Cocktail of the Week: Remember The Maine

From 1969’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid:

Madam of a house of ill-repute: All right, you two. I want you at my party.
Butch: What party?
Madam: I’m losing my piano player. He’s going off to fight the war.
Sundance: What war?
Madam: The war with the Spanish.
Butch: Remember the Maine!
Sundance: Who can forget it?

Right after this exchange we catch a glimpse of said party, a handmade sign bearing the American flag and that rallying cry hanging over the piano. Butch and Sundance decide to enlist and bring their, ahem, leadership and maturity to the war effort. They toast their new commitment. With beer, not with this cocktail. It wasn’t around then. They don’t join up, either. They have trains to rob, and the war doesn’t last that long, anyway.

The U.S.S. Maine sank in Havana harbor in February 1898, blown up by a mine. The incident was seized on by the Hearst and Pulitzer newspapers, then in their yellow journalism heyday, and used to fan the flames of public outrage. That simple three-word call to arms helped enormously.

All of which is only distantly related to the cocktail of the same name. It is canonized in Charles H. Baker, Jr.’s The Gentleman’s Companion, and he lays out its provenance in his usual idiosyncratic fashion, calling it “a HAZY MEMORY of a NIGHT in HAVANA during the UNPLEASANTNESSES of 1933, when EACH SWALLOW WAS PUNCTUATED WITH BOMBS GOING off on the PRADO, or the SOUND of 3” SHELLS BEING FIRED at the HOTEL NACIONAL, then HAVEN for CERTAIN ANTI -REVOLUTIONARY OFFICERS.” You’d think an incident that dramatic would prompt the christening of a cocktail for the Hotel Nacional. Oh, right. It did.

“Treat this one with the respect it deserves, gentlemen,” Baker continued. An order easy to follow considering the Remember the Maine is a distant relation of the Manhattan featuring the bright sweetness of Cherry Heering and the unruly kick of absinthe (or a pastis substitute). The drink is a staple offering in craft cocktail bars, although I doubt bartenders follow Baker’s instructions while making it to the letter and “stir briskly in clock-wise fashion – this makes it sea-going, presumably!”

But innovation continues with this concoction. Barrel aged cocktails are a more recent trend, entire mixtures being placed in barrels for weeks to alter the character. Recently at Seattle’s Radiator Whiskey I sampled a Remember the Maine made months earlier. Bartender Justin told me they used Old Overholt rye because it has some spiciness while being soft enough to change in the barrel. I’ve been dubious about barrel-aging cocktails, but this one, mellow and contemplative, might make me a believer.

You can prepare this drink with a few dashes of bitters or garnish it with a cherry. I adhered to Baker’s prescription as best I could, switching in Pernod for absinthe. I threw in the merest hint with the other ingredients per the master’s orders; feel free to rinse the glass with it instead.

Still, the drink has nothing to do with the actual sinking of the Maine. And if I’m poking holes in illusions here, I might as well go all out and observe that in his essential book Adventures in the Screen Trade, William Goldman said one of the weaknesses of his Butch and Sundance script was too much smart-ass dialogue, citing Sundance’s jibe about the Maine as an example: “I guess there’s a joke in that thought somewhere, but I sure as hell didn’t find it.” I thought it was funny. But we’re none of us perfect.

Remember the Maine

2 oz. rye
¾ oz. sweet vermouth
½ oz. Cherry Heering
1 teaspoon absinthe or Pernod

Stir in whatever direction you prefer. Strain. Garnish with a lemon twist.

Want more Cocktail of the Week? The first fifty-two essays are available in the Kindle bestseller DOWN THE HATCH: ONE MAN’S ONE YEAR ODYSSEY THROUGH CLASSIC COCKTAIL RECIPES AND LORE. Buy it now at Amazon.com.

Cocktail of the Week: The Blood and Sand

They’re not many in number, Scotch cocktails, and understandably so. Scotch whisky, whether smoky or peaty, is a lonely, Brontë-esque figure on the moors, demanding to be savored in solitude. The one or two drinks I’ve spotlighted using this spirit don’t stray far from the Manhattan. But the cocktail that shows Scotch to its best advantage moves in a completely different direction, and is in my personal pantheon. Naysayers who don’t believe Scotch mixes well be warned: no less an authority than Ted Haigh, in Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails, calls the drink “revelatory.”

Blood and Sand began as a 1908 novel by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez. The tale of a young bullfighter undone by success, it would be brought to the screen by the author himself in 1916. Six years later, a Paramount Pictures adaptation would cement the fame of Rudolph Valentino; the actor later identified the role as his favorite and the performance as his best. A 1941 remake starring Tyrone Power and Rita Hayworth was also a hit. As for the 1989 Spanish-made version inexplicably starring Sharon Stone, this much can be said: it exists. Both the 1922 and 1941 films spawned comic send-ups by name talents, first Stan Laurel’s “Mud and Sand” (in which he plays Rhubarb Vaselino) then the Three Stooges’ immortal “What’s The Matador?”

Valentino’s triumph also gave rise to the cocktail. Its exact origin is unknown, but the recipe first appeared in Harry Craddock’s Savoy Cocktail Book (1930). The inspiration carries over to the ingredients, with orange juice representing the sand and the rich red of Cherry Heering serving as sanguinary element. Springing for a bottle of this extraordinarily flavorful brandy has allowed me at last to make this drink at home.

The Blood and Sand was initially an equally parts cocktail, and many bartenders still prepare it this way; A.J. Rathbun in Dark Spirits cleverly suggests making it as a punch. The redoubtable gaz regan ups the OJ ante and serves it as a brunch highball. I prefer it with an emphasis on the whisky, leading to the question of which brand to use. You’ll want a light single-malt or a blended. Famous Grouse is the default choice at the bars where I regularly order it, but following a run on the product at my local liquor store I sent Bank Note Blended (containing a higher than usual 40% single malt yet at a price that won’t gore you) into the ring in its suit of lights and it brought the crowd to its feet waving white handkerchiefs. A sterling replacement.

The Blood and Sand

1 ½ oz. Scotch
¾ oz. orange juice
½ oz. Cherry Heering
½ oz. sweet vermouth

Shake. Strain. No garnish.

Want more Cocktail of the Week? The first fifty-two essays are available in the Kindle bestseller DOWN THE HATCH: ONE MAN’S ONE YEAR ODYSSEY THROUGH CLASSIC COCKTAIL RECIPES AND LORE. Buy it now at Amazon.com.