orange juice - Girl & Tonic

The Stork Club | A Simple 5 Ingredient Prohibition Era Citrus and Gin Cocktail

by corrie.pennington / February 3, 2021

The Stork Club is Prohibition-era classic cocktail made with citrus and gin. It's named after the infamous New York nightclub. I modified a couple of ingredients to make it alcohol-free which I included in the notes.

The Stork Club is a citrus and gin Prohibition-era cocktail named after the infamous New York nightclub. I modified a couple of ingredients to fit my current dietary restrictions but my altered version is still a great tribute to this Prohibition classic.

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. If you buy a product via my affiliate link, I will receive a commission. This is at no additional cost to you. I only recommend products I actually like!

I’ve been keeping a secret. For over 3 months now. But it’s time to spill the beans. I’m pregnant! My growing collection of mocktail recipes has raised a few eyebrows and now you know why. I think it goes without saying that you can expect a few more months worth of them. But don’t worry, I will always be giving you ideas for how to make my booze-free recipes booze-full. And I’ll also be posting many classic and modern craft cocktails, thanks to the new zero-proof spirit alternatives I’ve added to my bar cart.

Today’s cocktail recipe is The Stork Club. Quite apropos for a pregnancy announcement post, eh? I’ve got to thank my IG friend Risa of @risajamesphotography for the brilliant idea. The Stork Club is both a place and a drink. So we’ll talk about both.

The Stork Club was the epitome of class, fame, and money. It was built by Sherman Billingsley and was open from 1929-1965, with a brief closure and relocation during 1931 after being raided by Prohibition agents. The Stork Club was most known for its many celebrity patrons, such as Ernest Hemingway, Walter Wenchell, the Roosevelt family, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, the Kennedy family, Bing Cosby, Judy Garland… I think you get the picture. It was the place to be.

It’s signature drink was probably enjoyed by most of those celebrities. The traditional Stork Club recipe utilized Old Tom Gin, a sweetened gin that’s harder to find these days, and orange juice. Gin was arguably the most popular spirit during the Prohibition era due to the fact that it requires no aging and can be produced rather quickly by bootleggers. However, this fast-tracked spirit, sometimes referred to as bathtub gin, varied widely in quality and taste. Orange juice did a great job of covering these wrongs.

When I was doing some research for this recipe, I was surprised to see that many recipes differed from one another. Some called for more orange juice, some called for less gin. As I mentioned earlier, I used a zero-proof gin alternative for my particular Stork Club recipe and subbed in orange cordial for Cointreau/orange liqueur. You may want to add more orange juice if you prefer sweeter drinks or increase the lime juice if you like a little more tartness.

If you make The Stork Club, be sure to tag me on Instagram and comment below. Seeing your creations always makes my day!

Ingredients for The Stork Club

1 1/2 oz gin*
1/2 oz orange liqueur**
3/4 oz fresh orange juice
1/4 oz lime juice
dash of Angostura bitters

*since I’m preggo, I used a zero-proof gin alternative. There are several out there, but you can check on my Instagram to see which brand I use & love.

**again, pregnancy means I can’t use orange liqueur so I made an orange cordial instead. It makes the drink a tad sweeter than Cointreau or another orange liqueur would so you can use less if you’re going the alcohol-free route with me.

How to Make The Stork Club Cocktail

Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake well. Strain into a coupe glass. Garnish with an orange twist. Or, you know, a Mardi Gras king cake baby if you’re trying to announce to the internet that you’re pregnant.

The Stork Club

The Stork Club is Prohibition-era classic made with citrus and gin. It's named after the infamous New York nightclub. I modified a couple of ingredients to make it alcohol-free which I included in the notes.

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Course Drinks

Servings 1

Equipment

cocktail shaker

Ingredients

1½ oz gin*
½ oz orange liqueur**
¾ oz freshly-squeezed orange juice
¼ oz fresh lime juice
1 dash Angostura bitters

Instructions

Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker filled with ice.
Shake well.
Strain into a coupe glass.
Garnish with an orange twist.

Notes

*Since I’m pregnant, I used a zero-proof gin alternative. There are several out there, but you can check on my Instagram to see which brand I use & love.

**Again, pregnancy means I can’t use orange liqueur so I made an orange cordial instead. It makes the drink a tad sweeter than Cointreau or another orange liqueur would so you can use less if you’re going the alcohol-free route with me.

