On 24 May 2012, the James Beard Foundation put out a cocktail recipe roundup that featured four unique cocktails, including:

Donaji (Julian Cox of Rivera Los Angeles) – this cocktail includes chapulines, or grasshoppers.  Those who have been to José Andrés’ Oyamel in DC may have encountered these buggers in taco form, and apparently they’re popular in some parts of South America.  Besides including bugs (okay, the bugs are just on the rim mixed with the salt), it’s a fruity mezcal cocktail.

Paddington (David Slape of PDT NYC) – a citrus rum cocktail with white rum, Lillet Blanc, grapefruit juice, lemon juice, orange marmalade, all shaken together and poured into an absinthe-coated class, garnished with a grapefruit twist.  I made this one tonight, with the modification of Bacardi Gold for the recommended Banks 5 Island white rum (and sadly no grapefruit twist).  Tasted great…I’ll attempt it again soon when I have the full recommended ingredient list.

My version of the Paddington, sans some recommended ingredients.

Turf (Thad Vogler of Bar Agricole San Francisco) – Gin cocktail with dry vermouth, Maraschino, absinthe, and orange bitters, garnished with a lemon peel.  Sadly, while I wanted to pick up some Maraschino liqueur this afternoon, the Virginia ABC does not currently stock it (one of the very unfortunate parts of living in VA versus DC or MD is the lack of some types of alcohol due to the nature of state-run liquor stores).  I’ll make this cocktail as soon as I can get my hands on a Maraschino bottle.

Hush and Wonder (Toby Maloney of The Violet Hour Chicago) – Rum-based cocktail that includes Crème de Violette and grapefruit bitters (which are two more bottles on my list that VA ABC won’t stock – as far as bitters goes, it’s Peychaud’s or bust there), lime juice, and simple syrup.  This cocktail is also on my production list once I have the requisite ingredients…it sounds fantastic.

JBF is great…make sure to check them out if you’re a mixologist or gastronomist.  There are some excellent recipes stored in their database.