Periodic cocktail check

All cocktails used to be accessible via the ‘periodic bar check’, but since I put the bar on hold for some time, that isn’t the case anymore. Time to do a cocktail overview, so you can easily link to the different recipes. I’ll be doing this periodically as well, although not every month.

Gin-based

Aviation

Cabaret

Devil’s Own

Dry Martini

Gin Ho

Gin Scaffa

Imperial

Lord Suffolk

Monk

Orange Bloom

Pink Gin

Poet’s Dream

Rolls Royce

White Lady

No base

D.O.M.

Humpty Dumpty Cocktail

Wailuc  (does contain gin)

Non-alcoholic

Eskimo Flip

Thanks for joining my expanding bar tour in 2013. May the next year bring some nice new additions (including a new base spirit) and more tasty cocktails to experience.

It’s not in the bar yet, but I hope you have some bubbly stuff to have a toast to the new year.

Salud!

Periodic bar check

Well, absolutely no new ingredients to report. I thought it was better to take a pause and explore the other possibilities we now have with the bar.
But in the new year we'll kick off with an ambitious new addition to the bar.

The bar now holds:

Bases

gin

Aperitif Wines

dry vermouth
sweet vermouth

Liqueurs
maraschino
Cointreau
Bénédictine

Bitters
Angostura bitters

Juices
lemon

General Ingredients

ice

Glasses

Old Fashioned glass

cocktail glass

Barware

jigger

bar spoon
cocktail shaker
juicer
bar knife
channel knife

Bar on hold: Lord Suffolk and the Gin Scaffa

Yes, there’s still more to do with the current bar: two extra cocktails (or one, if you want to be fundamental about it) for the recipe book.

Lord Suffolk

Who’s Lord Suffolk? I really wouldn’t know. Is it important? I guess not. Not for making this cocktail, at least.

It can be found in both the The Savoy Cocktail Book and the Café Royal Cocktail Book. They both give exactly the same recipe and I didn’t see any reason to tinker with what I found.

5 parts gin

1 part sweet vermouth

1 part Cointreau

1 part maraschino

glass:  cocktail

Stir with ice and strain into the glass.

A combination with two liqueurs, the first drink we encounter to do so. And it works. All ingredients are still quite discernable, but seem to work together just fine.

Gin Scaffa

This is actually opens up a whole new family of mixed drinks. The scaffa is different from the traditional cocktail, although we got used to the term ‘cocktail’ for all mixed drinks. While the original cocktail concept has spirit, sugar, bitters and water, the scaffa lacks the water (or more specifically ice) component. That’s right: a scaffa isn’t chilled, it’s supposed to be consumed at room temperature.

The word ‘scaffa’ seems to mean ‘cupboard’ in some obscure language. I’m not sure whether that’s really the origin of this type of drink, but it very aptly conveys the idea of the drink. You look what’s left in your drinking inventory and whip some of it together in a glass. It’s not fancy, but it’s pragmatic. It’s simple out of necessity or because you just can’t be bothered for once (we all have those moments).

I wouldn’t add juice to a scaffa, but it will normally contain a spirit, liqueur(s) and very possibly bitters. Just stirring it in the glass will do. That’s all there is to it.

There are scaffa recipes, like this one here. But it should be obvious that any iceless concoction you pull from your cupboard fits the bill, so don’t feel limited.

2 parts gin

1 part Bénédictine

1 dash Angostura bitters

glass:  any

Build in the glass and stir.

Adding a garnish or prescribing a specific kind of glass just doesn’t seem to fit the concept, in my opinion. So you can actually slack off and give it a fancy name. Brilliant.

Bar on hold: Cabaret and the Wailuc

Before year’s end I want to push through some extra recipes which can be made with our current bar. So let’s get to some mixing.

Cabaret

There are actually two kinds of the Cabaret cocktail. One version can be found in The Savoy Cocktail Book and uses gin, a quinquina (a type of aperitif wine), Angostura and absinthe (or pastis). But that’s not the version I’ll be putting forward here.

The other Cabaret can be considered a milder version of the Rolls Royce. Leaving out the sweet vermouth makes the cocktail a bit less aromatic and easier, even though the bitters fill up the gap that’s been left.