Keyword angostura bitters, blood orange juice, gin, lime juice, orange liqueur, stork club cocktail

campari

The Allomancer| A Bright & Bitter Orange Cocktail inspired by the Mistborn Series

by corrie.pennington / October 9, 2020

The Allomancer cocktail is made with orange liqueur, Campari, cara cara orange juice, and Brighter blood orange apple cider vinegar tonic. The name comes from the Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson.

The Allomancer cocktail is a Girl & Tonic original recipe made with blood orange Brighter tonic, Campari, orange liqueur, and cara cara orange. The Mistborn series was the inspiration for this cocktail’s name. Fair warning that today’s post may be a touch nerdy.

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. If you buy a product via my affiliate link, I’ll receive a commission. This is at no additional cost to you. I only recommend products I actually like!

I love books. But I’m a terrible reader. It’s not that I can’t read well, I just read slowwwlyy. I don’t skim– I take in every word and use them to create elaborate scenes in my head… then often have to reread for the plot because I’m so busy thinking about what everything would look like. This is why I both love and loathe fantasy books. Fantasy writers are known for their incredible descriptiveness and their abilities to create different worlds and universes where their stories take place. My imagination runs wild with all this information but that also means it takes me for-ev-er to finish a fantasy book.

My husband is an avid reader and can knock out a phonebook-sized tome in a matter of days. He loves fantasy, too, and has burned through so many series that I can’t keep track. (We have two tall bookcases that are 3 books deep. Yep. Each shelf has 3 rows of books on it. Take that in for a second.) So when he tells me I would love a series, I trust him. But as a mom, online ESL teacher, and cocktail blogger, I don’t have the luxury of time. That’s why I thank & bless the inventors of audiobooks–otherwise, I’d have no chance to escape to a fantasy universe.

The Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson has been every bit as incredible as my husband had said it would be. We’re currently halfway through the first Mistborn trilogy and I love it. One of the things I love the most about it is that the magic system is so unique. Allomancy is far from the typical magic that a wizard or mage would use.

Instead of casting spells or using wands or staffs to zap stuff, allomancers (people who have the ability to use allomancy) “burn” or draw upon the powers found in metals. Different metals produce different effects: burning tin enhances the senses, burning zinc and brass enable the allomancer to manipulate peoples’ emotions, pewter increases physical strength, and steel and iron give one the ability to push away from and pull themselves towards other metals, essentially enabling these allomancers to zip through the air from building to building. Pretty cool.

There are several more metals but I’ll stop there since I assume most of you reading this out there aren’t fantasy nerds like myself. Not every allomancer can burn every metal. In fact, the majority of allomancers can only burn one. These individuals are called Mistings. A rare few can burn ALL of the metals and these are the Mistborn. There’s a whole thing about the mists, too, but again, I’ll stop myself. I honestly could create a whole cocktail series based on this book. And maybe one day I will. But for now, this Allomancer cocktail will stand alone.

The Allomancer cocktail is both bright and bitter, a perfect balance between the two. It also has a lower alcohol content because I used two liqueurs and no liquors in this recipe. Campari, an Italian red liqueur, is known for its bitter bite and orange liqueur is known for its ability to sweeten up cocktails. I love bitter orange and thought I’d merge the two and see how it worked. I’m probably a little biased, but I think it worked well.

I’d also been wanting to create a cocktail recipe that could highlight the divine flavors of Brighter‘s sparkling blood orange apple cider vinegar tonic. I’m a huge fan of Brighter and used their lemon-lime flavor in my Mother’s Garden cocktail/mocktail not too long ago. It’s taken me a while to finally decide, but the blood orange flavor is my favorite. I knew I had to do it justice. If blood oranges were in season now, I would’ve used them to accentuate that flavor but since they’re not, I used cara cara orange juice to add some more freshness to the drink.

If you make the Allomancer cocktail or if you’re a fan of the Mistborn series too, let me know in the comments or in a DM over on my Instagram page. Cocktail lovers and fantasy nerds are both my kinda people.

Ingredients for the Allomancer Cocktail

3/4 oz Campari or other bitter Italian liqueur
3/4 oz orange liqueur
1/2 oz orange juice, freshly squeezed
3 + oz blood orange Brighter tonic (sub blood orange kombucha if you can’t find Brighter near you)

How to Make an Allomancer

Add ice, Campari, orange liqueur, and fresh orange juice to a cocktail shaker. Shake. Strain into a champagne flute. Top off the rest of the glass with the blood orange Brighter tonic. Garnish with an orange peel.