Recipes Celebrating Women in the Bar & Restaurant Industry

In honor of March's Women's History Month, we've collected a roundup of cocktail recipes by women. From gimlets to spritzes to old fashioneds, this collection of cocktails will help your bar or restaurant raise a glass to the women in our industry and our lives!

If you're looking for more stories from inspiring female figures in our industry, check out our Women in Hospitality column!

Obligation of Nobility

Created by Sophia Greathouse, bartender, Death & Company

“Obligation of Nobility is inspired by the quiet strength and unwavering grace of femininity. It reflects the idea that power is not always loud—it can be poised, deliberate, and commanding without needing to prove itself."

Ingredients:

1.75 oz Knob Creek Bourbon
0.25 oz Bowmore 12yr Scotch
0.5 oz Don Ciccio & Figli Mandarinetto
1 tsp H & H Doce 5yr Maderia
1 tsp Demerara Syrup
2 dash Angostura bitters

Directions:

1. Add ingredients to a chilled mixing glass.
2. Add plenty of quality ice and stir, checking for temperature/dilution as you go.
3. Strain into a chilled single old fashioned glass over a large cube.
4. Garnish with an expertly expressed orange twist.

Step by Step

Created by Abigail Gullo, creative director, Loa Bar

"This cocktail was inspired by Ruby Nell Bridges Hall, who as a 6-year-old, integrated schools here in New Orleans, beginning a lifetime of continuing activism. Proof that progress is just Step By Step. This drink appears in the cocktail book, Drinking Like Ladies, 75 modern cocktails from the world’s leading female bartenders, by Kirsten Amann and
Misty Kalkofen.

Ingredients:

1.5 oz Irish Whiskey
1 oz dry vermouth
.75 ginger liqueur
.75 lemon
Absinthe rinse
Fresh Thyme

Directions:

1. Shake whiskey, vermouth, ginger liqueur, lemon juice and ice in a shaker.
2. Rinse a chilled cocktail coup with absinthe.
3. Strain cocktail into coup glass, garnish with fresh thyme.

Aviation

Created by Kayla Enkler, bartender, Bathtub Gin

"I would like to give thanks to Amelia Earhart who this cocktail was named after. She was the first woman pilot to fly nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean. She is an inspiration to all women."

Ingredients:

2 ounces gin
1/2 ounce maraschino liqueur
1/4 ounce creme de violette
3/4 ounce lemon juice, freshly squeezed
Garnish: brandied cherry

Directions:

1. Add all ingredients to shaker.
2. Double strain into a chilled Nick and Nora glass.
3. Drop one maraschino cherry into bottom of glass.

Summer in Paris

This cocktail is from Hilton Anaheim's cocktail menu created by women for women, and it features a female-distilled gin brand. 

Ingredients:

2.0 oz Hendrick's Gin

0.5 oz Cointreau

1.0 oz Monin Watermelon Syrup

0.5 oz lime juice

4 cucumber slices, muddle

Garnished with cucumber slice and pink sugar

Directions:

1. Combine all ingredients in a mixing tin with ice.
2. Shake well.
3. Rim a martini glass with pink sugar.
4. Strain into prepared glass.
5. Garnish with cucumber slice.

Naranja 95

Created by Elizabeth Smith, bar lead, Bar Zuzu

"Featuring women run distilleries as the base and playing with seasonal fruit and flavors, the Naranja 95 is bright and juicy, not too sweet, with a dry orange finish and rich citrus bouquet."

Ingredients:

1.5 Mijente Reposado Tequila

.5 Amaro Nonino

.5 Dry Curacao

.5 Grand Marnier

1 Orange Juice

.5 Lemon Juice

.5 Blood Orange Juice

.25 Simple Syrup

Garnish: bouquet of mint and a dried blood orange wheel

Directions:

1. Combine all ingredients in shaker.
2. Strain into a highball glass.
3. Garnish with a bouquet of mint and a dried blood orange wheel.

The Ballet Slipper

Created by Natasha Van Duser, beverage director at Bateman's

"This drink was designed in honor of my mother who is a breast cancer survivor. She always loved grapefruit in a cosmo, so I wanted to make a drink that transformed a grapefruit cosmopolitan into a negroni--symbolizing her own transformation after making it successfully through all of her chemotherapy. I wanted to feature a pink ribbon for breast cancer as a reminder that we can overcome obstacles in life."

Ingredients:

1oz Deep Eddy Ruby Red Grapefruit Vodka
1oz Cranberry-infused Suze**
.5oz Rose Combier
.5oz Rosemary Infused Dolin Blanc**
3 dashes of Peychaud Bitters
3 drops Spiced Cranberry Bitters (by Bittermens)
1 sprig of rosemary with a pink ribbon

Directions: 

For the cranberry-infused suze:

1. Put 10 cranberries to every 5 oz of Suze into a container and let sit for 24 hours in the fridge.
2. Lightly mash cranberries to release more juice for color then immediately strain.

For the rosemary-infused Dolin Blanc:

1. Put 2 rosemary sprigs for every 6 oz of Dolin Blanc into a container.
2. Let sit for 72 hours in the fridge.
3. Strain.

For the cocktail:

1. Add all ingredients to a mixing glass and stir for 20 seconds.
2. Strain into a rocks glass with ice.
3. Garnish: Add a pink ribbon to the rosemary sprig. Light the sprig of rosemary on fire with a torch to release the
   rosemary oils. Place the smoking rosemary sprig on the rim of the glass.
    

Matcha Gimlet

Created by Monin Beverage Innovation Directors Melissa Nasits and Julia Melucci

Ingredients:

2 oz Vodka

1/2 oz Monin Matcha Green Tea Concentrate

1/2 oz Monin Yuzu puree 

1 oz Fresh lime juice

Directions:

1. Chill serving glass.
2. Pour ingredients into mixing glass with 2/3 ice in order listed.
3. Cap, shake and strain into chilled serving glass.
4. Add garnish and serve.

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