The Daily Tippler

I really tried to come up with an alternative to the Tequila Julep. It should be all over the place today for this once in every five year confluence of The Kentucky Derby and Cinco De Mayo. But, all the alternatives seemed too one sided; while the Tequila Julep seems to sit perfectly between the two traditions. So, instead I thought I’d do a little myth debunking.  The idea of a Tequila Julep isn’t all that clever. Today we generally think of the Julep as a bourbon based drink most associated with Four Roses & Derby Day. But, back when the Julep came into being (this is a long story and If you want to hear it I recommend Imbibe by David Wondrich) it meant a mint drink with any spirit base. The most popular before the Civlil War was probably Brandy, but people drank them with Gin & Bourbon and isn’t a Mojito just a Rum Julep anyway?

So, Tequila, sure why not…

The Tequila Julep:

-1.5oz. Cazadores Añjeo Tequila
-1.5oz. Herradura Reposado Tequila
-1 Tablespoon Simple Syrup
-1 Tablespoon Hot Water
-3 Sprigs Mint

Add Water and Simple Syrup to a mixing glass. Take 2 sprigs of mint and place them leaf side down in the sugar water. Press the mint leaves with the bottom of a spoon to grind out the flavor. Pull the mint sprigs out of the water and press them against the side of the glass with the back of the spoon to drain out all of the liquid; discard the sprigs. Add the Tequilas & ice and stir. Strain the drink into a highball glass filled with crushed ice and garnish with the remaining mint sprig.

As I am sure you are all aware today is the 100th anniversary of the Titanic disaster. A lot has been made of the gluttonous ten course menus served in First Class, which featured no less than two Foie Gras courses.  I was eager to publish a cocktail or two that would have been enjoyed by these tony passengers, however is seems that no cocktail lists were salvaged. There is an impressive inventory on record:

“According to the ship’s manifest, the drink order for the Titanic included 1500 bottles of wine, 15,000 champagne glasses, 20,000 bottles of beer and stout, and at least 850 bottles of spirits. The cargo manifest reveals further reserves of 17 cases of cognac, 70 cases of wine and 191 cases of liquor.”

What was in these 850 bottles of spirits and 191 cases of liquor remains something of a mystery. The next step would be to take a look at the popular drinks of the time; one can easily assume JJ Astor was downing Robert Burns’ while his business partners chugged John Collins’. But, with the endless mining of the pre-prohibition lexicon these cocktails have been blogged about enough.

So, Instead I thought I would offer my own Titanic inspired cocktail. For this particular crowd I thought I’d base my cocktail on Single Malt Scotch for its stately pedigree. The Scotch should be an Islay; whiskies from this small island off the coast of Scotland are said to evoke the sea itself in their flavor. Because we are on a cruise, albeit not a Caribbean one, we can add a little Curacao to brighten things up. Top it all off with an egg white for foam and Bon Voyage!

Down With the Ship:

-1 1/2 Oz. Laphroaig 10 Year
-1/2 oz. Pierre Ferrand Dry Curacao Ancienne Method
-1 Egg White
-Maraschino Cherry

Combine all ingredients in a shaker over ice. Shake Thoroughly. Strain into a high ball glass over the largest ice cube you can find. Garnish with Maraschino Cherry on a toothpick.

Back in February the New York Times ran a short piece on Smoke in  Cocktails. All and all I’d regard it as another on a long list of overwhelming new trends. A lot of these seem to stem from the plethora of artisan cocktail bars and their need to be one step ahead of each other. I don’t mean to be disparaging; I think that each trend has something to add to the cocktail lexicon. I do, however, think that they are moved through too quickly in the the constant rush for newness.

With that said one of these drinks really stuck me, The House Negroni at Craft Bar, with it’s use of smoked Camapari. The smoking of Campari requires freezing and thawing in a smoker which I was not about to try at home. So, I devised an alternative method. For me the Negroni is not complete without an orange peel garnish so I thought why not add some orange smoke. Below is the method, which I do not claim to as a replica of the the original. It is a drink on it’s own and I think a great one for this season when it can’t seem to get to spring, but still isn’t winter.

