For National Egg Nog Day on December 24, we’re celebrating with the original Four Roses Egg Nog recipe that came from a Life magazine ad in 1936.

Master Distiller Jim Rutledge tells BourbonBlog.com he changes it up a bit by using a bit more Bourbon and forgetting the Rum. They still regularly receive requests for this recipe at Four Roses Distillery and we’re sharing it with you below along with a photo of that original Life magazine advertisement.

Four Roses Egg Nog Recipe

Ingredients

Four Roses Yellow Label Bourbon
6 Eggs
1/2 Cup Sugar
1/4 Cup Sugar
Milk
Cream
Jamaican Rum

Instructions:

1) Beat separately yolks and whites of 6 eggs.
2) Add 1/2 cup of sugar to yolks while beating.
3) Add 1/4 cup of sugar to whites after they have been beaten very stiff.
4) Mix egg whites with yolks.
5) Stir in 1 pint of cream and 1 pint of milk.
6) Add a pint of Four Roses Bourbonand 1 oz. Jamaican rum. Stir thoroughly and serve very cold.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Winter cocktails made with AGWA give a colorful twist and kick which perfect for this season and BourbonBlog.com is sharing a few below. AGWA de Bolivia is the world’s first authentic coca leaf spirit.

Since late 2009 it has been steadily gaining a steady increase in popularity, achieving cult status in major cities across the US.

It starts in Bolivia, where three times a year traditional Bolivian farmers harvest their coca leaf crop and bring them to market.

The finest coca leaves are handpicked and flown over 8500 miles to a state of the art distillery in Amsterdam, where they are macerated and de-cocainized and made into a coca leaf liqueur.

Natural coca leaf distillate is blended with 36 herbs including Guarana and Yerba Mate to truly capture the Incan spirit of Bolivia.

AGWA Bellini
Ingredients

0.7oz AGWA de Bolivia, Champagne

Preparation

Celebrate the arrival of 2012 with a champagne toast that has an exciting AGWA twist! Pour AGWA into a champagne flute. Fill to the top with cold champagne and stir gently. The green color of AGWA makes this cocktail more festive and offers a nice version of this classic holiday drink.

The Green Angel

Ingredients

8 Basil leaves, 12.5 ml Pallini Limoncello, 37.5 ml Martin Millers Gin, 25 ml Agwa, 25 ml pure apple juice, vanilla sugar.

Preparation

In a chilled Boston glass place 7 Basil leaves, fill with crushed ice, drizzle the limoncello and stir. Strain off limoncello, add 3 other liquids and stir to taste. Rim the martini glass with a lime wedge and sprinkle vanilla sugar on outside only. Strain Boston contents into glass and serve.

Bolivian Rhapsody

Ingredients

1.5oz  AGWA
½ fresh lime
1 tsp raspberry jam
1 tsp vanilla sugar
1 dash cardomon bitters
1 tsp chocolate syrup

Preparation

Muddle lime, sugar, jam, and syrup. Add AGWA and bitters and stir. Top with crushed ice in Collins glass. Garnish with lime zest.

Ginger Tree Cocktail

Ingredients

2 oz Agwa, 4 oz Ginger beer, 2-3 fresh limes wedges (squeezed)

Preparation

Mix ingredients in a chilled glass, and top with crushed ice

(As an alternative you can use ginger ale use 2oz ginger ale & 2oz ginger beer)

Popularity: 13% [?]

The librarian in this hotel can be found at the bar and in the picture to the left. The Library Bar at The Lanesborough in London, England helps guests escape winter’s cold amongst leather bound classics and a cracking fireplace.

The photo to left isn’t even of the hotel nor the bar. We are being tricky because we wanted to introduce you to the popular signature drink at The Lanesborough called “The Librarian” recipe below.

The Library Bar, rated by Hardens 2004 as the “Best Hotel Bar in the World,” houses the ‘Liquid History’ collection of vintage cognacs, some of which are more than 200 years old.

