You remember when you were a kid and Christmas finally rolled around? You were so psyched from the weeks of waiting that you were about to have a cute little aneurysm just waiting for Christmas morning to come, and when it finally happened — when you went to sleep on Christmas eve and then woke up with a start — you went rushing helter-skelter down to the living room to freak out under the Christmas tree, oblivious to the fact that it was 5:30 AM and, aside from your similarly over-stimulated siblings, nobody else in the house realized it was time to get rolling.

For Jeffrey Morgenthaler, our gracious host this month, Repeal Day is Christmas morning. Ready to party with the Dewar’s people in New York, Jeffrey popped up his MxMo roundup while many of his fellow bloggers — including Rick, Marleigh, Jay and myself, among others — were still lounging around, thinking we had all the time in the world to get our posts together.

You can’t blame him, though — Jeffrey orchestrated some wildly popular Repeal Day events last year, and this year it seems to be catching on more than ever. And for a bartender and card-carrying booze geek like Jeffrey, the anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition offers no fewer reasons to celebrate than any day that involves a fat guy in a red suit.

But while this Repeal Day will be full of people wearing fedoras and vintage cocktail dresses meant to evoke the 1930s, tipping back period-appropriate cocktails, martinis in teacups and the occasional shot of bourbon, let’s not forget what a really fucking bleak time Prohibition was in many ways. I don’t just mean the absence of legal booze –though that sucked plenty, I’m sure — I mean the total destruction of careers and livelihoods that took place when bars were shuttered, wine and beer (and the tips and revenues that accompanied them) were removed from restaurants, breweries and distilleries were shut down, and the whole resource chain and infrastructure that was somehow related to the production of beverage alcohol was knocked ass-over-teakettle by overambitious legislation.

And consider those who defied the law — sure, the whole speakeasy thing is big now, but it’s not like the real deal were serving custom-crafted cocktails using hand-chiseled ice. Bad booze, no regulatory controls, block-and-drop joints, dealing with “liquor producers” with the technical skill and professional ethics of modern-day meth-lab chemists, and the ever-present threat of arrest and scandal brought more than just the hint of danger to the whole business.

Case in point: gin. “Bathtub gin” is a cliche left over from the era, an allusion to the discrete mixing of grain alcohol with oil of juniper to produce something that kind of, maybe, if you’re desperate, sort of tastes like gin. Need something closer to the real deal? Try this — the recipe is from Giggle Water, a 1928 book that contains a number of recipes for making your own brandies, cordials and gins, along with cocktail recipes blatantly stolen word-for-word from Jerry Thomas.

Imitation Old Tom London Gin

Dissolve in 1 quart 95 per cent alcohol, 1 drachm oil of coriander, 1 drachm oil of cedar, 1/2 drachm oil of bitter almonds, 1/2 drachm oil of angelica, and 1/2 drachm oil of sweet fennel; add it to 40 gallons French spirit 10 above proof, with 1 pint orange-flower water, 1 quart syrup and 1 drachm oil of juniper dissolved in sufficient 95 per cent alcohol to be clear.

And if it wasn’t clear? Lacking Jeffrey’s Brita filter, Giggle Water’s author suggests this method:

To Clarify Gin or Cordials

Pulverize 1 pound ordinary crystals of alum, divide into 12 equal portions, and put up in blue papers marked No. 1. Next take 6 ounces carbonate (the ordinary sesquicarbonate) of soda, divide it into 12 parts and put them up in white papers marked No. 2. In place of the 6 ounces of carbonate of soda, 4 ounces dry salt of tartar may be substituted, but the white papers containing this latter substance must be kept in a dry, well corked bottle or jar. To clarify 30 to 36 gallons gin, dissolve the contents of one of the blue papers, as prepared above in about a pint of hot water, and stir it into the liquor thoroughly. Then dissolve the contents of one of the white papers in about 1/2 pint hot water, and stir well into the liquor; bung the cask close, and let the whole remain till the next day.

30 to 36 Gallons? This recipe ain’t for someone putting up a bottle to make Bronxes for the missus and the golf partners on a Saturday afternoon.

