Cocktail of the Week: The Millionaire (Whiskey)

Picking up where we left off last week, now that the tax man has come and gone ...

The 1920s produced a yacht club’s worth of cocktails called the Millionaire. Trouble is, in the words of spirits historian David Wondrich, “most of ‘em sucked.” Wondrich sticks to the earliest known recipe to lay claim to the moneyed moniker, born in London’s swank Ritz Hotel around the time of Prohibition and consisting of rye, Grand Marnier, grenadine and egg white. Over the years substitutions have been made, like bourbon for rye, framboise liqueur in place of the grenadine or a less domineering orange flavor than the Marnier. Two additions have also become commonplace. While David Embury said the original recipe “produces a very satisfactory drink, in my opinion it is improved by a small quantity of lemon juice.” He also didn’t look askance on a dash of absinthe.

Today’s avatar of wealth is Donald Trump, not Andrew Carnegie, so my Millionaire would be gaudy, complete with all the golden bells and silver whistles. I opted for bourbon as a change of pace from my usual rye, with curaçao as the orange component. Some recipes prescribe rinsing the cocktail glass with absinthe as well as including a small amount in the mix. I’m not a millionaire, so I used Pernod instead. I recommend the rinse only; adding some to the drink hits that note too hard.

Embury, as usual, was on the money. Lemon juice is essential, providing a welcome countervailing element to the egg white. There’s a rich sweetness to this drink that puts it squarely in the after-dinner category. Given a choice, I prefer last week’s Millionaire. But I can’t see any one-percenters ordering either one. They’re more a single malt Scotch crowd.

The Millionaire (Whiskey)

2 oz. rye (or bourbon)
½ oz. curaçao
½ oz. lemon juice
2-3 dashes grenadine
egg white
dash of absinthe (or Pernod)

Combine the first five ingredients. Shake without ice, then with. Strain into a cocktail glass rinsed or misted with absinthe (or Pernod).

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 Honeymoon

Nothing like paging through an old cocktail book and chancing upon a drink that sounds like it would suit your palate – and for which you possess all the ingredients. The quencher in question is the Honeymoon, the tome Patrick Gavin Duffy’s Official Mixer’s Manual. Only it isn’t.

The Honeymoon is one of a host of cocktails that first appears in a 1916 book with the pedestrian title Recipes for Mixed Drinks by Hugo Ensslin. Ensslin toiled behind the stick at the Wallick House in Times Square, described by David Wondrich in Imbibe! as “one of New York’s second-rank hotels.” While Ensslin may have lacked the chops to “earn him a place in the oral tradition of New York bar lore,” he performed a far greater service. He recorded how bartenders prepared drinks in the period prior to Prohibition, knowledge that would have otherwise been lost. Among the cocktails he preserved for posterity are the Aviation and the Deshler. The treasure trove of tipples he left behind greatly influenced Duffy and Harry Craddock of The Savoy Cocktail Book fame, both of whom plundered Recipes wholesale.

Despite its New York origins, the Honeymoon became a fixture on menus at Los Angeles’ Brown Derby restaurants, an impressive accomplishment considering they had their own signature cocktail. There’s a drink with the identical recipe called the Farmer’s Daughter. I want to say it’s named after the funky chalet-style hotel on Fairfax, but the dates don’t work.

An apple brandy sour with dual sweeteners, the Honeymoon has partisans who insist it be made with calvados. No doubt that’s an impressive version, but bonded applejack hasn’t disappointed me in this drink yet. The spirit-forward recipe below is from Jim Meehan’s PDT Cocktail Book. The apple’s crispness predominates, but is pleasantly modified by notes of citrus and a potent blast of sweetness courtesy of Bénédictine resulting in a fuller, rosier flavor. The Honeymoon is a blushing bride of a cocktail, a smart, tart beverage worthy of the attention given to many of the other drinks Hugo Ensslin remembered for us.

The Honeymoon

2 oz. apple brandy
½ oz. orange curaçao
½ oz. Bénédictine
½ oz. lemon juice

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.

Cocktail of the Week: The Journalist

LOCAL MAN PREPARES, ENJOYS YET ANOTHER COCKTAIL

Holds Forth on Subject at Slightest Provocation

SEATTLE, WA – Vince Keenan had never tried the cocktail known as the Journalist before, but he had a perfectly valid reason to make one at his home bar.

“I already had the ingredients,” Mr. Keenan said. “Every one of them. Even the lemon. Kind of a lucky break, really.”

Over recent years, Mr. Keenan has developed a taste for mixed drinks, amassing a considerable collection of books dedicated to alcoholic libations and regularly preparing them for himself and his wife, who asked not to be identified by name.

“I wouldn’t say I’m a cocktail expert. More a cocktail enthusiast,” Mr. Keenan said with what he hoped was a twinkle in his eye but was in fact more likely mild astigmatism. “I’m always happy to experiment, especially with what I already have on hand.”

