79 replies to this topic

[slkinsey]

I've being developing a growing appreciation of Swizzles, and thought to start a thread where we can discuss our favorites. A Swizzle is loosely defined as a (tall?) drink (usually but not always rum) with crushed ice in which a swizzle stick is rotated so as to aerate and chill the drink (forming a layer of ice on the outside of the glass). Common secondary ingredients include lime juice, bitters (especially Angostura), Falernum and mint.

Here is a fairly common recipe for a Rum Swizzle:

1.50 oz : white rum
0.75 oz : fresh lime juice
0.50 oz : Velvet Falernum
Dash : Angostura bitters

Build in highball glass with crushed ice. Swizzle until frost forms. Top with more crushed ice.

Here's a picture of a rum based swizzle I made with Barbancourt white rum (which is very much not traditional for this drink) and mint.

Any favorite swizzle recipes out there?

[Splificator]

An ounce and a half of rum? For shame, Sam, for shame. For a true swizzle, you want to double that. Trust me.

[mbanu]

Here's one.

1 ounce 151 proof rum
1 ounce pineapple juice
1/2 ounce orgeat
1/2 ounce lime juice
A few dashes of bitters

Build in a glass over ice. Swizzle. Add more ice if needed.

[Pumpkin Lover]

I don't have a recipe, but I saw my first swizzle stick at Pegu Club on Monday night, while the 'tenders were making a Ti Punch for me (hoooo-weeee was it good). You've probably already had that, though, slkinsey.

The stick reminded me of the small wooden whisk used to whip matcha during Japanese tea ceremonies. Wonder what the history is behind swizzle sticks and drinks...

[KOK]

The Bermuda Rum Swizzle is, IMHO, the grandaddy of 'em all, though I am very biased in favor of Bermuda. Here is one recipe:

Rum Swizzle
Makes 6:
4 oz Gosling's Black Seal Rum
4 oz Gosling's Gold Rum
5 oz Pineapple Juice
5 oz Orange Juice
¾ oz Grenadine or 2 oz Bermuda Falernum
6 Dashes of Angostura Bitters

Method
Into a pitcher ⅓ full of crushed ice add Gosling's Black Seal Rum, Gosling's Gold Rum, pineapple juice, orange juice, Grenadine or Bermuda Falernum and Angostura bitters. Churn vigorously until a frothing appears or mix in a cocktail shaker. Strain into a martini glass.

The recipe didn't used to call for gold rum, I guess they're trying to tout their new product. I also saw on the website that Gosling's has a 140 proof rum now. I've never seen or even heard of this. It seems to be because some countries won't allow 151 proof to be brought back.

If ever in Bermuda, you must try a swizzle at The Swizzle Inn.

Thanks,

Kevin

[slkinsey]

Interesting, Kevin. It doesn't really strike me as a "Swizzle," though, when it's made in bulk and strained into a cocktail glass. I'd much rather do something like this:

1.5 oz : Gosling's Black Seal Rum
1.5 oz : Gosling's Gold Rum
1.0 oz : Pineapple Juice
1.0 oz : Orange Juice
.75 oz : Falernum
Dash Angostura bitters

Build in a highball glass with crushed ice, swizzle, top with additional crushed ice and tip in one additional dash of Angostura bitters.

[KOK]

Upon further review you're right that the Bermuda version is not a 'Swizzle' in the true sense. I guess I just saw 'Swizzle' and had a flashback to past vacations.

Your recipe sounds very good and I'll be trying it out soon, though I may have to substitute cane syrup for the Falernum that I lack.

Thanks again,

K

[Alchemist]

This little Cocktail is a blantent riff on the Queens Park Swizzle, or QPS, I thinks is different enough, that I can, with modestly down cast lash, call it my own.

