I enjoyed a brief infatuation with this drink when I first became interested in the whole cocktail thing. Trying one now, I kind of remember why–it’s not a terribly complicated drink, flavorwise, but it’s not flat-out simple, either. Rather than using a sweetener to smooth out the tanginess of the lime, the Bronx Terrace uses dry vermouth, a flattening modifier that lends just enough complexity to keep the cocktail from being boring.

I know little about the Bronx Terrace, other than it’s old–it appears in Patrick Gavin Duffy’s Standard Bartender’s Guide and in Harry Craddock’s Savoy Cocktail Book, both of which were first published in the early 1930s. It’s also a good drink for those times when you just need something different.

Bronx Terrace

• 2 ounces gin
• 1 ounce dry vermouth
• 1 ounce fresh lime juice

Shake with ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass; garnish with a cherry.

Tags: Drinks, Gin, Vermouth by Paul
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Every March, around the middle of the month, I feel the need to apologize to Ireland. On the day reserved for honoring the land’s patron saint, it’s become an American tradition to pay an outlandish cover charge to stand in an overcrowded bar, holding plastic cups of green-tinted lager and being jostled all night until a Miller Lite-swilling fratboy vomits on your shoes.

Even drinkers who celebrate in more upscale bars sully the holiday with bad, bad drinks. For proof, look no further than the drinks in this week’s Seattle Times “Cocktailing” section: the “Irish for the Day” (vodka & green creme de menthe, with a clover carved out of lime peel as garnish), and the “Leprechaun Mor-jito,” again with the dreaded green liqueur (”We serve it straight up with green crème de menthe, and for a garnish it’s got a mint leaf. It’s kind of like a martini/mojito/leprechaun,” says the bar manager).

I’m sorry, sons of Erin–it never should have come to this.

Fortunately, though, there are options for holiday-appropriate cocktails that don’t require stooping to the mixologically morbid. All of these examples employ Irish whiskey; two are simple variations on an Irish Manhattan, and one is a newer entity which is worth getting to know.

Emerald

2 ounces Irish whiskey
1 ounce sweet vermouth (or less, to taste)
2 dashes orange bitters

Stir with ice & strain into chilled cocktail glass.

There are plenty of drinks called the Emerald, but this one is the most agreeable. From the recipe, it may sound simple and unexceptional, but don’t just write this one off– the orange bitters join in an unusually simpatico relationship with the Irish whiskey, making the Emerald much more than just an alternate Manhattan.

A similar drink, with a much different flavor, is the Tipperary (Gary Regan’s thorough write-up of this drink appears in today’s “Cocktailian” column in the San Francisco Chronicle). Dating back nearly a century, the Tipperary is also related to the Manhattan, but uses green Chartreuse instead of bitters to throw the taste in a more brooding, complex direction. The original recipe used equal parts Irish whiskey, sweet vermouth and Chartreuse; Gary dries it out a bit with this recipe. (And if you feel like you just have to drink something green because it’s St. Patrick’s Day, the touch of Chartreuse adds an emerald sheen to the glass, without making it appear as though you’re imbibing a glassful of Scope.)

Tipperary

2 ounces Irish whiskey
1 ounce sweet vermouth

rinse chilled cocktail glass with green Chartreuse and discard excess; stir whiskey & vermouth with ice and strain into Chartreuse-coated glass.

A final Irish whiskey cocktail worth discovering is of a more recent vintage: the Weeski, an original drink from David Wondrich’s Killer Cocktails. Wondrich matches the tempermental flavor of Irish whiskey with the equally difficult-to-mix-with blonde Lillet. Using a bit of Cointreau to bind the flavors together, and a little orange bitters to give it greater depth, Wondrich has created a cocktail that’s worth the price of the book.

Weeski

2 ounces Irish whiskey
1 ounce blonde Lillet
1 teaspoon Cointreau
2 dashes orange bitters

Stir with ice; strain into chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.

