The Ideal Thanksgiving Cocktail to Prep Ahead

Photo by Angel Tucker

Happy Thanksgiving! Whether you’re hosting or joining friends and family at their table this holiday, there’s a great cocktail recipe you can prepare ahead of time. There are so many tasks to do on the day of Thanksgiving, and this recipe is designed for folks who’d like to share a beautiful handmade cocktail but don’t have the time to build individual drinks for each person.

In my family, our beverage ritual revolves around sipping Champagne while dressing the turkey and gathering for cocktail hour when guests arrive. A massive cheeseboard, hot cider for the kids, a popcorn and cranberry stringing station in the living room- that’s what I can expect come about 4pm tomorrow afternoon. Here’s the recipe that I’ll be prepping this evening after I turn the turkey in the brine. Earthy and lightly sweet with a hint of smoke, The Dram is sure to please guests with a range of tastes. Have a crowd that prefers whiskey? Swap in your favorite Bourbon for the Mezcal to yield a slightly sweeter variation without the the smoke. Leave yourself about an hour to prepare the batch and make sure to savor a glass while you do so.

Cheers to a happy and relaxing holiday!

<3 Willa + Little Bitte

The Dram

1½ oz Mezcal (Bourbon works too! )

¾ oz Pear Cider Syrup* 

¾ oz Sweet Vermouth (I love Carpano Antica)

¼ oz Saint Elizabeth Allspice Dram

Tasting Notes: Boozy, warming spices


The Dram  [Batch Recipe Version] 

24 oz Mezcal (750ml bottle – 1 ounce for sipping while you batch!)

12 oz pear cider syrup*

12 oz sweet vermouth 

4 oz Saint Elizabeth Allspice Dram** see note

8 ounces fresh apple cider (for balance + dilution)

Pear Cider Syrup*: Seed and dice 2 ripe juicy pears. Combine pear, apple cider and cinnamon in a medium saucepan and simmer over low heat for 20 minutes. Turn off the heat, cool to room temp. Fine strain batch into a large bowl gently pressing residual liquid through the strainer with a large spoon and discard the solids. Pour batch into 2 clean sealable glass jars. Refrigerate for up to 2 weeks.

Allspice Dram**: If batching a day or days before you serve The Dram, reduce the amount of Allspice Dram to 2 ounces because the flavor is so strong. The flavor of amaros, bitters and spiced cordials amplifies significantly in batches.

Preparation: Combine liquid ingredients and divide into 3 clean bottles or 2 large mason jars and refrigerate. When ready to serve, fill a pitcher with ice and fill with batch. Serve into rocks glasses filled with ice. Garnish with fresh rosemary, thyme or lavender leaf. 

Yield: 20 servings

Interview with Little Bitte

ARTIST INTERVIEW

Willa Van Nostrand of Little Bitte Cocktails

NOVEMBER 5, 2018


Chattman Photography

We want to have a drink with Willa Van Nostrand, especially if she’s the one making the drink. Mixologist,  owner of Little Bitte Artisanal Cocktails, singer/ songwriter, art curator, and infusively charming company, Willa is the total package. Okay, the total dream. We Insta-stalked her beautifully curated delicious photos (not to mention that topknot of hers) for about a year before calling her up and asking her to host a workshop at Ode. We met up in Quonquont orchard, where we got to play dress up and traipse around with Willa, eating apples whilst sipping her mango margarita. Even listening to her describe a drink will make your mouth water. Here’s a little sneak “sip” of what’s in store for our “Guide to Gatherings” workshop at Ode, this Thursday, Nov. 8, from 6-8pm. Foodie-Guru Victoria  Accardi will accompany Willa with cheese and sweet bites. There are a few spots still open, so give us a call or stop by the boutique to sign up! Cheers!

How did you get your start in bartending and mixology?
I grew up on a small herb farm in Massachusetts with my mom, a midwife & herbalist—and my dad, a minister & bartender. I’ve always been pretty obsessed with food, so beverage was a natural extension.  I worked in a bunch of bars through my late teens and early 20s, but really found my niche living in Italy for a year when I was working with cordials and Amari like Campari, Aperol, and Fernet Branca. Even when I was working at the family dive bar, I’d bring in my own edible blossom bouquets to garnish cocktails. Folks would start requesting the drinks I made for them, and that’s how the business was born.  Before I knew it, I was doing a bunch of parties and weddings and shopping for insurance. Business, how romantic!

Describe the perfect sip:
The perfect sip is clean, sumptuously tart
and leaves you wanting another sip.
The perfect sip is insatiable.
The perfect sip is usually Champagne,
generally a very dry margarita,
and most often: a flute of sparkling rosé.
On friday nights, it’s a dirty martini with fancy queen olives,
in Italy, a spritz,
a voluptuous red wine.
Cognac, forever– aged off the vine.

What’s your spirit cocktail?
If mezcal is my spirit “spirit, ” then The Division Bell is my spirit cocktail (Mezcal, fresh lime, Aperol, maraschino cherry liqueur) for its astringency, appetizing pop of color, light bitterness, and smoke. It reminds me that I’m alive and every breath, sip and bite matters.

