What I’m Watching: All-SIFF Edition

The Seattle International Film Festival ended on May 28, and I’m only getting around to it now. Which may be just as well, considering that my two favorite movies from this year’s fest are already turning up in theaters.

Chile ’76. The title of this piercing political thriller gives us the where and, more pointedly, the when: the Pinochet years. Retired stewardess Carmen (Aline Küppenheim in a powerhouse performance) is largely insulated from political unrest; her physician husband affords her a comfortable life, with grandchildren and a summer house remodel to occupy her time. But when a priest asks her to tend to a wounded young activist sought by the government, the fragile order of her world comes apart. Directed and cowritten by Manuela Martelli, it’s a look at how normal life can seem under a dictatorship—and how much effort even the smallest act of compassion takes under those circumstances. Mention must be made of Mariá Portugal’s moody and effective score, like something out of a 1970s giallo.

The Night of the 12th. This policier from director Dominik Moll (With a Friend Like Harry), which won France’s César Award for Best Picture, takes a big swing early. It tells you up front that the real-life case that inspired it will not be solved, and is only more compelling because of it. Tense and atmospheric, it follows a young detective (Bastien Bouillon) whose first assignment as the head of an investigative unit is an uncommonly brutal murder in the incongruously beautiful setting of Grenoble at the foot of the French Alps. As the years pass without a solution, he realizes he only knows two things for certain: “Something’s amiss between men and women,” and he’ll have to find a way to carry on in the face of never knowing the truth. It will be playing at Seattle’s Grand Illusion later this month as part of the theater’s “… before the case cracks you” series alongside Zodiac and Bong Joon-ho’s Memories of Murder, and it deserves to be in their company.

Max Roach: The Drum Also Waltzes, a solid documentary about the jazz musician, educator, and activist, will air on PBS’s American Masters in October. And fingers crossed that the Irish/UK science fiction film Lola reaches a broad audience. Its 79-minute running time contains an impressive amount of story, about two charismatic orphaned sisters in the 1940s, one of whom constructs a machine that receives radio and TV signals from the future. They use this knowledge first to change their own lives, then the course of World War II. The found-footage conceit is initially hard to swallow, but director Andrew Legge ultimately makes it work through adept manipulation of historical images.

What I’m Drinking

Call me a convert to the French Manhattan, taken from David Lebovitz’s book Drinking French: The Iconic Cocktails, Aperitifs, and Café Traditions of France, with 100 Recipes (2020). This version of the classic is made with cognac and orange liqueur. My next experiment, as I don’t have any of France’s orange-based Amer Picon, is to try one with one of my go-to Picon substitutes: Amer Boudreau, Bigallet China-China Amer, or Amaro CioCiaro. Will report back.

The French Manhattan

1 ½ oz. cognac
1 ½ oz. sweet vermouth
¼ oz. Cointreau or Grand Marnier
1 dash orange or Angostura bitters

Stir. Strain. Garnish with a cherry.
 

Cocktail of the Week: The Vieux Carré

Pity, if you will, the poor Vieux Carré. Not that the cocktail is poor, of course. Au contraire, it’s rich in all the ways that matter. Had it been born anywhere else it would surely, by popular acclamation, be declared the official cocktail of that metropole and receive all the deference due.

Instead it’s the hard luck drink of New Orleans. No matter that it was birthed in the Big Easy and christened after the French Quarter – the name means “old square” – it will never be the Crescent City’s signature libation. Not when the Sazerac got there first.

Still, this cocktail-in-waiting ably rewards the attentions of any caller. Walter Bergeron, bartender at the still-standing Hotel Monteleone, created it, the recipe first appearing in print in 1937. It’s a dandy down home spin on the Manhattan, or more precisely on a variation of that classic called the Saratoga (one of several drinks laying claim to that up-north appellation), which adds cognac to the usual combination of whiskey, rosso vermouth and Angostura bitters. The cocktail’s Southern heritage comes marching in via the additional complexity provided by New Orleans’ own Peychaud’s bitters, as well as the soupçon of luxuriant sweetness courtesy of Bénédictine.