4 parts gin

3 parts dry vermouth

1 part Bénédictine

2 dashes Angostura bitters

glass:  cocktail

Stir with ice and strain into the glass.

Garnish with a cherry (if available).

Of course there are also different version of this type of Cabaret: ratios can vary between recipes. I’ve stuck to the ratio that Robert Hess uses.

Poet’s Dream

If you happen to have some orange bitters (probably not, but you if you like mixing you should really consider looking for them) you get a bonus recipe with the Cabaret.

If you substitute orange bitters for the Angostura bitters, your concoction would be called the Poet’s Dream.

Wailuc

This is an oddball. I stumbled upon it at the CocktailDB. It has gin and sweet vermouth, but the base spirit only gets a supporting role.

7 parts sweet vermouth

2 parts gin

1 dash maraschino

glass:  cocktail

Stir with ice and strain into the glass.

Garnish with a lemon twist

You’ll have to like sweet vermouth to like this cocktail, so much is clear. Use a high quality vermouth like Carpano Antica to get the most out of the Wailuc.

Since the gin takes a back seat, don’t hesitate to use a high ABV gin (I went for Tanqueray here).

The Golden Ratio

When discussing the Devil’s Own I briefly touched upon the golden ratio. It’s a system that has been put forth by Jamie Boudreau. Why not let the man explain the system himself:

Before we continue, a little quiz: do you recognize the bottle that he is holding at the beginning of the clip? It has seen some coverage in this blog.

Okay, so on the golden ratio.

Jamie is talking in ounces, but basically it comes down to a 6:3:1 ratio for spirits, aperitif and modifier. If you are using centiliters, you probably don’t even have to do some math: 10 cl sounds fine for most cocktail glasses.

This golden ratio is a starting point. It’s a bit risky to say it will work 95% of the time. And even though some recipes might work, that’s not the same as mixing a legendary recipe. It will require some thinking and experience to balance the flavors, certainly if you’re in the mood for a specific kind of cocktail. Even if you stumble upon something memorable, it might still pay off to tweak around a bit with the ratio or the bitters.

Don’t forget that Jamie mentions that you can add bitters to taste. Bitters are the magic wand of the bartender. We only have Angostura at the moment, but we will be adding more later. It’s that kind of finishing touches which can make a cocktail truly shine.

Apart from freeform mixing, when you are trying out new combinations, the golden ratio will be very useful in the following situations:

·        You are mixing somewhere else without access to your bar and have to make do with the stuff that happens to lay around (just pray they have some vermouth).

·        You are not satisfied with the way a vermouth cocktail tastes, and want to play around with the ratios. The golden ratio could be your choice alternative.

Just don’t go in blindly. In this forum someone tried a combination of tequila, Lillet and Drambuie. Well, the Lillet is not the problem here (it will probably never be, actually). But Drambuie is honeysweet whisky liqueur and tequila is the most outspoken, harsh, hard-to-mix spirit you could ever choose. There’s a reason there are not many cocktails with Drambuie and not many (good) cocktails with tequila: they tend to make problems with other ingredients. I can’t even start to imagine how these could work together in a drink.

There’s still something useful to gain from the forum page, though. As you can read there, the golden ratio isn’t the only ‘standard ratio’ or ‘no fail ratio’ that’s being used out there. And of course, not every cocktail has aperitif wine as an ingredient.

But go ahead and play around with the idea. Who knows, maybe you’ll stumble upon something brilliant.

Periodic bar check

Just one ingredient added to the bar this month. There's still some cocktails to discuss before we continue to expand our collection.

The bar now holds:

Bases

gin

Aperitif Wines

dry vermouth
sweet vermouth

Liqueurs
maraschino
Cointreau
Bénédictine

Bitters
Angostura bitters

Juices
lemon

General Ingredients

ice

Glasses

Old Fashioned glass

cocktail glass

Barware

jigger

bar spoon
cocktail shaker
juicer
bar knife
channel knife

Bar on hold: Devil's Own and the Imperial

We continue with two cocktails that look more like Pink Gin than Pink Gin itself.

They are very comparable in ingredients, but the original recipes have vastly different ratios. And they both need some serious adjustment to work.

