Gimlet

Like chocolate and peanut butter, this is the joining of two simple ingredients where one plus one equals three.  This is a drink that has kept me in a quandary for a long time over the debate between Rose’s lime juice in its current corn syrup state and products using real sugar and lime juice.  As much as I wanted to find a way to have it all, I have thrown in the towel and accepted Rose’s (that is until I find a way to import the real stuff).

This is another drink with no clear history, the name seems to have been coined in the 1920s after either a tool of the same name or a surgeon who pushed this as a measure of preventing scurvy on ships.  Seeing as how in 1747 it was discovered that lime juice could prevent scurvy and sailors were no doubt mixing lime and gin purely for its medicinal value by the nineteenth century, I am going with the scurvy story.  Either way the cocktail has a long and glamorous history.

In a mixing glass combine three and a half ounces of gin, use Plymouth’s here, and one and a half ounces of Rose’s lime juice, fill with ice and stir.  Pour into a cocktail glass.  This is one I will also build in an ice filled old fashioned glass and serve on the rocks.  As you drink this, think of all the good things the vitamin C is doing for your body!

Gimlet

3 ½ oz gin

1 ½ oz rose’s lime juice

Stir together both ingredients in a mixing glass with ice, pour into a cocktail glass.

The Negroni

In 1947 Orson Welles reported on the drink in correspondence with the Coshocton Tribune while working on his film Cagliostro.  He said "The bitters are excellent for your liver, the gin is bad for you. They balance each other."  I love his logic.

This is one of those drinks that I have found people either love or hate.  I made one for a gin loving friend of mine who had never met a drink he did not like and he could not even finish it.  I will admit that Campari can be an acquired taste, but the combination of flavors in the negroni dulls some of the bitterness.

The most popular account of this drinks creation takes place in Florence, Italy in 1919 at Caffè Casoni, (now called Caffè Cavalli).  Count Camillo Negroni, needing something a little stronger than his usual Americano, asked bartender Fosco Scarselli to replace the soda with gin.  I love his logic too.

There really is not much to making this drink; it is equal parts of three ingredients.  I like Plymouth gin in this; I also like to make them small so I can have a few.  One ounce each of gin, Campari, and sweet vermouth in an ice filled old fashioned glass with a twist of orange is all there is to this Italian classic.  Do not forget to toast the good count and his boozy ways as you suck these little guys down.

Negroni
1 oz gin

1 oz campari

1 oz sweet vermouth

Combine all ingredients in an ice filled old fashioned glass and garnish with a twist of orange.

Sawyer

It has been just shy of two years since the first cocktail appeared here and today I have for you the 50^th!  I will be the first to admit it has taken entirely too long to get here, but we made it.  As you can see by the diagram to the right, I have a propensity towards drinks that call for bitters; today’s delightful little treat not only follows that path, but takes it to an extreme!

The Sawyer is another recent creation and a variation on the Gimlet, but takes the use of bitters over the top by using three varieties and nearly thirty dashes.  The drink was created by bartender Don Lee and named after the daughter of gin-loving chef Wylie Dufrense.  I’m going to use my artistic license again and assume that little Sawyer Dufrense was named after one of the greatest characters in American literature.

This one is simple to make but complex across the tongue, don’t be alarmed by the bounty of bitters, just try it.  In a shaker, start with two ounces of beefeater gin, add one half an ounce of lime juice, one half an ounce of simple syrup, fourteen (yes one-four) dashes of Angostura bitters, seven dashes of Peychaud’s bitters, and seven dashes of orange bitters.  Fill with ice, shake this baby up and strain into a chilled cocktail glass, no garnish necessary.  After your first sip, you’ll be making them for Becky and Huck too.

Sawyer

2 oz gin

½ oz fresh squeezed lime juice

½ oz simple syrup

14 dashes angostura bitters

7 dashes peychaud’s bitters

7 dashes orange bitters

Combine all ingredients in a shaker, strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

The Gibson

Our next cocktail is another classic variation on a classic. While many would say that the Gibson is just a Martini with onions, the flavor imparted by the garnish is different enough that it deserves its own place in your mixing repertoire.

