From Garden to Glass: The Deserted Island

Cantaloupe + coconut milk = great cocktails AND great popsicles

When I was growing up, my dad grew all of our family's vegetables. In the summer, we snacked as we picked, before we even washed the dirt off:  Sweet carrots. Spicy radishes. Snappy green beans. Bright red cherry tomatoes that we tossed up in the air and caught in our mouths and somehow managed not to choke to death. My mother would load a wagon with club-sized zucchini and send my brother and I door-to-door to attempt to give them away. When my dad would walk into the house with an armful of fresh-picked produce, he'd always announce to no one in particular, "Bounty of the garden!"

So much to eat, so little time. By mid-September all the bounty will be petering away and all we'll have left is apples and concord grapes and beets. Until then, we're turning as much as possible into cocktails at Felicia's. We haven't come up with anything for the zucchini yet, but here's a few other locavore cocktails that made it onto our menu this week:

Twilight Mary: green coriander-infused vodka, tomato juice, and lavender lemonade with a salt rim.
Plum Manhattan: plum-infused brandy, violet liqueur, cognac, and a dash of Angostura bitters. 
Peach Sour: bourbon, fresh peach syrup, and a splash of housemade sour.

And one with a recipe:

The Deserted Island (almost known as 'Sex in a Hammock,' but the bartenders shot that idea down)

3 ounces pureed cantaloupe (rind removed)
1.5 ounces coconut milk
1.5 ounces rum
pinch salt

Fill a double rocks glass with ice. Add all ingredients. Toss in to shaker and back again to mix. Garnish with a lime wedge.

It appears the right one is significantly bigger than the left. Not an uncommon occurrence. 

How to Survive Cornell Graduation Weekend

Cocktails, brunch, cupcakes, and more cocktails

Cornell Graduation weekend is often a good reason to leave Ithaca for a few days. But assuming you’re still here, we’ve got a couple of suggestions for surviving the influx of humans and slow-moving cars:

1.  Have a drink. Obviously. Better yet, have two.

2. Don’t bother to get in your car, and for goodness sake stay far away from Wegmans and anything that resembles a hill or a bell tower. Also avoid all restaurants that offer Filet Mignon, a Finger Lakes Cheese Board, or Pommes Frites.

3.  Come to Felicia’s to eat as well as drink. You see, most graduating seniors are smart enough to NOT bring their parents here and say, “Hey Mom and Dad, you know how you just spent $95,000 on my education? This is where I spent my last year, my favorite place in the world, my home away from home, the place I DRINK ALL THE TIME. (On the other hand, the smartest ones might actually bring their parents to Felicia’s for a Fig Manhattan or Lavender Lemonade to show off their refined, grownup taste in cocktails, a strategy we highly recommend to impress imbibing parents.)

We do not expect to be crowded this weekend (except during Friday happy hour when we are hosting Miami’s finest surf band, The Gold Dust Lounge!!). Grab a flatbread pizza, or on Friday, a Drunken Hot Dog. And on Sunday, when all those Cornellians are up on the hill snoozing their way through commencement, you can enjoy Brunch at Felicia’s either inside or in the alley. We offer table service, excellent coffee, breakfast cocktails, and the most creative Brunch food menu in Ithaca.  

Here’s the link to our Brunch menu: http://www.atomicloungeithaca.com/brunchmenu.pdf  

Note: Our Sunday hours are now 11am-midnight, so you can enjoy your cocktails early and all day, but alcohol cannot be served until 12 noon.

Also currently at the Lounge: Mojitos made with mint from our garden - ditto the Lemon (Balm) Coco(nut) Martinis - and for another week or so, the much coveted Rhubarb Martini.

 We bake cupcakes daily! Our rotating cupcake menu can be found here: http://www.feliciaspeakeasy.blogspot.com/2013/04/cupcakes-at-felicias-in-ithaca-ny.html

Cupcakes at Felicia's Hive 45 in Trumansburg

We bake vegan cupcakes at Felicia's Hive 45 in Trumansburg using all-natural ingredients and no artificial food coloring. Email hivefortyfive@gmail.com to place a special order to fill your party needs, wedding dreams, and personal cravings. Ask us about gluten-free options and wedding cakes. Visit our website at www.hivefortyfive.com for more flavors, photos, and our dinner and brunch menus!

