It’s here.

The rain started Sunday, less than 24 hours after I noticed that the old-fashioned globe lightpost in front of our house was becoming surrounded by a corona of red-and-yellow maple leaves. As I waited outside with my son for the school bus this morning, the first leaf, a scout, dropped from the tree and settled onto our thick green patch of yard.

Even though we’re still a few days from autumn’s official opening bell, the season is already here in Seattle, and here at the Cocktail Chronicles that means one (okay, many) things: it’s time to put away the tall, minty drinks of summer and start snuggling closer to the whiskey and absinthe of fall.

Given that probably 90 percent of the fizzy drinks I consume are enjoyed in the narrow window of Seattle’s summer (and that probably nine of the remaining 10 percent is accounted for by beer), having a Mixology Monday that focuses on Fizz (as host Gabriel has chosen) take place just as autumn is coming onto the scene left me a bit befuddled. As the days shorten, I lose my taste for sparkly coolers, and even champagne cocktails don’t seem quite as enticing. As recently as this morning, I was still undecided, and for a moment I thought I might have to do a counterintuitive run on a Cuba Libre, simply because I think there’s an interesting story attached to it.

Then I remembered the Morning Glory.

If the typical collins or highball seems too summery to my season-shifting palate, then the answer could be to run with the spirits that, for me, are as much a part of autumn as are sun breaks and leaf-clogged gutters, and the Morning Glory Fizz seems to be an excellent candidate.

Please excuse me while I geek out for a minute (and feel free to skip down to the recipes): I’m not sure how or when this drink originated, but the earliest reference I’ve found is in George Kappeler’s Modern American Drinks, from 1895. It seems fairly straightforward: Scotch, lemon juice, sugar and a touch of absinthe, fortified with an egg white and brought to life with a little effervescence. Served short and without ice, the Morning Glory isn’t meant to be savored — instead, as the name implies, this drink is designed to quickly and efficiently deglaze the brain after a long night of revelry. Ordered in a mumble while still wincing from the daylight and meant to be consumed before the bartender has returned with your change, the Morning Glory Fizz isn’t recreational — it’s medicinal, as evinced by the description in Cocktails: How to Mix Them by “Robert” [Vermiere] (1922): “That will give one an appetite and quieten the nerves.”

The Morning Glory must have had quite a run. It appears (with subtle variations in recipe, mainly involving the quantity of lemon and/or lime juice, the quantity of absinthe and, occasionally, the type of whiskey, though Scotch is the big favorite) in books ranging from Albert Stevens Crockett’s Old Waldorf Bar Days (1931), “Cocktail Bill” Boothby’s World Drinks and How to Mix ‘Em (1934 — my edition, anyway), Lucius Beebe’s The Stork Club Bar Book (1946) and David Embury’s The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks (1948).

Seems pretty easy, right? Hold on — as with any drink that enjoys a certain popularity, some offshoot — whether related by ingredients or by simple coincidence — is bound to crop up, and this is no exception. Keep the key characters of whisk(e)y and absinthe, decrease the fizzy water to a splash or a squirt, replace the egg white and the citrus with some curacao and a dash or three of bitters, drop the “Fizz” from the name, and you find a Morning Glory, with similar recipes in Gordon’s Cocktail & Food Recipes from 1934, Baker’s Gentleman’s Companion from 1939 and Burke’s Complete Cocktail and TastyBite Recipes from 1941.

To make it even more confusing, those great category straddlers Patrick Gavin Duffy and Harry Craddock include recipes for both drinks in The Standard Bartender’s Guide (1934) and Savoy Cocktail Book (1930), respectively. By 1947 things are really off the rails when Bartender’s Guide … by Trader Vic features three Morning Glory cocktails (two have no resemblance to any of the other Morning Glory drinks I’ve mentioned — one is a truly blech-worthy mix of gin, lime juice, a whole egg and green creme de menthe, a version that also appears in Baker’s book), along with a Morning Glory Daisy and our old friend, the Morning Glory Fizz. Seeing that all bets have been off for quite some time, Gary Regan enters the fray in 1991 with The Bartender’s Bible, which features a Morning Glory composed of vodka, cream, dark creme de cacao and nutmeg.

