In 2013, I am so excited to be devoting myself to the creation of my first cookbook, which seemed like a pipe dream last year at this time. I am so grateful to everyone who has inspired and supported me creatively up to this point, and the gals at Umami Mart have played such a big role in that. In this new year, I encourage you to take a creative leap, start a new project (even if it seems crazy) and make time for something you’ve been wanting to do — you never know where it may lead.

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The Bizet cocktail was created by David Slape, a former PDT bartender. The drink is a Champagne-based riff on the classic Americano, and is named after 19th century composer Georges Bizet, who is most famous for his final operatic composition, Carmen.

Bizet
1.5 oz Shinn Estate Rose
0.5 oz Luxardo Bitter
0.5 oz Amaro Ciociaro
1 oz Moet Imperial Champagne, to top
Flamed orange twist, as garnish

Tools: barspoon, mixing glass, strainer, match
Glass: chilled coupe

Method: Stir the first three ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled coupe.

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Once you understand basic cocktail recipe structure (without going off on too deep a tangent, it boils down to two general categories: sours and aromatics, first outlined in detail in The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks by David Embury), you can take any classic cocktail and in the words of Mr. Embury, “roll your own.” The Airmail is a prime example of this, whereby you take a classic cocktail and swap out one or two ingredients for other ingredients in the same category in order to create a new classic.

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So you say it was a tough year, huh? Well, look at it this way: you’ve almost made it out of this Millenium’s first decade. And what a decade it’s been. I mean, this was the decade that the internet hit puberty and really came into its own; the decade that gave birth to Google—do you remember life before you could “Google it?” In short, the decade in which the future seemed to finally merge with the present.

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