Rafa

The Bartender's Choice ratios, for those who don't have the app, are as follows: 2 oz Gin 1/4 oz 3/4 oz Dry Vermouth 2 dashes Angostura rinse Absinthe I highly recommend getting the app, though; it's hundreds of excellent recipes for an absurdly low price. The Caprice cocktail, from 1940 (ten years after the Savoy book), is very similar, only with Angostura rather than orange bitters and without the absinthe rinse: Capriceby Abe Marco, published in The How and When, 19401 1/2 oz Gin, Beefeater1 1/2 oz Dry vermouth, Dolin1/2 oz Bénédictine1 ds Orange bitters1 twst Orange peel Stir, strain, coupe, twist. (These are the PDT Book ratios.)

It was another quiet day so I nailed this.The Last Willy 1oz Beefeater Gin 1oz Yellow Chartreuse 1oz Lemon Juice .75oz Gabriel Boudier Creme de Cacao Blanc .25oz Mozart Dry Chocolate Spirit 2 Dash Bitter Truth/Bittermens Mole Bitters 1 Dash Mozart Black Chocolate Bitters I had to use Yellow as Green was smothering the chocolate. I played around with this a lot and this is V.1.4. At one point I took the Chartreuse down to .75 but then returned to equal parts, cutting the CdC with a quarter of Dry Chococlate Spirit. The Bitter Truth bitters up the vegetal qualities in the Chartreuse and the Mozart Bitters boost the deep chocolate notes on the nose. Interestingly, the chocolate element of this drink is almost entirely retro-nasal. Holding your nose whilst a drinking nearly eliminates the chocolate altogether. Two of my regular guests immeadiatly ordered this drink after trying a sample. Brilliant. We can't get Mozart spirit here (someone import it already!) but I'll try this with Don Esteban Rum Liqueur, which is chocolate-infused and not too sweet. Curious about the chocolate being almost entirely olfactory... How'd the name come about? I get the Last Word connection, but Willy? ETA: Wonka. D'oh.

Hell, I'll take it.

Jerry Thomas is right: start with an Improved, or cool down with a John Collins. Enjoy an Ice Pick, or <self promotion> a Tammany Hall </self promotion>. I also like the Bols neat. It tastes like liquid sourdough, and I mean that in a good way. More cocktail ideas here.

Do you ever have to explain to concerned customers that no, actually, you're not photographing them, you're just photographing the bitters? No recent purchases of my own, but: my significant other's on vacation in Costa Rica with her family. When she mentioned to her mother that she wanted to try Cuban rum, her mother was all too happy to oblige... and came back from the liquor store with Bacardi Silver, because it says "casa fundada en Cuba" on the label. Ay, mamá.

Thanks for sharing the comparison. I agree with your assessment: the PDT version's good, but puts too much emphasis on the lime (easily the least interesting element of the drink). Just made one to the Bartender's Choice specs, cutting back the Maraschino slightly to .5 oz, with a mix of 1 oz Wray & Nephew and .5 oz Barbancourt 5 Star. Sensational. There's nothing more refreshing. ETA made another one to the Bartender's Choice specs but with .5 oz Maraschino and .25 Green Chartreuse... wow. Not a replacement, but a nice variant.

Thank you for the recipe, olmoelisa. How does its flavor compare to the commercially available Cynar?

Thanks for putting the measurements in American. Dan can breathe easy now.

I love the Cynar/Maraschino combination. You might also like it with gin in Death & Co's Grand Street, with bourbon and celery bitters in The Sanny, with rye and cherry liqueur in my Eyetalian Cocktail, and with Batavia Arrack and Bonal in The Original Dirty Liver.