Which brings me back to whiskey and absinthe, thank god. Given that the two primary recipes — those for the Morning Glory Fizz and the Morning Glory — both contain these two ingredients, and that each of them also calls for varying degrees of fizz, the only sensible thing this Mixology Monday is to tuck into both drinks. Considering the day I’ve had, I welcome the task.

Morning Glory Fizz (adapted from Modern American Drinks, by George Kappeler)

• 1 1/2 ounces Scotch whisky [I used Famous Grouse]
  
• juice of 1/2 a lemon [3/4 ounce or so]
• half a tablespoonful sugar [reduce to 1 tsp, to taste]
• 2 dashes absinthe [Lucid]
• white of one egg

Shake thoroughly with ice, strain into a fizz glass and fill with seltzer.

Wow … for a breakfast drink, the old Mimosa’s got nothing on this. Much lighter in taste than I’d expected, and with a heady foam (I shook the hell out of the mix without ice, then again with cracked ice) that makes it both gentle and robust. I can see our forefathers — the lushes, that is — knocking these back on a bristly a.m., to sweep the cobwebs out of the mind and the malice out of the soul. Seriously, I can see serving this to adventurous guests at brunch just to get the conversational ball rolling.

Morning Glory (adapted from Charles H. Baker’s The Gentleman’s Companion)

• 1 jigger rye or bourbon [decrease to 1 oz. Rittenhouse bonded]
• 1 teaspoon gomme syrup
• 1 teaspoon curacao
• 1 jigger cognac [decrease to 1 oz.]
• 3 dashes orange bitters or Angostura [The Bitter Truth orange bitters]
• 1 teaspoon absinthe

Says Baker: Mixing technique seems torn between stirring in a bar glass with ice, straining into a whisky glass, and adding a little seltzer topped off with a twisted lemon peel — or stirring in the same bar glass, and turning into an old fashioned glass with a lump of ice, a squirt of club soda, and a twist of peel … Some sane folk merely shake with ice and a jigger of soda or seltzer. The latter works more suddenly than the more diluted drink … Absinthe is difficult to recommend to suit others — increase or decrease to taste. Pernod Veritas will do. [My answer: stir with ice, strain into whisky glass, add a little seltzer and a twist of lemon.]

Gadzooks, that’s tasty, too. I probably added an ounce or so of seltzer (just a short burst from the siphon), which lightens up and saves what might have been a too heavy and aggressively flavored cocktail. The curacao and the absinthe also complement each other surprisingly well, and the drink has a robust fruitiness that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Another one to keep in mind.

So, there you have it — whisk(e)y, absinthe, fizzy water and assorted characters. Head on over to Cocktail Nerd to see what everyone else came up with this Mixology Monday.

Tags: Absinthe, Brandy, Mixology Monday, Rye, Scotch by Paul
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It’s the first day of school here in Seattle, the day I dropped off my son for the start of first grade and started looking ahead to the routine that is fall and winter. Back when I was part of the elementary school set, it was customary to start the school year by recapping all the fun you’d had that summer, so you could then put it away and forget all about it while stuck in a classroom for the next nine months.

Old habits die hard, so before autumn totally moves in — it already made a good grab for it here on Monday — I want to take one last, lingering sip of the drink that I fell head-over-heels for during the summer of ‘07.

No, it’s not the Paloma (even the Mi Amante version) — though we had our fun, I found something deeper. No, through a fortunate convergence of events, this summer I wound up mixing a drink I found even more swoon-worthy, and it became my go-to refresher on hot summer nights (what few of them we have here in Seattle): the Picon Punch.

The recipe is from Ted Haigh’s Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails, and the first time I tried it, a couple of summers back, I was pretty unimpressed. The true Picon Punch, of course, was made with Amer Picon — the stuff that used to be everywhere, but then was reformulated in the 1970s and pretty much disappeared from U.S. liquor stores (though it seems some has cropped up recently in Boston and other places). The primary substitute in recent years has been Torani Amer, made in California, which has a mostly similar but not-quite-on-the-nose flavor to that of the original Picon. My first punch was made with the Torani Amer, and as I said, it didn’t go over well.

But last spring, two things happened, both related to research I was doing for the Vintage Ingredients story that appeared in the July/August issue of Imbibe. First, I interviewed Ted Haigh, and listened to him wax rhapsodic about the pleasures of a good Picon Punch — “That’s the drink for me on a summer day,” he said. His enthusiasm for the drink was infectious, and I made a mental note to try it again in the near future.