Prices start at 27.50 per dozen
"+" sign means additional cost

Salted Caramel

Mexican Chocolate with Mexican Chocolate Buttercream

Mojito: Lime Cupcake with Mint Rum Buttercream

Chocolate Cupcake with Peanut Butter Frosting

Ninjarita: Ginger-Lime Cupcake with Orange-Tequila Buttercream

Chocolate Red Wine Cupcake with Red Wine Buttercream+

Lavender Cupcake with Lemon Buttercream

Espresso Cupcake with Espresso Frangelico Buttercream

Earl Grey Cupcake with Lemon Zest Buttercream

Mimosa: Orange Zest Cupcake with Orange Champagne Buttercream+

German Chocolate Cupcake with Toasted Coconut Pecan Buttercream+

Apple Pie Cupcake with Ginger Buttercream

Cookies and Cream Cupcake with Cookie Crumble Vanilla Buttercream+

Lemon Zest Cupcake with Elderflower Buttercream

NOT vegan - $33 per dozen):

French Toast Cupcake with Maple-Bacon Buttercream

S’mores (Vanilla Chocolate Chunk) Cupcake with Toasted Marshmallow Topping

This list is not exclusive! We are happy to be creative for you and incorporate seasonal berries and tree fruits. Please alert us to dietary concerns or allergies. Cupcakes are made in a kitchen that processes nuts and wheat. Gluten-free cupcakes can be special ordered for $36-$39 per dozen. We require 1 to 3 days notice for special orders, depending on our baking schedule that week. Delivery is available in Ithaca for an additional charge. One tier and two-tiered and three-tiered vegan wedding cakes can also be special ordered.

Felicia's Fancy-Free Brunch in Ithaca

As much as we love our cocktails, we love creativity. We thrive on what's new and what's next, be it pre-prohibition cocktails, boozy cupcakes, or the next farmers market-inspired drink. And now, what's new and next is our Fancy-Free Brunch. That's right, we are serving up Brunch at Felicia's Atomic Lounge in Ithaca on both Saturday and Sunday mornings from 10:30am-2:30pm.

Frittata of the Day

Brunch-and-cocktails are as married as gin-and-tonic or scotch-and-soda, so you can bet we'll have a doozy of a cocktail list, including such classics as Mimosas (three ways), Bloody Marys (two ways), Buttered Bourbon, and Pisco Sours. Breakfast in a glass.

Pisco Sour

But most important on a Sunday morning (besides a strong cup of coffee) is the food.  We're calling it a 'Fancy-Free Brunch' because we're embracing simplicity, and preparing and eating foods that are as close to the original food source as they can be. We're serving six dishes that will please carnivores, omnivores, locavores, vegans, those who need gluten-free options, and people who require sweets. For our full Brunch menu, click here.

Photo by Margaret Bruns

We went straight to the farms: The meat and eggs are from Autumn's Harvest Farm in Romulus, most of the cheese is from New York State, and the greens are from Tree Gate Farm and Finger Lakes Fresh. We make everything from scratch. We focus on fresh. We fill it with love.

Gerry's Sticky Buns

Did I mention the Sticky Buns and cupcakes??

Chocolate Red Wine Cupcake with Red Wine Buttercream (vegan)

Cocktail Cupcakes

Orange-Vanilla cupcake with Spicy Beet Goat Cheese frosting

I've become obsessed with cupcakes. For no good reason, unless baking for the pure art of it and for personal culinary advancement is a good reason. Wait, am I judging myself?

We own a bar. We serve drinks. Alcohol. Booze. A bit of food here and there, but mostly fancy-pants cocktails, and now cupcakes. I added booze to some of the cupcakes to help them fit in, but it was entirely unnecessary. We sold 125 in the first week.

Ginger-Lime Margarita cupcake with Orange-Tequila Buttercream frosting

I'm learning it's all about the frosting. Most people don't care that I refuse to use unnatural, over-processed ingredients like red food coloring or soy, or that the cupcakes are 100% vegan except when I whip local goat chèvre into the topping. Even the bartenders have become singularly focused, hiding in the kitchen like Gollum, eating the extra frosting by the spoonful and whispering "my Precious..."

Chocolate Liqueur cupcake with Peanut Butter frosting

I've created a monster. An irresistible, drink-your-dessert, cocktail-in-a-cupcake frosting-slathered monster. Welcome to a new definition of the House of Sin.

Chocolate Kahlua cupcake with Chocolate Coconut Ganache

Read about other inverted and perverted twists on cocktails in this month's Mixology Monday hosted at the Putney Farm blog.