Pictured: A journalist

In this most recent instance, that would include curaçao. “I’ve been raving about Pierre Ferrand Dry Curaçao for a while now. Ever since I bought a bottle, really,” Mr. Keenan said, turning to his sparsely-trafficked website for proof. He added that he had become quite a fan of the orange liqueur, based on a nineteenth-century formulation, because of the presence of brandy, which he described as “stout.” “As in strong, not as in the beer,” Mr. Keenan clarified with a wholly unnecessary chuckle. “I was looking for other drinks I could make with it and came across the Journalist.”

The adult beverage in question first appeared in the storied Savoy Cocktail Book, a compendium of mixed drinks first published in 1930 and assembled by Harry Craddock, an American bartender who emigrated to the United Kingdom during Prohibition to pursue his craft. Unlike many of the other cocktails featured in Mr. Craddock’s book, the Journalist was largely forgotten, seldom appearing in subsequent titles on the subject. “Somehow it survived into my copy of Patrick Gavin Duffy’s Official Mixer’s Manual,” Mr. Keenan said, scrambling to retrieve his edition of the book even though no one had asked him to. “It’s where I first found it.”

To some extent Mr. Keenan was not surprised by the Journalist’s neglected status, because of its similarity to a far-better known concoction. “It’s basically a perfect martini with a sharp citrus kick,” Mr. Keenan said, explaining that by “perfect” he meant the cocktail contained equal portions of both sweet and dry vermouth. The citrus kick comes courtesy of lemon juice and Mr. Keenan’s favored new ingredient curaçao, which are used sparingly but to great effect. Mr. Keenan again credits the brandy present in the curaçao. “I think it tethers the hints of lemon and bitter orange, lets them shine through the gin. The drink retains the crispness and clarity of a martini, but with a burst of citrus that makes it sort of sprightly. I can say that, right? Sprightly? I always feel self-conscious using words like that when talking about drinks. Or any subject, really.” He went on to provide several examples, ending in a protracted crying jag.

Pictured: A different Journalist

Mr. Keenan also appreciated the Journalist’s judicious use of bitters, which he viewed as a nod to tradition. “It’s a variation on a martini, after all, and originally that meant bitters. The recipe calls for Angostura, but any aromatic variety will do. I wouldn’t make this drink without them.”

This experiment proving a success, Mr. Keenan was asked what he planned to do next. “I don’t really know,” he said. “Typically I don’t put much forethought into this. More often than not it’s based on whatever I have lying around. Like the Bénédictine I picked up the other day. Where did I put that?” He went in search of the recently acquired bottle. When he did not return after several hours, the interview drew to a close.

- 30 -

The Journalist

2 oz. gin
½ oz. dry vermouth
½ oz. sweet vermouth
2 dashes curaçao
2 dashes lemon juice
1 dash Angostura or aromatic bitters

Shake. 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 El Presidente

On a week when each citizen was called upon to exercise his or her franchise, I give to a cocktail something I am unlikely to extend to a candidate: a second chance.

The El Presidente was created in Havana. Several of the city’s bars lay claim to the drink, although its likeliest origin according to cocktail historian David Wondrich is expatriate Yanqui bartender Eddie Woelke at the Jockey Club. Given that a recipe appeared in a 1919 newspaper, odds are the cocktail was christened after Cuba’s then-jefe Mario García Menocal. It quickly became popular on the island and made the jump to another, Manhattan, by 1925. The apocryphal story goes that in 1928, Menocal’s successor Gerardo Machado offered one to Calvin Coolidge on a state visit, but owing to Prohibition America’s El Presidente declined.

Exhibit A

Many a cocktail pioneer championed the drink. Victor “Trader Vic” Bergeron dubbed it Cuba’s answer to the martini. David Embury, in The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks, called it “the leading rum cocktail of the aromatic type.” No one did more to popularize the El Presidente than Charles H. Baker, Jr. In his Gentleman’s Companion it’s enshrined as “The Habana Presidente, now Known to Many, but Sound Enough in Its Own Right for Listing in any Spiritual Volume,” and he suggests “every visiting Americano should go to (Havana bar) La Florida and get one from headquarters. The mix is simple and satisfying.” That mix, for the record, is rum, dry vermouth, grenadine and curaçao, and that’s exactly how I first had the drink at San Francisco’s marvelous temple of all things tropical Smuggler’s Cove.

A curious thing happened as the cocktail’s popularity waned: the recipe changed. Blame, as discussed last week, the scarcity of quality curaçao. The schism is laid bare in my late 1980s Mr. Boston guide. It takes a bicameral approach, featuring two versions of the El Presidente, one with lime and pineapple juice, the other with dry vermouth and bitters, nary a drop of curaçao to be seen. Baker had noted that the Special, served at the competing Havana bar Sloppy Joe’s, was an El Presidente with lime, which may explain where the citrus originated. My first attempt at fixing the cocktail myself was based on this later iteration, specifically gaz regan’s The Joy of Mixology recipe extrapolated from a 1949 Old Mr. Boston guide. Submitted into evidence as Exhibit A is a photograph, taken at the old Chez K. This drink – featuring lime and pineapple juices as well as the telltale neon glow of bottled grenadine – tasted nothing like what I’d sipped in San Francisco, proving an underwhelming variation on a daiquiri.