Light the dried orange peel on fire, drop into a three piece shaker and cap the shaker. Let the peel burn until the metal starts to get hot. Open the shaker and quench the flame with the Campari. Add the Gin, Sweet Vermouth and Ice. Stir until cold. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass or ice filled highball. Light the fresh orange peel and squeeze the oil over the drink before garnishing with the peel

*To dry the peels: skin a whole orange in large pieces leaving the plinth behind. Place them in a bowl on the counter for 4-5 days. Once dry they will keep in the fridge and can even be reconstituted to something approximating a fresh peel. Fresh orange peels will not burn for long, so the dried ones are necessary to really capture the smoke.

I did a lot on BBQ drinks last year, so this year I thought I would offer something more of an honorarium. I, unfortunatley, could not find much on the provenance of this one, but I have a few ideas. It’s called Army Navy and the first receipe I had is from 1948, so it could be in honor of the armed forces and it wasn’t long after the end of WWII. On the other hand it may just have been created at the Army & Navy club in Washington DC. At any rate it’s pretty good and if you like Bols Genever feel free to replace the gin with that. And if you still have a hankering for some of those BBQ drinks, Jump.

Army Navy (1948):

-2 oz Gin or Bols Genever
-1/2 oz lemon juice
-1/2 oz orgeat

Shake with ice till well chilled and strain into a pre-chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with lemon twist.

As with most of what we’ve been discussing over the past week, it is hard to pinpoint the exact time and place where the return to classic cocktails occurred. There are many important bars, restaurants and bartenders who contributed; some aware and some unaware of what was going on. Many people like to think of Dale Degroff’s work at the rainbow room in the late 80′s as the seminal moment; but I think it is more interesting to look at the forces surrounding it.

The cocktail revolution is really just a part of the larger food revolution that has occurred over the past few decades. A lot of this can be attributed to positive economic growth. But more importantly the country’s desire to move away from processed and package foods. To distill the importance of each ingredient in it’s raw and natural flavor. For this I think we owe ‘us’ a toast to thank ‘ourselves’ for our contribution to the revival. Without the tipplers there wouldn’t be much tippling. Happy Cocktail Week everyone!

The Daily Tippler:

-3oz. Sazerac Rye Whiskey
-1 Splash Antica Formulae Sweet Vermouth
-1 Splash Luxardo Maraschino
-2 Dashes Fee Brothers Cherry Bitters

Combine ingredients in a shaker over ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a cherry.

All though we like to joke about the damage prohibition did by preventing people from getting tipsy it actually did some real damage to the country and society.

Prohibition froze the budding American Whiskey and Wine industries in their tracks and a lot of the popular drinks of the early days of the Republic are lost forever.

Over the next seven decades the country would search for it’s cocktail identity traveling through a number of phases; many of them taste-bud numbingly sweet. We drank things straight and on the rocks. We enjoyed Tiki’s, Galliano, and Rum with Diet coke. Cosmos became flavored Martinis which gave way to the low point of drinking culture: Red Bull and Vodka.

Sex on the Beach:

-1/2 oz. Vodka
-1/2 oz. Peach Schnapps
-1 1/2 oz. Cranberry Juice
-1 1/2 oz. Orange Juice

Build in the order given in an ice-filled highball glass

a complete waste of time.

Part 2 of the ascent of the label cocktail involves one of the worst times in the history of the United Sates: Prohibition. The Volstead  act went into effect in January of 1920 and was not repealed until December of 1933 plunging the United States into 13 long dry years of temperance.

A lot of stories fly around about how tippling was a lot more fun during prohibition; sure anything forbidden has a romantic allure. But, the bottom line is the reality of prohibition was a lot less romantic. During prohibition people drank a lot of pretty unsavory things. Bathtub Gin; that meant people were making Gin in bathtubs, I can’t imagine that being very sanitary. This type of booze killed people, often. Along with people this contraband killed off a lot of the tipple names once common, like the Sling and Cobbler. Since booze was hard to come by you drank whatever was available and ordering drinks by name actually fell by the wayside. All though these drinks and, to a lesser extent, names are still around when the country came out on the other side of this dark period it seems that everything was now going by cocktail.

