The Jack Rose is an apple brandy cocktail that's been around since at least 1908. Applejack, lemon, grenadine. Three things, and it comes out pink.

A whiskey sour is three things. Bourbon, lemon, sugar. Get the balance right and you barely need anything else.

Most apple butter margaritas I found end up tasting like apple pie in a glass. Cinnamon sugar on the rim, sweet apple butter in the shaker, sometimes more cider on top. Pleasant. Also a dessert.

Every banana bread old fashioned I found does it the same way. Bourbon, a pour of banana liqueur, brown sugar syrup, walnut bitters. Nothing wrong with that. It just tastes like banana candy sitting next to a whiskey.

This is the drink I want on the first cold night, and the reason I can have it in one minute is that the work happened back in September.

There is a drink that Benjamin Franklin mailed to a friend in 1763, and it is somehow still the most impressive thing you can hand a guest.

Every September I end up with tomatoes that are too soft to slice and too good to throw away. This year they went into a glass.

Every fall drink I have been handed since Labor Day has tasted like a candle. Sweet, thick, vaguely of pie, and by the third one I want a glass of water and a lie down.