Once the day is done — be it beachcombing, clamming, dog walking, sailing, or scrambling over rocks — it feels mighty good to sit back, enjoy the view, and have a cocktail. As the sun goes over the yardarm, you may want an easy drink or a carefully constructed cocktail. This chapter includes both. Serve simple appetizers that play with texture and temperature — a cool, creamy guacamole and chips go well with the grilled littlenecks; raw oysters on the half shell might be served alongside smoked bluefish dip with crackers. With a grill nearby or a beach fire pit handy, cooking seafood appetizers is an impressive feat that is surprisingly easy. Fill in with little nibbles — bowls of wasabi peas, olives, nuts, and gherkins. When we’re near the water, we want to enjoy the view, and that means simplifying.
What makes a great cocktail — a drink that lights up your guests’ eyes and makes you happy to be delivering it? One that suggests promise and a wonderful evening ahead? Here are a few key components:
At the end of the day, a good cocktail can tell a story through the ingredients, the mixology, the name, the embellishments. Think of the design of this thing you’ve created — the glass, the ice, the garnish, the color. Wow your guests with the presentation. It’s a great start to an evening.
Serves 4
Making a margarita muddled with fresh jalapeños and cilantro raises the bar, but you can truly impress your friends by infusing your own tequila with jalapeños or habaneros. Just stem, de-seed, and quarter a few fresh chiles, place them in a liter bottle of 100 percent agave blanco tequila, and reseal. Let it steep for 6 to 24 hours: the longer it steeps, the stronger it will taste (you can test it along the way). Strain the tequila through a cheesecloth and store in a cool, dry place for up to a month.
Serves 1
When I was growing up on the WeWeantic River, hurricanes were an unusual and exciting occurrence. We’d board up the screen windows with plywood, haul the boats, and head for higher ground. Across the river was an upside-down house from the hurricane of ’38. All that was left was the frame, which was resting on the roof rafters, rotting on the river marsh; it was a continuing source of curiosity and intrigue to neighborhood kids. We called it The Upside Down House.
Although Governor William Bradford of Plymouth Colony wrote in 1635 of a great tidal wave and mighty storm that swept through Buzzards Bay and was fearful to behold, the next devastating storm wasn’t recorded again until 1815, when a “great gale” swept through the region, “prostrating” houses and destroying saltworks and ships. As late as the 1900s, hurricanes were so rare that New Englanders thought they only occurred in the tropics. Many had no idea what a hurricane was, which was what made the hurricane of ’38 so devastating in Connecticut and Rhode Island.
Now, it’s the rare autumn when we don’t feel the threat of a hurricane. After living through one, a strong drink is in order. If the weather really deteriorates, revert to a Dark and Stormy.
Combine the dark rum, light rum, syrup, lime juice, sugar, and grenadine in a shaker over ice. Shake and strain into a highball glass filled with ice. Garnish with an orange or lime wedge and a cherry, and serve immediately.
Without warning, on the autumnal equinox of 1938, a Category 3 hurricane bore down on the New England coast, the worst of it pounding Rhode Island, eastern Connecticut, and southern Massachusetts.
The storm started on September 4 as a tropical disturbance near the Cape Verde islands. It spent almost two weeks gathering muster across the Atlantic, and on September 16, the captain of a Brazilian freighter warned the U.S. Weather Bureau of the storm he encountered northeast of Puerto Rico. Forecasters warned Floridians, who battened down the hatches.
But it didn’t hit land; the storm veered north, traveling parallel to the Eastern seaboard. Charlie Pierce, a rookie forecaster in Washington, D.C., at the U.S. Weather Bureau, was sure the storm would hit New England and wanted to warn people, but his supervisor overruled him; they had already been embarrassed by putting Florida on full warning with no storm materializing.
No regional warnings were broadcast. In 1938, many New Englanders didn’t even know what a hurricane meant — the tradition of naming storms didn’t begin until 1950 — or even how to pronounce it. There had been a storm in 1635 (which the Pilgrims wrote was apocalyptic) and the Great September Gale of 1815, but many didn’t believe a tropical cyclone could hit the cold waters of the North Atlantic.
With Europe on the brink of war, people on September 21 were listening to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s radio address, which stations were loath to interrupt. There were no weather balloons, weather satellites, or radio buoys to forecast the hurricane’s approach. Around 2:30 p.m., the hurricane made landfall on the south shore of Long Island at high tide.
One woman who lived across the road from the beach was hosting her daughter’s birthday party, and watched in disbelief as a wall of water came toward her house. She scooped the kids up to the second floor, and then to the roof. Waves were 40 feet tall, swallowing up whole communities as the hurricane hit Connecticut.
It gained intensity passing into Rhode Island, with winds over 120 mph and a 15-foot storm surge in Narragansett Bay. Providence was 13 feet under water. By the time the monster storm reached Massachusetts, weathermen were clocking gusts of 186 mph.
Five hundred and sixty-four people were killed, another 1,700 were injured, nearly 9,000 buildings were destroyed and another 15,000 damaged. The force was equivalent to an H-bomb going off every minute, according to some scientists. Winds were so strong that chickens were plucked of their feathers, boats were tossed like toothpicks, and cottages ended up blocks away. (Interestingly, Cape Cod was spared, the canal providing an outlet for the high tide, and the high clay cliffs on the southern side of the Cape forming a protective barrier.)
