The Orange Bourbon Blast from Cheers American Bistro

What’s special about this featured drink? All of the muddling, shaking and torching with fire. Making this cocktail offers an opportunity to put on a show. There's guest interaction and bartender engagement, and that's what folks want.

For what occasion would you recommend this cocktail? It's a sweeter brown liquor drink, so its appeal goes beyond just the bourbon set. This libation would be comfortable at a swanky cocktail party or at an executive networking event.

Orange Bourbon Blast

Tools needed:

• • Muddler

• • 2 rocks glasses

• • Mixing glass

• • Bar strainer

• • Torch

• • Fire-safe plate

• • 2.5-inch ice sphere mold

Ingredients:

• • 1.5oz good bourbon (like Woodford Reserve)

• • 1 oz fresh-squeezed orange juice

• • .5 oz Fireball cinnamon whiskey

• • 2 shakes Angostura bitters

• • 2 half-orange slices

• • 2 Maraschino cherries

• • Applewood chips for smoking

• • Cubed ice and 1 large

• • ice sphere

Instructions: Overnight, freeze your ice sphere. In a rocks glass, muddle one orange slice half, two cherries, Fireball and two shakes of bitters. Fill the rest of the glass with cubed ice, add bourbon and orange juice, and roll the ingredients back and forth with the mixing glass several times, leaving them in the mixing glass. Torch a pile of wood chips in a single spot on a fire-safe plate until the wood is on fire. Put out the fire by smothering it with a separate rocks glass and let it “smoke” the glass for a minute. Flip over the glass, add the ice sphere, strain the cocktail from the mixing glass over the sphere and garnish with an orange slice half.

Have a Drink with Dan Hoch, Dream Maker at Cheers American Bistro, DoubleTree by Hilton Reading   

In the 80s and 90s Hoch got on-the-job experience slinging tropical drinks to vacationers at the beach and flinging funky shots to 20-somethings. He says, “I actually earned a mixology degree in 1990. My expertise in crafting great cocktails comes from 20 years of high-end corporate catering and bartending at Cheers American Bistro.”

Pair it With… soft cheeses, gamey poultry, beef and pork (especially bacon), Asian spices and all things BBQ. At Cheers, order the Loaded Tater Tots; Thick, House-Cured Bacon; Korean BBQ Duck Tacos; Cajun Filet Medallions or BBQ’d Pulled Pork Pierogies.