With its subtle interplay of flavors including a hint of decadence, the Vieux Carré has long been a go-to request of mine in craft cocktail bars. Now that I’ve finally ponied up for a bottle of Bénédictine, I can make them myself. Before preparing my maiden effort, though, I had to decide how I wanted to serve it. The first few times I ordered the drink it was presented up in a cocktail glass. The standard, though, is in a tumbler over ice, and that’s what I opted for here. In either case, don’t be stingy with the lemon peel. That final burst of citrus is the coup de grâce.

The Vieux Carré

1 oz. rye
1 oz. Cognac
1 oz. sweet vermouth
¼ oz. Bénédictine
2 dashes of Angostura bitters
2 dashes of Peychaud’s bitters

Stir. Strain. Garnish with a lemon peel.

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 Between The Sheets

Dr. Egon Spengler: Don’t cross the streams.

Dr. Peter Venkman: Why?

Dr. Egon Spengler: It would be bad.

From GHOSTBUSTERS

The timeless advice of a trusted academic is also my usual response to the mixing of base spirits. One, typically, is enough. The case of the Between The Sheets isn’t abetted by its name, which can also be appended to anything read from a fortune cookie. It was a bitter disappointment, then, that the Playboy Bartender’s Guide, always a reliable source of vaguely smutty drink advice, simply observed that the Between The Sheets is a variation on the rum Sidecar.

The cocktail dates back to the Prohibition era and is credited to the usual places; Harry’s New York Bar Paris comes up, but Harry’s New York Bar Paris always comes up. Given the combustible combination of potent potables, it’s not surprising that some experts viewed it askance. In early editions of The Official Mixer’s Manual, it was branded with the advisory asterisk that was essentially Patrick Gavin Duffy tossing up his hands and saying, “I’ll tell you how to make it. I’m not telling you to drink it.” Charles H. Baker, Jr. first sampled it in the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on a day of rioting between Arabs and Jews. “We won’t go into the politics of the thing,” he observes in his customary style in The Gentleman’s Companion, “but it was a nasty mess.” As for the cocktail itself, he declares it “totally sound.”

And it is. Partisans of the Sidecar may want to give it a whirl, the rum bestowing a tropical kick on the proceedings. There are versions prescribing Benedictine in place of rum, but if you’re going to baffle the palate, says I, baffle it but good. I personally don’t sugar the rim of the glass, as you would in a standard Sidecar, because the rum (or the Benedictine) will provide sufficient sweetness. And depending on which recipe you consult, the amount of lemon juice varies from a dash to a portion equal to the other ingredients. Here I’ve opted for enough to keep the drink squarely in the Sour family, where it belongs. Whatever preparation you settle on, the Between the Sheets is better than its name.

The Between The Sheets

1 oz. light rum
1 oz. brandy (Cognac)
1 oz. Cointreau
¾ oz. lemon juice

Shake. Strain. No garnish.

Cocktail of the Week: The Crux

Among my favorite moments in cocktail bars are those exchanges that make your drink choice a collaborative process. You provide direction while yielding to your bartender’s expertise, indicating what taste you’re in the mood for while leaving room for interpretation. With a few questions, an accomplished professional can divine exactly what you didn’t know you wanted.

You do not expect one of those questions to be, “How do you feel about Hawaiian Punch?”


That’s the question that Ben Perri of the Zig Zag Café put to Rosemarie when she said she was in a Cognac state of mind. Ben parried with the Crux, an overlooked offering that he described as a sophisticated version of the battery-inducing childhood favorite (watch the ad), having the flavor with none of the cloying sweetness.

Rosemarie was intrigued. The cocktail was exactly what Ben promised. I wrote the recipe on a coaster and started making them at home.