Prohibition:

-1 oz Gin
-1 oz Lillet Blanc
-1/4 oz Apricot Brandy
-1/4 oz Orange Juice

Combine in an iced cocktail shaker and strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with a lemon twist.

So how does Cocktail go from being one of many drinks to being “the” Drink. This is two part story and here goes part one:

All though no one knows the exact where’s and when’s of the story there is a lot of evidence to suggest that Cocktail originated in the Northeast and spread from there. In it’s early days it was looked down on upon as it transitioned from morning tonic to all-day and evening drink. During this time two things were incorporated that helped boost the reputation and popularity of Cocktail: Ice and Vermouth.

Ice had been used in various drinks like the Julep for decades before it made it into the Cocktail in what seems to be the 1860′s. The Italians (sweet) & the French (Dry) had been trying to penetrate the American tippling market with Vermouth since the early 1800′s. It does, however, not seem to take hold until finding it’s way into the Manhattan. Around the 1890′s we start to see the role of bitters diminish and the use of Vermouth and ice skyrocket; bringing the Cocktail a little closer to what we are used to today.

Manhattan, Formula #1 (Old Standard)
How to Mix Drinks – Barkeeper’s Handbook, 1884

-2 or 3 Dashes Peruvian Bitters
-1 or 2 Dashes Simple Syrup
-1 1/2 oz. Whiskey
-1 1/2 oz. Sweet Vermouth

Fill Mixing glass 3/4 with shaved ice, stir, strain into a Fancy cocktail glass.

It is, I’m totally serious…

No I’m not. Nobody really knows where the name came from and there are a lot of stories floating around. Here’s one that at least involves fowl:

A tavern near Elmsford, New York was popular with the officers of the Revolutionary soldiers of Washington and Lafayette. The American troops preferred whiskey or gin, the French preferred wine or vermouth. All enjoyed a bit of brandy or rum. Sometimes late in the evenings, in a spirit of camaraderie, the spirits were mixed from one cup to another during toasts. A soldier stole a rooster from the tavern owner’s neighbor, who was believed to be a Tory supporter of George III of the United Kingdom. The rooster was promptly cooked and served to the customers, with the tail feathers used to adorn the accompanying drinks. The toasts accompanying this meal were “vive le cocktail” and the mixed drinks were so called ever after. (Wikipedia)

Westbrook Cocktail:
Savoy Cocktail Book, 1930
Serves 6.

-5 1/4 oz gin
-2 1/4 oz sweet vermouth
-1 1/2 oz whisky
-2 bar spoons sugar

Shake with ice and strain into 6 cocktail glasses

If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me that question.

Bitters are an alcohol based herbal infusion. The general idea is to take a bitter flora, which have strange names like Gentian & Quassia, a flavoring agent, traditionally citrus in the form of dried peels, and throw it all in a jar of high proof alcohol and let it macerate for a while. Today they come in all forms and flavors and can ad a dynamic zip to your cocktails.

More interesting then the what is the why. You ever watch a movie that has schisty guys in the 1800s selling miracle tonics? That’s bitters! They were originally invented for medicinal purposes and contained alcohol merely as a preservative. It is true that bitters are great for settling your stomach and doctors prescribed them a lot; most “patients” were told to drink them every morning. If you have ever tasted straight bitters it’s not to pleasant, so it was often prescribed in wine or some other spirit. At this point we refer to yesterdays Timeline: someone, probably many someones, got the idea to pour the bitters in the Sling and called it a Cocktail.

BOKER’S BITTERS
Workshop Receipts, 1883

-1 ½ oz quassia
-1 ½ oz calamus
-1 ½ oz catechu (powdered)
-1 oz cardamom
-2 oz dried orange peel

Macerate for 10 days in 1 gallon strong whiskey, and then filter and add 2 gal. water.
Color with malva flowers.