Anyone for Cocktails?
If you fancy a cognac based cocktail, you cannot do much better than a Sidecar. It can be pretty dry so rimming the glass with a little sugar can take the edge off. The quantities given here, although maintaining the classic 2:1:1 ratio, are more than sufficient for the glass, allowing the excess to be served in a shot glass on the side, in other words, a Sidecar.
There is a long history of the use of olive or pickle brine in drinks. This came to a head in 2006 when the Pickleback was created at the Bushwick Country Club, NYC and it pandemically spread worldwide.
A fine stout is a good place to start, having the depth of the malt combined with bitter undertone, just calling for enlightenment. It can be both hearty yet refreshing. Guinness is an obvious choice but you can do better. There are a lot of fine craft stouts available in the UK. Just get a strong one and avoid the silly fruit flavours.
God Jul!
Also known as a Clear Bloody Mary, this needs a bit of forward planning. Simply put it is a Bloody Mary but made with tomato consommé in place of the usual juice and there’s the rub.
This was a signature cocktail of Bar Gros, created by George Mulholland. Ratafia is an intense, ancient, Catalan digestive made from fruit, walnuts and herbs, often homemade in small batches. Some find it quite challenging to digest but George, always up for a challenge, won the day.
The Marmalade Martini saw the light of dawn in 1930 in The Savoy Cocktail Book by Harry Craddock, an American who came to the UK to escape Prohibition. It became the quintessential cocktail book of the time and is still required reference for any contemporary bartender.
Perfect for hot summer afternoons, Tom Collins is probably the most well known of the Collins family of drinks, a Collins being a sour cocktail, that is, a spirit mixed with sugar and citrus, that has been topped up with soda water. Basically a Tom Collins is alcoholic lemonade for grown-ups. Lovely for a picnic or a right old punt.
Another fine drink of Dick Bradsell’s devising. When he used to make a Treacle in the Colony Room Club, he used cheap pasteurised apple juice, in a carton, from the Somerfield supermarket, in Berwick Street.
75 ml Gordon’s gin 25 ml Polish vodka 12 ml Lillet Blanc (Kina Lillet is no longer manufactured) Shake with ice. Sieve into coupe glass. Dress with lemon peel. The Vesper was Ian Fleming’s creation. Bond is on the lash again. “Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a measure of …
This came to me via certain reprobate, though eminently professional, staff at a particular Soho hostelry of my acquaintance. It is, allegedly, popular, towards the end of the night amongst bartenders, as a pick-me-up to help make it through the last hour. I reckon that would do the trick.
Yet another sour, this time with bourbon, but a most popular one. With the egg white, it can be called a Boston Sour. With a splash of red wine floated on top, over the back of a spoon, it becomes a New York Sour. Sounds quite disgusting.
Harry Craddock, he of the Savoy Cocktail Book fame, claimed it as his own signature cocktail, and even buried one, in a shaker, in the wall of the Dorchester. However it appears that it had been around a good while before his time.
The White Russian will be ever associated with the film The Big Lebowski, a drink the dude jokingly refers to as a Caucasian.
“Careful Man. There’s A Beverage Here!”
The story goes that Donn Beach spontaneously created it as a hangover cure for one of his regulars heading for an important meeting. Asked a few days later if it had worked the gent replied: “I felt like the living dead, it made a zombie out of me.”