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.