The Patriots were considered the underdogs when they played the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Championship game last Sunday.

As the final score showed, you should never count the Patriots out, a lesson we all learned in 2017 when Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and his “piercin’ baby blue eyes” led the Pats to an overtime victory in what has been called the greatest Super Bowl of all time.

As you’re planning your Super Bowl Sunday spread for next week’s big game against the Los Angeles Rams, how about thinking beyond the big beer brand names and including some celebratory cocktails? We asked five Portland sports bars to create a New England Patriots-themed cocktail celebrating their favorite Patriots player. We worried we might get five Tom Brady cocktails, perhaps made with a splash of goat’s milk or garnished with avocado ice cream. Or maybe a glass filled with 12 ingredients, honoring jersey No. 12.

Nope. Sorry to say we have nary a single Brady cocktail for you. But we got two Julian Edelman-themed drinks – appropriate considering his role in Sunday night’s victory – and two paying tribute to head coach Bill Belichick. Another cocktail honors two Patriots running backs and, the creator says, “We hope that people will come running back for more.”

All of the recipes make one drink.

Cheers, and Go Pats!

WWBD (WHAT WOULD BILL DRINK?)

Chad Atherton, bartender at Fore Play Sports Pub, wanted to honor the Patriots’ head coach, Bill Belichick. Atherton says he was inspired by the coach’s “genius football mind” in creating a drink that looks like something you might order to cool you off in the hot sun on a beach vacation.

“Much like his MVP Super Bowl-winning quarterback (Tom Brady),” Atherton says, “coach Bill is cool under pressure and knows which play call to make at the right time in the game.”

At Fore Play, Atherton will be making this drink on football Sundays with dry ice, to give it a little extra cooling effect. (Warning, he says: Don’t try this at home.)

THE BELICHICK

Sugar for rimming glass

1 ounce Grey Goose Vodka

1 ounce Malibu coconut rum

1/2 ounce Blue Curaçao

6-8 ounces pineapple juice

7-Up or Sprite

Lemon wheel, to garnish

Rim a pint glass with sugar and fill with ice. Add ice to a cocktail shaker, then pour in the vodka, rum, Blue Curaçao and pineapple juice. Shake and strain over ice into the pint glass. Top with 7-Up or Sprite. Garnish with the lemon wheel.

THE BAR. WHERE THE MOVIES USED TO BE.

Our first Julian Edelman tribute comes from Jon Sullivan, who manages The Bar. “To me, sports fans and energy drinks seem to go hand in hand,” he said.

Sullivan’s drink, the Edelman Energizer, is a version of the Vodka Red Bull, which has been popular for several years now. (It’s led to some studies and precautions from scientists about the combined effects of alcohol and caffeine. As always, drink responsibly!) Yep, that combination of sports mania and raw energy sounds a bit like Edelman, who was once nicknamed “The Energizer Bunny” by cornerback Darrelle Revis because he “never quits.” He’s aggressive on the field, but also knows how to shift into a lower gear. In his spare time, Edelman writes children’s books. His first, “Flying High,” was about a persevering squirrel named Jules whose sidekick is a goat named Tom. (Get it?)

Should you wish to watch Edelman when he’s in Energizer Bunny mode, The Bar would be a good place to do it. Sullivan notes that it’s located in the former space used by The Movies on Exchange, and in addition to having 11 televisions, the bar also shows games on the original screen from the movie theater.

THE EDELMAN ENERGIZER

1 ounce Ice Pik Vodka

1/2 ounce Deep Eddy Ruby Red Vodka

1/2 ounce Aperol

1 ounce Red Bull

1 orange, for peel

Fill a double Old Fashioned glass 3/4 full with ice. Pour all the ingredients, except the orange, into the glass. Peel a strip of orange and form it into a twist. Rim glass with the peel and drop in glass.

THE BAD OLD DAYS

Alec Altman, owner of Binga’s Wingas in Portland, Windham and Yarmouth, wanted to create a drink with as many locally sourced ingredients as possible, “and I wanted to keep it simple.”

But he also wanted to hint at the strength of two Patriots running backs, Rex Burkhead and Jeremy Hill. The Burkhead Hill is crafted in the spirit of a Vodka Red Bull, but the caffeine comes from a locally made coffee milk.

One thing’s for sure, talking about this cocktail will make you sound like a true Pats fan because, well, the players’ names just sound cool together.

“I chose those names because when you put them together it sounds like a neighborhood that could be in Boston,” Altman said. “Everything that’s in that drink is supposed to be fun and amusing and interesting.”

