Splificator

Hey, thanks! It's a small book, but I'm pretty excited about it. I'll just have to use the original title for something else. Something...dangerous. --DW

A quick and unsystematic search through the professional literature locates this recipe in The Diners' Club Drink Book, from 1961. But since at least some of the recipes in that book come from Mr. Boston, I'd look through the 1950s versions of that old chestnut, if I had them. As far as I can tell, it doesn't show up in the other Wad-o-Drinks books (as DrinkBoy would call them--the books that round up every cocktail recipe they can find and cram them between two covers without testing or comment) from the 1940s or 1950s. There is, however, a "Harlem Cocktail No. 2" in the 1930/1934 edition of Cocktail Bill Boothby's World Drinks (one of the earliest Wad-o-Drinks books). This is nothing like the recipe above, but at least it implies that there was another Harlem Cocktail out there, which--who knows (probably Ted Haigh)--might very well be yours. Of course, none of this helps with the question of the drinks origin, beyond establishing that it's at least fairly old. Best of luck, DW

Interesting. I'm looking at Dave's Esquire Drinks and see 2 oz gin, 1/2 oz lemon juice and 1 tsp maraschino.... Hmmm. I have Daves' book but I guess I'm using the slightly different recipe from the Esquire website. Perhaps I should explain. I wrote Esquire Drinks in 2000 and 2001, based in part on the drink-of-the-week columns I'd been doing for esquire.com, but with a goodly number of additional drinks. When the book was finished, the column lived on for another three years or so, during which time I revisited a number of drinks that I felt had been shortchanged in the book (particularly in the essay department) and added scads that had never made it into the book in the first place, chiefly because I had never heard of them. While revisiting the drinks that were in the book (this is getting awfully confusing), I took the opportunity to test them again. And again. That's why the online Aviation recipe is different from the one in Esquire Drinks. And, probably, better. We learn by doing (there are notable exceptions). I should add, just to add to the confusion, that I've collected a number of these newer or revised recipes (but alas not their accompanying essays) in my new book, Killer Cocktails: An Intoxicating Guide to Sophisticated Drinking,* due from HarperCollins on May 1st. It also contains a few recipes of my own and quite a few more that were freshly exhumed from the archives just for the book. All clear? I thought so. In any case, I'm delighted that in one form or another the recipe pleases. Certainly one of my favorites. --DW *No, that's not my title. I wanted to call it How To Make Drinks and Intoxicate People, but the legal department though different.

A wine glass, as used by Jerry Thomas, was 2 oz; a "do." is a "ditto," or another of the same. A drachm is an eighth of a fluid ounce. Thomas used the wineglass as a standard measure because he was writing for other bartenders, who knew all this stuff anyway. Good luck, DW

Funny this should come up. I've been experimenting with aquavit cocktails--slow season on the farm--and have come up with a couple that I like well enough to put them in the repertoire. I think DrinkBoy's approach in his Negroni and Trident, which pair Aquavit with other strongly assertive flavors rather than trying to cushion it or mitigate it, is the way to go. At least, that's what worked for me. In general, I like the Linie brand best for these, but more experimentation is needed. The first drink pretty simple, seeing as it's little more than a Moscow Mule made with aquavit instead of vodka: Hüsker Mule Squeeze half a lime into a tall glass and drop in the shell. Add 2 oz Linie aquavit and 4-5 ice cubes Top off with chilled ginger beer (I like the Barrett's Stone Bottle brand, but any spicy one will do). Stir once or twice and tip a few drops of Angostura bitters on top. The ginger and the caraway go well together here, IMO. The spice notes of the Angostura don't hurt, either. The second one is pretty simple too, come to think of it (I'm really into simplicity these days). All it is is a slightly skewed rye Old-Fashioned: Old Bay Ridge Place a sugar cube in an Old-Fashioned glass, wet it with two dashes of Angostura bitters and a teaspoon of water, and muddle it into a syrup. Add 1 oz Linie aquavit and 1 oz straight rye whiskey (preferably Rittenhouse bonded, if you can get it). Stir a few times. Add 2-3 ice cubes and stir some more, at least 20 times. Twist a swatch of thin-cut lemon peel over the top and drop it in. Let sit for a minute or two and have at it. Bay Ridge is a Brooklyn neighborhood that used to be heavily populated by Irish, who drank rye, and Scandinavians. I'm definitely gonna try the Trident, as soon as I can figure out where I stashed that bottle of Cynar. --DW

