This summer, Shake contributed to a Kickstarter project for Hella Bitter: a do-it-yourself bitters making kit. A fellow bitters-loving friend, Malia of Shoyu Sugar, brought it to his attention—a funny coincidence because just a few weeks prior, we’d been on vacation in Arizona and came across a cute set of... Read More

Pimm’s has been a previous Sugar + Shake Current Obsession, and when I wrote about it back then I mentioned that there was a vodka-based blackberry and elderflower flavor of the “fruit cup” liqueur that I one day hoped to get my hands on. Well, last month we were browsing... Read More

I’m not ashamed to say it: I love dessert drinks. They’re often made with über-sweet artificially flavored vodkas, though. And while I won’t deny (OK, with some modicum of shame) that I enjoy some of them, the world is suffering from a plague of flavored vodka. This drink is a... Read More

I just love the smell of lemon verbena. The leaves release a lemony scent when crushed, with distinct floral notes. It’s sort of like a lemon version of kaffir lime! That elusive flowery-but-not-soapy quality. The leaves have a weird texture, though, rough and scratchy, which makes me feel like I... Read More

 Have you ever thrown something together in haste, had it turn out super-awesome and then realized after the fact you have no idea what you did to make it so good? Yeah, that’s what this photo here is all about. This is Shake’s second try at the W&P Mint Julep... Read More

Over the weekend, I took my new oven for a test drive. I baked up some tasty Raspberry Breakfast Bars from the Baked: New Frontiers in Baking cookbook by the Baked NYC guys. They came out really well. I’ll blog about them really soon. While I was baking, Shake went... Read More

I don’t care if summer is “officially” over, I am determined to enjoy this summer cocktail until I stop being sweaty. Which will be, like, sometime in February. The Pimm’s Cup is a drink I enjoy, but usually forget the existence of until I spy a bottle of Pimm’s No. 1... Read More

The first entry in what will be our ongoing catalog of things—dishes, drinks, products—we’re obsessed over. The Diamond & Dutch Cocktail at The Manifest in Chinatown started out as one of the bar’s weekly specials. (They have a cool menu board to the left of the bar that features the... Read More