Time to raid your grandparents' liquor cabinet because, as we've been pounding into your pretty little heads for a while now, classic cocktails are back. But while a few select downtown bars are sliding Sidecars and Sazeracs across the mahogany, it's still not easy to find the real McCoy. Enter John Apodaca - the Cocktail Classicist. When life handed him lemons, he squeezed them into a martini glass with simple syrup and gin.

Profile of a Cocktail Classicist:

Goes by: John Apodaca

Hails From: Norwalk

Mixes it up at: private parties

Philosophy: Ditch the syrupy stuff and leave the soda guns in their holsters.

Ultimate Goal: To make people happy. My grandfather was a bootlegger in the '20s and '30s, so making people happy runs in the family.

Where are you when you're not behind the bar? Reading really old cocktail books. I'm also the resident bartender on MartiniintheMorning.com.

Where do you go when you want a well made cocktail? The Varnish or Seven Grand.

How did you get the gig? Three years ago a friend got interested in the classic martini with gin, so he and I started mixing classic drinks for Swing dancing parties for fun. After I was laid off from my day job, I decided it was a chance to learn to do something I really loved. I went to bartending school, but I noticed that they were mixing wrong. The recipes they were teaching weren't what these drinks were intended to be, and they were using pre-mixed everything.

How are the cocktails of yore different than today's drinks? The ingredients. Today's Cosmos are flavored with cranberry syrup, not cranberry juice. A Margarita is made of Sweet & Sour instead of fresh limes. It's all premixed and pre-sweetened, usually with high fructose corn syrup.

When did classic cocktails come back? Dale DeGroff started bringing back classic cocktails over ten years ago when he was bartender at the Rainbow Room in Rockefeller Center. But there have always been these old time bartenders-like Gus Tassopulos at the Hotel Bel Air - he has been bartending since 1959. He can make anything.

Are classic cocktail parties returning along with the drinks? They are, but more for the middle-aged set. The parties I've done are mostly for people in their 40s and 50s. We did a party for a bunch of twenty-somethings and they were all asking for Jack and Cokes - it's like asking Picasso to paint a velvet Elvis.

Which drink is your showstopper? The Breakfast Martini. It was created by Salvatore Calabrese at the Lanesborough Hotel in London. When I make that I always double the recipe. Everyone comes back for seconds.

Any tips for hosting a successful cocktail party? Dress up. One of the things people don't do anymore is dress up for parties. Put some music on from the era you're drinking to set the ambiance - it's like swing dancing. Someone has to lead and the others will follow.

Two Reasons to Forget Vodka Exists:

The Apodaca Martini
½ ounce fresh lemon juice
2 sprigs of mint
¼ tsp New Mexico Chile Powder
¼ ounce orange Curacao
2 ounces gin
Cinnamon (for rimming)

Combine the lemon, mint, grenadine and New Mexico Chile Powder in a mixing glass and muddle well. Strain into a shaker. Add the orange Curacao and gin, and shake with ice for 1 minute. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass rimmed with cinnamon.

Breakfast Martini
1 ½ ounces Bombay Sapphire gin
¼ ounces fresh lemon juice
¾ ounces Cointreau
1 tsp light marmalade (not too much rind)
1 slice mini toast

Combine all ingredients and shake with ice. Strain into a chilled martini glass and garnish with one mini toast.

THE DETAILS: DaddyO's Martinis
www.daddyosmartinis.com
john@daddyosmartinis.com
562.773.2293

Story by Lauren Van Mullem.