Then, that very afternoon, I interviewed Jamie Boudreau at Vessel, fully intending to talk only about creme de violette and falernum, but during our talk Jamie told me something electrifying: he’d come up with a facsimile of the original Amer Picon. I tasted it then and there, side by side with the current Picon, and the difference was startling: the basic flavor profile was near-identical, yet the replica was much more robust — higher proof, too — and had a much more satisfying oranginess about it, a taste that is sorely lacking in the more vegetal Torani Amer. Jamie passed along the recipe, and that ran in Imbibe, too. (And if you look around, you’ll find the results of a side-by-side tasting of the replica with vintage Picon somewhere around here.)

With the recipe, however, I wasted little time, and put together a batch — which, unfortunately, takes about two months to make. The replica was finally ready in early July, and the very first drink I made was the Picon Punch. Anticipating the weird celery quality of the Torani Amer, I sipped the drink with some apprehension, but that was unnecessary — this is a fantastic drink. Rich, bitter but not overwhelmingly so, pleasantly orangey and with a nice fruitiness from the grenadine and the cognac, the Picon Punch is quite possibly the ultimate summer cooler. It was my favorite for the summer of ‘07, anyway, and whatever happens in the fall, we’ll always have memories of the summer.

Picon Punch

Fill a collins or highball glass with ice. Add

• 1 teaspoon grenadine (my homemade stuff isn’t as sweet as commercial, so I used a little more)
  
• 2 1/2 ounces Amer Picon or replica

Fill almost to the top with club soda and give a gentle stir. Float:

• 1 ounce brandy or cognac

Sweet Jesus, that’s good.

Tags: Brandy, Drinks, Special Projects by Paul
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I’d been ogling this unusual concoction from Charles H. Baker, Jr’s The Gentleman’s Companion for quite some time. It’s obviously different from most any cocktail I can bring to mind, and the ingredient that makes it so different — fresh-pressed strawberry juice — is what made it so inviting.

Sure, there are plenty of ways to get strawberries into drinks — the blasted industrial-scale strawberry daiquiris / margaritas that are little more than alcopops with an extra touch of antioxidants, and the assorted mojito-like drinks in which all manners of fruit have been muddled — but this one, calling for the strained juice of strawberries and pairing it with the deep, luscious taste of cognac, seemed very promising. With spring kicking into high gear this past week, and with fresh strawberries appearing in the market, I thought of this long-delayed drink, and finally put one together.

Here’s what Baker has to say:

Another spring, it was in 1926, we sat out under the trees and dined and danced and discussed matters that were old when Marie Antoinette rode to the guillotine in her tragic tumbril, or when du Barry passed in her royal carriage. This Fraise d’Amour, my dear friends, is not a woman’s drink in the usual concept of the word; but, on occasion, can be very apt to a charming lady. It is a deceiver; mild-tasting, insidious, slow to act, but thorough at the last!

La Fraise d’Amour

• 2 ounces cognac
• 1 ounce fresh-pressed ripe strawberry juice, strained
• 2 dashes maraschino
• 1 dash orange bitters

Stir without ice, then pour into a thin goblet filled with shaved ice. Stir once and garnish “with 1 dead-ripe strawberry teed up in the precise center,” Baker says.

I really had such high hopes for this drink — I was imagining that vivacious taste of late spring you get when you taste the season’s first strawberries, and pictured the fat, voluptuous taste of the cognac coming alive with the fertile natural sweetness of the berries.

It was close, oh, it was close — but ultimately, while the flavor was definitely good, it fell just slightly flat. The strawberries just couldn’t kick up enough flavor to make their presence felt in any significant way (and my berries were no schlubs — I sampled plenty on the side to make sure). Yes, there was the lush cognac, and yes, there was some strawberry flavor — but it was so restrained, the flavors faded very quickly. I could have cheated and added some strawberry syrup to get the kind of fruity vavoom I was seeking, but that would have demolished my whole idea of having the fresh berry flavor wash over me. I also could have pressed more berry juice, though it takes a surprising number of berries to squeeze out an ounce of juice, and I was running low by that point.