I assume you work from home; otherwise you just have an absurdly well-stocked bar at your office. All weekend I've been enjoying plugging Becherovka into recipes that call for cinnamon syrup, including Tiki drinks (the Donga Punch especially) and bourbon cocktails: Peter Buckby Rafa García Febles, NYC1 oz Bourbon, old weller 107 antique1 oz Apple brandy, Lairds3/4 oz Lemon juice1/4 oz Honey syrup1/4 oz Cinnamon syrup (or Becherovka)2 ds Bitters, Fee Brothers Whiskey Barrel Aged2 oz Ginger beer1 bsp Peach preserves (or fresh muddled peach) Shake all but ginger beer over ice and pour strained over fresh ice into a Collins. Top with ginger beer. Garnish with candied ginger and lemon wheel. This is warm and spicy and very nice; perfect for the rainy Indian winter we've been 'enjoying' here this weekend. I Should Buy A Boat (altered)by Joseph Tkach, Seattle, WA, altered by Rafa García Febles, NYC.1 1/2 oz Bourbon1 oz Grapefruit juice (white)1/2 oz Becherovka1 oz Sparkling white wine (dry)1 sli Grapefruit Shake briefly, strain, lowball, rock, top with Champagne, garnish with grapefruit slice and a bit of fresh cinnamon. And this I love. The original called for Doorly's rum, vanilla-cinnamon syrup, and ruby red grapefruit but I took it in more of a Brown Derby direction. (It probably needs a new name.) I don't think I'll ever tire of the grapefruit + bourbon combination; it's one of the pairings that first got me into both brown spirits and cocktails.Becherovka works very well with honey flavors (as in the Metamorphosis) including Drambuie, and plays well with Campari/Aperol. A bit medicinal on its own, but very versatile in cocktails. A great ingredient. I also tried to make Adam George's "Cynar What I Mean?" this weekend, but found out the hard way that Cocchi Vermouth, despite its notable bitterness, is no substitute for Punt e Mes. With Cocchi the end result was medicinal.

Oh, that wasn't the I had in mind. (Not that many people in London sound anything like Liam Gallagher, mind you.)

Well thank you Adam! I'll have to try it your way; sounds perfect for the season. I've been having fun pronouncing the drink's name as British-ly as I can. I don't know if it's the authentic choice (I've read varying opinions) but I like cream sherry as the float for a Fog Cutter. Cream sherry usually works in recipes that call for Pedro Ximenez, so you may want to seek those out.

Both great choices. A (somewhat unorthodox) Jet Pilot at Brooklyn's Huckleberry Bar was my first Tiki cocktail and I fell in love. The Donga Punch is another great Beachcomber drink that has the comparative advantage of being easier to make.

Maybe Barbancourt, and certainly the AOC rhums agricole (though not many of the aged expressions retail for under $40). While you may not consider it a proper rum, there's also Batavia Arrack van Oosten. What makes you think Seale's is altered? Is Doorly's XO?

Canela (Ceylon) is what Don the Beachcomber used in his syrups, and thus appropriate for many Tiki drinks. It is softer and warmer than Cassia and plays well with other spices. As Mexicans know well, it also plays very well with chocolate. Your post makes me want to try it with tequila. More on Cassia vs. Ceylon and Tiki drinks here. I prefer canela generally, but I'm biased, as Canela is my dog's name.

Yeah I just tried a little and it's great. More barley (I think? Barley nuttiness anyway) than I was expecting.

Cocchi Americano Rosa (x2), Cocchi Vermouth di Torino, Broker's Gin, Cuvée Laurent Brut Rosé, Salers, and Weller 12. Plus the nifty Astor tote for $1. All of which got soaked in the sudden violent downpour that struck me two minutes from home. Later some friends dropped off Ridgemont Reserve 1792 and a St. George Spirits-blended bourbon I'd never heard of (it's sourced from Kentucky, but not sure which distillery), plus some Mexican Coke. Overall a good weekend haul.

I ended up serving a bowl of Mother's Ruin last night, made with Broker's gin, Cocchi vermouth, and slightly less sugar than the recipe called for. It was a hit. After tasting I added a bit of Maraschino for complexity and some cinnamon, which along with the grapefruit gave it a slight Tiki feel. We ran out within an hour. Next time I'll probably use a little less grapefruit so that the other ingredients shine more. I also served a sangria made with a few strawberries, blackberries, tangerines, and lemons macerated in a mix of Cocchi Americano Rosa, Weller 12, Aperol, Luxardo Maraschino, soda water, and a touch of allspice dram. Popular, but to my palate a little unbalanced. The Cocchi is naturally sweet enough that it requires very little extra sweetening, and acidic enough that not much lemon is required. Between this, some sparkling wine I left out, and some lovely bourbons my friends brought, we had drinks all night. Great! I will be making a batch of Mother's Ruin Punch very soon as well; this has become our family tradition for mother's day (together with FHP for the holiday season). Please do share what you come up with for your sangria-type punch since that sounds like a great idea as well. And on that note happy mother's day! Hope you enjoyed your punch.

