It’s been a while since I’ve fully visited the range of drinks that were variously known as corpse revivers, fog cutters, gloom chasers and what have you — regardless of the moniker, the drinks that were designed to be consumed at a relatively early hour to dispel the effects of a long night before.

Thanks to Ted Haigh — who propelled the Corpse Reviver #2 out of obscurity and into ubiquity (at least at craft-cocktail establishments) when he included it in Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails, now poised to retake the bibulous world in an expanded edition — the corpse reviver category has (sorry) returned from the dead. Somewhat, that is.

For there to be a #2, there has to be a #1 — but as with many freshman efforts, the initial entry into the category (at least, the one that was dubbed #1 in 1930s bar manuals by Harry Craddock and Patrick Duffy) has been overshadowed by its more illustrious successor. In the case of the Corpse Reviver, this is as it should be — while version #1 is certainly nothing to sneeze at, it lacks the delicacy of the #2; plus, if the directions are followed to the letter, it’s an ass-kicker. Let’s take a quick look –

Corpse Reviver #1

• 1 1/2 ounces brandy
• 3/4 ounce apple brandy
• 3/4 ounce sweet vermouth

Stir well with ice, strain into chilled cocktail glass. Hit it with a lemon peel, if you like.

Short, sharp and strong — not bad, but nothing that remarkable. No wonder it faded.

But, a year or so back, I was served a variation on this drink by Jamie Boudreau. Jamie freshened up the CR1 by using pommeau de normandie in place of the apple brandy; this reduced the alcohol level of the cocktail, making it a bit more managable, while also bumping up the fruitiness factor without adding extra sweetness. Rounded off with peach bitters and Angostura, and the Corpse Reviver #1 had a — sorry again — new lease on life. Here’s Jamie’s version, the Naramata:

Naramata

• 1 1/2 ounces cognac
• 1 oz sweet vermouth (Cinzano recommended)
• 3/4 ounce pommeau de normandie
• 2 dashes peach bitters
• 2 dashes Angostura bitters

Stir well with ice, strain into chilled cocktail glass. Flame an orange twist over the drink and use as garnish.

I tried a few versions of this drink; while the impulse is always there to reach for a premium vermouth like Carpano Antica, it most assuredly does not work in this cocktail. The Antica has such a strong flavor that it overwhelms the pommeau; instead I used Martini & Rossi as it’s my workhorse sweet vermouth, and it seemed to work well in this drink. Also, I eschewed the cognac recommendation and instead went with Armagnac, reasoning that the more rugged, earthy flavor could lend an interesting angle to the drink. I doubt I could tell a Naramata made with cognac from one made with armagnac in a blind tasting, but the Armagnac did its job well and I have no complaints.

Anyway, this is another drink I’ve been thinking about for a long while, dusted off for the new millenia.

This drink is part of 30/30, a series of 30 drinks in 30 days — or as much as I can keep up before collapsing in a weary, booze-addled heap.

Tags: Brandy, Calvados, Drinks, Thirty in 30, Vermouth by Paul
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While I’m spouting off about drinks made with good sloe gin, I should bring up the Charlie Chaplin. This recipe comes from Old Waldorf Bar Days by Albert Stevens Crockett, first published in 1931. Crockett indicates this is an original drink from the Waldorf, “named in [Chaplin's] honor when he began to make the screen public laugh.”

This was another drink I’d overlooked when Plymouth Sloe Gin first came on the market, based on a quick read of the recipe: equal parts sloe gin, lime juice, and apricot brandy (a bit of a misnomer; usually “apricot brandy” refers to an apricot liqueur, not an apricot eau de vie). The combination looked way too sweet, so I tut-tutted and moved on with my recipe search. Thanks to Los Angeles uber-bartender and consultant Marcos Tello, who I spoke with while working on the sloe-gin story for Imbibe, I went back and took a closer look, and was pretty damn pleased with what I found.