Rocket Fuel is a “high-test coffee milk” made by Carson Lynch, the owner of Gorham Grind. Lynch suggested adding Frangelico to the drink for a taste of hazelnut. The vodka is made by a Maine native, too, in New Hampshire, from New England spring water (three of the five cocktails in this story use Ice Pik).

Altman says 80 percent of the fans who show up to watch the Pats play in a Super Bowl at Binga’s Stadium in Portland are Pats fans. Or as he calls them, “post-Brady Patriots fans.”

“If you’re 35 years old,” he notes, “you basically have no memory of the Patriots being bad.”

THE BURKHEAD HILL

1.5 ounces Ice Pik Vodka

1 ounce Frangelico

1 bottle Rocket Fuel High-Test Coffee Milk

1 cinnamon stick, to garnish

Pour the vodka and Frangelico into a pint glass filled with ice. Fill the rest of the glass with Rocket Fuel. Shake, pour and garnish with cinnamon stick.

DON’T BE BELLICOSE, HAVE A BELICHICK

Bryant Portwine, a bartender at Rivalries Sports Pub and Grill, is more of a Buffalo Bills fan than a Patriots fan, although he doesn’t let on to his Tom Brady-loving customers where his allegiance lies.

“It would be bad for business,” he said. So when it came time to create a cocktail honoring one of the Patriots, Portwine (isn’t that a great name for a bartender?) also decided to go with that infamous curmudgeon, coach Bill Belichick – the man who built the football dynasty. “I’m not actually a fan,” Portwine repeated, “but I admire what he’s done.”

Portwine’s drink is a take on an Old Fashioned because Belichick is “an old-fashioned type of guy. It’s a throwback drink. He’s like a throwback coach.”

Belichick seems unable to crack a smile at a press conference. So the drink contains a few dashes of orange bitters. Naturally.

“It’s bold, it’s rich, a little bit sweet,” Portwine said.

THE BELICHICK (REDUX)

Think ahead: You’ll need to make the infused bourbon at least 24 hours ahead.

1 maraschino cherry

1 small orange slice

1/2 ounce brown sugar simple syrup

3 dashes orange bitters

2 ounces coffee-fig infused bourbon

2 ounces soda water

Muddle cherry, orange slice, simple syrup and bitters in a big rocks glass. Add a little ice and then add the bourbon. Stir for 20 seconds then add a little more ice and top with soda water.

FOR THE COFFEE-FIG INFUSED BOURBON:

Ground coffee, enough to make 1 pot

5-6 fresh figs, cut in half

1 liter bourbon

Add the coffee and the figs to the liter of bourbon and let it infuse for 24 hours. Strain bourbon through coffee filters.

FOR THE BROWN SUGAR SIMPLE SYRUP:

1 cup brown sugar

Combine the sugar with 1 cup water in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring, until sugar has dissolved. Allow to cool.

EDELMANLY COSMO

The Tavern at Bruno’s supposedly isn’t your traditional sports bar, but just tell that to the crowds that show up to watch Saturday or weeknight football games on a dozen televisions with surround sound. Unfortunately, Bruno’s is now closed on Sundays, so the bar won’t be open for the Super Bowl. You’ll just have to mix this cocktail yourself at home.

The Edelman-tini is the bar’s Julian Edelman-themed version of the “famous” Bruno’s Cosmo, according to Bruno Napolitano, who manages the tavern. Napolitano confesses that his favorite Patriots player is quarterback Tom Brady, but he admires Edelman, the Patriots’ wide receiver, as a “regular type of guy.”

“He lays it all out there,” Napolitano said. “He’s hard-working, a real gritty type of player.”

So why name a “girly” drink after the tough football player with the impressive six-pack and buff arms? Napolitano chose to make over the Cosmo because, by adding the Curaçao, the drink becomes a red, white and blue reflection of a Patriots jersey. It’s also appropriate, we think, because Edelman and Carrie Bradshaw, the Cosmo-loving main character in the late 1990s-early 2000s television show “Sex and the City,” have something in common: They are both into fashion. Bradshaw was fixated on designer shoes, and Edelman has his own clothing brand.

THE EDELMAN-TINI

1 ounce Ice Pik Vodka

1 ounce Cointreau

2.5 ounces cranberry juice

Splash of fresh orange juice

Splash of fresh lime juice

Orange slice

Sugar for rimming glass

Dash of Blue Curaçao

Combine the vodka, Cointreau, and juices in a shaker full of ice. Rim a martini glass with an orange slice then dip in sugar. Shake and strain the cocktail and then, using a spoon, float a dash of the Blue Curaçao over the cocktail.

Meredith Goad can be reached at 791-6332 or at:

mgoad@pressherald.com

Twitter: MeredithGoad

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