SPICED CIDER TODDY
BY TONY ABOU GHANIM
5 CINNAMON STICKS
30 WHOLE CLOVES
½ VANILLA BEAN
1 GALLON APPLE CIDER
½ CUP CLOVER HONEY
25 OUNCES HOMEMADE ROCK & RYE**
(SERVES 15)
Start by breaking the cinnamon sticks and cloves and bruising the vanilla bean. Next make a mirepoix bag with the spices. In a large saucepan combine cider, honey, and mirepoix bag; bring to a boil and let cool for at least 4 hours. Remove mirepoix bag and reheat cider when ready to serve, adding the Rock & Rye at the last moment. Serve in heated mugs with a cinnamon stick garnish.
**HOMEMADE ROCK & RYE (RECIPE FROM THE GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, 1938, BY CHARLES H. BAKER, JR.):
RYE WHISKEY, 1/5 GALLON, NOT A FULL QUART
JAMAICA RUM, JIGGER
ROCK CANDY, ½ CUP, LEAVE IN LARGE LUMPS
WHOLE CLOVES, 1 DOZ.
QUARTERED SMALL CALIFORNIA ORANGE, PEEL LEFT ON
QUARTERED SEEDLESS LEMON, PEEL LEFT ON
1 STICK OF CINNAMON, OR 2
Put ingredients in a jar, cover with Rye, and stand for a fortnight. Strain out spices through fine cloth or filter paper. Put back on fruit until needed.
TOM & JERRY & AUDREY
BY AUDREY SAUNDERS
Co-owner and Mixologist, Pegu Club, New York
12 FRESH EGGS
(YOLKS & WHITES SEPARATED)
2 POUNDS WHITE SUGAR
6 TABLE SPOON FINE MADAGASCAR VANILLA EXTRACT
1½ TEASPOONS GROUND CINNAMON
¼ TEASPOON GROUND CLOVES
6 OUNCES BOILING MILK
½ TEASPOON GROUND ALLSPICE
2 OUNCES BACARDI 8 ANEJO RUM
1 OUNCE COURVOISIER VS COGNAC
½ TEASPOON GROUND NUTMEG
4 DASHES ANGOSTURA BITTERS
Prepare the batter
: Beat egg yolks until they are thin as water.Add sugar, spices, rum, and vanilla to egg yolks (while beating). Beat egg whites until stiff and fold them into the egg yolk mixture. Refrigerate.
To serve
: Place 2 ounces of batter in an Irish coffee mug.Add 1 ounce of Bacardi Anejo rum, and 1 ounce of Courvoisier VS Cognac.Fill with 6 ounces boiling milk. Dust with freshly grated nutmeg.
TOMBSTONE
BY DAVID WONDRICH
SHAKE WELL WITH CRACKED ICE:
2 OZ 100- OR 101-PROOF STRAIGHT RYE WHISKEY
1 TEASPOON RICH SIMPLE SYRUP*
2 DASHES ANGOSTURA BITTERS
Strain into chilled cocktail glass and twist a thin-cut swatch of lemon peel over the top.
*TO MAKE RICH SIMPLE SYRUP, STIR 4 CUPS DEMERARA SUGAR AND 2 CUPS WATER OVER LOW HEAT UNTIL ALL SUGAR HAS DISSOLVED. LET COOL, BOTTLE,AND ADD ½-OUNCE GRAIN ALCOHOL OR 151-PROOF RUM TO RETARD SPOILAGE.
VELVET WILLIAMS
BY ANISTATIA MILLER AND JARED BROWN
Authors of
Shaken Not Stirred:A Celebration of the Martini
(1997)
2 OUNCES FRESH GREEN COCONUT WATER
2 OUNCES FRESH PINEAPPLE JUICE
1½ OUNCES PLYMOUTH GIN
1 SPLASH COINTREAU
1 DASH ANGOSTURA BITTERS
½ FRESH ORGANIC EGG WHITE
Mix all ingredients in a shaker filled with ice. Shake vigorously until icy cold. Strain into a large, chilled cocktail glass. Cut an orange twist with a vegetable peeler to reduce the amount of pith. Flame the twist over the top and add to the drink.
