With Valentine’s Day around the corner, restaurants are trying to lure amorous diners with love-themed menus. But when it comes to love-themed cocktails, however, most alcohol aficionados stick to their favorites and avoid the drink specials. These special occasion drinks are often too sweet, too weak, or just plain bad. But that’s not the case for bartenders who give their cocktails the time, thought, and love they deserve.

Maybe it is just coincidence or maybe it’s the fact that a snowstorm took D.C. back to the pre-industrial age, but two restaurants are experimenting with making their own jelly for use in cocktails. Jelly is actually a historical cocktail ingredient: In the days before refrigeration and global distribution, preserved fruit was the only way to add sweetness and fruit flavor during the winter months.

701 Restaurant (701 Pennsylvania Avenue NW) is debuting a pomegranate jelly-based cocktail appropriately named the Scarlet Letter. Beverage manager Kevin Pruett tells me that the jelly is “essentially pomegranate juice, sugar and orange blossom water but incorporating apple pectin to give it firmness,” he says. Cold River potato-based gin, lemon juice, and Aperol provide the alcoholic kick and bright color, but two spoons of jelly and Amaro Lucano transform the flavor and texture of the drink.

The Scarlet Letter is foamy like an egg cocktail, but Pruett says the drink is vegan-friendly: “Aquafaba [a nifty word for chickpea brine] is an incredible emulsifier that accomplishes an egg-white foam without egg.” The foam is decorated with Angostura bitters and mint, but beneath it lies a very bitter and herbaceous liquid that contrasts sharply with most Valentine’s Day specials.

Blue Duck Tavern (1201 24th Street NW) has also been jamming with their cocktails. Bartender Alex Gordon says the Park Hyatt kitchen makes seasonal jams that rotate every couple weeks. Right now it’s pineapple jam, Plymouth gin, and lemon juice that make the Regent a royal cup. “I like working with Plymouth,” Gordon says. “It’s a neutral gin that doesn’t overpower the cocktail. For me it’s like a canvas you can play around with.” Blue Duck also uses the jam in their virgin Moscow Mule, the first non-alcoholic cocktail featured on this column. It’s refreshing and pretty in a copper Mule cup.

Macon Bistro and Larder (5520 Connecticut Avenue NW) is packing their cocktails with another secret ingredient. Beverage manager AJ Johnson is the genius behind a bevy of five aphrodisiac drinks for Valentine’s Day weekend, each with an ingredient that purportedly gets you in the mood. “Chocolate was an easy choice,” says Johnson. “Cocoa has been used to seduce women for centuries.” The Un Baiser Amoureux (French Kiss) is a Bailey’s, Chambord, and crème de cacao dessert drink that will have you swooning. It’s served in a coupe glass and garnished with a macerated cherry reduction.

Johnson hopes that the Le Sang du Serpent (Cobra Blood) can produce a similar effect on men. Cantonese traditional medicine ascribes cobra blood with the power of supreme male potency. “No, I did not track down any snakes for this cocktail, but I did want to mimic what it looks like,” she says. Cappelletti red aperitivo makes the rocks drink a brilliant ruby color, and the Traverse City whiskey base, Angostura bitters, and Lustau sherry’s piquancy make it strong on alcohol and flavor. A serpentine lemon peel garnish reminds you not to underestimate its power.

I’ve also been preserving fruit for cocktails at home. For the Quaker Cocktail, I make raspberry syrup with a cup of raspberries cooked in a saucepan on medium heat with 1 ½ cups of water and fine sugar until the sugar dissolves. Mash the berries and strain them out using fine mesh. The syrup keeps for about two weeks, and rather than discard the sugary berry pulp, save it to eat on buttered toast. Here’s how to make the drink:

• 2 1/2 oz. brandy
• 1 1/2 oz. light rum
• 1/2 oz. lemon juice
• 1/2 oz. raspberry syrup
• lemon twist

Combine all ingredients except lemon twist in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.