Devil’s Own

Found in the Café Royal Cocktail Book and invented by Colin Symons. The original works with an equal parts ratio, which makes for an overkill of Cointreau. So I shifted to the ‘golden ratio’ as has been promoted by Jamie Boudreau.

6 parts gin

3 parts dry vermouth

1 part Cointreau

1 dash Angostura bitters

glass:  cocktail

Stir with ice and strain into the glass.

It’s the cocktail on the right. Because only one dash of Angostura is added and all ingredients are clear or lightly coloured, you get the pinkish-orange hue.

Imperial

Found in The Savoy Cocktail Book, but also included in Tim Daly’s Bartenders’ Encyclopedia (1903).

The original only adds a dash of maraschino and is half vermouth. I’m not very afraid of vermouth, but increasing the amount of gin and maraschino does not hurt this cocktail.

Adding a full part of maraschino was too much, though… it’s a lot more assertive than Cointreau.

2 parts gin

1 parts dry vermouth

1 bar spoon maraschino

1 dash Angostura bitters

glass:  cocktail

Stir with ice and strain into the glass.

Garnish with an olive or a cherry.

It’s the cocktail on the left. The original garnish would be an olive, but a cherry is also very appropriate. Both garnishes aren’t part of the bar yet, so it will depend on your personal stock.

Bar on hold: Pink Gin and the Monk

We’ve expanded the bar quite a bit by now. It’s interesting to make do with what we’ve got at this moment and see which other recipes are out there.

So here’s a true classic and an obscure one.

Pink Gin

How simple can a cocktail be? Just gin and bitters. Quite a lot of bitters, actually.

Very British and linked to the Royal Navy. It remained the officers’ signature drink for a long time, until the Horse’s Neck finally took over in the 1960’s.

It is historically made with Plymouth gin. I very much recommend doing the same.

If you’re up for the full maritime Pink Gin experience, don’t chill the drink but serve at room temperature.

Plymouth gin (about 6 cl)

4 dashes Angostura bitters

glass:  cocktail (or other)

Stir with ice and strain into the glass.

As you can see, if you’re drinking a truly pink drink you’re not drinking Pink Gin.

This is another cocktail that begs for a small glass, as it is not much more than a dose of base spirits. As stated above, other kinds of glasses are not unheard of, so take one that fits the proper amount. An Old Fashioned glass will always work, striking a cool pose even when the liquid is low.

Monk

Gin and lemon with maraschino makes an Aviation. With Cointreau you’ll get a White Lady. So what about Bénédictine? Well, that ends up as a Monk.

Each gin/lemon-cocktail has its own specific ratio… for the Monk I like to stick to the recipe from the Café Royal Cocktail Book.

2 parts gin

1 part Bénédictine

1 part lemon juice

glass:  cocktail

Shake with ice and strain into the glass.

It’s great to try out the differences between the various liqueurs in this configuration. Each variant deserves its own place.

Angostura bitters (D.O.M.)

We’re going to make a great stride with this addition: a key ingredient group that’s still missing from our bar are the bitters.

There are two kinds of bitters: those that can be consumed directly (such as Campari, Aperol and Fernet Branca) and the bitters that live up to their name in such a way that they are only used as a mixing ingredient. Even during Prohibition these latter bitters were still legal to sell, because no sane person would drink the stuff directly.

The bitters originate from the elixirs and tonics that were sold as medicinal drinks through the ages. In that aspect, they share the same history as vermouth, although the alcohol percentage of bitters is much higher than what is used for fortified wines like vermouth.

As has already been pointed out, the original concept of a cocktail was a mixture of spirit, sugar, bitters and water. According to Ted Haigh in his book^*, it’s a kind of strange idea to come up with: you’re practically mixing drugs with alcohol. On top of this, it was supposed to be a morning drink, for after a night of heavy partying. No wonder cocktails were not considered to be for proper people. But this also made them dangerous and interesting.

Today, we have a different view on the medicinal properties of bitters. The ‘undrinkable’ kind of bitters is actually only used for making cocktails. It’s sort of used like seasoning: in very small amounts (i.e. dashes). You might not even notice when bitters are added to the cocktail. But ideally, you’ll certainly notice when they are lacking. They should pull all the flavors of the drink together, and give that little extra kick to the cocktail.

