There’s no harm in
stressing again that bitters are a serious step forward in your cocktail
repertoire. They also offer an easy way to personalize your cocktails: by
adding an extra dash of this or that, you can easily give a drink a unique
touch.
So go ahead. See if
you can get a hold of some bitters somewhere. I ordered mine from internet, but
you might be blessed with a very helpful liquor store in your neighbourhood
which can order them for you.
At the moment I’m
reading in the Joy of Mixology by
Gary Regan. That´s where I stumbled upon a simple combination of sherry and
bitters. The Hour before the Battle was published as early as 1869 in Cooling Cups and Dainty Drinks
(marvellous title) by William Terrington.
The recipe doesn’t
even specify which kind of sherry (or madeira) and which kind of bitters to
use. That leaves a lot of room to experiment.
Hour before the Battle
Not much use for quantities here.
The original recipe speaks of one dash of bitters, but of course you can add a
bit more to your taste.
The cocktail police won’t arrest you
if you build the cocktail (bitters first) instead of stirring it properly.
sherry or madeira
bitters
glass: sherry
Stir in a mixing glass and serve in
the glass.
No surprise that I
turned to the Spanish Bitters here.
For the sherry, I
stuck to very sweet: a PX (Pedro Ximénez). Since sugar and bitters are classic
cocktail ingredients, making sure the sherry itself was sweet made sense for
me. And since the PX is very sweet, this allowed me to add a good deal of
bitters as well.
When using sherry in
cocktails, Oloroso sherry would usually be the classic choice. In this case the
sherry itself is showcased, so anything goes really. It’s just a matter of
finding the right bitters.
