El Diablo for a Crowd

Author Notes

One of the oldest tricks in my book is scaling up single-serving drinks for a large group. Although not all drinks are suited to scaling (sorry, but the idea of a pitcher of Old Fashioneds does not excite me), it’s a pretty safe bet that if a drink works for one, it’s great in a batch. This is especially true of drinks with citrus and sparkling water or wine. Citrus helps a drink feel vibrant and drinkable, as opposed to an all-spirits drink that’s better suited to small sips. Bubbles bring life to large-format drinks that do not come frothy straight from the shaker, allowing you to serve out of a pitcher or punch bowl without worrying about the drink feeling flat.

Speaking of tricks out of a book, this drink is a slight modification of a cocktail from my book, Drink What You Want, El Diablo Royale. That drink is itself a slight modification to the classic El Diablo cocktail, which is a spicy-and-refreshing combination of tequila, crème de cassis, lime, and ginger beer. In my version, I swap out the ginger beer for ginger syrup (same recipe as the Penicillin) plus sparkling water and sparkling wine. The wine gives the drink a subtle depth, but for abundantly large-format drinks like these, it’s always good to temper the alcohol content a bit, so we cut it with bubbly water. In this recipe, I like a bubblier seltzer, but a more delicate mineral water would work fine as well. —John deBary