The Gibson has a history as sordid as this authors, with many rumors, half-truths and unverifiable alibis. The most likely origin is from the Bohemian Club in San Francisco in the 1890s, named after prominent San Francisco businessman Walter D.K. Gibson, this seems to have the most corroborating evidence. Another popular story places its creation in New York at the Players Club as a challenge to bar tender Charley Connolly by Charles Dana Gibson. In the scheme of things though who really gives a shit, it is a damn fine cocktail.

This is another drink where the ratio of gin to vermouth can be debated ad nauseam but I prefer about a 5 to 1 balance. As this is a clear drink and the onion deserves to stand out, I like to mix this is a pitcher. In the ice filled pitcher add two and a half ounces of gin, I really like Hendricks in my Gibson. Then add one-half ounce of Lillet Blanc. Stir until the ingredients are well chilled and pour into a cocktail glass. Garnish with three onions and serve to your most distinguished guests.

Gibson

2 ½ oz gin

½ oz dry vermouth

Mix both ingredients in a chilled pitcher with ice, stir. Strain into a chilled glass. Serve with three cocktail onions.

The Hot 'n' Dirty

Not only has this replaced the Suffering Bastard as my favorite cocktail name, but it is also up there in my regular rotation of mid-week standbys. Don’t let the name deter you; it is a classic cocktail at heart with a little flair thrown in for good measure!

In the spirit of disclosure I have strayed across the channel for my version and stuck with gin, most people make a “Hot and Dirty” with pepper vodka, I find “Hot and Dirty,” much too long on the tongue and prefer my martini’s with the Queen’s chosen spirit.

Since there is no history to be had with this drink let’s get right on to the goods. This is really just a variation on the dirty martini, but adding a little heat to the flavor combination produces a truly rewarding experience. So we begin with two and a half ounces of gin, for shits and giggles I have been experimenting with some different brands, right now I am partial to Beefeater, it has a certain “my dad poured this,” quality to it. Put that in a shaker (I’ve recently defected to a Parisian shaker, but that’s a story for a later post) and add a quarter ounce of dry vermouth. This is where we diverge from the dirty martini, now I add only another quarter ounce of olive brine, but this needs to come from a jar of jalapeño stuffed olives (don’t worry you’ll use the olives soon), then add a quarter ounce of the juice from the jar of jalapeños you have sitting in the back of your fridge (we all have them, don’t lie). Shake vigorously, don’t worry about the shaken-stirred dilemma, this drink is just looking to break all the rules, strain into a chilled glass and garnish with three jalapeño stuffed olives. Take a sip and savor the fact that fortunately, that slight burning sensation on your lips will go away without a shot of penicillin…

Hot ‘n’ Dirty

2 ½ ounces gin

¼ ounce dry vermouth

¼ ounce jalapeño olive brine

¼ ounce pickled jalapeño brine

Add all ingredients to a shaker full of ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with three jalapeño stuffed olives.

The Dirty Martini

In a very scientific poll I recently conducted, I was quite surprised by the landslide majority of people who prefer the Dirty Martini over all others. While I am also a fan, I didn’t realize so many others were too, but who wouldn’t like a little salty brine in their cocktail?

If you thought the history of the Martini was light, the facts of this one will prove to be nothing more than a speed bump on the path to your next drink. The best I could come up with, after months of research was a vague reference to Russians adding pickle brine to their vodka as a hangover cure. Another reference simply stated that it can be traced back to the time of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, like that has any relevance. So I am going to take this opportunity to write my own history for the drink.

