One of the most impressive bartending tricks in existence is pouring Rainbow Shots. You’ve probably seen people do this and walked away scratching your head wondering, “How the hell did they do that?”. Well, never fear, because after reading this article and watching our video, you too will be able to astound your friends by nailing the Rainbow Shooter gimmick.

A Quick History of Rainbows in Culture

People have always been fascinated by rainbows, ever since the dawn of time. In Judeo-Christianity, the rainbow was sent after the Great Flood as a promise from God not to inflict that punishment on mankind again. The Rainbow Bridge in Norse mythology, Bifrost, was seen as a pathway between Asgard, home of the gods, and Earth. Eventually, Bifrost is supposed to be shattered during Ragnarok, the final battle between the gods, and frost giants and their allies, the fire demons. In Greek mythology, the goddess Isis sometimes dressed in rainbow colors, and used the rainbow as a means of travel. The Rainbow Bridge also exists in mythology from Japan, Australia, India, Russia, and Africa. The rainbow was not always seen as a good omen: in Sumeria and Japan, it was seen as a premonition of war, and in South America, disease.

The philosopher Aristotle was the first to study the rainbow, although it was the German monk Theodoric in 1304 who discovered that each raindrop diffracts its own miniature rainbow, and that rainbows are composed of two bows. Sir Issac Newton discovered that a prism breaks sunlight into the color spectrum in 1666. Newton also postulated that each spectrum of color is actually a separate rainbow, slightly displaced from one another at different angles, so each color seems to be part of a single tapestry.

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The days are getting colder, perhaps it’s time to grab something that will warm your bones. If that’s what you’ve been thinking, then let me introduce you to the Hot Apple Pie Shot. This drink will remind you of the homemade pie your grandmother used to make, while delivering a powerful kick of Everclear. This drink is different from many others; the preparation goes on in the kitchen instead of behind the bar.

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Are you ready for this? Today, I’m bringing you the most decadent creation that has ever graced our bar, the Seven Layer Christmas Cookie. As the name implies, seven ingredients go into this cocktail, and the result is a downright amazing creation. If you think you’re ready to handle this recipe, keep reading.

For a different type of Christmas Cookie cocktail, you can check out our previous post for the Five Layer Cookie.

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Making Skittles vodka takes a bit of time, but is worth the effort when it’s done. There are a few steps to the process: gathering the materials, sorting the candy and letting it dissolve, and the laborious part: straining the candy out of the vodka. The good news is that if you’re willing to invest a few hours, you’ll end up with five bottles of Skittles infused vodka to drink as you see fit.

Learning how to make Skittles vodka was a learning process for me. Even though I did a lot of research beforehand, I still figured out methods that worked best for me and the equipment I had on hand. The green and orange colors took the most effort to clarify; for some reason those colors dissolve into pure goop, not large chunks like the other flavors. Now that you’ve got your Skittles infused vodka on hand, the only question is what drinks you’re going to make with them.

In the bonus video below, we tasted all five flavors of the Skittles infused vodka. Grape was surprisingly good, the green apple made me want to make an Appletini with it, the lemon was pretty decent. The strawberry Skittles vodka ended up having a bit of a burn on the aftertaste, and the orange had a mellow burn with a robust taste.

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As the days get longer, and Christmas draws near, it’s time for me to renew my focus on holiday drinks. Today’s entry is the Yule Mule. Based on the traditional mule formula of ginger beer, vodka, and lime juice, the Yule mule also introduces some subtle flavors of cranberry and orange. So tie a ribbon on that log, and stoke up the fire, and let’s get down to some mixology.

What is Yule?

Yule is one of the major Pagan celebrations, marking the passing of the Winter Solstice. The Winter Solstice is the longest night of the year, usually between December 20–22 in the Northern Hemisphere and June 20–22 in the Southern Hemisphere. The ancient Norse would heave a giant log on the hearth during the Solstice, knowing that the sun was beginning it’s journey back towards summer. Later on, European pagans would symbolize this in the struggle between the Oak King (longer days) and the Holly King (short, winter days). When civilization centered around agricultural production, this was a big deal. More light meant more crops, darkness meant lean times.