1 Oz. Light Rum
1 Oz Aged Rum (I like Cuban Style Methuslem)
.5 Oz Thick, rich demerara syrup
.75 Oz. fresh lime
7 sprig of mint

Bruise mint in Highball glass. With muddler massage inside of glass with essential oils from mint. add rum, lime and demerara. Let sit for a couple of minutes. the mint will start to infuse the rum. This is the time to crush the ice, and gather coasters, a must since you will soon be able to drive a Zamboni on the outside of your glass. Fill glass full of ice. Swizzle, (For a good teqnique go to Pegu Club.com and visit Ethos, there is a Ti punch being swizzled) top glass with more crushed ice. add three drops of angostura, A dropper bottle works best. Then one dash of Peychaud. Let sit one minute, Oh the will power this takes. Once glass has developed a good layer of ice, spank some mint above the glass, add two thin straws. Feel the ocean breeze in your hair. I would call this the Prince Parker Swizzle If I could get away with it.

Edited by Alchemist, 30 September 2005 - 03:21 PM.

[ThinkingBartender]

Here are two swizzlised versions of two cocktails I made at some bars in London:

Big Mak Swizzle

2 shots Makers Mark
1 shot cranberry juice
½ shot fresh lime juice
½ shot Chambord
½ shot Raspberry Puree
¼ shot Sugar syrup

Pour all ingredients over crushed ice, then SWIZZLE the ice thoroughly. Garnish with two raspberries, and a lime wedge.


Amber Swizzle

2 shots Zubrowka
2 shot Apple Juice
½ shot Apple Schnapps
½ shot Ginger Syrup

Pour all ingredients over crushed ice, then SWIZZLE the ice thoroughly. Garnish with several apple slices, and a dusting of ground nutmeg.

Enjoy!

George

[slkinsey]

An ounce and a half of rum? For shame, Sam, for shame. For a true swizzle, you want to double that. Trust me.

Hey, I didn't say it was my Swizzle recipe. Just a Swizzle recipe.

This little Cocktail is a blantent riff on the Queens Park Swizzle, or QPS, I thinks is different enough, that I can, with modestly down cast lash, call it my own. . . . I would call this the Prince Parker Swizzle If I could get away with it.

Yes, this is an excellent Swizzle, and partly what inspired me to start this thread. Two ounces of rum, I see. What size highball glass (how many ounces) would you say you're using for this drink?

I think you can certainly call it the Prince Parker Swizzle. It seems pretty different to me:

Prince Parker Swizzle                  Queens Park Swizzle (scaled)
1.0 oz  : light rum                    2.0 oz  : demerara rum
1.0 oz  : aged rum (Cuban style) 
0.5 oz  : 2:1 demerara syrup           0.33 oz : 2:1 demerara syrup
0.75 oz : fresh lime juice             0.50 oz : fresh lime juice
7 mint leaves                          7 mint leaves
3 drops Angostura bitters              3 dashes Angostura bitters
1 dash Peychaud's bitters

Muddle mint leaves in highball,        Build in highball with crushed
drawing mint up side of glass.         ice and swizzle.  Garnish with
Add crushed ice.  Swizzle.  Top        mint sprig.
with bitters and garnish with
mint.

What sets the PPS apart for me is the fact that the QPS is originally made with a big, dark heavy demerara rum which will taste entirely different from your combination of light and aged rums. That, combined with the unique treatment of the mint and the different bitters makes it different enough to have a different name. Certainly it's a much bigger difference than there is between a Martini and a Gibson.



Swizzles are, of course, not limited to just rum. I'd be interested to hear some Swizzle recipes using other base liquors. How about a Gin Swizzle or an Applejack Swizzle?


Are there any characteristics that we think belong in an old-school Swizzle besides crushed ice and the actual swizzling of the drink? In my observations, it seems like classic Swizzles almost always contain some citrus juice (most commonly lime) and bitters.

[ThinkingBartender]

surely most drinks can be swizzlised? serve them over crushed ice then swizzle 'em.

Is there a standard size for a Swizzle drink? standard glass?

Is the muddling of ingredients allowed pre-swizzle?

Is there a rule as to what a Swizzle can be lengthened with? juices? mixer? etc.

Cheers!