A product of the Yalta conference, the Dirty Martini was slightly overshadowed by other world changing moments. The drink came about one morning when FDR commented to Stalin that he was feeling a little hung-over. Joseph, being the caring and compassionate man he was, suggested his favorite morning cure-all of vodka and pickle juice. Regrettably, neither pickles nor vodka had been served with breakfast that morning. Fortunately, Churchill, being a man of the sauce, reached into his valise and produced a bottle of gin and a jar of olives.Dumping the coffee out the window and using the silver coffee pot as a makeshift shaker he quickly fashioned a batch of cocktails, tinted slightly dark (or dirty) by the remaining coffee. The three of them unanimously proclaimed the recipe a victory and the rest is history.

Enough poetic license, on to the important part. Like the Martini, the proper ratio depends on the palate of the imbiber. I prefer two and one half ounces of Plymouth gin mixed with one-fourth ounce of dry vermouth and one-half ounce of olive brine. This drink falls into a grey area for my translucence test since the brine does make the drink slightly cloudy. I typically shake this one because of its ease and I like the tiny slivers of ice that come through the strainer. I also prefer bleu cheese stuffed olives in this drink. With your first sip, just imagine what the fate of post-war Germany could have been had FDR been hung-over.

Dirty Martini

2 ½ oz gin

½ oz olive brine

¼ oz dry vermouth

Add all three ingredients to an ice filled shaker. Mix vigorously and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with three olives.

The Martini

I know it’s been a while; in fact it’s been an eternity. In a feeble attempt to make up for leaving you all to your own alcoholic devices, I have a true classic for you. The cocktail by which all others are judged, the Martini. More specifically the dry Martini.

For a cocktail whose reputation far precedes it, information on the exact origin of this drink is sparse at best. A few theories exist, none standing out as the most likely or reliable. The most popular is that it is a variation on the Martinez, which I plan to cover in the very near future. The Martinez was made with gin, maraschino liqueur, sweet vermouth and bitters. By the late 1800s this evolved into a mixture of gin, dry vermouth and orange bitters that became known as the Martini. The drink gained popularity during prohibition when bath tub gin was one of the more readily available spirits.

In practice today, the bitters have been eliminated and the cocktail is a simply elegant combination of two ingredients, gin and vermouth. The debate rages about the proper ratio between the two ranging from 7:1 to 2:1. The truly perfect Martini though is in the eye of the drink-holder. Of course I will give you my humble opinion, but I encourage you to experiment for yourself. The other great Martini debate is whether to shake or stir. There are arguments for both, the James Bond defense not being one of them. The rule of thumb I use is translucence, if you are using dark or cloudy ingredients it doesn’t matter, if they are clear though the agitation of shaking the mixture makes it cloudy, it doesn’t alter the taste only the appearance. Shaking does seem to cool the liquids faster though, so I recommend chilling your glasses, your pitcher and your ingredients if you plan to stir. On the plus side, stirring seems to leaves a slight velvety feeling on the drink.

Enough already, let’s get to the good stuff (who knew I could be so long winded for a drink with two ingredients). Start with your chilled pitcher and your favorite gin, I’m pouring Plymouth. Measure a precise two and one-half ounces and gently pour it into the pitcher. Pour in one-half ounce of dry vermouth (for the mathematically challenged that is a five to one ratio), add ice and stir. When you feel the mixture is properly combined and chilled, pour it into an ice-cold cocktail glass and garnish with three olives of your choice.

Martini

2 ½ oz gin

½ oz dry vermouth

Combine both ingredients in a chilled pitcher with ice, stir. Strain into a chilled glass. Serve with three olives.

Building A Better Gin & Tonic (A.K.A. Reinventing the Wheel)

Few things taste better on a hot summer day than an ice-cold gin and tonic. In a heat induced haze I decided to set out on a quixotic journey to try and find the perfect recipe for this warm weather staple and then improve on it.

Most people are at least mildly familiar with the history of this combination and its place in the lore of the British Empire. For those like me who are casualties of the American education system, this grand concoction was introduced by the army of the British East India Company. Tonic contains quinine, which was used to prevent malaria, but it had a very bitter taste. So someone had a brilliant revelation: what better way to make medication more palatable than to add booze and sip it at sundown!