So I finally stirred myself and looked through the professional literature on this one. The earliest formula I've got for it turns up in Barflies and Cocktails, by "Harry and Wynn," published in Paris in 1927--the Harry being Harry McElhone of Harry's New York Bar and the book being a special, illustrated and supplemented edition of his regular ABC of Cocktails (copies of this turn up on eBay pretty often; of Barflies and Cocktails, never). The same formula appears in the 1929 edition of the ABC of Cocktails, and for all I know in some of the earlier ones; it's not in the 1922 edition, though. "Pegu Club Cocktail 1 dash of Angostura Bitters, 1 dash of Orange Bitters, 1 teaspoonful Lime Juice (Rose's), 1/6 Curaçao (Orange), 2/3 Gin." Boy did this one throw me for a loop: Rose's! Holy Hannah! (In the interests of science, I tried it. Nix.) When Harry Craddock went to assemble the Savoy Cocktail Book, three years later, he didn't hesitate to pinch a whole bunch of stuff from Harry's ABC, probably including the Pegu Club. He did, however, leave out that one crucial, trademarked word: "Pegu Club Cocktail 1 Dash Angostura Bitters. 1 Dash Orange Bitters. 1 Teaspoonful Lime Juice 1/3 Curaçao. 2/3 Dry Gin. Shake well and strain into cocktail glass." The fact that he upped the proportion of curaçao suggests that he might in fact have used fresh lime juice, as we assume nowadays, but in light of the earlier recipe it's by no means a given. In any case, the Savoy book, with its popularity and longevity, became the classic source for this drink, as it did for so many others (the Aviation, the Corpse Reviver, etc.). For me, though, this drink is too sweet. Not bad, but could be better. There's one other early book that has the Pegu Club Cocktail in it, and it presents a rather different version of the drink from either of these. Tat's the puzzling little volume called Cocktails, by "Jimmy" late of Ciro's (Ciro's was the chic London nightclub where McElhone had been head bartender before he went to Paris). Most versions of this book, published in Philadelphia by David McKay Company, have no copyright date. There evidently exists, however, a version with a 1930 copyright, which jibes pretty well with the contents of the book; there's certainly no drink in it which could not have existed before 1930. Here's how Jimmy made the Pegu Club: "Pegu Club 4 parts Dry Gin 1 part Curacao 1 part Lime Juice 1 Dash Angostura Bitters per cocktail 1 Dash Orange Bitters per cocktail." Assuming the "Lime Juice" is fresh, that's what I call a Pegu Club! The 4:1:1 ratio works out to a jigger of gin (2 oz), the juice of half a lime and a tablespoon of liqueur: easy to make, fresh and tasty. I shall henceforth always make them thus (I perhaps went a little overboard with the lime and curaçao in the recipe I printed in the Esquire book). The point to all this: you can have your hefty splash of lime juice and still call it a pukka, historically-correct Pegu Club Cocktail. (Apologies for the treatise--if I had more time I coulda probably boiled this all down onto a paragraph or two, but better quick than never.) Exactly. Like Cointreau, Grand Marnier began its life as a fancy brand of curaçao, and it tastes enough better than most of the curaçaos out there to make it worth the extra price, especially if you're using it in small quantities. Plus, it's really easy to find. --DW Edited to add the point, which I completely omitted the first time around.

Not at the drinks, I hope! Thanks, Jaz! --DW

As far as I remember, the recipe I printed (the one in kvltrede's original post)came from trying the Savoy version and finding it way too sweet for my taste. I may have swiped the revised proportions from Harrington's book (I seem to recall a very limey Pegu Club in there, but I don't have it handy) or I may have just kept adding lime juice until it balanced out the sweetness of the curacao. There's probably a happy medium between 3/4 oz and 1 teaspoon, but I think using twice as much curacao as lime juice, as the second CocktailDB recipe has, would still make a drink that's pretty sweet. Not that there's anything wrong with that....

I agree with you about the Etter--yikes! Here in New York, the Trimbach is easy to find and goes for about $30 a bottle--not cheap, but doable. I suspect any of the kirshwassers you list would be fine, except the Dekuyper. I've had horrible experiences with domestic kirsches and this drink. (I made about a hundred of them for a conference presentation last year with one of the domestic brands, all that was available in the town I was in, and had an awfully hard time convincing people that the Rose was as delightful as I kept insisting it was, even though in this case I knew better). I don't know the difference between Edel-Kirsch and Kirsch, but the plainer the better. Neither Cherry Heering nor maraschino will work in this drink--you want a clear, dry eau-de-vie, not a liqueur (kirsch tastes more of cherry pits than it does of cherries; in this, it's closer to maraschino than to Cherry Heering). Good luck! --DW