George

[ThinkingBartender]

Gingerbread Swizzle

1 1/2 shots Morgan Spiced Rum
1/2 shot Fresh Lime Juice
1/2 shot Gingerbread Syrup (Monin)
1 shot Grapefruit Juice
2 shots Apple Juice

Pour over crushed ice, and then SWIZZLE thoroughly, finally top with crushed ice. Garnish with a lemon slice, and an edible flower.



Easy peasey.



Cheers!

George

[slkinsey]

surely most drinks can be swizzlised? serve them over crushed ice then swizzle 'em.

Is there a standard size for a Swizzle drink? standard glass?

Is the muddling of ingredients allowed pre-swizzle?

Is there a rule as to what a Swizzle can be lengthened with? juices? mixer? etc.

These are all interesting questions. I don't really have any answers, but am hopeful that others among us will be able to offer some pearls of wisdom on this subject.

The only thing I can think of is that I'm not sure that the mere action of swizzling a drink with crushed ice makes that drink a "Swizzle" -- just the same way that every "up" drink in a "V" glass isn't a "Martini." So, for example, I'm not sure taking gin and dry vermouth swizzled with crushed ice and calling it a "Martini Swizzle" would be entirely consistent with tradition. On the other hand, gin, white vermouth, fresh lime juice, simple syrup (or falernum) and Angostura bitters does strike me as more or less consistent with tradition. But I hope others who can speak from a position of greater knowledge will contribute their thoughts on this.

[ThinkingBartender]

Swizzle Rules:

1) No dairy products (milk, cream, ricotta)

2) Must be constructed, mixed etc in final serving glass.

3) Must be filled with crushed ice.

4) Must be Swizzled.

5) Must include base spirit.

Anymore?


Also: Would the ever popular Bramble be classed as a Swizzle?


Cheers!

George

[Alchemist]

There is a Hyde Park Swizzle. A decendant of the QPS. Sub gin for rum, and simple syrup for demerara. We couldn't think of another park in London, so if anyone has a cool London park name I'm all for re-naming this drink.

[slkinsey]

London parks:

Alexandra Park
Green Park
Hampstead Heath
Hyde Park
Kew Garden
Primrose Hill Park
Regents's Park
Richmond Park
St. James's Park
Syon Park

As far as I know, the Queens Park Swizzle is not named after anything in London. Rather, it is named after the Queen's Park Hotel (which is likely named after the Queen's Park Savannah) in Port of Spain, Trinidad. Are you thinking to switching to a London-inspired name because of the gin? NYC has got some pretty famous parks too, and some association with gin. How about calling it a "Central Park Swizzle?" Perhaps if you subbed applejack it would be a "Palisades Park Swizzle?"

[Alchemist]

Yes naming it after a London park, due to the Gin. But come to think of it maybe name it after a New Orleans park because of the bitters. The QPS, is so named for the Angostura that crowns it.

[slkinsey]

The QPS, is so named for the Angostura that crowns it.

Wasn't the QPS actually invented in Trinidad?

[Alchemist]

The QPS, is so named for the Angostura that crowns it.

Wasn't the QPS actually invented in Trinidad?

As I under stand it it is the house cocktail of the Queens Park Hotel in Trinadad.

[ThinkingBartender]

Queen's Park Rangers football (soccer) club must have been named after a park, they are in West London.

Is there a Mile End Park Swizzle, or a Victoria Park Swizzle? Both parks are in the East End so they are served with a warm can of Stella Artois as an accompaniment.

Nice.

George

[Splificator]

I don't know how helpful this is, but here's the essay I did on the Queen's Park Swizzle for the Esquire Drinks Database (I'd link to it--it's available through www.esquire.com--but it's a bit tricky, at least for a Luddite like me).

“Every explorer,” as P.G. Wodehouse observed in his 1931 materpiece Big Money, “knows that the most important thing in a strange country is the locating of the drink supply.” Easy enough when the “strange country” in question is—as in Big Money—suburban London. But spare a kind thought for poor old Mungo Park, the rather daft Scotsman who found himself walking with a Muslim slave-caravan through the Jallonka wilderness (that’s somewhere in the vicinity of Mali, we think), and nary a drop of whisky within a thousand miles. But that was in the 1790s. By the end of the next century, wherever a Briton was likely to be found, there was a grand hotel. And wherever there was a grand hotel, there was a bar.

