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.