Today, modern pagans decorate a Yule log with flammable items such as mistletoe, holly, and ribbon. Different types of wood have different symbolic meanings, and it is common for people to carve their hopes and wishes for the upcoming year into the log. The Yule log is gathered from the property of the owner, or a gift, but never bought. The Yule log burns on the Solstice night, and smolders for the next twelve days before being extinguished ceremoniously. The remains of the Yule log are saved for the year, and these remains help ignite next years log.

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I’m a little shocked that we made it through our first year before even thinking about the Cranberry Martini. But now, the holiday season is here again, and what better time than now to fill that knowledge gap? It’s an obvious bonus for me, because I love cranberries. So let’s make a plan for the Cran, and dive into how to make the Cranberry Martini.

This version of the Crantini isn’t vastly different from a Cosmopolitan, but the vermouth places it firmly in the category of a flavored martini, and not just a foo-foo drink. This particular drink is also a little less sweet than other flavored martinis, such as the Appletini, perhaps because it lacks Cointreau or another orange liqueur.

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As the holidays draw nearer, I’m thinking of all the delicious treats that only show up during Christmas. Along with pumpkin pie and Christmas cookies, I’ve been waiting for my favorite, the Gingerbread Cookie. Gingerbread schnapps, Kahlúa, and vanilla vodka provide the flavor on a backdrop of half and half, resulting in a glass of heaven. So grab a cup and warm yourself by the fire, as we break down how to make this gingerbread cocktail.

Gingerbread Throughout History

Gingerbread was first used for religious ceremonies by the ancient Greeks and Egyptians, and made its way to Western Europe during the Crusades in the 11th Century. Until the 15th Century in Germany, the manufacture of gingerbread was restricted to the Lebkuchler, the gingerbread baking guild. During fairs and festivals in Europe, gingerbread was decorated with white icing for the mainstream populace, and with gold leaf for royalty and the wealthy. The craft of making gingerbread house migrated from Germany to America in the 1850s – the British never got into the practice all that much. Today, gingerbread makes its big appearance during the Christmas season. Prague, Nuremberg, and Lyon are still European epicenters of gingerbread mastery today.

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I might have never known how great this version of the Easter Egg Cocktail is if my friend Michelle hadn’t said, “Let’s go to the Townhouse Lounge”. An underappreciated, dark, loud, hipster bar in the heart of Midtown Sacramento, ToHo is also where Bartender Brian works. Michelle and I got far beyond wasted that afternoon, but one of the drinks that Brian made for us that day stuck out in my mind as one of the best drinks I’ve ever tasted. Although his version wasn’t this version, or even the popular version of this drink, I remember wondering what he was making with cream of coconut and blue curacao. Later, I would find out that this delectable drink was a variation of the Easter Egg Cocktail. I knew I had to find the recipe that was somewhat close to that shot, but it took time to find this particular recipe.

How Did Eggs Become a Symbol of Easter?

There are many theories about how colored eggs became associated with Easter. The obvious symbolism is that the egg represents rebirth. The Hindus, Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Persians believed the world came from some sort of cosmic egg. These ancient cultures probably noticed the coincidence of the Spring Equinox with the changes made in nature, and could have merged these into some sort of tradition. The word Easter comes from the name of the ancient Anglo-Saxon goddess Estore, to which April was dedicated. A more practical explanation has to do with the celebration of Lent, which starts forty days before Easter, in which people have to give up something. Orthodox households would not eat dairy products during this period, but chickens would still lay eggs. Easter would be the first opportunity to use up the surplus of eggs.