Tags: Drinks, Irish Whiskey, Vermouth by Paul
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A sample cocktail from George J. Kappeler’s Modern American Drinks. I don’t know if this is a Kappeler original, and I haven’t checked to see if it’s in other cocktail manuals, but this one caught my eye as something period-appropriate, with the added benefit that I happen to have the ingredients on hand.

Here’s Kappeler’s wording on the recipe, followed by my recipe (in my usual format):

Fill a mixing-glass half-full fine ice, add two dashes gum-syrup, three dashes Peyschaud [sic] or Angostura bitters, one-half jigger apple brandy, one-half jigger Italian vermouth. Mix, strain into cocktail-glass, twist small piece lemon-peel on top.

And my preparation:

Star Cocktail

• 1 ounce apple brandy (I used Laird’s Applejack)
• 1 ounce sweet vermouth
• 3 dashes Peychaud’s or Angostura bitters (I used Peychaud’s)
  
• 2 dashes gum syrup

Stir with ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass; garnish with lemon twist.

A couple of notes: first, at the beginning of the book’s recipe section, Kappeler defines a jigger as holding two ounces–this is different from the contemporary definition, in which a jigger contains one and one-half ounces–hence the measurements in my recipe.

Second, Kappeler calls for apple brandy–I assume that in 1895, the type of apple brandy he’d most readily have on hand would be domestic (ie, not Calvados), and quite possibly Laird’s (as they were certainly in production during that time). While Laird’s applejack is not currently a “pure” apple brandy, as it contains a substantial portion of neutral grain spirits, in 1895 it was still composed purely of apple distillate, and it’s the closest thing I have on hand to a domestic apple brandy. Should you have access to Laird’s bonded apple brandy, you should certainly use it in this drink (it’d probably be nice with a Calvados, too).

The Star is a very gentle cocktail, with the slight bitterness of the vermouth nicely touched by the fullness of the Peychaud’s. I think the applejack fades into the background a bit too much–all the more reason to break out the real apple brandy deal when giving this one a try.

Tags: Applejack, Books, Calvados, Drinks, Vermouth by Paul
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Just when I started to think that every combination of classic ingredients must have been tried, along comes a drink like the Red Hook. This variation on the classic Manhattan is a fairly recent creation, credited to Enzo Errico, bartender at Sasha Petraske’s Milk & Honey in New York. Named for the neighborhood in South Brooklyn–a former industrial zone with cobblestone streets and Civil War-era brick buildings, now yet another revitalized urban area–the Red Hook is a little more rugged than your typical Manhattan. The Punt y Mes has a bitter component, kind of a cross between sweet vermouth and Campari, that gives the drink a kind of serrated edge, but the healthy dose of maraschino manages to simultaneously tone down the Punt y Mes while adding its own complicated personality to the mix. In cautious balance on a base of rye whiskey, this flavor pairing manages to bring out the strengths in each modifier, without any one flavor becoming too dominant.

Cheers to Ben at Zig Zag Cafe for introducing me to this one. A dedicated Manhattan drinker and all-around rye-whiskey fiend, I think I’ve found a new favorite.

Red Hook

• 2 ounces rye whiskey
• 1/2 ounce Punt y Mes
• 1/4 - 1/2 ounce maraschino, to taste

Stir with ice, strain into chilled cocktail glass.

Technorati tag: cocktails, whiskey

Tags: Drinks, Rye, Vermouth by Paul
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Origins? Dunno. History? Beats me.

Thanks to Ben down at Zig Zag Cafe for turning me on to this one. I was looking for another good calvados cocktail, and this one fits the bill perfectly. Ben used a nice French calvados that gave the drink the taste of fresh fruit; at home, I tried it with Clear Creek’s Eau de Vie de Pomme, which is somewhat drier, but still gives a nice, layered experience.

Ante

• 1 1/4 ounce Calvados
• 1/2 ounce Dubonnet rouge
• 1/4 ounce Cointreau
• dash Angostura

Stir with ice; strain into chilled glass; figure out the rest.

Technorati tag: cocktails

Tags: Calvados, Drinks, Vermouth by Paul
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