Cheers to Bryan Cranston

The actor and mezcal mogul joins me on Longer Tables

It’s podcast Tuesday! And on today’s show I had the honor of talking to Bryan Cranston, one of the greatest actors of our age. Bryan has won six Emmys, five SAG awards, two Tonys and an Oscar nomination. And here’s his biggest achievement: He’s one of the first guests on my new show that debuted this week on Amazon Prime: Dinner Party Diaries.

Dinner Party Diaries is a crazy fun show. As I hope you’ll see when you watch, we went big. Our first guests were Jamie Lee Curtis, O’Shea Jackson and, of course, Bryan.

But I can never get enough of Bryan. So I invited him on my Longer Tables podcast, too. On this episode, Bryan explains the roots of his methodical approach to, well, everything; why acting is really like cooking and how he — and Aaron Paul, his co-star on Breaking Bad — launched Dos Hombres, one of the most successful mezcals of all time.

One spoiler: Bryan says one of his favorite ways to drink mezcal is to tweak a drink known as a Penicillin. It was created at the legendary cocktail bar, Milk and Honey, and is traditionally made with scotch, honey, ginger and lemon. But below, my cocktail wizard, Miguel Lancha, has created a recipe for a Mezcal Penicillin using Bryan’s Dos Hombres.

A Mexican Penicillin from Miguel Lancha

Mexican Penicillin

2 ounces Dos Hombres Mezcal
1 ounce fresh lemon juice, fresh
2.5 teaspoons honey syrup (see below)
2.5 teaspoons ginger syrup, like Liquid Alchemist or Ginger People
1 teaspoon peaty single malt scotch, like Ardbeg 10 or Laphroaig 10

Candied ginger for garnish (optional)

Shake the mezcal, lemon juice, and the honey and ginger syrups in a cocktail shaker with cubed ice. Strain it into a rocks glass filled with fresh ice, and float the scotch on top of the drink. Garnish with a couple of cubes of candied ginger and serve.

For the honey syrup, combine three parts honey to one part water and stir until uniform.

Drink one while you listen to the latest Longer Tables episode with the only and the one…Bryan Cranston!