Creative Cocktails from
Your Favorite Brand Makers

We have a tradition of sharing delicious drink recipes as we unwind at the end a long day. So, we’ve gathered some of our favorites here for your enjoyment. Each recipe card features an original drink designed by one of us here at our agency.

We believe the cocktail is the perfect metaphor for creative collaboration. It’s the give and take of different spirits and mixers that create something unique. We see our work the same way. When the brand experience, the customer experience and the employee experience blend together, the result is nothing short of delicious.

We hope these recipes inspire you to spend some downtime together, spiked with fun and laughter. We’ll do the same on our end and raise a glass to you.

Cheers!
Your friends at Liquid Agency

Liquid Courage

Mixologist: Dennis Hahn
Chief Strategy Officer
Liquid Agency
San Jose

What You Need

2 oz

vodka

½ oz

St-Germain

½ oz

fresh lemon juice

¼ oz

agave nectar

Plus

dash of lavender bitters

Mix it Up

Some drinks somehow hit a sublime note, like this one–the official Liquid Agency cocktail. The sum belies the parts in the best possible way, delivering a unique, delicious and provocative concoction. It might just be too good. And it’s a cinch to make: combine all of the ingredients, shake vigorously, strain into a chilled martini glass and imbibe bravely.

Fun Fact

You’d be forgiven for thinking that St-Germain, an elderflower liqueur beloved by enterprising barkeeps the world over, was created above a Parisian bistro in the late 19th century. The Belle Époque bottle and instant-classic flavor are exceptionally deceiving, but this tasty green stuff was actually dreamed up by an American booze-biz scion in the early aughts.

A Toast to Remember

“Here’s to doing everything in moderation, especially moderation!”

Cherry Blossom

Mixologist: Jen Nelson
Creative Director
Liquid Agency
Portland

What You Need

1 ½ oz

semi-dry sake

1 oz

Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur

½ oz

Plymouth Gin

¼ oz

Cointreau

¼ oz

grenadine syrup

1 tsp

fresh lemon juice

brandied cherries

Mix it Up

Toss some cracked ice in a mixing glass and pour all the liquids in this crazy concoction over it, then stir it up till it is as cold as Hokkaido in the spring. Grab a friend, strain the drink into two chilled champagne flutes, plop your brandied cherries on top and cry “Kanpai!” Translation? “Dry cup!”

Fun Fact

While beer is the most popular libation in Japan, sake is its quintessential alcoholic export. Some folks claim the stuff has been brewed in one form or another since 1,000 B.C., but it’s first recorded as a pillar of Japanese party culture in the Book of Wei, a third-century Chinese chronicle.

Say “Cheers!” In Japanese

Pronunciation: Kan-pie Translation: Dry cup! (i.e., empty your glass)

El Juan Vegas

Mixologist: Scott Gardner
CEO and Founder
Liquid Agency
San Jose

What You Need

2 oz

mezcal

2 oz

fresh lime juice

½ oz

agave nectar

Plus

habanero tincture to taste

Plus

lime wheel

Mix it Up

First, practice rolling your R’s. Once this is mastered, combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker filled with ice, stir vigorously for a good 30 seconds and strain over ice into a couple of tumblers. Garnish each with a slice of lime.

Fun Fact

Mezcal is not a type of tequila. Tequila is a type of mezcal, which is any liquor made from agave (whereas tequila is made from the blue agave exclusively). The word mezcal is derived from the Aztec mexcalli, combining meti (“agave”) with ixcalli (“cooked”).

Say “Cheers!” In Spanish

Pronunciation: Sah-lood
Translation: To your health!

Bit of Our Work

Putting the Muscle Into Brand Messaging

Ernest Packaging Solutions
Campaigns and media

In a Rust Belt industry that’s definitely not renowned for breakthrough advertising, we found a way to shake things up. Enter The E-Team: the most formidable packaging force on the planet.

Interested in our work?

See more
(Don't forget your cocktail)

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Pickled Gibson

Mixologist: Priscilla Phanvongkham
People Experience Partner
Liquid Agency
San Jose

What You Need

2 ½ oz

savory gin (e.g., Hendrick’s)

½ oz

dry vermouth

¼ oz

pickled onion brine

cocktail onions

Mix it Up

Pour your various liquids into a mixing glass with ice and ever so gently stir. Do not shake; you’ll bruise the damn gin! Now spear three cocktail onions, drop them into your receptacle of choice and add the booze. Sip and consider the role of art in commerce.

Fun Fact

A Dutch medieval spirit called genever is the mother of all gins. Nowadays, her descendents abound, boasting different origins, styles and flavors—from Old Tom and Plymouth to London dry and Navy Strength. But what all gins share in common is a single basic ingredient: juniper berries. On this foundation, distillers build their gin, piling any of dozens of other botanicals on top to give it a distinctive nose and taste.

