Skip to main content
Epicurious
Robert Simonson head shot - Epicurious

Robert Simonson

Author

Robert Simonson writes about cocktails, spirits, bars, and bartenders for the New York Times. He is also contributing editor and columnist at PUNCH. His books include The Old-Fashioned (2014), A Proper Drink (2016) and 3-Ingredient Cocktails (2017), which was nominated for a 2018 James Beard Award, and The Martini Cocktail (2019), which was nominated for an IACP Award. He was also a primary contributor to The Essential New York Times Book of Cocktails (2015). Simonson won the 2019 Spirited Award for Best Cocktail and Spirits Writer, and his work, which has also appeared in Saveur, Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, New York magazine, and Lucky Peach, has been nominated for a total of eleven Spirited Awards and three IACP Awards. A native of Wisconsin, he lives in Brooklyn.

Recipes & Menus

Jeffrey Morgenthaler’s Amaretto Sour

The ingredient that takes this cocktail from a tired trend to an improved classic is nearly an ounce of quality overproof bourbon.
Recipes & Menus

Art of Choke

Bartender Kyle Davidson created this bitter and fresh Cynar cocktail in 2008 at The Violet Hour.
Recipes & Menus

Naked and Famous

This equal parts mezcal drink is beloved by everyone who tastes it.
Recipes & Menus

Jasmine

The Jasmine is one of the earliest entries in the modern classic cocktail canon, coming just a couple of years after the creation of the cosmopolitan.
Recipes & Menus

Japanese Cocktail

One of the oldest and most perfect of three-ingredient cocktails, the Japanese Cocktail first saw print in 1862 but remains stubbornly unknown and underappreciated.
Recipes & Menus

Red Hook

The Manhattan/Brooklyn cocktail riff that birthed a dozen others, Vincenzo Errico’s Red Hook was first served at the original Milk & Honey, the influential bar in New York.
Recipes & Menus

Penicillin

No new drink of the twenty-first century has gone further in terms of fame than this complex, spicy, smoky turn on a Whiskey Sour. 
Recipes & Menus

White Russian

If vodka and cream and coffee are among your favorite things, this cocktail may be your jam.
Recipes & Menus

Cosmonaut Cocktail

This is Sasha Petraske's sly retort to the popularity of the Cosmopolitan, as the name coyly indicates. Indeed, the drink, piquant and slightly fruity, fills much the same purpose, tastewise, as that ubiquitous cocktail—only more so. 
Recipes & Menus

Martini-on-the-Rocks

No muss, no fuss. It’s good to go in a few seconds.
Recipes & Menus

Sakura Martini

The cherry blossom, as well as the addition of sake and maraschino liqueur to the usual gin, result in a very delicate Martini.
Recipes & Menus

Allies Cocktail

This drink’s single deviation from the typical dry Martini is a couple of dashes of the liqueur kümmel, which tastes of caraway and cumin, in place of the usual orange bitters.
Recipes & Menus

Puritan Cocktail

The Puritan, another old variation, lies somewhere between the Martini and the Alaska, using both dry vermouth and a bit of yellow Chartreuse. 
Recipes & Menus

Tuxedo No. 2

Tuxedo No. 2 mixes gin, maraschino liqueur, vermouth, and absinthe, and is lightly luscious.
Recipes & Menus

Obituary Cocktail

Basically, this is a Martini made intriguing by a splash of absinthe. If this ends up being your deathbed drink, you didn’t do too badly.