Context is so important, as I'm re-discovering recently as the weather gets warmer and I find myself shunning bitter and brown in favor of tall and dry. Sometimes there's nothing better than a Gin 'n Tonic; sometimes there's nothing I'd like less. I tried my Punt e Mes/Cynar/Maraschino drink from upthread again a couple of nights ago and found it overly sweet and all wrong for my mood. I should have gone with a Martini or something else bracingly dry.

A few I like: Elder Monkby Dan Chadwick, Kindred Cocktrails1/2 oz Gin1/2 oz Elderflower liqueur, St. Germain1/2 oz Bénédictine1/2 oz Herbal liqueur, Green Chartreuse1 oz Lemon juice1 twst Lemon peel (as garnish) Shake, strain, rocks, low-ball. Cocktail de la Louisiane (Sam Ross)by Restaurant de la Louisiane, New Orleans, LA, via Sam Ross1 oz Rye1 oz Cognac1/2 oz Bénédictine2 ds Peychaud's Bitters1 ds Absinthe1 twst Lemon peel Build in glass; stir with ice; express and drop in twist. The Doe's Pathby muse of doom, feu-de-vie1 oz Rye, Dad's Hat1 oz Dry vermouth, Vya3/4 oz Cynar1/4 oz Bénédictine1 spg Rosemary (as garnish) Stir, strain, coupe, garnish. Roll the sprig between your fingers to wake it up. And one of mine: Tammany Hallby Rafa García Febles, NYC.1 oz Irish whiskey, Redbreast1 oz Genever, Bols3/4 oz Sweet vermouth, Carpano Antica Formula1/4 oz Bénédictine1 ds Bitters, Angostura1 twst Lemon peel (Expessed and discarded)1 Cherry, Luxardo Stir, strain, up, twist, cherry.

Most recently it was a simple combination of three of my favorite tastes that go great together: 1.50 oz Punt e Mes .75 oz Cynar .25 oz Luxardo Maraschino Stir, strain, up, lemon twist. But I've had this spirit-affirming (pun intended) experience with a variety of classics: the Negroni, the Penicillin, the Daiquiri and its Hemingway cousin, the Mai Tai and its Bitter version, the Red Hook, and plenty of others, largely in the bitter, brown, and stirred category.

Sounds delicious. Going to try it. I have a healthy sweet tooth, it's just that 1.5 oz of liqueur gives me a toothache just thinking about it, especially when one of them has candy associations like creme de cacao does. Then again, one of my favorite drinks is the Last Word, which is also half liqueur. At any rate the TF sounds delicious and I'll have to give it a try. If you do let us know whether it works! I was thinking genever might work well instead of gin, so Bols Barrel-Aged might be worth a try. Sigh. If only it were available in the States... I see what you did there.

3/4 gin 3/4 Green Chartreuse 3/4 [chocolate] 3/4 lemon Has anyone tried a drink along these lines before? It seems like someone would have had to, given the similarities between the 20th Century and the Last Word and the well known affinity Chartreuse has for chocolate. It'd be too sweet as written with creme de cacao but might work in different ratios or with something else chocolate-flavored like Meletti or chilled cocoa or even bitters. Or maybe Tempus Fugit's creme de cacao, which I haven't tried.

Awesome. I've pre-batched cocktails before for events with crazy numbers of people but I love the connection you make to the mysterious mixes of the Tiki days. Also, I'm going to have to try cachaca in my Mai Tais now. I'll have to hit you up next time I'm in London.

No grapefruit, so faux grapefruit: 1 1/2 oz Wray & Nephew 1/2 oz Maraschino 1/4 oz Aperol 1/4 oz Campari 1 oz lime juice Fabulous, although I'd probably cut back the Marschino to 1/4 oz next time. A good idea, and it could be taken further by making a Donga Punch with Aperol + Campari subbing for the grapefruit and Becherovka for the cinnamon syrup. Might try that one of these days.