Stranger Slings And Violent Delights: The Perfect Cocktails For The 2017 Emmys

The 69th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards are coming up this Sunday, September 17th, and with it the prerequisite watch parties. You’re going to need some powerful libations to honor the nominees this year, and we’ve got you covered — as the hosts of the film and mixology podcast Alcohollywood, mixing media and craft cocktails is our wheelhouse.

Hence Uproxx tapped us to provide a few select libations in honor of some of our favorite nominees from the Best Comedy and Drama categories. Enjoy (and drink responsibly, of course)!

STRANGER SLING

(from Stranger Things)

Maple syrup, for rim

Coarse sea salt, for rim

1 1/2 ounces Knob Creek bourbon whiskey

½ ounce framboise

¼ ounce fig-infused vodka

¼ ounce maraschino cherry syrup

1/2 ounce lime juice

3 ounces pear juice

Dash, grand poppy tincture

The protagonists of Netflix’s nostalgia-fueled horror hit are a little too young to drink this, but we wanted to capture their youthful spirit all the same. To that end, we settled on a drink that is both a play on the Singapore Sling and a sickly sweet ode to Eleven’s favorite meal: Eggo waffles. Cherry, lime and pear make for great complements to the spiciness of the bourbon, and the salt rim counterbalances the sweetness of the cocktail nicely. Also, I double-dog dare you to dip the Eggo in the drink – you won’t be sorry.

To make: Rim a Collins glass with maple syrup and sea salt. Combine bourbon, vodka, framboise, syrup, juices and tincture in a shaker with large ice cubes. Shake until incorporated, then strain neat into the glass. Garnish with Eggo.

KING GEORGE’S LUNG

(from The Crown)

¼ ounce anisette

Fresh rosemary

2 ounces London dry gin

1 ½ ounces cranberry juice

Splash, tonic water

Dash, orange bitters

The Crown oozes with regal British austerity, while offering us a glimpse at the cracks underneath the stoic visages of larger-than-life figures like Queen Elizabeth, Prince Philip and Winston Churchill. With that in mind, we decided to honor Jared Harris’ cigarette-happy King George VI with an appropriately stuffy libation – the kind suited to a royal banquet hall on the surface, but which hides a dark secret underneath. The anisette rinse and bitters add a deceptive spiciness to the otherwise clean drink, making it ideal for weathering even the toughest of London fogs.

To make: Pour anisette into a coupe glass and swirl to coat the inside of the glass; pour out the remainder. In a shaker, muddle a few rosemary leaves, then add ice, gin, cranberry juice and bitters. Shake until combined, then strain neat into the coupe glass. Top with a splash of tonic water, and garnish with maraschino cherry and rosemary sprig.

VIOLENT DELIGHT

(from Westworld)

2 ounces Bulleit rye whiskey

1 demarara sugar cube

2 raspberries

2 sage leaves

2 dashes, Liquid Smoke

Dash, angostura bitters

Slice, orange

The theme park in Westworld offers a distorted, anarchic version of the Old West, so we decided to do the same for a signature American cocktail — the Old Fashioned. Adding Liquid Smoke to the mix brings out the flavors of the rye nicely, and raspberries and sage round out the sweetness from the sugar and orange. Be careful, though: drink enough of these, and you’ll start wondering if you’re really human.

To make: Place the sugar cube in a lowball glass. Add bitters, Liquid Smoke, raspberries, orange and sage, and muddle until the sugar mixes with the liquids and the fruits and herbs are pulverized enough to release their flavors. Add large ice cubes and top with rye whiskey; stir and serve with an orange peel and sage leaves.

SBAGLIATO IS MY FAV-O-RITE… DRINK!

(from Master of None)

1 ounce Malfy Italian lemon-infused gin

1 ounce Campari

½ ounce Limoncello

½ ounce Luxardo amaro

3 ounces Cupcake prosecco

Dev’s giddy enthusiasm often gets him into trouble on Master of None; that, combined with his love of Italy, immediately made us think of the sbagliato. An infamous Italian variant of the Negroni borne of an inattentive bartender’s use of prosecco instead of gin in a customer’s order (sbagliato is basically Italian for ‘messed up’), the sbagliato is a perfect vehicle for Aziz Ansari’s inimitable comic haplessness. We messed it up a bit more by adding Limoncello and amaro, but we make up for it with our brand of prosecco — after all, we can’t pass up a Cupcake Wars reference.

To make: Combine gin, Campari, Limoncello and amaro in a large glass with ice. Top with prosecco, and garnish with raspberries and a curled lemon peel.

PAPER BOI

(from Atlanta)

1 ½ ounces orange peel-infused vodka

½ ounce triple sec

1 ounce peach puree

3 ounces iced tea

¼ ounce lemon juice

Dash, vanilla bitters

Donald Glover’s bittersweet dramedy about working your way up in the Atlanta hip-hop scene doesn’t inherently lend itself to cocktail complexity, so we leaned hard on the show’s setting for our inspiration. (How could we make a drink for a show set in Georgia and not put peaches in it Come on, man.) Still, we think that, if someone shoved this in Earn’s hand when no one was looking, he’d love it. After all, everybody knows he drinks juice.

Sidenote: It’s easy to make your own peach puree! Just macerate some diced peaches in sugar, then blitz in a blender with some lemon juice and a splash of water until smoothie-fied. Run it through a fine mesh strainer, and you can use it for anything from cocktails to ice cream.

To make: Combine vodka, triple sec, peach puree, tea, bitters and lemon juice in a highball glass over ice. Garnish with peach slices.

MEAN JERK TIME

(from Silicon Valley)

1 cup strong coffee

2 ounces Soylent

1 ½ ounces Rhinehall white apple brandy

½ ounce Gosling’s Black Seal Dark Rum

¼ ounce amaretto

Dash, black walnut bitters

Pinch, ground cinnamon

Nothing encapsulates the late-capitalist ethos of Silicon Valley quite like Soylent: it’s basically Ensure for tryhard nerds with VC money. So, we decided to give the boys of Pied Piper a way to wring flavor out of the food-adjacent slushie; taking a cue from another cocktail, the Black and White, we also chilled the drink down with a coffee ice sphere to keep them coding late into the night. This creamy cocktail is so full of nuts, it should get PP to optimal tip-to-tip efficiency in no time. (If you don’t want to shell out for a case of Soylent, just substitute almond milk.)

To make: Pour a cup of strong coffee into a silicone ice mold (sphere or cube is fine), and allow to freeze completely. Place coffee ice cube in a glass mug, then add brandy, rum, amaretto, bitters and Soylent. Stir to combine, and sprinkle cinnamon on top.