That sounds like a good way of proceeding. Let us know when the lab results are in? I think that really depends on the drink--Pre-Prohibition, folks used to drink a lot of plain Cocktails--booze, bitters, sugar, ice. Few drinks popular now are stronger than those. But they also went in for punches, which were basically Cosmo-strength, and there were some lighter drinks, too. As for the Rose, I think those other formulae are all later. The Parisian drink (which may date back to the first decade of the 20th century, if what Fernando Castellon says in his recent Larousse des cocktails is correct) appears to have been oft-imitated and oft-monkeyed with, generally to increase the alcoholic content. Not everybody wants their cocktail to be so subtle and light on its feet (often enough, I don't). There are also several completely unrelated (and inferior) drinks of the same name, including the one I printed in Esquire Drinks. In its original formula, though, the Rose is a perfect example of the principle you state above: the kirschwasser, the "reversed main ingredient" here, is assertive almost to a fault and very hard to incorporate into conventional cocktail structures. But in this case the subtle, dry nuttiness of the Noilly Prat both tones down its pungency and plends with the nuttiness of its cherry-pit flavors. The bit of raspberry syrup imparts an evanescent pink color to the whole affair and adds a little sensual sweetness. Dee-lightful, as Teddy Roosevelt would say.

Oddly enough, the earliest recipes for both the Martini and the Manhattan--O.H. Byron's, from 1884, and the ones from the 1887 revision of Jerry Thomas' Bar-Tender's Guide (in fact, this edition of his book may have been published as early as 1876)--are both "reverse" recipes. Thomas calls for "1 wine-glass [i.e., 2 oz]" of vermouth to "1 pony [i.e., 1 oz]" of either whiskey or gin and specifies rye whiskey for the Manhattan and the lightly-sweetened (and now extremely rare) Old Tom gin for the "Martinez," as he calls it; in both cases, the vermouth would be the sweet Italian kind (he doesn't specify, but that was by far the most common). Byron calls for "1 pony" of "French [i.e., dry] vermouth" and "1/2 pony" of plain old "whisky" in his Manhattan. (Note that he also prints a second recipe that uses "1/2 wine-glass" each of "whisky" and "Italian vermouth.") As for his Martinez, he simply says "Same as a Manhattan, only you substitute gin for whisky." He doesn't say which Manhattan recipe it's the same as; if both, there's your Dry Martini, at least in embryo. In other words, everything old is new again. Personally, I prefer the half-and-half Martini (also with a dash of orange bitters) to the reverse Martini, but they're both fine: gentler, smoother, more seductive than the standard all-gin-and-no-vermouth kind, without being wimpy--provided that, as Dottore Kinsey says, you use an "assertive" gin (and I for one absolutely love Noilly Prat; Vya is fine, too, but for me it's good ol' "N.P." to the smooth, subtle, dry, nutty end). I don't particularly care for the reverse Manhattan, though. One of my all-time favorite old-school cocktails is a reverse one, though: the Rose, a Parisian drink from the teens or twenties (I may have posted it before; I can't recall). It requires 2 oz dry vermouth (N.P. for me), 1 oz kirschwasser (I like Trimbach for this) and 1 teaspoon raspberry syrup. Mmm-mm.

Try the large fruit/vegetable joint in the Chelsea Market--Toby Cecchini and I just scored some there; they call them "sour oranges"--3 for $1. HNY, DW

I grew up on Hot Buttered Rum but over the years have converted to that "grandma's whisky, honey and lemon" (aka Hot Toddy), which I've found to be the universal cure for whatever afflictions latch on to one between Halloween and Income Tax Day For those who haven't made it, here's the best way I've found. Heat a mug with boiling water; return the kettle to the stove. Pour the water out and put in 1 cube of Demerara or other raw sugar (or 1 teaspoon loose sugar) and a long, wide strip of thin-cut lemon peel. Add about an ounce of boiling water (returning the kettle to the stove) and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Tradition dictates a silver spoon be used here. No doubt it has therapeutic value of its own. Add a good 2 ounces of single-malt Scotch whisky.* Add another ounce or two of boiling water. Stir again, huddle over it to absorb the escaping alcohol and then drink. Now go to bed. *This is no time to economize: a blend is simply too thin to have the required effect (and besides, have you priced antibiotics lately? this way, you're actually saving money). As for which malt to use, it depends on the severity of the condition. In general, I like to be over-cautious here and use something like the cask-strength Laphroaig (I had a bottle of cask-strength Talisker once which I swear was like the Hippocratic Oath in a bottle). If the condition is mild, though, a mellower whisky will work fine. If the grippe under which you're laboring was caught in the close proximity to salt water, it's both traditional and effective to substitute high-proof Navy Rum for the whisky. The Inner Circle 115-proof is quite effective, as is plain old Woods' Navy Rum or even Pusser's. --DW Written in haste, edited at leisure.

