Now drink this: Green things

By Xania Woodman

Thursday, March 11, 2010 | midnight

Like consuming so much artificially colored Irish soda bread and sporting racy buttons encouraging indiscriminate smooching, the St. Patrick's Day holiday demands that you also ingest green alcohol. Luckily, most bars will happily dose your brew with food coloring. But we think you can do better than a pint of radioactive beer.

Our favorite green drink by far is not St. Patrick's Day-inspired at all, but it does have other cocktails green with envy—it has brains and beauty. Now through April 1, Pete's Dueling Piano bar at Town Square is offering the Opportunitini cocktail, all sales of which benefit Opportunity Village.

The Opportunitini

By Richard Taylor, Pete's Dueling Piano Bar, Town Square Mall, $12

Ingredients:

1 oz. coconut rum

.5 oz. melon liqueur

.5 oz. banana liqueur

1 oz. pineapple juice

Method:

Shake ingredients over ice, pour into a cocktail glass and garnish with a cherry.

St. Peppermint Patty

By Andrew Pollard, Noir Bar, Luxor

Ingredients:

1 11.9 oz. bottle of Guinness Draught

2 oz. Bailey's Irish Cream

1 oz. Jameson Irish Whiskey

1 oz. Marie Brizzard Green Creme de Menthe

1 oz. Marie Brizzard White Creme de Cacao

1 pint Haagen Daaz vanilla ice cream

1 cup ice

Method:

Blend all ingredients in an electric blender until smooth. Garnish with shaved chocolate and a mint sprig. Serves two.

The Height of Folly

By Wendy Verdel, Fusion Mixology Bar, Palazzo, $10

Ingredients:

2 oz. Bushmills Irish Whiskey

1 oz. Bailey's Irish Cream

.5 oz. half 'n half

.5 oz. simple syrup

Method:

Combine ingredients over ice, shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass swirled with green-tinted white chocolate syrup.

Pot O' Gold Manhattan

Nate Collver, Murphy's Law Bar & Grill, $9

Ingredients:

2.5 oz. Jameson Irish Whiskey

.5 oz. Irish Mist

2 dashes Angostura orange bitters

Method:

Combine all ingredients in a shaker over ice, shake and strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with a gold chocolate coin.

Irish Snakebite

By Risa Apeles, Hash House A Go Go, $8.50

Ingredients:

10 oz. Guinness Stout

8 oz. apple juice

1 oz. Monin blackberry syrup

Method:

Layer the ingredients in a 20 oz. glass—blackberry syrup first, apple juice, then top with Guinness.

Fidlam Bens

By Thomas Kunick, Downtown Cocktail Room, $6

Ingredients:

1.5 oz. Jameson Irish Whiskey

1 oz. dry vermouth

.5 oz. grenadine

.5 oz. freshly-squeezed lemon juice

2 dashes Peyshaud's Bitters

Method:

Combine, shake and strain over ice into a rocks glass; garnish with a swath of lime peel.

A little history on this one

Says Kunick, "It is a variation of an old classic called the Scofflaw Cocktail, scofflaw being used to describe someone who had no respect for the law. My variation uses Jameson Irish in place of the Scofflaw's Rye whiskey. The name of my cocktail is an old Irish insult..." That insult referring to one who steals more than he beg or borrows; the term also appeared in the film Gangs of New York.

Blarney Stone Martini

By Joseph Serrano, Auld Dubliner, The Village Lake Las Vegas, $10

Ingredients:

2 oz. vanilla vodka

1 oz. Tia Maria Jamaican Coffee liquor

1 oz. Bailey's Irish Cream

Method:

Combine ingredients over ice, shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.