Twelve Cocktails of Christmas: Eggnog Latte Martini

Today we start a holiday countdown at Felicia's with the first of the 12 Cocktails of Christmas, which coincides not coincidentally with the 12 shopping days 'til Christmas. You're going to need a nip if you plan to brave the mall with all the other idiots. Good luck finding a parking space. @$%&! Aren't you glad you had that drink first?

To start us off this year: Why drink plain old boring eggnog when you can turn it into a latte and a martini at the same time?

Eggnog Latte Martini

3/4 ounce Stoli vanilla
3/4 ounce Kahlua
4 ounces eggnog
dash of nutmeg

Shake all ingredients into a martini glass. Garnish with nutmeg. Ho ho ho holiday cocktail!

Leftover Cranberry Sauce Mimosa

You can eat cranberry sauce, or you can drink cranberry sauce.

Every holiday should involve a good brunch that includes some version of a mimosa. Since our tummies are reserved for turkey on Thanksgiving day, my brunch occurs the morning after (and/or the day after that, and/or the day after that).

Not only does the recipe below meet one’s daily mimosa requirement, it also provides a creative way to consume some Thanksgiving leftovers. I’ve only tried it with homemade cranberry sauce (which in our house is chunky, and typically includes fresh grated ginger and a dash of Grand Marnier or orange zest), but I’d be curious to know if canned jellied cranberry sauce also dissolves in sparkling wine.

Now if someone can only find a way to get leftover turkey into a cocktail….

Leftover Cranberry Sauce Mimosa

5 ounces sparkling wine or champagne

1 teaspoon cranberry sauce

orange wheel

Place cranberry sauce in a champagne flute. Sloooowly add sparking wine (or it will bubble over!) while stirring.  Garnish with an orange wheel.

Doorbuster Cocktail on Black Friday

I'll need one of these if I shop like a locavore; six if I have to go to Walmart.

Thanksgiving snuck up on me this year. Fortunately, I’m eating at someone else’s house so I don’t have to prepare to do anything other than eat and drink. The gift-giving season that follows, however, leaves me feeling like I should have started shopping months ago. I need a drink, a massage, and chocolate, STAT! And a wreath! And a muffin.

Leah and I lost our minds this year and decided to open Felicia’s at 10AM on BLACK FRIDAY, November 23, with morning cocktails, breakfast sandwiches, housemade cranberry nut muffins, chair massages by Rasa Spa, chocolate tasting/sales with Preliminaires Chocolat, handmade soap and hemlock/sage wreaths made by Tree Gate Farm, and raw honey and jam from Red Tail Farm. Last year, I bought Preliminaires Chocolat for every woman on my gift list; I think the pastry chef might indeed be God if one exists. This year, everyone is getting yummy scented handmade soaps (the men, too, which they can use should they choose to bathe in the coming year). We’ll also have Felicia hoodies, martini glasses, pint glasses, T-shirts, and gift certificates for sale. 

Call me lazy, but if I can buy it all in one place then my loved ones are much more likely to find something other than brown pine needles under their Xmas trees. 

And where else can you drink mimosas, holiday spiked coffee, Cranhattans, and eggnog martinis while conveniently completing your holiday shopping?

Here's my favorite drink to have before I hit the stores: The Doorbuster.

Doorbuster

1 ounce tequila

1/2 orange wheel sprinkled with cinnamon

Drink shot. Bite cinnamon-sprinkled orange wheel. Shop 'til you drop.

The Wiggins Cocktail

I'll have a Wiggins Cocktail or three.

Congratulations to the Wiggins family, the innovative owners of La Tourelle Resort and Spa in Ithaca. This week, they received the Howard Cogan Tourism Award for their contributions to tourism in our community.

You probably haven't heard of the Wiggins family, unless you live in Ithaca. I've met them, and they are lovely. But I admit I've never visited the spa. When I have time to relax, I get as far away from town as I can. Preferably somewhere with no cell service, and no people. And lots of booze.

Howard Cogan, on the other hand, is practically famous worldwide. He's the guy who created the slogan "Ithaca is Gorges," now plastered on our cars' bumpers and across our green T-shirt chests, allowing us to find like-minded individuals when we are traveling in other parts of the country. Don't wear your "Ithaca is Gorges" T-shirt outside of this area unless you want to make friends with other displaced Ithacans who will run up to you and hug you, leaving their patchouli aura on your Ithaca clothing.