Say “Cheers!” In Dutch

Pronunciation: Proast
Translation: Cheers!

The Gincider

Mixologist: Justin Barreras
Marketing Designer
Liquid Agency
San Jose

What You Need

1 ½ oz

London dry gin

1 oz

apple cider

½ oz

cognac

½ oz

fresh lemon juice

½ oz

simple syrup

Dash

Angostura bitters

Pinch

ground cinnamon

Plus

star anise

Mix it Up

Ready to put every other spiked cider you’ve ever tasted to shame? We thought so. Throw everything but the star anise (your fancy garnish) on top of some ice, shake, shake, shake and strain over rocks into a highball. The result just might keep the doctor away.

Fun Fact

If you’d wandered around the U.S. in the mid-19th century, you would’ve encountered thousands of unique varieties of apples, representing one of the most diverse food crops humans have ever tinkered with. Once the apples were past their prime, folks made equally diverse preserves and cider out of them. That world of flavors is mostly gone, but apple trees are pretty hardy, with some living up to 200 years. Lucky for us, a connoisseur named John Bunker has made it his mission to save as many of these fruit-bearing bloodlines as possible before they’re lost forever.

A Toast To Remember

“May you live for as long as you want and never want for as long as you live!”

Our Purpose is to build brands people believe in.

Successful brands are rooted in a core set of beliefs that guide how people experience a brand.

Got Big Plans?

LET'S TALK
(Drinks on us)

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Gran Mojito Jengibre

Mixologist: Justin Leong
Director of Finance
Liquid Agency
San Jose

What You Need

2 oz

dark or aged rum

2 oz

all-natural ginger ale

1 oz

fresh lime juice

3–12

fresh mint leaves

Mix it Up

In any old glass that doesn’t leak, smoosh up a few or a bunch of mint leaves in some lime juice with a wee baton. Add a handful of ice and then goosh in your ron añejo. Now toss half a lime carcass in there and drown the whole shebang in fancy ginger ale. Stir vigorously while humming Barrio Barroco and try not to gulp. Cigar optional.

Fun Fact

This sui generis rum cocktail is actually a mashup of two island classics, the mojito (Havana, circa 1586) and the dark ’n’ stormy (Bermuda, circa 1919). Modern rum’s predecessor, rumbullion, was first distilled from sugarcane molasses by slaves living in the Caribbean. In the 1600s, pirates began mixing it with sugar, nutmeg and water to create “bumbo,” a drink so popular that George Washington plied voters with it while campaigning for a seat in the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1758.

A Toast to Remember

“God in goodness gave us grapes to cheer both great and small. Little fools, they drink too much—but great fools, not at all!”

Media Daze

Mixologist: Darin Albers
VP of Media
Liquid Agency
San Jose

What You Need

1 oz

rye whiskey

1 oz

cognac

½ oz

Amaro Averna

½ oz

Lillet Blanc

3 dashes

orange bitters

Plus

orange peel

Mix it Up

To assemble this delightful elixir, pour everything into a mixing glass, gently introduce a cup of cubed ice and stir for 30 seconds. (Light dilution by stirring is a sort of lost art, but you should revive it if you want to make this, and most cocktails, properly.) Strain into a champagne coupe, if you like it up, or over rocks in a half pint, if you prefer further dilution. Garnish with an orange peel.

Fun Fact

Being a mixologist (cocktail nerd) is sort of like being a mad scientist, and the bigger the bar you get to experiment with, the wilder the stuff you can come up with. But a good way to start is by playing around with existing, proven drinks and seeing how you can twist them in different, equally delicious ways. For instance, this original recipe is a riff on a vieux carré, a classic New Orleans cocktail featuring rye, Cognac, and Bénédictine. The Averna gives it a nice herbal spin, and the Lillet rounds out the booziness with a little sweetness.

A Toast to Remember

“We lit the candle from both ends, it wouldn’t last the night, but ah, my fellows and my friends, the flame it burned so bright!”

Blood Moon Punch

Mixologist: Cindy Rokoff
Director of Production
Liquid Agency
Portland

What You Need

240 oz

blackberry soda

5 cups

redrum

5 cups

bloody orange juice

5 cups

fresh blackberries

bloody oranges, viciously sliced

Plus

pansies!

Mix it Up

With a bloodcurdling scream, hack a block of ice into tiny pieces and hide the frigid remains in a small bubbling cauldron. Now, while murmuring diabolical incantations, cast all of your ingredients into the cauldron and stir with a cursed spoon carved from a broomstick. Cackle as you take up a cobwebbed goblet and drown a handful of poisonous blackberries and a blood orange slice in your concoction. Then garnish with a happy little pansy! Serves roughly one old church graveyard’s worth of restless ghosts.

