Craft Social may be the sports bar on the Celebrity Cruises ships where it appears, but it's not your typical take on that genre.
Yes, the popular bar has lots of TVs and it's a great place to watch a game, but it's also a mixology bar of sorts.
It offers smoked Old Fashioneds and a small menu of drinks you won't find elsewhere on board. Craft Social takes the sports-bar idea and builds it beyond the typical.
Related: Drink of the Week: The Coconut Martini
You can order buffalo wings and parmesan fries, but the drinks are elevated versions that go well beyond the beer, whiskey, and basics served in most sports bars.
The biggest negative about Craft Social is that it's not very big, so it can fill up fast when there's a big game.
The bar shines, however, when there's a sporting event of heavy interest to a smaller subset of passengers. It's a perfect spot to catch your hometown team in a big game or a big European soccer match.
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Meet Tito's Punch at Craft Social
On a recent sailing, Dennis Post of PostCard Travel Planning, Come Cruise With Me's travel-agency partner, introduced us to Marko, who identified himself as the "senior bartender in charge."
The native of Montenegro kindly offered to show us, and you, how to produce Tito's Punch, our Drink of the Week.
To begin the drink he artfully flips one metal mixing glass inside another (the fancy flip is cool but not required).
Marko then fills a tall mixing glass with ice. He pours 1.5 ounces of Tito's Vodka, first into a jigger and then into the iced mixing glass. Next, he adds 1 ounce of orange liqueur and an ounce of rose wine. Marko then surprises us with half an ounce of pomegranate syrup followed by 1 ounce of lime juice.
He then puts one mixing glass over the other and gives the drink an aggressive shake. Marko strains the drink into a tall glass filled with new ice. And he garnishes it with two slices of dehydrated fruit before serving.
Tito's Punch recipe:
- 1.5 ounces of Tito's Vodka
- 1 ounce Orange Liqueur
- 1 ounce Rose wine
- 1/2 ounce pomegranate syrup
- 1 ounce of lime juice