I may still try this again as we get closer to summer, but only with some berries that are so ripe and aromatic that you can smell them from across the room, and so rich and red that you can see them in the dark. For a drink that didn’t quite work out, this one still gave some good play.

Tags: Brandy, Drinks by Paul
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The Virginian rises in the morning, about six o’’clock. He then drinks a julap, made of rum, water and sugar, but very strong.
– anonymous traveler, 1787.

Some unknown admirer of [Washington Irving’’s] books and mine sent to the hotel a most enormous mint julep, wreathed in flowers. We sat, one on either side of it, with great solemnity (it filled a respectably-sized round table) but the solemnity was of very short duration. It was quite an enchanted julep, and carried us among innumerable people and places we both knew. The julep held out far into the night, and my memory never saw [Irving] afterwards otherwise than as bending over it, with his straw, with an attempted air of gravity (after some anecdote involving some wonderfully droll and delicate observation of character), and then as his eye caught mine, melting into that captivating laugh of his, which was the brightest and best that I have ever heard.
– Charles Dickens, Baltimore 1842

Oh, what the hell. Coming into Derby weekend, everybody else is piling onboard the julep bandwagon, and considering I’ve been tapping these a little bit myself over the past couple of weeks, I might as well get in on the action.

Whatever action that may be. For a drink that’s been debated to death for generations –its history is full of old stemwinders concerning Kentucky colonels, trickling brooks, pistols under the duelling oaks, the smell of magnolia blossoms and honeysuckle on the Southern breeze, and waves of breathless “fiddle-dee-dees” on summer afternoons– it’s pretty damn difficult to settle on what, exactly, a julep is. Ask most people who have any clue about it whatsoever, and the common elements of “mint” and “bourbon” will be mentioned, but as we see from the anonymous traveler quoted above, the julep as described 220 years ago had neither. In-depth analyses of the julep have been prepared — George Sinclair has an intriguing overview of the history of the julep in print over here — but what all indications point to is a whirlwind of different recipes, with a few basic elements in common.

Which is as it should be, as far as I’m concerned, because with few other drinks do you see as great a degree of attention, humble respect and dedication as is found with the julep. People who subsist 51 weeks out of the year on vanilla vodka mixed with Coke suddenly find religion when Derby day rolls around, planting their feet firmly in various camps regarding the muddling of the mint and the crushing of the ice, proclaiming louder and more boisterously with each drink — some Southern heritage helps, here — that theirs is the only true path toward the immaculate conception of the ultimate julep.

Though perhaps that image is touched with my own wispy haze of julep-induced sentimentality. In the heart of the modern julep kingdom, ghastly concoctions of mint-flavored bourbons, sweetened mint pastes and other assorted premixes are dragging the julep down. And its one-time reign as the regent of Southern refreshers ended long ago, having ceded the title to sweet tea and Coca Cola. While enthusiasts of different stripes draw lines in the sand regarding the proper construction of the julep, the masses are sticking straws into plastic cups filled with syrupy bottom-shelf booze that smells and tastes something like toothpaste. Fiddle-dee-dee, indeed.

Me, I’m just thankful nobody’s calling it the “julep-tini” (and if you know of someone who is, please keep it to yourself. I like to live in blissful ignorance when it comes to such things). While refusing to be dragged into the whole “what’s a real mint julep?” debate, I do have a taste for them. Here are a couple of recipes I’m fond of; I’m not saying they’re the most historically authentic, or the best, or the most adventurous — they’re simply a couple that I like.

Mint Julep

• 6-8 leaves of fresh mint, the smaller and fresher, the better (if they’re really small, toss in a few more)
• 1 teaspoon sugar or 2 tsp simple syrup
• 2 ounces — scratch that, 3 ounces — good bourbon, emphasis on the good — I’m fond of Maker’s Mark, W.L. Weller and Buffalo Trace in these; if I’m feeling a little more indulgent, I’ll reach for some Van Winkle
• Ice galore

Gently, very gently muddle the mint in the bottom of a tall glass, taking care to swab the sides of the glass with the oil seeping from the lightly bruised mint leaves. Add the syrup or the sugar (with a few drops of water to help it dissolve), and a little of the bourbon. Gently stir, then fill the glass with well-crushed ice*. Add the rest of the bourbon, and a little more ice so the glass is completely full. Stir briskly until the glass frosts. Top with more ice if needed (if you want to get really decadent, sprinkle a little Jamaican rum over the top), and garnish with a few beautiful mint sprigs. Skewer with a straw, cut short enough so you have to get your face right down in the mint. You can sprinkle the top with powdered sugar if you like, but I always wind up getting it on the tip of my nose and looking like an idiot, so I skip that step. Let it sit for 5 minutes or so before indulging.