WHISKEY PEACH SMASH
BY DALE DEGROFF
Author,
Craft of the Cocktail
(2002)
5 MINT LEAVES AND 1 MINT SPRIG
3 PEACH SLICES
½ LEMON, QUARTERED
1 OUNCE ORANGE CURAÇAO (NOTHING LESS THAN MARIE BRIZARD,
BOLS, OR HIRAM WALKER)
2 OUNCES BONDED BOURBON WHISKEY
Muddle the mint leaves,2 peach slices, lemon pieces, and the orange curaçao together in the bottom of a bar-glass.Add the bourbon and ice and shake well. Strain into an iced rocks glass. Garnish with mint sprig and remaining peach slice.
CHAPTER 9
BITTERS AND SYRUPS
Most nineteenth-century bartender’s guides closed with a section on compounding bitters and syrups and producing cheap booze out of raw whiskey and various natural, if dodgy, and artificial flavorings. Since this book is devoted to the best traditions of the bar, I’ll ignore that last part entirely. As for the bitters and syrups, were these to receive the attention they deserve, they would easily fill another volume the size of this one. But I shall confine myself to offering formulae for three kinds of bitters (including Jerry Thomas’s own, for historical purposes) and a handful of essential syrups.
I have not indicated individual sources for botanicals and other ingredients. In general, they are relatively easy to source online, but I am reluctant to give websites for each as these have a distressing habit of disappearing as soon as they appear in print. But I will say that two I have found to be stable and reliable are
www.baldwins.co.uk
and
www.frontiercoop.com
.
Fortunately, the return of the Cocktail has brought in its wake a renewed interest in bitters, and every year brings more varieties on the market. Orange bitters, for a long time a rarity, are now much easier to find (both Fee’s West Indian Orange Bitters and Regans’ Orange Bitters #6 can easily be located online). Here, however, are three kinds that cannot yet be purchased.
JERRY THOMAS’S OWN DECANTER BITTERS
This is one recipe in Jerry Thomas’s book that we can be absolutely sure is his own. Evidently, it was successful enough for Thomas to keep making it, or something like it, since the 1871
Bonfort’s Wine & Liquor Circular
devoted to the Thomas brothers’ cellar closes by mentioning that “Mr. Jerry Thomas makes a very wholesome kind of bitters, for the use of his bar, himself.” Unfortunately, modern medical science begs to differ about their wholesome nature, since aristolochic acid, found in the Virginia snakeroot
(aristolochia serpentaria)
Thomas used to give the bitters their herbal punch, has been proven to cause liver failure, and snakeroot can no longer be purchased. Nor can it be adequately replaced: Having taken the trouble to grow some from cuttings, I can attest that this fragrant, spicy root imparts a bewitching I-know-not-what to the bitters that is unlike anything I know.
I offer the Professor’s recipe—which was clearly sold as a tonic, by the glass—for its historical interest only and
do not recommend that it be reproduced or consumed.
(BOTTLE AND SERVE IN PONY-GLASS.)
TAKE ¼ POUND OF RAISINS
2 OUNCES OF CINNAMON
1 OUNCE OF SNAKE-ROOT
1 LEMON AND 1 ORANGE CUT IN SLICES
1 OUNCE OF CLOVES
1 OUNCE OF ALLSPICE
Fill decanter with Santa Cruz rum.
As fast as the bitters is used fill up again with rum.
SOURCE: JERRY THOMAS, 1862
STOUGHTON’S BITTERS
There is a surfeit of old recipes for Stoughton’s Bitters in existence, but unfortunately none of them can be traced to the good doctor himself (then again, I must confess that I have not yet searched through the British patent office records from 1712, if indeed they still exist). Most of the existing recipes contain snakeroot. Here is one that does not. It is a composite recipe from several sources, the earliest of which is Charles B. Campbell’s 1867
American Bartender
.
Macerate one-quarter ounce of chamomile flowers and one-half ounce each of gentian root, bitter orange peel, cassia bark, and calumba root in thirty ounces of brandy and ten ounces of grain alcohol.After two weeks, stir in one ounce by weight of burnt sugar, strain through filter paper and bottle.
SOURCE: COMPOSITE
NOTES ON INGREDIENTS:
The burnt sugar can be purchased in some ethnic food stores, or you can make your own. Many recipes for Stoughton’s Bitters call for them to be colored with cochineal; this can easily be replaced by a few drops of red food coloring, in which case the burnt sugar should be reduced by at least half (it is merely there for coloring).
NOTES ON EXECUTION:
If you plan on making bitters frequently, it will be worthwhile to acquire a vacuum filtration rig (aka Büchner funnel/flask), which will make filtering your bitters quick and easy. Otherwise, you’ll need a coffee filter and a lot of patience.
