
Rebecca Orchant is a New Mexican ex-pat living in Brooklyn.…
This takes a bit of planning in procuring ingredients, but once it’s mixed, you have a well-balanced, complex cocktail batched and ready for you to cry on its shoulder.
By Rebecca Orchant
Sometimes, you want to do something elaborate and show-stopping with your cocktails. Sometimes you want to flame an orange peel, measure three different kinds of bitters with an eye dropper and squeeze kumquats one-by-one over hand-chipped ice.
Sometimes, you just want to pour something strong out of a big, manly bottle and drink it. Fast. Which is why we’re presenting you today with the Mother In Law cocktail.
This cocktail is spirit-forward, robust*and earthier than what you’re used to drinking. It’s like pouring a leather couch and a smoking jacket into a glass rinsed with a hard day’s work.
Listen, before I sound like too much of a Portlandia episode, let’s just say that having a burly, batched cocktail like this one around will make you happy. It will make you feel happy when you are too lazy to measure things. It will make you happy when you realize you can either stir this and strain it into a chilled glass, or pour it over a big old rock. It will make you happy when, say, maybe your mother in law is around and she has a lot of things to say to you. I am privileged enough to have mothers-in-law who do not drive me to drink too much.** You might not be, in which case you can come over and I will pour you one of these.
* Yes! Hello! This just means strong!
** Just kidding, everything makes me drink! Didn’t you notice? Drink, drink, drink.
Mother In Law Cocktail
This takes a bit of planning in procuring ingredients, but once it’s mixed, you have a well-balanced, complex cocktail batched and ready for you to cry on its shoulder.
- Author: adapted from Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails by Ted Haigh (AKA Dr. Cocktail)
- Prep Time: 5 mins
- Total Time: 5 minutes
Ingredients
- 2.5 tsp Peychaud’s bitters
- 2.5 tsp Angostura bitters
- 2.5 tsp Torani Amer
- 1.5 oz Maraschino liqueur
- 1.5 oz simple syrup
- 1.5 oz orange Curaçao (we used Grand Marnier)
- Bourbon to fill the remainder of a quart container
Instructions
- Mix all ingredients in a quart decanter.
- Cover tightly.
- Apply 3oz, as needed, either stirred with ice and strained, or over a large ice cube in an Old Fashioned glass.
- Yes, seriously, that is it.

Rebecca Orchant is a New Mexican ex-pat living in Brooklyn. She likes onions and pickles more than most people, stops in every diner that crosses her path and has been known to indulge in a cocktail or two. You can find more vinegar, whiskey and butter-soaked tales on her blog, Chronicles of a Stomach Grumble.
I could really use a glass right now. My mother in law is staying with us for a couple of days and it’s driving me crazy. Anyway, bottoms up!
★★★★★
Would love to hear how this remedy performs in the field. Let us know if you give it a whirl!
Nice
Thanks! I have consumed more of these than I will admit this week.