The photo below is The Library Bar where distinguished Bar Manager Giuseppe Ruo often hosts exclusive tastings and enlightens aficionados with the storied backgrounds of each spirit.

Strike up a fire and grab a Shakespeare or Dickens classic and make the drink below for the perfect winter’s night in your own living room:

The Librarian

Ingredients:

1 and 3/4 oz. Cognac
1/2 oz. Visciolata Cherry Wine
1/2 oz. Antica Formula Vermouth
Drops of Peychaud Bitters

Garnish:

Address:

The Lanesborough Hotel
Hyde Park Corner London SW1X 7TA, United Kingdom
tel: 020 7259 5599

Popularity: 12% [?]

BourbonBlog.com brings you a winter twist on the Old-Fashioned Christmas theme which will transport your holiday spirit all the way to Colorado with the taste of Stranahan’s Colorado Whisky, created by our own mixologist Stephen Dennison.

Colorado Christmas Fashioned

2.5 oz. Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey
1 Sugar cube
4 dashes Boker’s Holiday Bitters
Maraschino cherry
Half orange slice

Instructions:

1 Place all except whiskey in rocks glass and muddle until becomes slurry.
2. Add Stranahan’s to the mix and place all in tin then dry shake for 30 seconds to break down sugars.
3. Add ice to tin and shake for additional 10 seconds
4. Strain over ice in rocks glass.

Popularity: 13% [?]

At BourbonBlog.com , we’ve often wondered if any of the reindeer choose to recover after that long winter’s night with a Christmas cocktail. They must be of drinking age because they’ve been at it for many years, right? Basil Hayden’s Bourbon tells us it sounds like we now have our answer thanks to mixologist Duggan McDonnell of Cantina in San Francisco, California.

Blitzen’s Bourbon

2 Parts Basil Hayden’s Bourbon Whiskey
1 Reindeer Spice Syrup (recipe below)
2 Dashes Angostura® Aromatic Bitters
Orange Peel

Instructions for Cocktail

1. In an old-fashioned glass, combine all ingredients and stir 20 times.
2. Garnish with an orange peel.

Reindeer Spice Syrup

3 Apples, peeled and diced
5 Large Cinnamon Sticks
1 cup Walnuts
2 cups Sugar
3 Cups Water

Instructions

1. Place the diced apples into water and boil, then reduce heat to low.
2. Briefly toast cinnamon sticks and walnuts in a saucepan, then transfer into apple mixture.
3. Simmer for 15 minutes.
4. Gently stir in the 2 cups of sugar, thoroughly stirring, and remove from heat.
Once mixture has cooled, strain and press the juice and flavor from the boiled apples back in the mix.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Flaming Pyroses

1/2 oz. Grand Marnier
3 oz. Four Roses Single Barrel Bourbon
Dash orange bitters
Candied orange twist
*Smoked cherry

Instructions:

Shake Bourbon, Grand Marinier, and bitters over ice. Strain into martini glass. 
Garnish with cherry and candied orange twist

*To make Smoke Cherry: Soak the cherries in Dry Vermouth and Four Roses Bourbon for a week and then smoke a in the smoker with cherry wood for 5 hours.

This drink was created by Avalon’s Ryan Cohee, winner of the recent Holiday Bourbon Battle in Louisville, Kentucky where mixologists bartenders from Highlands-area restaurants & bars competed in during recent Four Roses 2nd annual Holiday Bourbon Battle in Louisville, Kentucky

The public decided the best holiday bourbon cocktail. Flaming Pyroses,” a drink featuring Four Roses Single Barrel Bourbon, Grand Marnier, flaming candied orange peel, smoked Kentucky cherries and orange bitters.

A total of 14 restaurants & bars along Bardstown Road and Baxter Avenue in Louisville featured specialty Four Roses holiday cocktails the week of Bardstown Road Aglow. It marked the second year for the contest and the third year Four Roses was title sponsor of Bardstown Road Aglow.

More than 800 votes were submitted via text message, email and Facebook from Nov. 19 through Dec. 4.

Popularity: 8% [?]