This Valentine’s Day, skip the fancy dinner and partake in a fancy punchbowl with your best guy or girl. Single this year? We’ve got you covered. Prefer to celebrate early and avoid the February 14 crowds? We’ve got something for that, too.
Romantic Punch Bowls
Through the month of February, Grant Grill is offering punch bowls for two. The Newly in Love bowl is light, bubbly, and refreshing, made with Cognac, Aperol, Cremant de Loire sparkling wine, rose water, Meyer lemon, and cold-pressed cranberry juice. It’s garnished with red roses and ice carved into hearts. The 10-Year Anniversary punchbowl is boozy and sophisticated, made with Westland Peated whisky, spiced Swedish glogg, cacao liqueur, chocolate bitters, and hopped sparkling water. It’s served in glasses bound together by handcuffs. Make of that what you want.
Special Menus
Punch Bowls, Break-Up Cocktails, and Valentiki Drinks
Prohibition’s I Lost My Heart in Manhattan is part of an anti-Valentine’s Day menu.
Single? Head to Prohibition, where Ryan Andrews is serving a three-cocktail “I’ve Got the Blues” menu: You Were the Bee’s Knees is a take on the classic Bees Knees (gin, lemon, honey). Here, he adds peach bitters for a fresh twist (hopefulness?). If you’re looking to dull the pain, go for the Old Fashioned Heartbreak (Wild Turkey Rye 101, Cherry Heering, and R&D Cherry Apple bitters) or I Lost My Heart in Manhattan (Russell’s Reserve Prohibition Single Barrel bourbon, Yzaguirre sweet vermouth, Bénédictine, and R&D House Bitters).
Bartenders Mark Broadfoot (Tamarindo) and Randy Elskamp (Cantina Mayahuel) are doing an Ilegal Mezcal “S&M” Takeover at Mission Hills’ Blonde Bar on February 14. The four-cocktail menu offers mezcal-based takes on classics, like The Safe Word, a Last Word variation made with mezcal, lime, Luxardo maraschino liqueur, Green Chartreuse, and serrano spice. Can’t make it to Blonde Bar? Their Venus in Furs is a fun, easy cocktail to make at home:
Venus in Furs
2 oz Ilegal joven mezcal
1/4 oz Giffard Crème de Pamplemousse Rose
3/4 oz blanco vermouth (try Dolin Blanc)
2 dash orange bitters
Serve in a coupe glass with an absinthe rinse and grapefruit twist
Valen…tiki?
There are a few pre-Valentine’s Day tiki events happening around town if you’d prefer to celebrate early. On Monday, February 12, at Polite Provisions, Erick Castro will be joined by Paul McGee from Chicago’s legendary Lost Lake for what they’re calling a Valentiki Bar Takeover. Cocktails include the Lost Lake (aged Jamaican rum, passionfruit, lime, pineapple, maraschino, and Campari), Bunny’s Banana Daiquiri (overproof Jamaican rum, overproof demerara rum, spiced rum, banana, coconut, and lime) and Waikiki at Dusk Forever (Trinidad rum, overproof multi-island rum, aged Jamaican rum, overproof Jamaican rum, passionfruit, banana liqueur, cinnamon, cold brew coffee, and cream). Rum = love.
And on Tuesday, February 13, bartenders from Pacific Beach tiki bar The Grass Skirt are doing a bar takeover at Caché, the charming French Hillcrest speakeasy I wrote about last week. The four-cocktail menu will feature classics like a Hurricane and Penicillin and a couple of creative tiki drinks: Cantaloupe Without You (rhum agricole, Aperol, Bianco vermouth, lemon, canteloupe, Peychaud’s) and the Tipsy Tentacle (dark rum, biscotti liqueur, lime, pineapple, banana, cinnamon, and coconut).
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Punch Bowls, Break-Up Cocktails, and Valentiki Drinks
Grant Grill’s 10 Year Anniversary punch bowl for two comes with a pair of handcuffed glasses.
