And . . . Maybe We’ll Even Make It Correctly Next Time

The Shruffs End cocktail in the Mr. Boston guide (page 196) calls for Islay single malt scotch, apple brandy, Bénédictine and Peychaud’s bitters. We actually have Islay single malt scotch around most of the time; it’s something I like, one, so yeah, and also it’s something that a lot of good cocktails include, so we also have cheap versions of Islay single malt around. So actually there’s none left right now, only a Highlands single malt that from the label sounds like the opposite of Islay scotch (“never peated!”). Between using an inappropriate expensive single malt scotch in a cocktail and using a cheap-shit blend in a cocktail, 19 times out of 20 I’ll choose the latter. So of course I went for the triangular bottle of Grants.

And even in spite of all that, this is a good cocktail. Maybe we’ll make it correctly next time.

If You Just Use The Plural — “Whiskies” — You Avoid Having To Try To Remember What’s Got An “E” And What Doesn’t

Dry County Cocktail (PDT Cocktail Book, pg. 107): rye, dry vermouth, ginger liqueur and lemon bitters (we used grapefruit bitters) — yes (sometimes the less said the better).

Kentucky Longshot (Mr. Boston, pg. 185): bourbon, ginger liqueur, peach-flavored brandy, dash Angostura and dash Peychaud’s — I keyed in on this one after Louisville put us firmly in second place in our tournament bracket. We have that DeKuyper peach shit in the cabinet and it never gets used. I was excited to try it because it smells so ridiculously treacly. I can’t believe it’s made of anything natural. I will stop my snarking to google this point. [time passes] Can’t tell. It’s such a weird flavor though, that’s for sure. Bottom line: this is a good drink, and a useful way to use up any peach-flavored brandy you might have.

Adderley Cocktail (Mr. Boston, pg. 170): rye (we used cheap bourbon; I’m sure rye would have been better), maraschino liqueur, lemon juice and orange bitters — Jen doesn’t really like maraschino and still liked this drink; the SweeTart flavor of the maraschino is low in the mix, this despite there being a ridiculous 3/4 ounce of it in there (and I say this as someone who likes maraschino — I could drink Fancy-Frees all the time).

Another Day, Another Cocktail

Also, another cocktail book: this time, Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails: From the Alamagoozlum to the Zombie and Beyond: 100 Rediscovered Recipes and the Stories Behind Them by Ted Haigh. First off, it’s a great book: 1) it’s spiral bound to stay in place; 2) the artwork and accompanying images are fantastic — each drink has its own image, many of them historical; 3) the notes are great, and lively and down to earth but still informative. It’s also from 2009.

In general there’s a strange fetishization about old tymey-tyme cocktails. I don’t know if it’s a Nick & Nora sort of [insert worldwide hand motion for jerking off] this or that or what it is. It’s interesting, for sure, but I don’t totally buy that what’s old was necessarily better. Technology is important and real, and building on human learning and experience is what progress is all about.

But at the same time, it is really interesting to think about what dumb-ass rich 20 somethings were drinking back in days of yore. Sort of.

Apparently they liked fruit juices. So many of these cocktails in Vintage seem to revolve around orange juice or pineapple juice or lemon juice or (my favorite) orange and lemon juice. It’s like Al Fuckin’ Swearengen is trying to impress cocksuckers at the Gem; break out the fuckin’ canned peaches.

I mostly disregard orange juice but we have lemon juice around all the time: the Santa Cruz Organic Lemon juice is great; one of the local stores carries it.

[Looking back at what I’ve glibly jotted down, I should add that vintage cocktails are a glimpse into an evolving culinary tradition, and are a fascinating micro-level look at what life was like nearly 100 years ago.]

Anyway, back to the cocktail: tonight, the Barbara West Cocktail (page 59), which has gin, sherry (amontillado preferred, which is basically the first time in forever that we have the appropriate sherry on hand), lemon juice and Angostura bitters. It’s good (duh, all cocktails are good). I would drink this again. I think it’s also missing something — ever so slightly. The flavors kind of bob around each other — floral gin, nutty sherry, puckery lemon juice — without melding. It’s possible more Angostura would have been good, but the recipe clearly called for “one small dash.” In summary, I’m not sure this needs “fixing,” per se. Maybe it’s just an excellent starting point: gin, sherry and lemon juice is boss, and worth returning to [think about tweaks].

Can Sherry Regrow Your Hair?

The Dewey D. from the PDT book (page 105) is constructed from rye, Lustau East India Sherry, Aperol and Angostura bitters. We had cream sherry, which is sort of, kind of close to the Lustau thing. Also, I picked up the wrong bottle of bitters and dumped two big dashes of orange Angostura bitters in there (it’s not even the same color). All the same, this was good.

That Magical Cedilla, How Easily It’s Erased

Long before we knew what cocktails were, or knew how to construct them in our own house, we had a bottle of curaçao. I think it was blue curaçao. Before we moved I drank it just to get rid of it. It tasted orange.

I only realized tonight that the very strange thing is how idiotic we once were about cocktails. Jen said it was because we were young and had stupid money to spend on cocktails in actual places, but that doesn’t make sense to me: we knew literally fucking nothing about drinking cocktails, and looking back, it’s unclear we ever drank cocktails at home. What the fuck? And I’m talking, like, 2009 or 2010 or something, not like 1976.

Part of doing cocktails at home is to subvert the mixologistic paradigm of the “lounge”; it’s ridiculous to pay 12, 15, 18 dollars for one lousy drink. The other part is to understand what you don’t actually know; there’s nothing artistic about mixing one ounce, one ounce, one ounce of this or that. That shouldn’t require a premium. Some of this other shit you encounter is different: house-tinctured tinctures mixed in single batches is labor intensive; of course I’ll bite. Which is to say, mixing your own drinks makes you a better consumer. Embrace it. “Now go start your own cocktail lounge.”

Jen was tasked with drink research, in preparation for doing our taxes. She found the Honeymoon Cocktail in the PDT book (page 143). It was good, if lemony. The base was apple brandy (Applejack), followed by equal parts orange curaçao, Bénédictine and lemon juice. It’s a vintage recipe, from 1916. We used some off brand Grand Marnier knockoff instead of curaçao.