Given the way such concoctions must have tasted, it’s not surprising that many cocktail guides published soon after repeal expressed revulsion for the sweet, creamy cocktails that were created in an attempt to obscure the horrid taste of such hooch. Here’s David Embury with a particularly memorable piece of vitriol from 1948:

So unutterably vile were these synthetic concoctions that the primary object in mixing a cocktail became the addition of a sufficient amount of sweetened, highly flavored, and otherwise emollient and anti-emetic ingredients (cream, honey, Karo, canned fruit juices, etc.) to make it reasonably possible to swallow the resultant concoction and at the same time to retain a sufficient content of renatured alcohol to insure ultimate inebriety. Just how much dilution of the “gin”-bottle contents might be necessary to accomplish this supposedly salutary result depended largely on the intestinal fortitude and esophageal callosity of the particular individual involved. However, only the most rugged Spartan with at least ten years of vigorous prohibition training could be expected to survive — or, indeed, to get down — a drink containing as much as 50 percent of the gin, whisky, brandy, or what have you of those days.

Small wonder, then, that this period gave birth to such pernicious recipes as the Alexander — equal parts of gin, creme de cacao, and sweet cream; the Orange Blossom — equal parts of gin and orange juice, with or without the white of an egg; the Bee’s Knees — equal parts of gin, lemon juice, and honey; and so on ad nauseam. And it is only by regarding them as a more or less logical, albeit regrettable, aftermath of prohibition influence that one can account for the many ridiculous formulas still found in the average book of cocktail recipes of today.

So, in other words, Carry Nation is responsible for the alco-pop.

This post is already reaching Heugelian length, so I’ll stop with the ranting and head for the liquor cabinet. Bee’s Knees, anyone?

Bee’s Knees, adapted from The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks, by David Embury

• 2 ounces gin
• 1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 ounce honey

Shake vigorously with cracked ice. Writes Embury, “Early in the book I spoke in disparaging terms of the Bee’s Knees. This, however, was because as it originally came out during prohibition days it consisted of equal parts of lemon juice, honey, and gin. If made as a variation of the standard Gin Sour, merely substituting honey for the sugar syrup, it is acceptable.”

Acceptable. Yeah, that pretty much says it. (And before anyone gets the wrong idea from the photo: the Bee’s Knees recipe ain’t in Giggle Water; it is, however, a product of the same era, hence the pairing in the photo.)

So that’s it for this Mixology Monday — head on over to Jeffrey’s site soon for the roundup — oh, it’s already there. Never mind.

Tags: Drinks, Gin, Mixology Monday by Paul
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Slipping in with just minutes to spare, one more entry for Raiders of the Lost Cocktail.

Anita chose Benedictine as the ingredient this round, and according to the ground rules:

* Each month, the [previous month’s winner] will select a cocktail ingredient, which is accessible but not currently in vogue.
* Each month, readers are invited and challenged to scour all published sources (old books, new books, red books, blue books… plus magazines, databases, matchbook covers) to find worthy cocktails that use this ingredient, and potentially merit revival and rediscovery.
* Entries must be previously published recipes, and include recipe, source, author, and when possible date of publication.
* Recipes don’t have to be unique to that publication.
* Entries will be judged on overall quality and appeal.
* Preference will be extended toward recipes which use relatively common ingredients, thus allowing this recipe to be prepared at a wider majority of bars.
* Preference will be extended toward recipes which are “simpler” in nature (i.e., fewer ingredients without a complicated or burdensome construction)

Well, color me repetitive, but when the topic is “Benedictine cocktails,” there’s one that always springs first to my mind, in part because it’s an intriguing once-forgotten classic, but also because it’s just so damn tasty that it’s usually on my mind to begin with: the Cocktail a la Louisiane.

I first came across this drink while trolling in the backwater over at Chuck Taggart’s Gumbo Pages, but it wasn’t until I saw the recipe again, in Stanley Clisby Arthur’s Famous New Orleans Drinks and How to Mix ‘Em, from 1937, that I clued into the idea that I really should try it out. Y’see, at first glance the Louisiane looks like a sugar bomb — rye, a liqueur and sweet vermouth in equal parts, with a couple of dashes of pastis — but this is one of those drinks that has an alluring alchemy about it, that is able to rise above the level of mere sweetness and become something entirely new.

Interestingly, I’ve only ever seen this drink listed in one other cocktail guide: Bottoms Up, by Ted Saucier, which came out in 1951 (my copy, anyway); the recipe was near identical (everything was bumped up a notch in volume, but proportions remained the same). And then, nothing (though if someone’s spotted it in a guide that’s come out in the last couple of years, let me know) — which really astounds me, given the drink’s relative similarity to the Sazerac and Vieux Carre, along with its undeniable deliciousness.