In Cairo, it was Shepherd’s, with its famous terrace. In Singapore, the Raffles. Calcutta had its Great Eastern, Bombay its Great Western. Later (though still early enough to get in thirteen good years before the Japanese came), Hong Kong was graced with the Peninsula. These, and the many more like them, were more than just hotels. They were the stanchions that held taut the Chain of Empire. So to speak. Little bits of Knightsbridge and Mayfair (you know, the posh parts of London) with just enough exotic gloss to make them exciting, they were where the real business of running an enterprise that covered one-fourth of the earth’s surface was conducted. No gentleman traveler would think of staying anywhere else.

A considerable portion of both the exotic gloss and the real business were centered in the bar. After all, how better to experience a foreign civilization than by sipping it from tall glasses? A few of these liquid ambassadors went on to achieve lives of their own, untethered from their bamboo, brass and teak cradles. The Long Bar at the Raffles, for example, gave birth to the Singapore Sling(although its original, 1915 recipe appears to have been lost for good), while Shepherd’s had the Suffering Bar Steward (don’t ask). For our money, though, the best of them all was the Queen’s Park Swizzle, from Trinidad. And we’re not alone—in 1946, none other than Trader Vic himself, apostle of rum, dubbed it “the most delightful form of anesthesia given out today.” 

The long-time business capital of the British West Indies, Trinidad’s Port of Spain is a gritty, bustling port notably deficient in languid tropical charm—until you come to the Queen’s Park Savannah, a massive green-space that lies right in the heart of town. That’s where you’ll find your colorful shanties serving exotic, delicious snacks (try the “bake and shark”), your brightly-dressed young beauties strolling slowly among the trees (and few places indeed can boast more beautiful women than Trinidad), your picturesque, verandah-wrapped colonial mansions. None of these were more handsomely verandahed (is that a word? no matter) than the Queen’s Park Hotel, where everybody who was everybody who came to Trinidad stayed. You can’t stay there now, though--they tore it down a couple of years ago to build an office block. Port of Spain’s just that kind of town. At least the Swizzle lives on.
--David Wondrich

Combine in tall, 12-16 oz glass:
3 oz rum*
juice of 1/2 lime, plus squeezed-out shell
6-8 mint leaves
1/2 oz simple syrup**
3 dashes Angostura bitters.
Pour in about a cup of shaved or very finely cracked ice and swizzle—you know, stick your swizzle stick in it and twirl it between your palms until the glass frosts. (That swizzle stick? Not the plastic thing that airlines give out, but a long, straight stick with short branches radiating from the bottom; if, as is likely, you don’t have one, be creative) Intubate with a straw and serve. Drink slowly, if possible.

*The original recipe calls for not one of the light, suave rums made in Trinidad, but rather a heavy, fragrant Demerara rum, from nearby Guyana. Trinidad’s rum industry didn’t really kick into high gear until World War II, y’see, and before that they seem to have made do with what was lying around the ‘hood. If you’re butch enough, go Demerara—Lemon Hart is an excellent brand (DO NOT use the 151-proof).

**A true Trini would be insulted if you used white, refined sugar. So take 8 oz (by weight) of blonde Demerara sugar or “Sugar in the Raw,” melt it in a cup of water over low heat and let it cool (it’ll keep it the fridge indefinitely). Or just say to hell with it and use 2 teaspoons of superfine bar sugar.

In general, AFAIK, the Swizzle in the form we know it dates from the mid-19th century (before that, the West Indies had no reliable supplay of ice, a sine qua non for a proper Swizzle). The earliest mentions I've seen call for rum or gin--both quite popular in the British West Indies--sugar, ice and, almost invariably, bitters. Barbados' once-famous "Green Swizzle," beloved of all P.G. Wodehouse fans, was evidently the recipe to introduce limes to the mix. Beyond that, if old-school swizzlenomics was an engine for innovation, I haven't seen it (unless you count tipping in a splash of curacao as innovation). In other words, I think George's rules are exactly right, historically speaking, with one exception: traditionally, swizzles were made by the pitcher as well as by the glass.