BOKER’S BITTERS
I won’t delve deeply into the complex history of Boker’s Bitters. The leading Cocktail bitters for much of the nineteenth century, they were produced by the L. J. Funke Company of New York City. By Prohibition, their heavy, Christmas-spiced nature made them quite old-fashioned. An adequate substitute is Fee Brothers’ Old-Fashioned Aromatic Bitters (see
www.feebrothers.com
). Or you can make your own, as many a bartender did. This English formula for them hails from 1883, when there was still plenty of genuine Boker’s around to test it against.
1½ OZ.QUASSIA
1½ OZ. CALAMUS
1½ OZ. CATECHU (POWDERED)
1 OZ. CARDAMOM
2 OZ. DRIED ORANGE PEEL
Macerate for 10 days in
½
gallon strong whiskey, and then filter and add 2 gal. water. Color with mallow or malva flowers.
SOURCE: ROBERT HALDAYNE,
WORKSHOP RECEIPTS (SECOND SERIES)
, 1883
NOTES ON INGREDIENTS:
For the whiskey, which would have been the young, rectified kind, not the old, wood-mellowed kind, you can substitute 151-proof rum or even Everclear. The water is added in this quantity to make these decanter-type bitters, for drinking straight; to make them into Cocktail bitters, cut the amount of water in half. And there’s no shame in making a half-sized recipe.
SYRUPS
In general, the recipes in this book call for a thicker syrup than the one-to-one formula that is in general use today, the glassware then being much smaller and hence easier to fill without “volumizing” the drinks.
GUM SYRUP (TRUE)
The gum Arabic, an emulsifier, gives this a silky texture that helps to soften the bite of drinks made with liquor and nothing else—plain Cocktails, in other words. But it works well in just about anything, and is worth the extra expense in time and money.
Dissolve 1 lb. of the best white gum Arabic in 1½ pints of water, nearly boiling;
[take]
3 lbs. of white sugar or candy; melt and clarify it with half pint of cold water, add the gum solution and boil all together for two minutes.This gum is for cocktails.
SOURCE: E. RICKET AND C. THOMAS,
GENTLEMAN’STABLE GUIDE
, 1871
NOTES ON INGREDIENTS:
Make sure the gum Arabic is food-grade (you can get it from
www.frontiercoop.com
). Plain white sugar will work fine.
NOTES ON EXECUTION:
It’s easier to simply melt the sugar in the half-pint of water over a low flame, rather than melting the sugar first and then adding the water (our sugar needs less clarifying). The mixture should be kept refrigerated.
GUM SYRUP (BARTENDER’S)
While the gum may be nice in drinks, bartenders rapidly discovered that few customers could tell the difference, and the vast majority of bartenders’ recipes for gum syrup omit the gum altogether. Since the period ones are heavily concerned with clarifying the syrup, a step that is no longer needed, a modern recipe is provided here.
Over a low heat, dissolve two pounds of white sugar in one pint of water. Let cool, bottle and add one-half ounce grain alcohol or one ounce vodka to retard spoilage. Keep refrigerated or use quickly.
NOTES ON INGREDIENTS:
To make what I call
Rich Simple Syrup
, replace the white sugar with Demerara sugar. The resulting syrup will be brown, which sometimes causes visual problems, but it adds a depth of sugar flavor that I find an improvement to most drinks.
PINEAPPLE, RASPBERRY, AND OTHER FRUIT AND BERRY SYRUPS
These are easy to make: Simply cube the large fruits and wash and pat dry the small ones, put them in a bowl, press them lightly, and add enough gum or rich simple syrup to cover. Leave them overnight, strain out the solids, and you’re done.
APPENDIX I: THE BON VIVANT’S COMPANION
On June 23, 1859, the young New York trade-book publishing firm of Dick & Fitzgerald did something nobody had done before. That day, they registered a book with the copyright clerk of the Southern District of New York bearing the following title:
The Bar Tender’s Guide, or Complete Encyclopaedia of Fancy Drinks, Containing Plain and reliable directions for making all the Fancy Drinks used in the United States, together with the most popular British, French, German and Spanish recipes. To which is appended a Manual for the Manufacturing of Cordials, Liqueurs, Fancy Syrups, etc etc, the same being adapted to the trade of the United States and Canadas.