The Ithaca Visitor's Center commissioned Felicia's to make a cocktail in honor of the Wiggins family, with the only guideline being red wine as one of the ingredients. Leah created a red wine syrup with cocoa, cinnamon, mustard, and orange zest, which was slowly added to a glass of champagne. I know, mustard? Really? Really. A festive cocktail with a delightful and delicious complexity. The drink will be on our Lounge menu at least through the holiday season.

Election Day Cocktails: Vote Wisely, Drink Heavily

Felicia always says: You can't complain if you don't vote!  $1 off a drink if you come wearing your 'I Voted' sticker tonight. We'll be streaming the election results via projector starting around 7:30pm. And we're definitely going to need to drink to get through this one. Join us to celebrate with a toast, or to cry in your beer with a hug chaser. Vote wisely and we'll hope for a victory toast.

And a locavore shout out to someone who also deserves national attention because he's so awesome: The elderberry juice in the Mormon Elder is from berries that were cultivated, picked, and pressed by Amelia's dad. Thanks, Pop!

Try our election day cocktails today only: President's Punch, the Baracktail, The Nutty Fruitcake, and the Mormon Elder Cocktail!

Best of Ithaca

Frida loves her Felicia cocktails

Felicia got a phone call in September. "You've won best bar in Ithaca again," the reporter on the other end of the line said. "I imagine you're not surprised."

Surprised? No. Grateful? Yes. Every year, Felicia's Atomic Lounge has won a "Best of Ithaca" recognition from the Ithaca Times readers, except 2009 when the categories were more obscure like "Best Place to Release a Trapped Mouse," and "Best Ethnic Restaurant to Eat at When You're Three And a Half Months Pregnant," neither of which fits into our landscape. Here's a partial list of some of our past awards:

2006 Best Friendliest Business Owners
2007 Best Female Bartender, Best Male Bartender
2008 Best Cocktail Selection
2010 Best Drink
2011 Best Cocktail
2012 Best Downtown Bar

We've got the best patrons in the world, and the best bartenders in the world. We don't need an award to tell us that, but it's always reassuring to be reminded we are doing things right.

For more Halloween 2012 photos and other such daily updates, visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/atomicfelicia.

We Bring the Bar to You: Catering Liquor

A Felicia bar at a summer wedding

We've been heading offsite quite a bit lately to do bars for weddings, barbecues, bar mitzvahs, and birthday parties. Catering is a moronic undertaking:  14 hour days consisting of packing up an entire bar at the Lounge, arriving to a location and building an entire bar, serving drinks to people for a few hours, breaking down an entire bar, and then unpacking an entire bar back onto the shelves at the Lounge. And yet we are compelled to do it, because we do it well. My heart breaks every time I attend a wedding as a guest and order a Manhattan, only to have the sixteen-year-old bartender ask, "What's a Manhattan?"

There's a lot of other good reasons to hire someone to cater the alcohol for your event, the most important one being the fact that at a wedding reception, the guests average 5 drinks each. That's the average. Grandma might not touch the stuff ('It's the devil's work'), but your college best friend Buffy sure as hell makes up for it by drinking eleven beers and four shots of whiskey. And who's going to make sure Buffy gets into a cab and not behind the wheel of a car? You think it will be you, but after your sixth glass of champagne and Buffy accidentally ripping the train off your wedding gown while doing the Electric Slide, listening to Uncle Bert's war stories is going to be much more appealing then holding Buffy's hair back while she throws up in the Deluxe Port-A-Potty. Hiring a responsible and well-trained bartender is money well spent.

Plenty going on at the Lounge lately, too. We just finished celebrating strawberry season with a slew of Strawberry Basil Cocktails. Next week will bring back the Black Cap Yap, Watermelon Envy, and a cucumber-lavender infusion of sorts. We are keeping our farmers busy at Tree Gate Farm.

Also coming up: Our next Classic Cocktail night (July 10, 8pm-1am) will include raspberry syrup, a rum punch, and something with ice cream because it has been too damn hot out. For details, follow us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/atomicfelicia .



 

Felicia Table of Elements

Below is the Felicia Table of Elements (or is it the Periodic Table of Felicia?) as seen on display at the Corning Museum of Glass, in Corning, NY.  The science lesson is we are all essential elements, and when mixed properly, we become the perfect cocktail that is known as Felicia.

Woodrow Chichester

Claire Sears-Tam

Abby Reich

Rachel Ferro

Nate Bates

Shannon Bouchard

Bobbi Estabrook

France Dewaghe

Sam Queen

Leah Houghtaling

Amelia Sauter

Felicia