Old-timers remember the hurricane of ’38, and even those of us who weren’t around have a healthy respect for the region’s biggest weather event of the 20th century.
Serves 1
Jimmy Buffett coined the term “boat drinks” — those colorful, rum-saturated umbrella drinks that slide us to St. Somewhere with a palm-fringed cove. Sometimes called tiki drinks, they usually feature rum and at least one fruit juice, and they hit the spot after a day on the water.
Fill a tall glass with ice and pour in the pineapple juice, orange juice, white rum, golden rum, and grenadine. Stir gently. Grate a bit of nutmeg on top if you have it, and squeeze the lime wedge into the drink, then drop in the wedge. Serve immediately.
An elegant seaside inn in Westerly, Rhode Island, may be the only New England hotel with a naturalist on staff. Mark Bullinger sat down with me at breakfast and told me why white snowy owls were appearing along the eastern seaboard that spring and why the caverns off Block Island make for great swordfishing. Each guest room has a Sibley’s bird book and binoculars, and in the lounges there are hundreds of books about the sea, the region, and boats. The naturalist said his first job upon being hired was to spend $3,000 on books. It shows. You can also browse through old inn guest books dating back to 1899, where every guest (and often the chauffeur) would sign in, including Franklin Delano Roosevelt one summer.
Serves 1
The bartender at the Weekapaug Inn has a sure hand, as evidenced by this drink. The honey-infused gin is from Vermont. Rim the glass with candied ginger and sugar for the full effect. Feel free to adjust the ratio if you prefer more or less honey.
During Prohibition (1919–1933) when you weren’t allowed to make, sell, or possess liquor, a new business flourished along the eastern seaboard: rum-running, where local fishermen and boat owners hauled booze from ships that had come in from Canada and anchored in “Rum Row” (an area just outside U.S. jurisdiction in territorial waters). Small boats would load up, then race to shore trying to avoid the Coast Guard.
“The line of schooners around Block Island looked like a city,” reminisced one Westport (Massachusetts) rumrunner to the local paper in the 1970s. Booze was hidden in farmhouses, barns, and garages until it could be distributed by New York– and Providence-based gangsters.
It was a lucrative business; one rumrunner in Westport made $15,000 in 1931. Old-timers still tell stories of machine-gun fights with the Coast Guard and boats being blown up. Westport (and much of the waterfront) was ideal, with its craggy shore and two branches of the Westport River meandering inland.
Called the “noble experiment” and ratified by 46 out of 48 states (only Connecticut and Rhode Island fought it), Prohibition was the consequence of a widespread temperance movement, but of course led to the rise of crime, gang violence, and other problems. Prohibition was repealed in 1933, after FDR swept into office in 1932 during the Great Depression on the platform of repealing Prohibition.
“Later my financial position improved, and I bought rum, which solved most of my drinking problems. It also made my cooking taste better.”
— British Adventurer, Francis Brenton
Serves 1
In the mid 1800s, with the British Royal Navy dockyard in Bermuda, it was standard practice for the navy to allocate rum rations to soldiers. About the same time, the British Gosling Brothers began marketing in their Bermuda rum distillery a heavy blend of dark rums that eventually became Gosling’s Black Seal rum. Whalers from Nantucket tasted the rum, and brought the recipe back home. The name is said to have come from a sailor who, holding up the drink, noted that it was “the color of a cloud only a fool or a dead man would sail under.” Traditionally made with Gosling’s Black Seal Rum and ginger beer, this cocktail is also delicious with Hurricane Rum, a spirit made on Nantucket in small batches by Triple Eight Distillery during hurricane season (that would be late summer–early fall). Newport yachtsmen still prefer Dark and Stormies after a run to Block Island. Any port in a storm!
Pour the ginger beer into a tall glass with ice. Float the rum on top and squeeze the lime into the glass. Stir with a swizzle stick and serve.
Serves 2
It’s late August and your seaside garden is voluptuous with fragrant basil. When it rains, you pad out barefoot, just to smell it. When it’s time to harvest, you make pesto, of course, and eat tomato salads every night, but what else? A basil gin cocktail. Which you can serve at your pesto-making/eating party.
Reserve two of the prettiest basil leaves. Tear the other eight leaves, and then with a wooden spoon, muddle them in a shaker until they are bruised and fragrant. Add the gin, lime juice, syrup, and some ice, and shake vigorously until the outside of the cocktail shaker is freezing cold. Strain into two short ice-filled glasses and garnish each with a basil leaf.
Serves 1
In 2007, four guys started brewing spirits at the Newport Distillery, and their Thomas Tew Rum is the first to be made in Rhode Island in 135 years. They picked the name from a historical character they found in the library, which I thought was rather amusing since, according to our family tree, my great-great-great-great-grandfather William Tew (1745–1808) was captain of the Continental Army for George Washington (he carried the Rhode Island payroll to Valley Forge). I bet the army wished he also brought rum.