With the recent cocktail revival, numerous bitters have resurged and have become available on the market. Orange bitters, in particular, have been absent for ages, but are widely available again (although not at your local liquor store, probably).

The three most important bitters for cocktails are:

·        aromatic bitters (if no specific kind of bitters is called for, use aromatic bitters)

·        Peychaud’s bitters (a key ingredient in the Sazerac)

·        orange bitters (a classic component of any Martini)

Most famous of the aromatic bitters (and actually most famous of the bitters in general) are Angostura bitters. They are an invention of the German Dr. Johann Siegert, and have been available since 1824. Siegert was a Surgeon-General in the army of revolutionary Simón Bolívar. When Bolívar left Venezuela to liberate other parts of Latin America, Siegert instead settled in Angostura (later renamed Ciudad Bolívar). He was determined to find a natural tonic to improve digestion.

This was to become amargos aromáticos, literally aromatic bitters. Only later did the name change to Angostura bitters. Production has since been moved from Angostura to Trinidad.

As is the case with Bénédictine and Chartreuse, the recipe is a closely guarded secret. For Angostura, only five people will know the complete recipe at the same time.

Angostura sports an oversized label. As you can see, I’ve been kind of rude and have torn off the top of the label. It would have been classier to crumple-fold the label against the neck of the bottle. Live and learn, I guess.

^*  In ‘Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails’

D.O.M.

Deo Optimo Maximo.

The ultimate Bénédictine cocktail contains no base, but instead opts for an enormous amount of the wonderful stuff. The recipe can be found in the Café Royal Cocktail Book.

I like to drink this in a small cocktail glass: I don’t think it’s appropriate to mix this in large amounts. Because the original recipe calls for three dashes of Angostura, I’ve adjusted this a bit as well. Angostura bitters are kind of an acquired taste. It’s possible to add a larger amount if you’re used to them, but for most people two dashes will suffice here. If that’s still too much of a bitters shock, don’t hesitate to switch to one dash only.

3 parts Bénédictine

1 part sweet vermouth

2 dashes Angostura bitters

glass:  cocktail

Stir with ice and strain into the glass.

This cocktail kind of reminds me of sweet liqueurs such as Drambuie. It’s not the same taste, but the sensation lies in the same spectrum.

Periodic bar check

One very important category is still missing: bitters. Let's see if we can fix that in the next month.

The bar now holds:

Bases

gin

Aperitif Wines

dry vermouth
sweet vermouth

Liqueurs
maraschino
Cointreau
Bénédictine

Juices
lemon

General Ingredients

ice

Glasses

Old Fashioned glass

cocktail glass

Barware

jigger

bar spoon
cocktail shaker
juicer
bar knife
channel knife

Bénédictine (Rolls Royce)

This is going to be the spot where I’m going to make a very personal choice. We’re building up bar, concentrating on the basics. Sure, we’re only using gin as a base for now, but it’s not very necessary to branch out in the bases just yet. And because I like classic cocktails, it’s geared towards that kind of style. Maraschino was a bit of an offbeat choice, but defendable from that position.

However, this time I’ll just be forcing through what I like, not what would be the most reasonable, practical or logical.

Enter Bénédictine. It’s a honeysweet, herbal liqueur with a deceptive history. The inventor, Alexandre le Grand, invented a story about a Normandic abbey that was destroyed in the French Revolution and a recipe lost in time. Quite a smart marketing trick… it’s almost a pity that Bénédictine did not originate with Dom Bernardo Vincelli, the Benedictine monk. It makes a good bar story.

But a story alone doesn’t make a good drink, and that’s where this liqueur does deliver. Made from 27 plants and spices, it has a complex flavour. Should that be a reason to generally ignore this ingredient in the cocktail world? Is it too complex to invent good recipes? I have to say no to that.

Chartreuse is much celebrated, especially in the classic cocktail revival, but it is every bit as complex (or even more so, with its 130 ingredients). Sweet vermouth isn’t very straightforward either.

Mixologists have found ways to tinker around with the troublemakers, often with quite nice and occasionally great results. There’s no reason Bénédictine should be left out.

