Any honest bartender will admit that making great drinks isn’t an elaborate exercise. The late, great Sasha Petraske —the Leonardo da Vinci of the modern cocktail Renaissance—famously opined, “I don’t think of bartending as a creative endeavor at all. It’s a craft. Much like building a cabinet.” An especially tasty cabinet that makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside, that is.

To his point, the classics often don’t involve more than three ingredients. They certainly don’t require lab equipment or an advanced chemistry degree. Quite the contrary. They can all be made at home, backed by nothing more than modern refrigeration and a commitment to straightforward recipes.

“Being a great bartender is not a matter of skill, it’s a matter of character,” Petraske once said. To underscore the point

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