One of the provisions for the Raiders challenge is that the ingredients be somewhat common, so a curious drinker would be able to order it in a bar. I think the Louisiane comes close: perhaps the most obscure ingredient in it is Peychaud’s bitters, which are popping up with greater frequency; rye isn’t too hard to find anymore, if you’ll go for Old Overholt, and practically everybody has sweet vermouth. There’s also room to goose up the quality of the drink: a few dashes of pastis are required, which in most bars means a little Pernod or Ricard; if you’re lucky, the bar will have some Herbsaint on a shelf, that adds a little extra authenticity to this New Orleans drink, along with a little ruggedness; and if you’re really lucky, your bar has supplemented its pastis selection with a bottle of Lucid or Kubler, genuine absinthes that will elevate the drink to another dimension.

Anyway, here you have it: my former favorite cocktail of Autumn 2006, now in my recurring list of favorite drinks of all time:

Cocktail a la Louisiane

• 3/4 ounce rye whiskey
• 3/4 ounce sweet vermouth
• 3/4 ounce Benedictine
• 3 dashes Pernod/Ricard/Herbsaint/absinthe
• 3 dashes Peychaud’s bitters

Stir well with ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a cherry.

* (and if the photo looks familiar, I snagged it back from a post I did on this drink for Serious Eats.)

Tags: Drinks, Rye by Paul
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While retailers have been moving the start of the Christmas season progressively earlier each year, a few days before Thanksgiving Jeffrey Morgenthaler offered to help shoulder the burden by posting perhaps the first eggnog recipe of the season. Let the Yuletide drinking begin!

I still have plenty of supplies laid in from the autumnal drinks I’ve been socking away as of late, but here it is, the day after Thanksgiving, and I’m ready to help Jeffrey soldier on toward the holidays. How to ease the transition? How about a General Harrison’s Eggnog, a drink first written up by Jerry Thomas but helpfully reprinted (and elaborated upon) in — you guessed it! — IMBIBE!, by David Wondrich.

The General Harrison in the name, of course, was the old saddlesore commonly known to Whigs of the era and junior-high history students ever since as “Old Tippecanoe,” a reference to an 1811 Indian battle in which Harrison’s troops prevailed. While running for President in 1840, however, Harrison became known — in a positive way — for his drinking habits, which ran to hard cider. Depicted by his supporters as a simple man of the people, who lived in a log cabin and drank cider, Harrison went on to pummel the more patrician incumbent Martin Van Buren. Thomas wrote that this eggnog was Harrison’s favorite drink; considering that the old general dropped dead after just a month in office, the drink’s medicinal properties are probably mild.

I’d read the recipe for General Harrison’s Eggnog before, of course, but never had the slightest inclination to mix one. Consider: hard cider (artisan dry, for authenticity’s sake) and a whole egg, with only a little sugar thrown in to make the two get along. Now I’ve got nothing against a raw egg in my drink, but I’m accustomed to having the egg’s viscosity and richness broken up with a good jolt of something substantial — preferably a powerfully flavored aged spirit like whiskey or dark rum. Apple cider? It just didn’t seem to have the requisite gumption to get the drink going.

And this is yet another instance in which my foolishness has been revealed. Resigned to giving the drink its day in court, I mixed one up recently and — whaddaya know — it isn’t too bad. Not only not bad — it’s actually pretty damn good. The drink has a much lighter, crisper flavor than any other eggnog I’ve had, and without the contributions from the dairy aisle, it’s also much lighter in body. Thomas’ recipe is somewhat incomplete — “fill tumbler with cider” leaves a lot of room for interpretation — but I tried it out with four ounces of cider to one egg and 3 tsp of 1:1 simple syrup. I took my trusty Aerolatte to the egg before mixing, which helped liven up the consistency, and shook the drink hard in a cobbler shaker, which seemed less likely to blow apart than a Boston shaker when agitating an ingredient with a light carbonation.

But don’t just take my word for it — give it a shot yourself, in the waning days of autumn as we head into the holidays.

General Harrison’s Eggnog (adapted from IMBIBE! by David Wondrich)

• 1 egg
• 1 1/2 teaspoon sugar (or about 3 tsp simple syrup)
• 1/2 glass of ice

Fill tumbler with cider [about four ounces] and shake well. “This is a splendid drink, and is very popular on the Mississippi river,” Thomas writes.

Tags: Drinks by Paul
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So, I guess everyone’s getting ready for the big feast on Thursday, and OH HELL, STOP THE PRESSES! THERE’S BIGGER THINGS THAN THANKSGIVING AFOOT!