On top of being a business owner and expert mixologist, you are a singer in a band. What’s the music/style? Who’s in your band? Where can we see you perform?
Ah, Singing! My first love. I make my own music as Willa Van Nostrand and I’m in a band “The Van Nostrand Sisters” with my Sister Glenna and her partner, Ken Linehan, who’s fabulous. There’s an ever-evolving cast of characters, but it’s most minimally the 3 of us on stage. We make folk music, I write most of the songs and the band gives them life! Lots of harmonies, and our voices do that magic sister thing that sisters can do: very sweet, goofy, upbeat, folky? Dare I say, country? We dance around a lot and wear vintage dresses and costumes. We are working on recording our album and we don’t have any shows booked currently because we’re not letting ourselves play out until we finish the album. We usually play small clubs & venues, folk festivals, friends house shows in the woods, art spaces…. You get the idea. We love playing so if you have something in mind, don’t be a stranger. Record’s almost done!

Hold on, you have an art gallery? Explain!
Yes! I own a small storefront gallery called World’s Fair Gallery at 268 Broadway in Providence. We opened in 2010 as a site-specific gallery, and now we’re at home on Broadway. We curate shows inspired by taste, gustatory and aesthetic. For each show, we pair 2D & 3D artists with folks who make ceramics or handblown glass vessels. For the opening reception of each show, we pop-up and make cocktails that were designed for the artwork and the glassware. This business model works in a way that I can travel and install art pop-ups and bars in galleries and art fairs. I am really excited about World’s Fair and can’t wait to share more artwork, beautiful vessels and beverages with the world.

Best moment from a wedding:
Last summer we worked this insanely gorgeous wedding out near the beach in Tiverton, Rhode Island. The whole thing was romantic and candlelit with colorful lanterns hanging from the trees. After we broke down the bar, we were standing around having a shift drink and we all let our hair down (you know, the ‘Bitte bun’ up-do has to come down sometime). We looked like a group of mermaids on the lawn. The groomsmen called to us from the dance floor á la Romeo up to Juliet’s window: “Angels, sweet women, where have you been? It’s time to dance!”
I melted a little, we giggled a lot, and then got out of there as quickly as we could because we knew better! We had to bail before the midsummer night’s dream enchanted us all.

I also cried last week at a cranberry bog during the bride and groom’s first dance at sunset. Does that count? I end up crying at a lot of the weddings that I work because they’re so beautiful and touching. Once you work with a couple on their wedding for a year, you can get pretty emotionally attached.

Shaken or stirred?
Stirred! It’s traditional to stir a martini. “Stir spirits with vermouth, shake juice!”
But I say, if you’re the one drinking it — do whatever you want!
If you ask me to make you a cosmo, I’ll make you a damn good cosmo.
If you ask me to shake your martini, I’ll shake the living daylights out of it.
That’s what hospitality is about.

If you could have a drink anywhere with any one person, where and with whom would that be?
I’d have a cigar and a glass of Cognac with Gertrude Stein in Paris during her Expat salon years.

What’s the “garden” element of your tagline “craft cocktails from garden to glass in New England”?
All of our edible blossoms and fresh botanicals are organically grown, local or sustainably sourced. For the first 5 years of Little Bitte, my mom and I grew all of our botanicals. Now, we source our blossoms, fruit, and herbs from about 25 local growers.

Favorite toast?
To high winds and mermaids!

What’s essential for the perfect gathering?
Making your guests feel comfortable. Good lighting, enough food and drink for your guests, and their friends you didn’t know they were bringing along.
And ice! 2-3 pounds per guest to be specific.

Green Cocktails for Saint Patrick’s Day

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We’ve been perfecting our favorite green cocktail for Saint Patrick’s Day – the recipe is tinted naturally with our famous emerald honey syrup made with matcha green tea powder & a hint of spirulina. How’s that for healthy sipping? Cheers!

2 ounces Jameson Irish Whiskey
1 ounce Emerald honey syrup*
Top with your favorite ginger beer
1 shamrock for garnish
Emerald honey syrup*
Pour 4 ounces of boiling water over 1 teaspoon of match green tea powder & 1 teaspoon of Spirulina and whisk together. Add 4 ounces of honey and dissolve into the solution. Cool, bottle and refrigerate for up to 1 week.
Preparation: fill your bar tin with Irish whiskey and honey syrup. Shake over ice, pour into the coupe, top with ginger beer and garnish with a shamrock.

Craft Cocktails + Floral Crown Workshop Tonight

We’re so excited for our Craft Cocktail + Floral Crown Workshop this evening!

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A few spots opened up for tonights workshop in Marshfield, Massachusetts – give us a call if you’d like to join us tonight. Learn how to build 2 delicious artisanal cocktails featuring fresh, edible blossoms and herbs! Jillian from Beach Plum Floral will teach us how to use fresh herbs and blossoms to create our very own hand-crafted floral crowns to wear & take home.

Craft Cocktail + Floral Crown Workshop

Friday, February 10th, 2017 (7-10PM)
Class Fee – $55.00
Includes all materials, cocktails and small bites


For signups, please email beachplumfloraldesign@gmail.com or call (781) 738-7787

*Limited slots available, do not wait to book!