Summer is a time for refreshing, fruity cocktails—frozen, muddled, or even swizzled. Or for light brews, such as wheat beers, Pilsners and lambic. Still, we suggest a third option: beer cocktails, which mix beer with liquor. At Belga Café, a small Belgian restaurant on Capitol Hill’s Barracks Row, an ample menu of beer cocktails awaits the adventurous. For owner and executive chef Bart Vandaele, mixing of beers with liquors isn’t unusual—it just requires imagination.

For this week’s recipe, we stopped by Potenza—a new Italian restaurant in downtown DC—and chatted with the director of wine and spirits, Elli Benchimol. A native Californian who moved to Washington four years ago, Benchimol cut her teeth in the local scene overseeing the drink program at Rasika before leaving to open Michael Mina’s Bourbon Steak in Miami. Benchimol returned in the fall of 2008, taking over general-manager and sommelier duties at Zola Wine & Kitchen—a job she’s more than happy with: “My original background is making cocktails—I worked as a bartender in San Francisco for about eight years—but I’m more interested in wines. Italian wine is actually my specialty.”

Given her knowledge, Benchimol was an obvious pick to manage the wine-and-spirits program at Potenza, a sister restaurant to Zola, owned by the Stir Food Group.

“The wine program here is set up to be very unpretentious,” she says. “Our menu is very descriptive, so you can confidently pick out a varietal you’ve never had before. You can try something new without feeling discouraged, and hopefully you won’t be disappointed.”

Also interesting, if somewhat smaller in size, is Potenza’s cocktail list, which is designed to play up the restaurant’s Italian cuisine. Classic cocktails have been updated with Italian wines and liquors such as grappa. The Vespa ($8.50), for example, is Benchimol’s take on the sidecar, substituting cherry-infused grappa for brandy and blood orange and Prosecco for Triple Sec. The cocktail is topped with orange bitters and served with an orange-sugar rim.

There’s also the Capriani ($8), a variant of the Caipirinha, Brazil’s signature cocktail, for which Benchimol combines muddled grapes with grappa, Cointreau, and kaffir-lime syrup.

“Our focus when it comes to drinks is seasonal ingredients,” says Benchimol. “As produce goes in and out of season, we want to make sure our cocktails stay fresh.”

Check out Benchimol demonstrating how to make the thirst-quenching Capriani, and make sure to get the recipe after the jump.

Read our interview with Jamie MacBain after the jump and get the recipe for the Coffee Cocktail.

Drinks, anyone?

The word “cocktail” was coined in a newspaper in 1806. To commemorate the occasion, a number of local restaurants, bars, and bartenders are hosting happy hours and parties over a weeklong period. Buck up, liver. Check out these events all over town.

May 6
Bar Pilar's Adam Bernbach will make the Washington cocktail, the rickey, in honor of its inventor, George A. Williamson. Bernbach will be leaving Bar Pilar in a few weeks, so this might be your last chance to watch him make some interesting drinks. 5 to 7. [Ed Note: We previously reported Bernbach's Tuesday Cocktail Session would be devoted to the rickey. That is not the case. The weekly session will feature all original drinks.]

May 7
Bartenders Gina Chersevani (PS 7’s), Jason Strich (Rasika), and Rachel Sergi (Zaytinya) give the ’80s—a decade known for less-than dazzling-cocktails—a second, ahem, shot with a happy-hour party at PS 7’s. A deejay will spin tunes as interesting variations of ’80s cocktails are served. 5 PM.

May 8
Dan Searing of the soon-to-open Room 11 in DC’s Columbia Heights, brings Punch Club back one more time at the Warehouse. He’ll serve a variety of classic punches from 6 to 8.

The rest of this week may say otherwise, but we know spring and its accompanying pleasant weather have (finally) arrived in town. Inspired by Monday and Tuesday’s heat wave, and in anticipation of many more to come, we stopped by DC’s Café Salsa (1712 14th St. NW; 202-588-5286), to get the restaurant’s recipes for two warm-weather cocktail staples: the margarita and mojito. Below, bartender Emmanuel Nadal demonstrates how to make these two drinks. Check the videos out and make sure you get the recipes so you can make these drinks at home.

Read on for the cocktail's recipe and our interview with Holzherr.

Kevin Diedrich of Bourbon Steak.

“I was looking to pick up some night shifts to make some extra money and found an ad online for a bar—it didn’t even mention the name,” says Kevin Diedrich, recounting how he landed a job as bartender at San Francisco’s Bourbon & Branch, one of the country’s most famous cocktail bars.

There were about 350 other people in the applicant pool, but Diedrich—a DC native who’d ventured out west, lured by San Francisco’s thriving cocktail scene—interviewed and got the job. At the time, he was working on redesigning the drink menu for the city’s Ritz-Carlton hotel and working day shifts at the bar.

“I learned about balance in cocktails, the advantages of using fresh ingredients, acidity, and sweetness—it really blew my mind,” Diedrich says of his experience working at the speakeasy-style bar, known for its exclusivity (reservations and a password are required for entry) and extensive menu. “I was lucky to work with and be trained by some of the city’s, if not the country’s, finest bartenders.”

Diedrich brought this knowledge with him to his day job, pushing for more interesting products and cocktails on the Ritz-Carlton’s menu. He also began winning cocktail contests.

“Picking up as much as I could about spirits became like an addiction,” he says, laughing. “I’m always eager to learn, and San Francisco is just so robust in terms of spirits.”

Diedrich followed his time at Bourbon & Branch with a gig at Clock Bar before moving back to DC earlier this year to become lead bartender at the Georgetown Four Season’s Bourbon Steak.

“I love DC—it’s my home,” he says. “And I’m excited to introduce people to cocktails and share what I was so lucky to learn with other bartenders.”

You can find Diedrich jiggering cocktails (“I jigger absolutely everything,” he says. “Even if I have drink tickets waiting. I jigger to make sure the cocktail is precise and consistent.”) behind the bar Wednesday through Saturday, though you may want to head there early—the 11-seat bar fills quickly after 4. In the meantime, check out a video of Diedrich making one of his signature cocktails, the Spiced Marmalade, and get the recipe.