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Whoa, Nellie!

A dumb name for a tasty drink.


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I can’t believe that it keeps fucking snowing! And we lost power and internet last week when I mixed this one up! Fortunately, I was still able to access my favorite cocktail recipe app Mixology and look up a few possibilities based on whatever I happened to have on hand and was in the mood for. This one stood out to me because of the combination of rye and grapefruit, which I thought might taste good together. Lately I’ve been finding that rye works better for cocktails than bourbon as it’s less sweet and has a bit more of a spicy bite to it. After mixing this one up and deciding it was “blog worthy”, and after power and internet were restored, I decided to research it a bit more. Most of the recipes I found actually only called for only 1 ¼ oz. rye and also ¾ oz. Cointreau and 4 dashes of Angostura bitters. It’s definitely a recipe I’ll try again, so maybe next time I’ll try that variation. I also might try skipping the simple syrup, as the rum is plenty sweet. However, I used Kraken because I didn’t have any good aged rum, and that’s probably sweeter than a typical dark rum like Myers or my new favorite Don Papa. I guess I’ll have to do a prolonged taste test to compare… In any case, this stripped down version was quite tasty on a cold wintry almost-spring day and it’s worth your time to try it out with the variations that suit you best!


*UPDATE - 4/29/23 - Just made this at the bar with Brugal Extra Viejo rum and Sazerac rye. We use Ocean Spray grapefruit juice and batched lemon juice but this was even more amazing than I remember!


  • 1 ½ oz. rye

  • ¾ oz. dark rum

  • ½ oz. fresh squeezed lemon

  • ½ oz. fresh squeezed grapefruit

  • ½ oz. simple syrup

  • garnish with grapefruit or lemon twist


Shake with ice and strain into a chilled martini glass

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