Here’s where I initially went wrong: I approached this, and other sloe-gin recipes, with a flavor profile in my mind that was based on the cheaper versions of the spirit, which are usually oversweetened and mawkish. While I had that flavor in mind, thinking of a drink made with sloe gin and another liqueur made me want to drop the book and brush my teeth.

But a good sloe gin such as those from Plymouth or The Bitter Truth have a flavor ruled by the tart, astringent quality of the sloe berry, without the heavy sweetness found in lesser sloe gins. Combined with a good ounce of lime juice and an apricot liqueur such as the Rothman & Winter Orchard Apricot, which is less sugary than some other brands on the market, the Charlie Chaplin is crisp and tart, with a rich stone-fruit flavor akin to that of the Savoy Tango that makes the drink so endearing.

Charlie Chaplin

• 1 ounce sloe gin
• 1 ounce fresh lime juice
• 1 ounce apricot liqueur

Combine ingredients in a cocktail shaker and fill with ice. Shake well and strain into chilled cocktail glass.

This drink is part of 30/30, a series of 30 drinks in 30 days — or as much as I can keep up before collapsing in a weary, booze-addled heap.

Tags: Drinks, Gin, Thirty in 30 by Paul
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Way back during the dark ages of mixology, when decent sloe gin was as hard to find in the U.S. as gas under $3 — and here we’re talking about a year or so ago — this drink never would have caught my attention. Hell, even after Plymouth started distributing its sloe gin, I breezed right over this recipe in The Savoy Cocktail Book, discounting it because of its deceptive simplicity: two ingredients in equal parts, both fruity and boozy — where’s the appeal?

That was a mistake. After seeing the Savoy Tango recommended on the boards over at eGullet, one night late last summer I broke out the Laird’s Bonded Apple Brandy and gave the drink a whirl; by the time I’d made it through half the glass, I had a new favorite cocktail for the fall.

At the time I was working on a story about Plymouth’s sloe gin for an upcoming issue of Imbibe; not wanting to scoop my own story, I stifled any posts about drinks made with sloe gin until the piece came out in November, and by that point I’d pretty much moved on to other things. Hence, the drink is just now making its way onto the blog, and while the rich stone-fruit flavors hint strongly at autumn harvest, this is such a crisp and flavorful drink that I hope you give it a spin despite the season.

Savoy Tango

• 1 1/2 ounces sloe gin
• 1 1/2 ounces Calvados or apple brandy (Laird’s bonded works wonders in this drink)

Stir ingredients with cracked ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a cherry, if that’s your thing.

Plymouth’s sloe gin is still available only in limited distribution, but since it’s come on the market the booze world has been blessed with one additional sloe gin that’s absolutely a knockout: one from the guys at The Bitter Truth, who partnered with Austrian distiller Hans Reisetbauer to make this fantastic product (full disclosure: a sample was provided by The Bitter Truth). True, you’ll need to order The Bitter Truth sloe gin online (though products such as their bitters are increasingly available in the U.S.), but it has an arresting complexity that, along with the crisp freshness it shares with Plymouth’s sloe gin, helps make up for all those years of low-rent sloe gin that we had to put up with for so long.

This drink is part of 30/30, a series of 30 drinks in 30 days — or as much as I can keep up before collapsing in a weary, booze-addled heap.

Tags: Applejack, Drinks, Thirty in 30 by Paul
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Last week, I was hurting. Over the weekend, a stomach bug knocked out both me and the missus, and I spent the better part of two days flat on my back, trying to sleep so I wouldn’t feel like barfing. Tuesday was a lot better, though, and by Wednesday I was trying to get my system back in gear, eating food had made me gag only a couple of days before, and that evening getting ambitious enough to see how I might do with a cocktail in front of me.

In my delicate condition, I knew it couldn’t be just anything — something too bitter or sweet might spark the nausea that was still not too far behind me, and a power-blaster like a Manhattan might just kill me. No, I needed something medicinal, so I asked Murray at Zig Zag for his own take on the Penicillin.