Champagne Julep

As above, but instead of the bourbon, use 2 ounces of nice cognac. After all the muddling, stirring and icing, fill the glass with dry champagne. Decadent and dangerous.

For a lower-octane version for all those people who find bourbon too boozy, you can also make a champagne julep without the brandy — it’s lighter in alcohol, but still incredibly tasty, and has a distinctly festive edge.

* No ice crusher? No problem — while the whole concept of a julep can be thrown askew by using ice cubes, you can easily crush your own ice using a clean kitchen towel and something heavy, like a rolling pin or a sturdy kitchen spoon. Simply wrap your cubes in the towel, place the bundle on the counter and, while firmly grasping your implement, think fierce thoughts. I’ve found a simple visualization of Dick Cheney works wonders to help me convert my pile of ice cubes into a mound of snow.

Tags: Bourbon, Brandy, Drinks by Paul
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The thing that always surprises me about champagne cocktails is the underlying nefarious nature of many of these drinks. You look at a recipe, think, “oh, it’s just a glass of wine, same stuff you use to toast at weddings and on election night last November — look, there’s only a smidgen of booze in the glass, it’ll be lighter than your run-of-the-mill highball,” then mix up a couple and, boom — your ears are feeling fuzzy. The thing I always forget is that champagne isn’t simply a substitute for seltzer; while it prances and fizzles in the glass, it’s actually getting the gin in that French 75 or the bourbon in that Pendennis all excited to come out of the glass and down your gullet, where the real fun begins. But even though I always underestimate them, each time I start to fiddle with champagne cocktails, I resolve to do it more frequently.

This break for bubbly was prompted by Anita and Cameron over at Married…With Dinner, hosts of this month’s Mixology Monday. Champagne cocktails seemed an apt theme, given that it’s tax day (considering that the final calculation of my return reversed a substantial debt and turned it into a small refund, I’m in the mood to celebrate), and that this month marks the first anniversary of Mixology Monday events. Oh, what a year it’s been — from pastis to exotica to whiskey, to a shooter event that fizzled — ah, memories. Okay, I’ll stop — on with this month’s drink.

I decided to use this month’s theme to dig into one of the few remaining recipes in Ted Haigh’s Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails that I have not yet tried: the Crimean Cup a la Marmora. Actually a punch, the Crimean Cup dates back (in print, anyway) to Jerry Thomas’ The Bar-tender’s Guide, from 1862. While several of the old drinks listed by Thomas lack the pizzazz you find in more modern drinks, the Crimean Cup is a happy exception. Mixing rum, brandy, lemon juice, maraschino and orgeat with champagne and soda water, the cup is a surprisingly light and even-handed punch. From the recipe, it looks rather sweet, but between the champagne and the soda, the sweetness is easily leavened. If you’re not convinced, simply reduce or eliminate the added sugar, or add a touch more lemon juice. This drink is reason itself to keep a bottle or two of bubbly on hand.

Crimean Cup a la Marmora (makes 2 drinks)

Muddle 2 broad slices of lemon peel with a teaspoon of sugar and 1/2 ounce dark Jamaican rum (Haigh suggests Myer’s; I used Appleton V/X, with good results). Add:

• 1 ounce brandy
• 1/2 ounce Maraschino liqueur
• 1/2 ounce Jamaican rum (Appleton again)
• 2 ounces orgeat
• 1/2 ounce lemon juice
• 4 ounces soda water

Stir vigorously and pour into a goblet with 2 or 3 large pieces of ice. Add 3 ounces chilled dry sparkling wine (I only had cava on hand, but it worked well)

Head on over to Anita & Cameron’s place to see what other folks are posting.

Tags: Brandy, Drinks, Gettin' Jerry With It, Mixology Monday, Rum by Paul
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