That’s right — Fritz Maytag has been experimenting with his still again.

In case you don’t drink in San Francisco and haven’t read Erik’s blog lately, you may have missed the news that Maytag — the mastermind behind Anchor Steam beer (and its incredible Christmas ale, which I plan to start hoarding in the next few days), Junipero gin and the range of Old Potrero whiskies — has a new product coming out: Genevieve, a pot-distilled genever-style gin.

In typical Anchor fashion, Maytag has totally ignored the market trend toward lighter, less intense, gentle, floral gins, and instead is producing a robust spirit that, on first sip, had me thinking “chewy.” (Full disclosure: a sample was submitted and accepted for review). A quick primer for those unfamiliar with genever: if you hear the name “gin” and expect a crisp, dry spirit tasting of juniper, citrus and other botanicals, you’re gonna be mighty surprised at the first sip of genever (which also travels as Hollands gin, Geneva gin and Schiedam-style gin). Distilled at a lower proof than the neutral spirits used in London dry and Plymouth gins, the spirit has a much earthier, maltier, even funkier quality; match that with the botanicals (yes, the juniper is still there) and you’ve got a big wave of assorted flavors coming at you from the glass.

I love genever, though I haven’t had the chance to love it that much — I can only recall trying the jonge product from Boomsma, which more knowledgable palates than mine have pronounced “meh,” though I didn’t think it was too bad; Boomsma’s oude, which was more in the direction of a malt whisky than a gin; and the Bols genever, poured from a flask by Philip Duff, which left me with a great dichotomy of feeling: delight, at the rich malty character of the gin, and dismay that I’ll have to cross an ocean to buy a bottle.

So if genever won’t come to the United States, Maytag is willing to make his own, and we’re all the better for it. I had the pleasure of interviewing Maytag about a year ago while working on an article about rye whiskey for Imbibe, and I consider it a significant experience in some ways, in that he struck me as one of those people who is driven by a higher pursuit — not of profit or fame, necessarily, but of truth. It seemed to me that for Maytag, “truth” meant (at least in part) discovering the full potential of a spirit — exploring ways that grain can fully express itself through distillation and aging, and understanding how that expression can be harnessed for a more pure epicurean experience. The results can sometimes be academic, I’ll admit; I find the Old Potrero whiskies absolutely fascinating, for example, but they can also be bookish and intense rather than graceful and welcoming — while I’m always bowled over by the flavor, I rarely get a hankering to sit down and just sip at one (though the limited edition Hotalings is a notable exception).

But the result can also be as engaging as it is sensational — just look at Junipero — and I think the Genevieve falls into this category. Sure, it’s never going to be a top seller — c’mon, it’s genever, and even a top-flight version is going to have a very limited audience — but it is pretty damn good, and as Eric Seed is busy demonstrating over at Haus Alpenz, having a pretty damn good spirit that appeals to an admittedly limited audience of avid enthusiasts is still a very nice thing to have.

Genevieve uses a mash of malted wheat, barley and rye, and is distilled in a copper pot still with the same botanicals that appear in Junipero. Since it comes off the still at a lower proof, the spirit bears more resemblance, flavor-wise, to an unaged whiskey than it does to a neutral grain spirit like those produced by ADM and utilized in so many gins and vodkas you see. Bottled at 47.3 percent ABV, Genevieve comes up somewhat hot on the nose, but with a crisp juniper aura blended with the musty dryness of the rye and barley. Tasted neat, the gin is a bit intense, but with a few drops of water or a little quality time spent with an ice cube, the Genevieve softens up, presenting the “chewy” aspect I noted earlier, with the full flavor of the grain forming a light but firm base against the brighter, crisper notes of the juniper, citrus and other botanicals.

As David Wondrich notes in Imbibe! — which you’ve all purchased by now, right? Well, what are you waiting for? — many of the vintage cocktails prepared during mixology’s baroque era were constructed using Hollands gin (and before anyone chimes in with a correction — how ya doin’, Erik — Wondrich does note that the lighter, jonge-style genevers are a relatively recent phenomenon, and that the old recipes had the heavier, oude-style genever in mind. In my admittedly limited experience, I would think Genevieve bears more in common with a jonge genever than a corenwyn or oude genever. Still, it’s here, it’s good, and as Wondrich also notes, “[jonge genever] still makes a far richer and tastier plain Cocktail than the lighter English gins,” so go ahead and give it a shot.)

