Super Bowl LIX: 2025
The Brotherly Shove & The Spags-liato
The Brotherly Shove (Philadelphia Eagles)
1 kiwi
2oz citrus vodka (I used Ketel One Citroen)
½oz blue curaçao
Scoop the flesh of the kiwi onto a mixing glass or cocktail shaker and muddle aggressively. (This is the “shove” part of things.) Add remaining ingredients plus ice and shake vigorously. Strain into a martini or rocks glass and enjoy up.
This cocktail obviously needed to be green, and since my two previous Eagles cocktails both featured Midori, I wanted to strive to do something different this year. I considered green chartreuse (with awareness of the green chartreuse shortage happening in the world) and green crème de menthe, as well as something vegetal—basil, mint, lime, something like that. Really and truly, I ended up wandering through the produce section one night looking for something green that spoke to me, and I found it in a most unexpected place: the kiwi. This also worked well as my desired surprise twist element—something that just (quarterback) sneaks up on you!
Originally I was sort of interested in a whiskey cocktail given Pennsylvania’s long history with whiskey, but I ended up scrapping that for both color and flavor factors (since the brown base mutes the green and I also wanted something that would let the kiwi flavor sing.) I found that citrus provided a nice balance and also that a touch of blue made the color even more spot-on, so it became a mixture of muddled kiwi, citrus vodka, and blue curaçao.
The Spags-liato (Kansas City Chiefs)
1/2oz gin
1/2oz Lapsang souchong tea infused gin*
1 1/2oz aperol or cappelletti
Sparkling rosé to top (ideally a darker one, but suit your taste!)
Stir all but Prosecco together over ice in a wine glass or similar. Top with Prosecco to taste and stir lightly again
(*This is a robust smoky tea and will infuse quickly—it only needs a few hours.)
Despite my previous Chiefs cocktail fatigue, I found myself debating between several promising options this year. I ended up going with the Spags-liato, mostly since I felt like Steve Spagnola could easily move elsewhere in the foreseeable future, plus it offered an easy jumping off point. The traditional sbagliato is essentially a negroni with prosecco, so this was always going to be a version of that (it’s also inherently red!), with some twist layered in to make it my own. I was interested in something smoky or spicy and landed on gin infused with lapsang souchong tea, and I also ended up using sparking rosé instead of traditional white prosecco to enhance the color.