By the way, talking about bar stories: the recipes of both Bénédictine and Chartreuse are closely guarded. Only three people will know the specifics of the recipe at the same time. How’s that for keeping something secret?

And let’s not forget that some true classic cocktails have Bénédictine as a key ingredient. The original Singapore Sling, as served in the Raffles Hotel in Singapore, calls for Bénédictine. B&B, which is Bénédictine ‘diluted’ with brandy, became so popular that the company started to produce B&B as a premixed product.

So don’t hesitate to search out this liqueur and make up your own mind. It’s one of the CocktailDB’s special recommendations, so I’m not even alone in my enthusiasm for this liqueur. The beautiful bottle will surely not mar the look of your drink cabinet.

The distinctive ‘DOM’ on the label doesn’t allude to Dom Bernardo, but it’s short for ‘Deo Optimo Maximo’, which translates as ‘To God, most good, most great’, the motto of the Benedictine order.

And although not the most logical addition to the bar, it does present us with a great opportunity: a promising inroad to inventing your own cocktail. It’s no surprise that a lot of combinations have already been tried throughout one and a half century. A lot of things you might come up with, have probably already been tried by others. But Bénédictine remains quite unused. So if you want to have a promising shot at your own creation, this is a good starting point.

Rolls Royce

Another one that can be found in The Savoy Cocktail Book. Since I like Bénédictine, I’m not going to mess around with a dash or dashes: I add a full part of the stuff. The vermouths make sure this remains quite an aromatic recipe.

The Rolls Royce is also a nice example of the Perfect Martini type: it uses equal parts dry and sweet vermouth.

4 parts gin

2 parts dry vermouth

2 parts sweet vermouth

1 part Bénédictine

glass:  cocktail

Stir with ice and strain into the glass.

Yes, that’s a great colour for an autumn cocktail.

Sweet vermouth (Orange Bloom)

According to Albert Stevens Crockett in The Old Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book, half the cocktails known prior to World War I ‘had vermouth as an essential [ingredient]’.

Since I like classic cocktails and we still only have one kind of vermouth, we’ll pair the dry with its older sister.

Originally meant for medicinal purposes, the precursor to the modern vermouths was produced by the Italian merchant D’Alessio in the early 16^th century. The recipe was based upon the German Wermut wines that were made on the other side of the border. Wermut is the German term for wormwood, the necessary ingredient in absinthe. It’s easy to see where the term ‘vermouth’ originated.

Around 1800 the proper sweet and dry variants begin to materialize. Another Italian merchant, Antonio Benedetto Carpano introduces the first sweet vermouth in Turin in 1786. Dry vermouth will follow some two decades later in France.

Sweet vermouth is originally red (rosso) and bittersweet. There is a bianco which is almost colourless, but it was introduced much later, around 1960. There’s really no reason to stock your bar with a bianco vermouth: red vermouth will always do as a sweet vermouth and is historically more correct.

One brand of sweet vermouth deserves special mention: Carpano Antica Formula (or Carpano Antica in short).

This vermouth radiates history. It comes in a hefty 1 litre bottle which has a unique number. If there’s some way for you to acquire this specific ingredient, I highly recommend it.

^*  ‘The Joy of Mixology’ by Gary Regan 

Orange Bloom

This cocktail is found in both The Savoy Cocktail Book and the Café Royal Cocktail Book. It shouldn’t be mistaken for an Orange Blossom, which is the gin equivalent of a Screwdriver.

I’ve tried tinkering with the ratios of this cocktail, but ended up using the original recipe. This cocktail seems quite straightforward, but is actually quite hard to do just right. The vermouth easily overtakes the Cointreau, but it really needs the sweet touch to make it work. It’s also quite susceptible to over-dilution. See if you can make this one work for you.
Ironically, the colour of this cocktail isn’t orange from the orange liqueur, but it’s orange from the red vermouth.

2 parts gin

1 part sweet vermouth

1 part Cointreau

glass:  cocktail

Stir with ice and strain into the glass.

Garnish with a cherry (if available).

Okay, I know: the bar doesn’t have cherries yet. But both books listed the same garnish specifically. And I was lucky to finally pick up some cocktail cherries, after looking for them for a long time. So it would be a waste not to use them.

