Hello and welcome to Viva la Cocktail. This site is about celebrating the revival of home cocktail culture. Many people have come to appreciate well-made and inventive cocktails in upscale bars and restaurants over the past decade, and now want to enjoy them at home.

The most common time people consume cocktails at home is the cocktail hour. In my opinion, the cocktail hour is a civilized way to end the day and transition into dinner. There is also a resurgence in cocktail parties—but not the old fashioned kind where you can only stay for an hour. Cocktail parties today have become an evening event, complete with heavy hors d’oeuvres or dinner. Cocktails are commonly being substituted for wine and paired with food because cocktails have become more influenced by cuisine.

Cocktails today are all about quality—fresh ingredients, good liquor and hand made. Just as people care more about what goes into their food, they also care about what goes into their drinks. Gone are the days of using pre-made cocktail mixes (margarita mix anyone?) and cheap booze. Even using bottled organic lemon juice just doesn’t cut it—there is a world of difference by using fresh squeezed lemon juice. Try it next time and you’ll see.

Home mixology is about using precise measurements—you don’t want to just eyeball your measurements or use a speed pourer and count like the pros do. Your drinks will taste better by adhering to the proportions in the recipe. A lot of cocktails call for small measurements like a quarter-ounce, so get yourself a jigger or measuring glass with proper markings.

You will see that I will always specify a certain brand of liquor. I am doing this because a lot of people ask me which brand to get, so I am saving myself the questions ahead of time. Feel free to substitute the brand you prefer or already happen to have on hand.

Viva la Cocktail is intended to be an inspiration and a resource for those of you who are looking to embrace cocktail culture in your home. My goal is to curate a compendium of really good, interesting and fun recipes, and I will do my best to provide credit to the creators when they are known. I also offer my own creations (Viva Original Cocktails) for your enjoyment, and I encourage you to share them under a Creative Commons License (see below).

Copyright

All text and images on this site are © Viva la Cocktail unless otherwise noted, and are licensed under a Creative Commons License (Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0). You may use the content on this site freely as long as this use is non-commercial, credit is given to us as the creators, and any derivative works are released under this same license.