There’s not much history on the Crux. Its first appearance is apparently in Jones’ Complete Bar Guide (1977), now out of print. Stan Jones was a lifelong bartender who worked the stick in Southern California. During the dark ages of cocktails, a grim and best forgotten time of pre-packaged mixes and liquor on the gun, Jones collected some 4,000 recipes, several of which like the Crux might otherwise have been forgotten. Given the diligence Jones showed in talking to his fellow veterans in compiling his opus, it’s unclear where the Crux came from or whether it was a Jones original.

Hawaiian Punch famously featured seven kinds of fruit (again, watch the ad). In the equal parts Crux you get lemon juice, plus the bitter orange notes of Cointreau and both Cognac and the fortified wine Dubonnet providing a touch of the grape. That’s, what, three, maybe four fruits? Clearly there’s some kind of wizardry involved, because the result is wonderfully balanced and not remotely saccharine. Or, to put it another way, damned if doesn’t taste like Hawaiian Punch all grown up, holding down some tech sector job and living in a swank bachelor pad.

The Crux

¾ oz. Cognac
¾ oz. Cointreau
¾ oz. Dubonnet
¾ oz. lemon juice

Shake. Strain. No garnish.

Cocktail of the Week: The Champs-Élysées

Picking up where we left off, with the Sidecar …

Versatility is the hallmark of a good cocktail. A small change can result in a vastly different experience. The Sidecar serves as a perfect example. Replace the Cointreau with, say, the complex French liqueur chartreuse and you might as well give the drink a new name. Maybe something that connotes Gallic elegance like, say, the Champs-Élysées.

But which chartreuse? That’s the question.

When the Champs-Élysées appeared in the Savoy Cocktail Book (1930), Harry Craddock did not specify a particular shade of chartreuse. Over time green has become the default choice; thanks to its higher proof and bolder taste, it’s the go-to color for bartenders and cocktail aficionados everywhere. As this recipe indicates, it’s how the drink is made at the Zig Zag Café, where I first sampled it.

Yellow chartreuse, on the other hand, has a more sedate flavor that would seem a better match for cognac. Flipping through my 1956 edition of Patrick Gavin Duffy’s Official Mixer’s Manual, I wasn’t surprised to see him call out the lighter brand of chartreuse.

There’s room for still more invention. Washington Post cocktail authority Jason Wilson offered a variation forsaking sugar in any form and incorporating sparks of orange that add a higher register to the drink. Contrast his version with the Zig Zag’s for a sense of the subtle range that’s possible within the spectrum of a single cocktail.

The Champs-Élysées

Jason Wilson

1 ½ oz. Cognac
¾ oz. yellow chartreuse
½ oz. lemon juice
dash of orange bitters

Shake. Strain. Garnish with an orange twist (not pictured).

Cocktail of the Week: The Sidecar

Claret is the liquor for boys; port, for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy. In the first place, brandy is most grateful to the palate; and then brandy will do soonest for a man what drinking can do for him. There are, indeed, few who are able to drink brandy. That is a power rather to be wished for than attained. – Samuel Johnson

And no cocktail showcases brandy, specifically cognac, better than the Sidecar. Imagine my chagrin to discover I’d neglected it up to now. I mean, it’s one of the six basic cocktails in David Embury’s The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks. It turns up on a 1936 list of the western world’s fifteen most popular cocktails. What was I thinking?

I know what I was thinking. Much as I enjoy a good Sidecar, I don’t typically make them at home for a reason that will be revealed in due time.

With a drink as durable as this one, it comes as little surprise that there are multiple origin stories. Embury claims to have been friends with its creator, a World War I-era military man ferried via motorcycle sidecar to the Paris bar (apparently Harry’s New York) where the drink was made to his specifications. I’m inclined to believe him, as the scrupulous Embury was not given to idle boasts. Kingsley Amis repeats this version, calling the sidecar “the ideal vehicle for a soak when he’s been soaking – he can forget about the driver and snore away in peace.” Several other Continental establishments purport to be where the Sidecar was first poured. Embury also called the cocktail “the most perfect example I know of a magnificent drink gone wrong” because it swelled to a half-dozen or more ingredients from the original three. (I say four, finding that a small amount of simple syrup binds the other flavors together.) Any formulae in which the essential trio are served in equal parts is to be ignored. The drink calls for brandy, but that is always read as cognac or Armagnac.