Fun Fact

Hallowe’en is a mashup of All Hallows’ Eve and Samhain, the Celtic festival marking the end of the harvest season and the beginning of the darker half of the year. Widely celebrated throughout Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man, Samhain was said to be a time when the boundary between our world and the otherworld could easily be crossed. “Mumming” and “guising” became popular traditions during this time, with people going door to door in costume and reciting verses in exchange for treats.

Say “Cheers!” In Gaelic

Pronunciation: Slawn-chuh
Translation: To your health!

Philosophy

We make brand believers.
Customers who aren’t just fans and advocates, but believers in what your organization is doing and where it’s going.

Employees who live your purpose every day, building an authentic culture and driving winning performance.

And investors who truly understand your brand’s potential, confident in the value it’s destined to deliver.

Are you a believer?

LET'S TALK
(Drinks on us)

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Snazerac

Mixologist: Mark Waters
Client Director
Liquid Agency
San Jose

What You Need

2 oz

VSOP Calvados

¼ oz

absinthe

sugar cube

3 dashes

Peychaud’s Bitters

Plus

lemon twist

Mix it Up

Pour a little absinthe (the real stuff, not Herbsaint, Pernod or licorice liqueur) into a chilled champagne coupe, roll it around in there until it’s well coated, then dump out any excess. In a mixing glass, muddle the sugar cube and bitters until the sugar dissolves. Add ice, pour your snazzy Calvados over it, stir well and then strain into your coupe. Top off with a twist et voilà.

Fun Fact

This is a special French twist, but the original sazerac was actually made with cognac (instead of the more modern variant’s rye whiskey) and was concocted in 1838 by New Orleans apothecary Antoine Peychaud, maker of the titular bitters. And it’s not a real saz without “the green fairy,” absinthe, which was legalized in 2007 after a century-long ban following the trial of murderer Jean Lanfray, whose lawyers dubiously blamed the spirit.

Say “Cheers!” In French

Pronunciation: Sahn-tay
Translation: To your health!

The Tiki Tiki

Mixologist: Katie Wagner
SVP Client Services
Liquid Agency
Portland

What You Need

1 oz

white rum

1 oz

fresh lime juice

½ oz

curaçao

½ oz

orgeat syrup

¼ oz

simple syrup

1 oz

dark rum

Plus

lime wheel

Plus

fresh mint

Mix it Up

First, turn the thermostat up to 85° Fahrenheit, plug in some oscillating fans and envision a sandy land surrounded by cerulean waves. (If hassled by a hot-blooded houseguest or electrical-bill payer, blame it all on a Canadian.) Now fill a cocktail shaker halfway with ice cubes, add all your liquids except the dark rum and shake vigorously. Pour over ice in a rocks glass, float the dark rum on top and garnish with a lime wheel and mint sprig.

Fun Fact

This is a twist on the venerable mai tai, a fan favorite at landmark San Francisco tiki bar, the Tonga Room. Located in the basement of the Fairmont Hotel, the bar used to be a swimming pool with an actual name: the Fairmont Plunge. But tiki got hot in 1945, the pool was dubbed a lagoon and a Polynesian-style “boat” was plopped in the middle to serve as a stage for musicians. Rumor has it that it rains inside every 15 minutes these days.

Say “Cheers!” In HAWAIIAN

Pronunciation: Hooly-pow
Translation: Good health!

The Taz

Mixologist: Justin Peters
Chief Design Officer
Liquid Agency
New York

What You Need

1 oz

London dry gin

1 oz

Liqueur Strega

1 oz

Lillet Blanc

1 oz

fresh lemon juice

Dash

Creole Bitters

Dash

Tabasco

Pinch

ground cayenne pepper

Mix it Up

For this little devil, just dump everything into a shaker with a good handful of ice, then give it a
10-second shake and strain into a big martini glass. If you’re feeling extra spicy, garnish with a couple of tiny red chiles to give it a pair of impish horns.

Fun Fact

The sweet herbal Liqueur Strega, usually enjoyed as a digestif, was born in 1860 in Benevento, Campania, an ancient city in southern Italy known for mysterious psychic phenomena. (In fact, strega means “witch” in Italian.) Saffron gives the stuff its distinctive yellow cast, and tastewise, mint and conifer stand out among its roughly 70 herbal ingredients. This famously flavorful drink is also literarily famous, with name-drops in both Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms and Mario Puzo’s The Godfather.

Say “Cheers!” In Italian

Pronunciation: Chin-chin
Translation: Cheers!
(i.e., the sound of glasses clinking)