My own history with this cocktail is much more sordid, not only was this the drink of choice on my twenty-first birthday, but it is my very best inept bartender story. I was in London a few years ago after two weeks in the UK. I had sipped scotch in Scotland and and consumed more than my fair share of pub pints around the city. It was my last night and I felt it my obligation as a man of the cocktail to have a gin and tonic before leaving. I wandered down to the bar in the lobby of my hotel, a nice establishment in an upscale neighborhood, and asked the kind chap behind the bar for a gin and tonic. He responded with a look of confusion and I became mildly concerned. I was in London, at a bar and a simple gin and tonic was causing the barman distress, at first I thought it was a joke, what reasonably educated bartender in London can’t make this British staple. I quickly realized that this guy was not joking and preceded to painfully walk him through the drink, literally ice cube by ice cube. The result was drinkable, but I was totally disgusted at what passed for a bartender. That was my last trip to London, but next time I’m staying at the Savoy, or at least near enough I can use their bar as my own.

Okay, back to the drink at hand. Despite my previous anecdote, I don’t think I’ve ever had an awful gin and tonic, but I also can’t recall having an incredible one. I decided that this warm weather and medicinal classic deserved better and I undertook the enviable task of creating the quintessential gin and tonic. I went into this well aware that I was probably fighting an uphill battle against not only the laws of physics, but probably Murphy as well. I began with the most basic dilemma the gin to tonic ratio and from there experimented with different techniques to bring the drink to life. Alas, the results were worth the time and effort; behold the second coming of the gin and tonic!

Start with two ounces of Plymouth gin in an empty old fashioned glass, gently place a slice of lime into the glass and muddle well to release the juice as well as the oils, fill the glass with ice and add three ounces of Schweppes tonic. I have sampled most of the readily available supermarket brand tonics and Schweppes is the best of them. That’s all there is to it. I polled a distinguished panel of judges to validate my findings against a cocktail made with the same proportion of ingredients in the traditional manner and the results were conclusive.

While at its peak the sun may have never set on the British Empire, but the time has come for the sun to set on mediocre gin and tonics. Serve these to your friends with a nod to the absolute genius who thought to fight malaria with cocktails and the ballsiness needed to take over half the globe from an island in the Atlantic!

Gin & Tonic

2 oz gin

3 oz tonic

slice of lime

Pour the gin into an empty old fashioned glass, add the slice of lime and muddle. Fill the glass with ice and add the tonic. Stir and serve.

Suffering Bastard

I have wanted to write about this cocktail for quite a while purely because it has such a great name, but it is also a great drink. I am not sure exactly why, but this cocktail came to mind the morning after my son’s first birthday party. But I realized that the name was the perfect description for the way I felt. I have never used this as a hangover cure, but if you could stomach it, I think it would do wonders for you.

This is another drink with some vague details about the original recipe, even the creator seems to contradict himself, but the history seems to be consistent. This fine drink was born in the 1940s at the Shepheard's Hotel in Cairo Egypt by bartender Joe Scialom. The story goes that it was originally called the Suffering Bar Steward, but was slurred by regular patrons into its current designation. I have always made this drink with bourbon, but in researching another drink I found some variations that call for rum, most of those are poor modern bastardizations. There is some evidence that brandy was used in the original recipe, which would make sense; I doubt bourbon was highly prevalent in Egypt in the 1940s. I turned to Robert Hess, one of my favorite resources to see what he uses; he also uses bourbon so I have stuck to my original recipe.

Do not be scared off by the first two ingredients, it is an interesting combination that works well together. Start with an old fashioned glass full of ice, add an ounce each of bourbon (Maker’s works well here) and gin (Plymouth is my preference), pour in thee ounces of ginger ale, top it off with a dash of Angostura bitters and a wedge of lime. Prepare to silence your doubters with a perfectly executed “don’t question my cocktails” look.

Suffering Bastard

1 oz bourbon

1 oz gin

3 oz ginger ale

dash of bitters

Construct this in an old fashioned glass, pour all ingredients over ice, add a lime wedge and stir.

