parisian bar.
Bee’s Knees
2 oz dry gin
¾ oz fresh lemon juice
¾ oz honey syrup (1:1 syrup made with honey and water)
Shake all ingredients with ice until well chilled and frothy. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass of choice. The drink truly is, simply, the bee’s knees to sip.
photo courtesy Elijah Craig
Elijah Craig Old Fashioned Week, October 16 to 25
What it is:
Heaven Hill aims to donate up to $100,000 for the Restaurant Workers’ Community Foundation (RWCF), a nonprofit created by and for restaurant workers (which includes bar industry too). Donations will go toward a combination of direct financial assistance, grants to nonprofit partners, and to a zero-interest loan program for small businesses.
Starting on Oct. 16, Elijah Craig will host various promotions designed to be both educational and entertaining in support of RWCF.
You can donate now, and also enter to win:
A national sweepstakes that offers a chance to win one of 500 home bar kits is running now until November 15th. During this period, Elijah Craig will match $1 for every online submission at OldFashionedWeek.com or match $5 for Elijah Craig Old Fashioned 'virtual cheers' using the hashtags #OldFashionedWeek or #Sweepstakes and tagging @ElijahCraig. Visit here for more details.
Elijah Craig Old Fashioned
2 oz. Elijah Craig Small Batch Bourbon (Double Gold medal winner, 2020 New York International Spirits Competition)
.25 oz. simple syrup
3 dashes bitters of choice (aromatic bitters or nut bitters are best)
orange swath
1 cocktail cherry (optional)
In a mixing glass add bitters, simple syrup, Elijah Craig Small Batch, and ice. Stir until well chilled. Strain cocktail over a large ice cube in a double old fashioned glass. Garnish with a swath of orange and cherry if using.