Summer Cocktail Recipe Roundup

With temperatures rising and the first day of summer approaching, we are already deep into our yearly re-discovery of delicious summer cocktails.

Many of our favorite food blogs, newspapers, and magazines have been sharing their favorite summer cocktail recipes for 2014, so we decided to put together a roundup of our favorite posts from across the web, with comments on the recipes we're most excited to make. Enjoy!

“What Are You Drinking?" via The New York Times: Fun interactive feature made with bartender/author Rosie Schaap let's you choose the best summer cocktail recipe for your mood and occasion. We're most excited about the recipes for Pink Gin (which we'll make with our homemade Cherry Walnut Bitters) and the Tequila Sour. 

Dark 'n' Stormy & Friends: Five Spring Buck Drinks via PUNCH: A refreshing collection of five buck cocktails, a traditional category of cocktails featuring ginger beer or ale that includes the celebrated Dark 'n' Stormy. Our mouths are watering just thinking about the Papa's Pride, a variation on the Whiskey Smash.

The TT Official Drink of Summer via Tasting Table: There may be just one recipe here, but it is one we are especially excited to try. This is James Beard Award-winning bartender Jim Meehan's first post since becoming Tasting Table's drinks editor. The recipe, dubbed Beer Cassis, makes a beautifully-colored punch combining Byrrh, Cassis, wheat beer, and citrus... yum! Be sure to check out Jim's excellent PDT Cocktail Book for more great recipes.

Guide to Southern Cocktails via Garden & Gun: When looking for cocktail recipes to beat the heat, we often look to the South. Fortunately for us, Garden & Gun has put together a nice collection of southern cocktail recipes. We're partial to the Seelbach, a delicious mix of bourbon, Cointreau, champagne, and two types of bitters (we use Cherry Walnut Bitters and 1889 Aromatic Bitters). This refreshing, pre-prohibition cocktail was invented in Louisville's Seelbach Hotel, only to be lost and then rediscovered in 1995. 

40 Summer Drinks via Saveur: While not everything on this list is a winner (um, red wine and cola spritzer?) there are some interesting recipe ideas and a few old standards. We'd be remiss not to mention the Paloma (to which we add a couple dashes of Orange Hop Bitters) and the Spritz (made with either Aperol or Campari), two of our all-time favorite summer cocktails.

What are your favorite summer cocktails? Let us know in the comments, and cheers!