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Spatula Diaries: Got citrus? Make a drink.

There’s a lot of local citrus emerging now, and one of its best uses is in cocktails. ‘Tis the season, after all.

Fresh orange and grapefruit juice are key components in loads of classic and modern cocktails. The fresher the juice, the better the drink. Marvin J. Allen, the longtime bartender of the Carousel Bar at the Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans, argues this very point in his new cocktail book, Magic in a Shaker.

“So why are there so few who can create and make great cocktails?” he writes. “First, people fail to realize the importance of using the finest and freshest ingredients.”

Well, then. A fleeting opportunity is before us, my friends. It’s time to create some really memorable cocktails with all that gorgeous fruit now being harvested in backyards and on farms across south Louisiana. With access to a grapefruit tree, I opted first for a Salty Dog, and I turned to Allen’s recipe as a starting point. It’s a timeless drink that combines vodka—or sometimes gin—with grapefruit juice, and it’s served on the rocks in a glass rimmed with salt. Its salt-less counterpart, of course, is the Greyhound. Here’s the recipe.

From Magic in a Shaker, by Marvin J. Allen
Greyhound or Salty Dog
1 ¼ ounce vodka
5 ounces fresh grapefruit juice
Ice
Salt (optional)

Pour vodka and juice over ice in a rocks glass. For a Salty Dog, first rim the glass with salt, then build as above.

As for salt, I rimmed my glasses with two of the salts I keep on hand from Red Stick Spice Co., Murray River Flake Salt (shown) and Madagascar Vanilla Salt. Owner Anne Milneck says other good choices for cocktails are black Hawaiian salt, great with milky-chocolate-caramel martinis, and red Hawaiian salt, which looks really pretty with citrus cocktails. Nice salts are a fun way to doozy up your drink.

Now, this post wouldn’t be complete without a mention of that quintessential holiday morning beverage, the Mimosa. It’s required drinking for anyone with an orange tree. I’m in this group, and I’ll be using Allen’s recipe Christmas morning. Here it is:

Grand Mimosa
¼ ounce orange liqueur (such as Ferrand Dry Curacao)
1 ounce fresh orange juice
5 ounces Champagne or sparkling wine

Pour liqueur and juice into a Champagne flute. Top with sparkling wine. Sip and have a grand time.

This only scratches the surface on the subject of citrus cocktails. Send me your comments on Twitter @mhrwriter, via e-mail at [email protected] or by visiting hungryforlouisiana.com.