Spring has sprung, finally! My first warm weather cocktail pages of the year feature two close relatives: the Southside Fizz and the Southside. The Southside Fizz is basically a gin Mojito with muddled cucumber and the most refreshing cocktail I know. I’m not kidding, if I had to pick one, this would be it. The Southside is a modern variant with no “fizz” (soda water) or cucumber and is served straight up like a Gimlet, so it offers more bracing to-the-point refreshment.

Spring still stubbornly refuses to surface, so I am holding off on herbs, fruit and citrus cocktails for now. But I’m not complaining, because that gives me excuse to feature another one of my favorite stirred cocktails: the Hanky Panky. Despite it’s adolescent-sounding name, this is quite the grown-up cocktail. Its constructed a lot like a Martinez, but with the key addition of fernet, which imparts an intriguing bittersweet note. If you’re a fan the Negroni, Manhattan,