Clementine Negroni

After a slight detour down Morning Buzz Boulevard, we have returned to our gin crusade with a variation on a truly timeless cocktail. I have always longed to love the Negroni, but have found myself infatuated by it’s Yankee cousin the Boulevardier; don’t let it’s ex-pat nom-de-guerre fool you, it's roots are one hundred percent American. This adaptation, or bastardization depending on whom you ask, adds a new flavor to this already complex drink. A gin connoisseur friend of mine was not a fan when I introduced him to the Negroni, he felt overwhelmed by the Campari. The solution is adding clementine juice, completely changing the taste of this drink, resulting in a balance that is pleasing to even the most discerning palate.

As this is a modern deviation, there is no need to delve deeply into the history of this cocktail, just read on and prepare your taste buds for a flavor explosion. As this is a perfect drink to share with a lady friend on a warm summer’s eve, this recipe is for two, adjust as your company dictates…

Start by placing three peeled clementines (or mandarin oranges, for simpletons like the author) in an over-sized shaker. Add four or five solid dashes of orange bitters and muddle thoroughly. Add two ounces Hendrick’s gin (I find the flavor more complimentary), two ounces Campari, and 1½ ounces of sweet vermouth. Fill shaker with ice and shake vigorously. Divide between two chilled cocktail glasses, garnish with clementine slices. Prepare to be praised excessively.

Clementine Negroni

3 clementines, peeled

5 dashes orange bitters

2 oz hendrick’s gin

2 oz campari

1 ½ oz sweet vermouth

Place clementines and orange bitters into a large shaker, muddles until fruit is pulverized. Add gin, campari and sweet vermouth. Fill with ice and shake vigorously. Divide between two chilled cocktail glasses, garnish with a clementine slice.

Buck’s Fizz

To continue on our pre-noon cocktail cruise, we will follow up the granddaddy of all OJ based morning beverages, the screwdriver, with a precursor (or a mere coincidental creation) to the mimosa, another morning classic. We will make sure to hit that in the future, but today our drink of choice is the Buck’s Fizz, not to be confused with the 80's pop group of the same name.

In an effort to prevent a modern flare up of the Hundred Years’ War and keep our Anglophile and Francophile readers happy, we will make a definite distinction between the Buck’s Fizz and the Mimosa; the former being created in 1921 in the Buck’s Club in London, the latter being created in Paris four years later. (I am starting to see a trend in cocktails named for the club in which they originated.) The Buck’s Fizz is distinct in that it has never revealed secret ingredients, which, according to our sources deep in MI6, this recipe reveals.

To make this clandestine cocktail, begin by pouring 2 ounces of freshly squeezed orange juice into a champagne flute. Add a dash of cherry brandy and ¼ ounce of Plymouth gin (this is one of London’s best kept secrets). Stir gently and top with Prosecco (using Champagne only ignites historical tensions).

Buck’s Fizz

2 oz fresh squeezed orange juice

1 dash cherry brandy

¼ oz gin

prosecco

Pour orange juice into a champagne flute. Add brandy and gin. Top with Prosecco and serve, pinky extended.

The Pegu Club Cocktail

The great gin cocktail quest of 2010 continues with more successes than failures and I have another winner for your drinking enjoyment. The Pegu Club is a fairly simple, easy sipping cocktail, perfect for warm summer nights, the tropics, and while visiting your favorite junta ruled totalitarian state.

This cocktail originated during the 1920s in The Pegu Club in Rangoon. As a far flung outpost of the British Empire, Burma offered few of the creature comforts for which your average Brit yearned, save for a classy gentleman’s club to gather with the boys, enjoy a cocktail, and toast the Queen. The house cocktail spread through the empire and the rest of the world, appearing in Haddocks’s tome, The Savoy Cocktail Book in 1930.

This cocktail is a true crowd pleaser. Men and women, gin lovers and haters. Everyone that I have mixed this for has become an instant fan. It has the perfect combination of sweet, sour and bitter, not to mention it packs a pretty hefty punch!