One element not present in any of the early recipes is now the Sidecar’s signature feature: the sugared rim of the glass in which it is served. Cocktail expert Ted Haigh discovered that the drink bears a marked resemblance to the 1860s New Orleans concoction the Brandy Crusta, which features the same ingredients plus bitters and half a lemon peel – all in a glass with sugar on the rim.

Bringing us to my problem. My technique on this critical step is, shall we say, subpar. It’s easy enough in theory: you moisten the rim by rubbing the exterior with a wedge of the appropriate citrus fruit (here, lemon), then hold the glass parallel to the table and rotate it in a dish of the dry ingredient (sugar in this case, salt for the Sidecar’s spiritual descendant the Margarita). The goal is not to add anything unnecessary to the drink itself, keeping the sugar or salt on the outside of the glass. I prefer putting sugar on only half the rim because I add simple syrup to the Sidecar.

But my approach leaves something to be desired. I offer the attached photograph as evidence. I either get too much of the dry ingredient or not enough, which is why I tend to leave this trick to the professionals. Still, the Sidecar is too marvelous a drink not to have in the home repertoire, and practice makes perfect. For that reason I’ve been frequenting busy commercial strips and telling passersby that I’ll sugar their rims for them. Just remember: if you ask if they’re cops, they have to tell you.¹

The Sidecar

2 oz. Cognac
¾ oz. Cointreau
¾ oz. lemon juice
¼ oz. simple syrup

Shake. Strain. Pour into a glass with a sugared rim. No garnish.

¹Caution: not legally true.

Cocktail of the Week: The Block and Fall

As bartender at New York’s Ashland House hotel, Patrick Gavin Duffy served men of letters like Mark Twain and Oscar Wilde. But Duffy’s contribution to world literature warrants praise of its own. The Official Mixer’s Manual (1934) provides an invaluable record of pre-Prohibition cocktails and cocktail culture. Duffy’s book was “revised and enlarged” by the food writer James Beard several times, with the later iterations losing some of the original’s sterner sentiment. My 1956 copy doesn’t include Duffy’s cranky counsel on how to practice the trade of bartending, which includes the admonition to keep interaction with the customer to a minimum. Ben Perri of the Zig Zag Café tells me that in earlier editions of the Manual, drinks that Duffy deems no longer worthy of being prepared are marked with an asterisk. My friend Eddie Muller sums up the book’s old school appeal by noting that his copy highlights “exactly TWO (2) cocktails with a vodka base.” By 1956, the number had swollen grotesquely to a tumescent twelve.

Duffy remains a tremendous resource, full of drinks that have unfairly fallen out of favor. Consider the Block and Fall. Much as I’d like to believe the stories that the drink’s name is a warning of its potency – have one, walk a block, and you’ll fall – the handle is simply a variation on block and tackle.

That said, this cocktail is strong. It’s also astonishingly complex, growing more nuanced as it settles. Cognac and Cointreau may not at first glance seem like a natural pairing but they complement each other nicely, with applejack providing a welcome bite and the Pernod floating pleasantly above it all. It tastes like a vintage cocktail, something Duffy might have poured for J. P. Morgan (another of his customers), meant to be sipped while sitting in a leather chair and conspiring to knot the unruly republic together with railroads. It’s one I’m launching a campaign to bring back.

The Block and Fall

Patrick Gavin Duffy, The Official Mixer’s Manual

1 oz. Cognac (or brandy)
1 oz. Cointreau
½ oz. applejack (or Calvados)
½ oz. Pernod

Stir. Strain. No garnish.