L'ho imperato solo per leggere questo libro. Seriously? My father was born in Trieste. And always remember, "traduttore, traditore" ["translator=traitor"]. --DW

So 3 1/2 oz--the size of my recipe--is now too big? Sheesh, I thought I was hardcore about smaller drinks... As for the history of the Negroni: pending the arrival of Luca Picchi's 2002 Sulle tracce del conte: la vera storia del cocktail Negroni (Edizioni Plan: 2002) ["On the Trail of the Count: the True Story of the Negroni Cocktail"], which I have just ordered, I'll have to reserve judgment on the common story which has one Count Camillo Negroni inventing it in Florence in 1919 or 1920 when he took to having gin in his Americanos (evidently Picchi makes a good case for it's being true, but we'll see). Apparently, this book holds that the drink was indeed originally served in an Old-Fashioned glass with a splash or two of fizz water (with or without ice I cannot tell), as one would expect if it was simply an Americano stiffened with a "stick" of gin. The first recipe that I've seen in print for the combination of gin, vermouth and Campari is indeed the one for the "Camparinete," which turns up in the 1930 edition of "Cocktail" Bill Boothby's World Drinks and How to Mix Them. This one is served straight up with a twist of lemon. The proportions--two parts gin to one part each of Campari and vermouth--suggest that it's simply a rather wet Perfect Martini with Campari instead of the French vermouth. --DW

Originally (as in, the 1920s), there were two kinds of Sidecar: the French formula, which called for equal parts cognac, lemon juice and Cointreau, and the English version, which called for two parts cognac to one part each of lemon juice and Cointreau--this version, naturally, having more booze in it. I swear by the English formula, and make mine like Alex's, except bigger: 2 oz cognac (it should, alas, be a VSOP to bring out the true seductiveness of the drink--anything else tends to be a little too light, although Spanish brandy works, too), 1 oz Cointreau and 1 oz lemon. I gotta go make one now. --DW

Actually, not the way Trader Vic made it--it's powerful enough, although not so much as the average Martini or Manhattan (or even a stiff G&T), but it's more mellow and fragrant than it is fruity. That came with all the imitators, who tended to overcharge the thing with fruit juices to cover up the cheaper cuts of rum they were using. The only fruit in the Trader's formula is a lot of lime juice and a little orange liqueur. I want one now. --DW

Have tried it; is not available in America or in New York. Is 114 proof. Is good. Telegraphically, --DW

A) You're very welcome, and B) I was indeed, in my muddled way, referring to the Wet/Dry Martini: although the choice of gin is always important, I find it somewhat less so when one is adding red vermouth than when one is adding white. For the record, I generally like Tanqueray or Plymouth in my San Martins, although Beefeater does no harm. --DW P.S. to DrinkBoy: ah. Thanks.

The CocktailDB recipe is presumably the one from the Savoy book. The one I use comes from Robert Vermiere's Cocktails: How to Mix Them, from 1922. And indeed it does call for more vermouth, with a 50-50 ratio (and Yellow Chartreuse). I usually resolve these into 2-1, which in this case I think makes a better drink. Not always, though--I've been drinking a lot of 50-50 Dry Martinis lately (I guess you could call this a Wet/Dry Martini, or an Amphibious Martini), with a great deal of pleasure. You have to use Noilly Prat, though, and the choice of gin is important. As for Yellor Chartreuse v Green: the Yellow is lower-proof, sweeter and uses different herbs. It's no as overpowering as the Green, but it's almost as odd. You can buy it in small bottles, if that helps.

That was a "San Martin," with an accent on the i. It's a South American joint from the '20s, otherwise known (wrongly) as the "Sand Martin" (with no accent). Some recipes call for Green Chartreuse. Not so good. This is one case where you really need the yellow. A toute a l'heure (off to mix good whiskey with this and that, not omitting Tabasco sauce), --DW

I have a bottle of Hanschell's Old Time Recipe Falernum (11%), which I imported from Barbados in my hand luggage. It's made by Hanschell Inniss, the folks who make Cockspur rum. Not bad at all. --DW

Does that include paraquat (gratuitous '70s reference to go with those Brass Monkeys)?

I was thinking kumquat. I like yours better.

Sam-- This sounds like a very serious contender indeed. I'll have to try it. (Do you know where to get the tokens cheap?) I've done a little tweaking as well, on the "Express" version (the one with the rum), said tweaking consisting of ratcheting the gin back a little to 1 1/2 or 1 3/4 oz. Otherwise it has this...alcoholic taste. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Old English 800 and orange juice. Now that's a Subway Cocktail. Sunny Delight or Tropicana?