[slkinsey]

In general, AFAIK, the Swizzle in the form we know it dates from the mid-19th century (before that, the West Indies had no reliable supplay of ice, a sine qua non for a proper Swizzle). The earliest mentions I've seen call for rum or gin--both quite popular in the British West Indies--sugar, ice and, almost invariably, bitters. Barbados' once-famous "Green Swizzle," beloved of all P.G. Wodehouse fans, was evidently the recipe to introduce limes to the mix. Beyond that, if old-school swizzlenomics was an engine for innovation, I haven't seen it (unless you count tipping in a splash of curacao as innovation).  In other words, I think George's rules are exactly right, historically speaking, with one exception: traditionally, swizzles were made by the pitcher as well as by the glass.

Based on the foregoing, it sounds like an additional rule "should include bitters" might be included.

[ThinkingBartender]

Would the bitters in question have to be Angostura-type bitters or would such things as orange/ peach/ cherry bitters be allowed?

A float of some liqueur would be good.


George

[Splificator]

Originally, it would definitely have been Angostura, the bitters of the British West Indies. Now, I'd say whatever works. That goes for floats, too--provided the drink doesn't end up like the mess I got in Trinidad when I ordered a swizzle, which consisted of three kinds of sticky fruit juice, two or three liqueurs, some bitters, some simple syrup, a small scoop of ice and--vodka. AND NO SWIZZLING. The guy just stuck a straw in it and handed it to me. Disgusting. I left it on the nearest table.

[slkinsey]

I would think that the efficacy of a float would be a bit minimized due to the fact that a Swizzle is consumed from the bottom of the glass up through a straw.

[mbanu]

I would think that the efficacy of a float would be a bit minimized due to the fact that a Swizzle is consumed from the bottom of the glass up through a straw.

Depends on why there's a float. If it's there because the fellow didn't want to bother with two glasses for his shot and chaser, (Like with those champagne cocktails with liqueur floats) then a straw would defeat the purpose. But if the float is there for aroma, as part of a flaming garnish, and/or to help balance out the dillution one gets by nursing a drink, (like with overproof rum floats) then a straw is a good bet.

[Splificator]

for aroma

That's always been my understanding of the purpose of the float.

[ThinkingBartender]

Don't forget the visual aspect! The liqueur runs down through the cocktail, cascading through the crushed ice. For a while it can look good. Higher proof spirits etc will just sit, and that is where caution should be exercised, as I have seen too many inch thick layers of Wood's 100 in my life. Yuck.

Cheers!

George

[Ed Hamilton]

I don't have a recipe, but I saw my first swizzle stick at Pegu Club on Monday night, while the 'tenders were making a Ti Punch for me (hoooo-weeee was it good). You've probably already had that, though, slkinsey.

The stick reminded me of the small wooden whisk used to whip matcha during Japanese tea ceremonies. Wonder what the history is behind swizzle sticks and drinks...

The swizzle stick you saw at the Pegu Club was harvested from a tree in Martinique by a rasta friend of mine who cuts and cleans them. The tree known as bois lele in Martinique is very symmetrical. Each node has about five branches growing perpendicular from the main branch and another smaller branch extending in the direction of the branch we use as a handle for the stick. Each of these five perdicular branches extends to another node where five more branches grow perdendicular to that branch.
The trees grow to be quite tall with some of the bigger branches being several inches in diameter. This tree also grows in other tropical islands but the swizzle sticks from Martinique seem to be the best I've found.

They also add a little magic to every cocktail as they aerate the cocktail when stirred with the lele.

[slkinsey]

The Ti Punch is actually an interesting subject in the discussion of Swizzles. A Ti Punch is nothing more than ruhm agricole, a bit of cane syrup and a disk of lime peel, mixed and swizzled with crushed ice (although I understand that it was probably originally not made with ice at all).

So is a Ti Punch a "Swizzle," or is it rather a "drink that is swizzled"? To my mind there is a difference, but I am willing to be set straight.