The contender, not the pretender

The recount was prompted by the triumphant resurrection of curaçao. The Wondrich-developed Pierre Ferrand variety, with its orange notes on a solid foundation of cognac, sets off magnificent sparks here. I resisted the temptation to add more, because curaçao’s flavor is so textured that a little accomplishes a great deal. Some recipes call for equal parts rum and dry vermouth, but in my regime I established a clear hierarchy: rum as the strongman, then vermouth, then curaçao, and finally grenadine.

Only not grenadine. I have of late been substituting pomegranate molasses. On the plus side it provides an intensity of taste that most grenadines can’t match. The drawback is it doesn’t dissolve very well. Diluting the molasses largely alleviates that problem. I gave the resulting cocktail the strongest endorsement possible: as soon as it was finished, I made another one.

The El Presidente

1 ½ oz. rum
¾ oz. dry vermouth
½ oz. orange curaçao
½ tsp. grenadine or diluted pomegranate molasses

Stir. Strain. Garnish with an orange 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: Satan’s Whiskers/Satan’s Soul Patch

Greetings, boys and ghouls. I thought it would be a scream on this Samhain-chanted evening to exorcize your tonsils with – yeah, OK, I’m putting a stop to that nonsense right there.

This week’s entry comes a day early, because there’s no point in highlighting a drink called Satan’s Whiskers after Halloween. As well as having a suitably seasonal name, it’s a natural follow up to last week’s gin-and-orange adventure.

Satan’s Whiskers first appeared in the Savoy Cocktail Book, and how many times have I written that sentence? Its claim to fame is that it can be served in two styles depending on the orange liqueur used, either straight (Grand Marnier) or curled (curaçao). My Whiskers have a kink to them for one reason: I don’t have any Grand Marnier.

Don’t get me wrong. I like the stuff. On its own it can be marvelous. But in mixed drinks Grand Marnier, like Bull Durham’s ‘Nuke’ LaLoosh, likes to announce its presence with authority. It tends to bully the other flavors around.

Straight Whiskers have long been the default choice because of the absence of a good curaçao. The secret to the liqueur is the use of Laraha orange peels. Larahas are the descendants of European Valencia oranges that didn’t take to the drier climate of the New World and became small and bitter. (For a demonstration of this process, have a relative move to Florida and then check on them in five years. Hiyo!) Larahas are largely inedible but that didn’t stop desperate sailors from forcing them down to stave off scurvy, to the extent that Amy Stewart, in her book The Drunken Botanist: The Plants That Create The World’s Great Drinks, speculates that the name of the island where the fruit grows comes from the Portuguese word for “cured.” This desperation led to the discovery that Laraha peels are uncommonly, almost seductively aromatic, and soon they were the source of a liqueur.

Curaçao has been bastardized over the years; hell, most people think it’s supposed to be blue. Then in 2012 cocktail authority David Wondrich joined forced with France’s Cognac Ferrand to create Pierre Ferrand Dry Curaçao. Based on 19th century formulae, their variation of this classic combines Curaçao orange peels and other spices with unaged brandy and Ferrand cognac. The resulting spirit, tinted a light amber and priced to move, has a nuanced taste, the brandy assertive but not overwhelming. It occupies a point on the spectrum where it could readily be substituted for Grand Marnier on one end and Cointreau or other triple secs on the other.

And, of course, it’s right at home in traditional curaçao cocktails like the curled Satan’s Whiskers. Which, I have to say, does not taste particularly diabolical. In fact, demonic monicker aside it’s scarcely a Halloween drink. Its orange flavor is so pronounced that it’s almost sprightly. I’d go so far as to call Satan’s Whiskers too much of a good thing. The standard recipe calls for orange bitters, but I’d opt for Angostura to provide a countervailing note to the abundance of citrus.

Or you could go one step further and make a Satan’s Soul Patch (or Satan’s Mouche, if one wants to sound Continental), a more substantial offering anchored by bourbon instead of gin. Especially if you plan on fixing one this evening. What better time to commune with dark spirits than Halloween?

Satan’s Whiskers (Curled)

½ oz. gin
½ oz. dry vermouth
½ oz. sweet vermouth
½ oz. fresh orange juice
¼ oz. orange curaçao
dash of Angostura bitters

Shake. Strain. Garnish with an orange twist. Make the “straight” version with Grand Marnier in place of curaçao. Make a Satan’s Soul Patch with bourbon in place of gin. Note that reading this post in its entirety means that your immortal soul is now the property of Keenan’s Kocktails, LLC.

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.