Muddle the mint leaves in a rocks glass to release the oils. Leave the mint in the glass and add ice almost to the top. Pour in the rum, lime juice, and lavender syrup, and stir. Top with the club soda, stir, and taste, adding more sweetener if desired.
The history of rum in New England runs deep. Invented in the West Indies in the 1600s, rum caught on in the Colonies, and distillers began importing molasses and creating a major industry. By the time the Molasses Act of 1733 was passed, there were 159 rum distilleries in New England, and authorities estimated that American colonists each drank about 3.75 gallons of rum annually. In 1769, there were 22 distilleries in Newport alone. By 1842, however, as whiskey took over as the spirit of choice (corn was more reliable than molasses after the abolition of the slave trade in 1808), there were none.
Serves 1
This bracing, astringent drink is as clipped as a Yankee’s accent, as sharp as a bowsprit, and as soothing as the dunes under a full moon on a summer night. Over the years, it’s been called a Bog Fog, a Cape Codder, even a New Yorker. If you’re making it with 100 percent cranberry juice, you might want to add a bit of sugar or simple syrup.
Pour the cranberry juice, vodka, and lime juice into a tall glass with ice. Swirl and serve, garnished with a wedge of lime.
It’s so easy to make, and what a tasty gift. First zest your favorite citrus, or a combination — lemon and orange, lemon and lime, grapefruit, etc. Put the zest in a bowl with some salt (you can use any kind of salt — fine, flaky, coarse, kosher). The less salt, the stronger the citrus flavor, so play with the amounts. (You might start with one-third zest to two-thirds salt.) Using your fingers, break up any clumps and rub the citrus into the salt to distribute the oils. Spread the mixture in a thin layer on a tray and leave at room temperature overnight to let the salt dry the zest. Kept in a sealed container, citrus salt should last 2 weeks.
Citrus salt works well whenever you want a bright citrus finish — not only to rim drinks, but to toss into soups, sprinkle on hard-boiled eggs, or lace into cookies or caramel sauce. I know someone who even puts a pinch on ice cream.
Serves 2
This drink is particularly tasty in June,when fresh, tender strawberries come in. If you’ve picked your own strawberries, you know that they are incredibly short-lived, and after you’ve made shortcake, and put them in your cereal, and maybe made a pie, and eaten half of them warm from the vine, you probably still have some left over. This marvelous drink is for those times. There also seem to be so many good excuses to celebrate in June — graduations, recitals, birthdays, weddings, baby showers.
The original bellini, which was made with prosecco and peach nectar, was invented at Harry’s Bar in Venice in the 1930s. He considered it a seasonal specialty, although it became so popular that these days, it’s served year-round.
Blend and purée the cup of strawberries with the lemon juice and sugar. Pour into two glasses, filling them halfway, and fill the rest with champagne. Garnish each glass with a strawberry.
The beach is the place to let go, to walk barefoot and enjoy the view and the company. Having a few drinks with friends? Set out simple snacks that satisfy the craving for salt. Thick-cut potato chips, olives stuffed with anchovies, carrots or broccoli with hummus. It needn’t be fancy. I learned from living on boats that it’s the view and the company that matter.
Serves 1
I learned from the Weekapaug bartender that, when serving a cocktail topped off with soda, carbonation is key, for it releases the drink’s aroma right below our nose. Moreover, different carbonation levels yield different-sized bubbles (not to mention minerality). Who knew? Club soda or seltzer give you larger, stronger bubbles, whereas San Pellegrino is more delicate. Good bartenders know this and play with the subtle distinctions in carbonation — what do you bet there comes the day when folks at the bar are as intrigued by their bubbles as they are by their bitters and gin? “I’ll take top-shelf carbonation, please!”
Squeeze the lemon juice into a highball glass full of ice and drop the wedge into the glass. Add the gin, lavender syrup, and bubbly water. Stir, then top with the half circle of lemon, and a sprig of lavender if you have one, and serve.
Makes 11/3 cups
If you have a coastal garden, you know which plants are rugged and tolerate sea spray, storms, and winds. Lavender thrives by the sea, and this is a simple syrup that makes good use of lavender. I make a big batch and keep it in the refrigerator as a sweetener for many beverages — my son, Trainer, especially loves it in his tea.
Combine the water, sugar, and lavender in a saucepan and bring to boil, then turn off the heat and let the lavender steep in the liquid for 30 minutes or so. Strain and transfer to a glass jar. This simple syrup will keep for several weeks refrigerated.
Serves 1
Made by distilling herbs, roots, and other ingredients, bitters add a dash of flavor and enhance other ingredients. True to its name, the botanical flavor is slightly melancholy, even bitter. The granddaddy of them is Angostura, first made in Venezuela in the 1800s as a medicinal tonic, and it’s long been the favored drink of British Navy seamen, thought to ward off seasickness and hangovers. There’s a bitters boom these days, from Coastal Root Bitters in Portland to the Black Trumpet Bistro in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Rhubarb bitters? Yep. Cranberry bitters? Of course.
Pour the gin and bitters into a cocktail shaker with ice cubes and shake briefly. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass filled with ice and garnish with lemon peel.