Coloring the eggs was probably first done by North African tribes in the Middle Ages, although Henry I of England was the first Westerner of record to order decorated eggs somewhere in the early 1000s. This soon became a tradition in England, as the wealthy classes would get eggs done up in gold foil, and the commoners would simply decorate eggs with flowers or herbs. In the 1600s, egg shaped toys were first exchanged, and later in the 1800s, the first chocolate eggs were made. Also in the 1800s, author Jakob Grimm put forth the assumption of a connection between the colored Easter eggs and the pagan goddess Estore, whom he referred to as Ostara. Modern pagan scholars say Estore was strictly an Anglo goddess, not mentioned at all in ancient Norse writings, and barely mentioned in Old English texts. Ostara is a Wiccan holiday which coincides with the vernal equinox, while Easter bounces around, according to where the moon is positioned.

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Easter is one of the milestone holidays in the Western world. A lot of people celebrate it for different reasons, not the least of which is tradition. For someone who marks the calendar by the colors in the shop windows, and the food and drink on the table, we offer you the Blue Cottontail cocktail. This orange flavored cocktail is a fine choice to leave out for the Easter Bunny. He/She has a lot of eggs to deliver, you know.

The Legend of Peter Cottontail

Thorton Burgess was an American writer whose Old Mother West Wind stories featured a cast of animals, including one Peter Rabbit (not the Beatrix Potter version). In one specific book, Peter Rabbit changes his name to Peter Cottontail to sound more sophisticated, but by the end of the tale, changes it back. The name changed was never referenced again in the Burgess books. In 1950, Gene Autry recorded a song called “Here Comes Peter Cottontail” that went to #3 on the Hot 100 Singles chart. Jimmy Wakely and Johnnie Lee Wills also recorded versions of the song that year, each one charting at #3 on the Country Singles chart.

The 1971 Rankin-Bass television special Here Comes Peter Cottontail was based on a 1957 book called The Easter Bunny That Overslept. The 1971 movie is a stop-motion animation classic, filmed in the same style as the Rankin-Bass Christmas movies. Casey Kasem was the voice of Peter Cottontail, and the iconic Vincent Price was the voice of the villian, January Q. Irontail.

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Christmas is the king of Western holidays. Not only does Christmas get all the attention, and mark the culmination of another year, but it also has the widest variety of specialty cocktails. Today, I’m going to investigate another Christmas champagne cocktail, the Mistletoe. The slightly reddish hue automatically makes you think, “Ah, this drink fits in with the red and green of Christmas”. But our Mistletoe recipe also has a flavor palate that fits in with the holiday season.

The History of Mistletoe and Christmas

Mistletoe first became associated with the holiday season by the Druids around 100 AD or so. The Druids believed that mistletoe was a cure-all from everything from infertility to tummyaches. In late Decemeber, the Druid priests would gather the mistletoe, hanging it inside of homes to ward off evil spirits. So that’s how mistletoe first became associated with the winter season. It is important to note that this Northern European species of mistletoe was actually a bush, not the parasitic mistletoe that grows in oak trees everywhere else.

Around 800 AD, the Norse began telling a mistletoe story of their own. Frigga was the goddess of love, and also the mother of Balder, who was god of the summer sun. One day, Balder had a dream that he died, and became worried, because his death would mean the end of life on Earth. Frigga went to the four elements, and obtained a promise no harm would come to her son. Although she made sure that no plant from earth or under the earth could harm Balder, she overlooked the tree-growing Mistletoe. Loki the trickster fashioned a poison arrow from the mistletoe and gave the arrow to the blind winter god, Hoder, who fired the arrow straight into Balder’s chest. Balder died for three days until Frigga could reverse the effects of the poison. Overjoyed that her son was alive once more, Frigga kissed everyone who passed under the oak tree where the mistletoe grew. Later, in Scandinavia around 1820, the tradition morphed into boys kissing girls under the mistletoe. The boys would kiss the girl of their choice, and grab one of the white berries until they were all gone, at which point the kissing privileges also ceased.

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