To coincide with the "soft opening" of CocktailGreen.org I pulled together some of my favorite tips learned in the first phase of building this website. There are dozens more where these came from!

1. You can infuse spent citrus shells (after squeezing) into alcohol to get a good base start on flavored spirits and syrups such as falernum, citrus vodka, and spiced rum, as they'll do at Good Company in Boston. read more

2. Instead of "burning the ice" from the well at the end of the evening, bars including San Francisco's Trick Dog put it in a stock pot to melt and be used the next day for the kitchen's stock. read more

3. If you've batched cocktails for an event and don't use it all, as long as it has citrus you should be able to make a clarified Milk Punch with the batch to preserve it for future use. read more

4. Milk Punch you say? If you're making any sort of clarified milk punch you might be able to find a use for the curds such as using it in panna cotta as Allison Kave of Brooklyn does, or making it into an artichoke dip or grilled "cheese" according to Aisling Gammill.

5. Do your neighbors have citrus trees or grow other useful produce? Tara Heffernon of Duke's Spirited Cocktails offers some ways to make connections and trade fruit for bar credit. 

6. Thinking of selling bottled or canned cocktails? It turns out that aluminum cans are pretty earth intensive to make, but if they're recycled they have a lower carbon footprint than glass bottles. Plus glass bottles if shipped will have more weight. But if you reuse those glass bottles multiple times, they're probably the better option.  read more 

7. If you purchase soap bark foam you can make a cocktail foamer pretty easily, according to Justin Lavenue of Austin's Roosevelt Room. read more

A great way to explore CocktailGreen for random useful tips is to read the site in chronological blog order.