As I mentioned when I first blogged about the Penicillin, it’s a fantastically tasty drink, and my main regret was that I’d let the recipe languish in my notebook for so long before getting around to trying it. After I wrote about it, however, Murray offered me his variation: while still very much in the character of the scotch-based original, this version is based on tequila, with agave nectar and a good splash of house ginger-beer concentrate in place of the ginger-honey syrup. I always manage to miss exactly what tequila he uses for the base, but I believe it’s a reposado; then, for the float, he typically utilizes several different reposados (though one night Erik Hakkinen used the fragrant silver Agua Azul from St. George as a float, to very good effect).

After I initially tried this version, I kept wondering how a mezcal float would work on the drink, so I started mixing them at home. Utilizing lime in place of lemon (because it’s tequila, and, y’know), I also took the pointer offered by that sage o’ the booze Sam Kinsey in the comments to my Penicillin post: instead of going through the process of making a ginger syrup, I simply cut a few good chunks of fresh ginger and muddled the hell out of them in the mixing glass. I’ve been using a fruity blanco for the base — recently the plata single estate from Tequila Ocho, because, well, they sent me a bottle and it works really well in this drink — and a float of Los Danzantes mezcal, which contributes an incredibly potent smokiness to the drink that is just mouthwatering.

This is one of my current favorite cocktails, and with the range of different tequilas on the market right now, I can see myself working through different variations with different styles of tequila. That’s a testament to the utility of the original Penicillin recipe: it’s so wonderfully versatile, you can keep coming back to it and discover something new each time.

Usually I just order “that Penicillin tequila thing” at Zig Zag, but since that’s kinda long and I don’t know if they’ve shortened the name in any way, I’m just gonna go with the Spanish spelling of penicillin for this post. You wanna make something of it?

Penicilina

• 2 ounces tequila (blanco or reposado, depending on your mood)
• 3/4 ounce fresh lime juice
• 1/2 ounce agave nectar
• 3-4 thick slices fresh ginger
• 1/4 ounce mezcal or fragrant tequila, for float

Place ginger in a shaker or mixing glass and muddle into paste. Add tequila, lime, agave nectar and ice and shake like hell for 10 seconds. Double-strain through fine-mesh strainer into chilled cocktail glass. Float mezcal on top of drink, using a barspoon. Take a good whiff, and smile.

This drink is part of 30/30, a series of 30 drinks in 30 days — or as much as I can keep up before collapsing in a weary, booze-addled heap.

Tags: Drinks, Tequila, Thirty in 30 by Paul
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We’ve come across them before: the Blood & Sand, the Last Word, the Cameron’s Kick — drinks that look like a train wreck on paper, but in the glass, have a lot more character than you’d think.

The White Lily isn’t quite in the same class as these three cocktails, but for something that looks nigh-untouchable in print (at least to me), it actually ain’t too bad.

The recipes comes from that old standard, The Savoy Cocktail Book, and hits a couple of unpredictable points for me: first, it successfully combines equal parts rum and gin, which is quite a challenge; second, it matches rum and absinthe, another infrequent pairing.

I first tried the White Lily last month, at the Green Hour event hosted by the Wormwood Society. Gwydion had listed it as a drink he’d like to serve, so I mixed one for myself, just to see what we’d be in for. It’s actually a fairly nice drink; the base spirits are the only drying agents, so the Cointreau places the drink on the sweet side (but not excessively so), and the absinthe serves its seasoning-ingredient role well. This is a case like the Corpse Reviver #2 in which you only want to use the merest dab of absinthe — too much and it easily takes over — but a few drops or a judicious dash and it helps tie everything together. For this version, I used Brugal white rum and Martin Miller’s Gin, which has recently supplanted Bombay as one of my default mixing gins.

White Lily

• 1 ounce gin
• 1 ounce white rum
• 1 ounce Cointreau
• 1 dash absinthe

Combine ingredients in a mixing glass and fill with cracked ice. Stir well and strain into chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with orange twist.

This drink is part of 30/30, a series of 30 drinks in 30 days — or as much as I can keep up before collapsing in a weary, booze-addled heap.

Tags: Absinthe, Drinks, Gin, Rum, Thirty in 30 by Paul
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