I’ve only tried Genevieve in one drink so far, the Improved Gin Cocktail (the recipe for which is slightly different than the one Wondrich ran in Killer Cocktails, and that I wrote up a long time ago using Boomsma), but it came through beautifully, the flavors of the absinthe, maraschino and bitters adorning the base like a Christmas tree. Geneveive and other genever-style gins may not be nearly as versatile as the more common London drys, but as long as I can mix a few of these divine cocktails, I’m happy to spend the time, money and effort to keep genever stocked in my liquor cabinet.

Improved Gin Cocktail (adapted from IMBIBE! by David Wondrich)

• 2 dashes Angostura bitters [I decided to use Peychaud’s, to good effect]
• 1 tsp simple syrup (even better if it’s a rich demerara syrup, 2:1 sugar to water)
• 1/2 tsp maraschino liqueur
• 1 dash absinthe (I used Jade Edouard — what the hell, good booze meets good booze, and I’m the big winner)
• 2 ounces Hollands gin

Stir well with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass; twist a piece of lemon peel over the drink. As Wondrich notes, “to contemplate it is to desire it.”

Tags: Drinks, Gin by Paul
4 Comments »

Now that the copyright-flogging, spam-blogging leeches of the Internet have officially entered the cocktail-blog realm — and my apologies for being cryptic, but if you have no idea what I’m talking about, you’re one of the lucky ones — I thought I should follow suit and start stealing from myself.

Here’s a drink I posted last Friday over at Serious Eats that’s worthy of a little more exploration. I was introduced to the Northern Spy a few weeks ago by Murray Stenson, who mixed one for me while I was in my customary clueless mode about what to drink next. The recipe sounded familiar — apple cider, applejack, lemon juice, liqueur (more on that in a minute) — and after refreshing my memory with the help of my good friend Google, I realized that Erik had recently posted the recipe on eGullet as part of his Stompin’ Through the Savoy journey, while mixing up some cocktails with San Francisco bartender Josey Packard at Alembic.

I had the good fortune to meet Josey last month while in San Francisco, and while I had only one drink at Alembic — the fault for which I lay on the residual Bourbon & Branch-induced hangover I was traveling with at the time — it was obvious that Josey knew her stuff. The Northern Spy just drives that point home: perfectly suited for late autumn and early winter, this drink is a match made for Thanksgiving. Josey says she serves this at her own family gatherings, and I’ll be putting together a round or two on Thursday, partially to enjoy the drink’s rich flavor but also to play with a few variations.

Josey’s recipe calls for using apricot brandy for flavor and sweetness (she even makes her own, macerating a pound of dried apricots in 750ml of VS or better brandy for a few days). I’ve used a couple of the better commercial versions out there — Rothman & Winter Orchard Apricot and Giffard Abricot du Roussillon — with fantastic results. She also says the Northern Spy works great with the royale treatment — topping the cocktail with an ounce or so of chilled champagne — which I’m definitely going to have to try this week.

But during my first introduction to the drink at Zig Zag, Murray pulled out a bottle of house-made pimento dram and used that in place of the apricot brandy; this swapped the elegant fruitiness of the drink for a deep, mellow allspice tone that really emphasized the Northern Spy’s autumnal character. Then tonight, just for laughs, I broke out the bottle of Giffard Ginger of the Indies liqueur and substituted that for the apricot, giving the drink an aura of spicy brightness.

(And since I’m horsing around with the recipe, you’ll note from the photo that I tried substituting the Clear Creek Apple Brandy — the two-year-old stuff, not the eight-year-old Eau de Vie de Pomme — for the applejack, with pleasant results.)

Josey’s got a great drink here, whether made her original way with the apricot or with the allspice or ginger variations. If you’re looking for a Thanksgiving drink — or holiday cocktail, or just regular autumn tipple — the Northern Spy is a good one to roll out.

Northern Spy (created by Josey Packard, Alembic, San Francisco)

• 2 ounces applejack
• 1 ounce fresh apple cider (flash-pasteurized is okay, but no preservatives!)
• 1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 - 1/2 ounce apricot brandy, to taste, depending on brand*

Shake well with ice, strain into chilled cocktail glass that’s been rimmed with cinnamon sugar. Top with champagne, if you like (be sure to goose up the sweetness a little to compensate for the extra acidity), and for the holiday go ahead and garnish with a cranberry.

* or pimento dram, or ginger liqueur, or ……

Tags: Applejack, Drinks, Pimento Dram by Paul
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