The version I prefer uses two types of bitters, some recipes call for only one. While I have found that the taste difference is nearly indiscernible, I like any excuse to use all the bitters that I can. Start with 2 ounces of gin, I like Plymouth in this drink, but any good London dry gin will work. Next add ¾ ounce of Cointreau and ½ ounce of fresh squeezed lime juice. Kaffir limes are the most authentic, but can be difficult to find. Lastly add a couple dashes of orange bitters, a couple dashes of angostura bitters, shake and serve with a lime slice as garnish.

To Queen and Country!

The Pegu Club

2 oz gin

¾ oz cointreau

½ oz fresh lime juice

2 dashes orange bitters
2 dashes angostura bitters

 Add all ingredients to your shaker, fill with ice.  Shake vigorously.  Pour into a chilled cocktail glass.  Garnish with a thin slice of lime.

Satan's Whiskers

I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that gin is an area of cocktail knowledge where I am severely lacking for recipes that I really enjoy. I partially blame my devotion to bourbon for this deficiency; I also blame the fact that I have not taken the time to get past the very basics. To remedy this misfortune, I have committed to trying at least one new gin based cocktail per week for the next eight weeks. I was hoping to find three or four that are suitable for publication; on my first dive into the gin filled pool, I came up with a winner. With a name like Satan’s Whiskers how could I have gone wrong!

The earliest reference I could find to this cocktail is the original Savoy Cocktail Book from 1930. Craddock’s recipe is slightly different from mine; I prefer a little less orange juice and a little more Gran Marnier. I was worried that the orange flavor would overpower the rest of the drink, but the gin and sweet vermouth have a nice presence and provide good balance.

This is a fairly straightforward cocktail to make. Since juicing the orange is the only step that requires any effort that is where I like to start. I tried this using both Plymouth and Hendrick’s gin and preferred the flavor of the Hendrick’s, but with all of the other flavors going on, any decent gin should yield favorable results.

One note of caution, this is one of those drinks that can really sneak up on you!

Satan’s Whiskers

¾ oz gin

¾ oz dry vermouth

¾ oz sweet vermouth

½ oz gran marnier

½ oz orange juice

2 heavy dashes orange bitters

Put all ingredients into an ice filled shaker.  Shake vigorously.  Pour into a chilled cocktail glass.  Garnish with cherries and serve.

The French 75

I will never forget the first time I had ordered a French 75. It was New Years Eve and we had gone out to a little French bistro with a group of friends. As everyone was perusing the menu and ordering cocktails I looked over the list of house cocktails and saw the French 75. Always looking to try new drinks and thinking the combination of gin and champagne was interesting I decided to give it a shot.

Sitting next to me was a great friend and drinking buddy of mine. The waitress set down his standard bourbon in front of him and then set a champagne flute in front of me. My friend looked over with a confused look and in one sentence questioned my sexuality, insulted my wife and degraded the French before asking what it was. Once I told him, he asked if he could try it.

I have always enjoyed variations on the champagne cocktail served in the restaurants all over Paris and eagerly order the specialty of the house on most occasions. My current favorite is from the Rôtisserie du Beaujolais, but let’s save that for another time. The French 75 is slightly stronger than many other champagne based apéritifs, but a good balance of flavors.

I like the smooth flavor of Plymouth gin in this drink. Start with a cocktail shaker filled with ice and add 1 ounce of gin, add one teaspoon of bakers sugar (also called superfine and ultrafine) and the juice of one lemon wedge. Shake vigorously and pour into a champagne flute. Fill the remainder of the flute with the champagne (or prosecco) of your choice.

This is a great drink anytime of the day and all year long, but is very well suited to warm weather, green grass and lazy afternoons!

French 75

1 oz gin

½ tsp sugar

juice of 1 lemon wedge

champagne

In a cocktail shaker, combine the gin, sugar and lemon juice and shake well with cracked ice. Strain the gin mixture into a champagne flute. Top off with champagne.