It could still take quite a lot of time before we add cocktail cherries to the bar, so I’ll just sneak in some cherries here and there. And you’ll have to admit: it does look better that way.

Cointreau (White Lady)

I already hinted on orange liqueurs when introducing maraschino. And I reasoned we’d get to that soon enough. Now would be that time.

The point is that we need some kind of orange liqueur. But the world of orange liqueurs is extremely blurred. One thing is certain: the main distinction in orange liqueurs is between curaçao and triple sec.

Curaçao is of Dutch descent, with a little help from the Spanish. Originally it is made by steeping the dried peels of the Laraha fruit in spirits (although only the Senior distiller of Curaçao continues to use the limited Laraha harvest for their product). It comes in several colors: blue is (sadly) the best known variant, although there aren’t many good cocktails which are blue. Orange comes in second, and is the staple color to use. Red is also known, and even wilder colors might be found. An easy way to differentiate between curaçao and triple sec is checking whether it has a color.

Triple sec would be the colorless one. It’s the French answer to curaçao, although there’s still a debate whether Combier or Cointreau was the first triple sec. It’s also unclear what the term ‘triple sec’ means, but I’ll go along with those that assert it indicates a triple distilling process. When inferior products began to stain the reputation of triple sec, Cointreau decided to strike the term ‘triple sec’ from their bottles. Combier likes to present itself as the untarnished, original premium triple sec. All this is not without reason: there are certainly some bad triple secs on the market. So let’s stay away from those.

I won’t go into too much detail about the curaçao/triple sec confusion. That’s not the purpose of this blog and others have done more research into the subject (although still with plenty uncertainties). But if you want to get to the bottom of things, you can find more information here and here.

From a very practical viewpoint, one orange liqueur of fine quality would do to cover most cocktail recipes. So we’ll go with Cointreau. Not only because triple sec is used more often than curaçao in cocktails. But also because Cointreau is often named specifically as an ingredient, such as is the case with the legendary White Lady.

White Lady

Legendary, but relatively unknown. Harry Craddock considered it his signature cocktail. There’s some debate whether Harry McElhone (bartender, writer and eventually the owner of Harry’s New York Bar in Paris) or Harry Craddock can claim the White Lady. I’d have to side with Harry Craddock.

Sure, McElhone might have come up with the name: in 1919 he mixed a White Lady that contained crème de menthe, Cointreau and lemon juice. In his ABC of Mixing Cocktails he switches out the lemon juice for brandy. At the end of the 20s he finally conforms to the gin based variant. All in all it doesn’t strike as a thoroughly thought-out plan.

Meanwhile, in 1927, Harry Craddock buries a cocktail shaker which contains a White Lady in a wall of the American Bar at the Savoy (which hasn’t been reclaimed yet, by the way).

That’s not something one would do with just any cocktail: it means Craddock considered the White Lady something special.

It’s one of those simple recipes that are extremely logical, but somehow the White Lady didn’t survive the decades as well as the Sidecar or the Margarita. But that doesn’t have to stop us from continuing Craddock’s legacy.

4 parts gin

3 parts Cointreau

2 parts lemon juice

glass:  cocktail

Shake with ice and strain into the glass.

To be honest, the ratio is different from Craddock’s version. The Savoy calls for 2 parts gin, and 1 part each of Cointreau and lemon juice. I prefer the variant with slightly more Cointreau, but feel free to try both versions. You might even end up with your own ratio: that’s just fine. Recipes are the basis for mixing, not the final word. Tinkering with ratios and ingredients is part of the game.

As you can see, the White Lady is certainly lighter than the Aviation sans Violette. The lemon juice used here was carefully strained and extremely clear.

I prefer the White Lady without any garnish: it wouldn’t be a lady if it needed decoration to impress.

Periodic bar check

Invested a lot in equipment by now, so we're quite set in that department. Time to focus on ingredients and recipes for a bit.

The bar now holds:

Bases

gin

Aperitif Wines

dry vermouth

Liqueurs
maraschino

Juices
lemon

General Ingredients

ice

Glasses

Old Fashioned glass

cocktail glass

Barware

jigger

bar spoon
cocktail shaker
juicer
bar knife
channel knife