Book No. 2, the Bee’s Knees, and the Jasmine Cocktail

(This is a fairly long post! The first big chunk is about a new book I’m writing called Classic Cocktails and the accompanying post series I’m launching today, but if you want to get straight to the drinks, skip down to the bold heading that says, “Enough Context, Time for Cocktails.” Today we’re doing the the Bee’s Knees and the Jasmine, because apparently I have a thing for rose-colored cocktails on Laetare Sunday.)

This post begins a new series, which I’ve been planning for several weeks, in celebration of the fact that I’m writing a second book, and this one is actually about cocktails.

In one sense, the timing of this really couldn’t be worse (my plans for it have changed multiple times over the course of the last few weeks, obviously). People aren’t feeling celebratory right now. No one’s top priority is a new cocktail book, nor should it be.

But on the other hand, a lot of people are going to be spending a lot more time at home than usual. If I do my job with this series, I may help some folks who are cooped up to experience some of the artistry of cocktails they might otherwise be missing out on, using ingredients they have on hand. I may also be able to crowdsource help with my writing process, which would otherwise be kind of hitting a wall.

Let me back up a bit and explain. Abbeville Press, the publisher of Distilled Knowledge, also published a book in the late nineties called 100 Classic Cocktails. Earlier this year, they reached out to me and asked if I’d be interested in writing a new edition of the book for them. I’ve wanted the chance to write a cocktail book for a long time now, and I feel like I’m finally capable of doing so after all these years. I agreed, enthusiastically.

For 1998, the original book was excellent. Half a dozen egg drinks, at least four with Campari, and even one with Kümmel - there were of course bartenders working with these things in the nineties, but 100 Classic Cocktails was a mainstream guide, 4”x4” and sold in gift shops. The work of revival and innovation in cocktails hadn’t filtered through to popular consciousness in the way it has today, and even so, Barry Shelby was able to reflect that ongoing progress in what he wrote.

That said, things have evolved a lot in the last twenty-two years. The original edition lacks some old drinks that have been reestablished as classics under the reign of the Cocktail Renaissance, the Aviation, the Boulevardier, and the Corpse Reviver #2 among them. It also predates the establishment of various contemporary drinks as classics - and even their invention in many cases, being some seven years older than the Penicillin, which has since circumnavigated the globe. Likewise, there are drinks in there that may have been hot in the nineties but never got established as enduring classics (Midori and Galliano being common indicators thereof).

All told, there’s plenty of revising to do. The title of the book is being changed to Classic Cocktails for the new edition, so we’re not married to having exactly one hundred recipes, and I have the publisher’s authorization to make reasonable additions and deletions. I share all of this in part because I find it exciting and invigorating personally, and in part to provide context for what follows.

I have also made a commitment to test every single recipe that will go into the book. Nothing will be printed that I cannot seriously recommend. That includes recipes for drinks I would be unlikely to order myself, like the Black Russian (conveniently, Mr. Shelby hit that one square on the head).

But testing variations on dozens and dozens of cocktails, many of which I may have had but not made myself before, is a dauntingly large task. I’m also wary of my own tastes biasing the results too much - this is meant to be a mainstream guide, after all, and fond as I am of my own palate, I don’t trust it to be representative. I had initially addressed this by beta-testing recipes with groups of friends and neighbors, in person. Real-time feedback and adjustments, and a broad, randomized range of taste preferences. It seemed foolproof.

In fact, it was nearly foolproof, and I got a lot of work done that way, but it wasn’t pandemic-proof. Gathering a dozen people in a small room and having them share multiple cocktails is not what you’d call responsible social distancing.

Which, at long last, brings me to this blog series. I am still testing recipes, because the book is still meant to be finished this spring and published this fall. And I’m hoping you’ll test them along with me.

For as long as I’m *ahem* working from home, I’ll post recipes every couple of days. Some of them will be recipes I want help with - maybe there’s something about the balance that doesn’t seem right to me, maybe I’m worried I’ve made them too much to my tastes and not enough to the world’s tastes, maybe I’m limited in the ingredients I have on hand and want to be sure the recipe works with an arbitrary gin, triple sec, etc. Send any feedback you have on those cocktails to me at brian@herzogcocktailschool.com, and you’ll get an acknowledgement by name in the book when it’s published.

I’ll also periodically post recipes I don’t need help with, which I just happen to think are good quarantine cocktails: easy to make with things you may have on hand already, and more than the sum of their parts. And because you’ve just read through a truly massive block of text, today I’m giving you one of each.

Enough Context, Time for Cocktails

Today’s quarantine cocktail is the Bee’s Knees, and today’s question cocktail is the Jasmine. Let’s begin with the former.

The Bee’s Knees occupies an odd position in the canon. Basically everybody who is serious about cocktails has heard of it. It’s been around for a century. Two of the iconic drinks invented at Milk and Honey are riffs on it,* and the that bar’s most famous export (the above-mentioned Penicillin) is a riff on one of those. There can really be no doubt about its influence or venerability.

But when is the last time you actually had one? How often do you see it on cocktail menus? It seems to be a classic that everyone knows and nobody drinks.

I think part of the issue is the honey. Post-renaissance cocktailiery† has established as gospel that you don’t use honey in drinks, you use a honey syrup instead, because it flows better and is easier to work with. The Milk and Honey recipe is pretty commonly used: 1 cup of honey, plus 1/3 cup of water, warmed and stirred until fully mixed, then bottled and refrigerated until you’re ready to use it. It’s perfectly easy to make, but it’s an extra step to make it, and that tends not to make sense for either a home or a retail bar unless you’re making a lot of honey cocktails.

Here’s the thing, though: making a honey syrup is also entirely unnecessary.

The goal of making the honey into a syrup is to make it easier to mix into cocktails. Honey is thick, and it doesn’t flow or dissolve so well, even when shaken - so goes the logic. Never mind for the moment that different kinds of honey have different viscosities,‡ let’s just focus on the expected properties of ordinary store-bought honey, which tends to be thicker than, say, simple syrup.

Even then, the viscosity is temperature-dependent: warm or room-temperature honey will flow and dissolve better than cold honey will. When you put honey into a cocktail shaker, you’re cooling it down at the same time that you’re trying to get it to dissolve. Of course that goes badly.

You may already see where I’m going with this. See, it occurred to me yesterday that honey gets noticeably foamy when shaken, much like egg whites do (although not to the same degree), and that it’s actually kind of odd that we only use the dry shake technique for eggs and not for other ingredients that respond texturally to temperature (particularly foamy ones). What, I wondered, would happen if we dry-shook the Bee’s Knees?

Behold:

Bee’s Knees
2 oz. Gin
1 oz. Fresh Lemon Juice
1/2 oz. Honey
Combine all ingredients in a shaker without ice and shake until honey is dissolved. Add ice and shake again. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and serve.

Not only is it possible with very little additional effort, but this was easily the most delicious Bee’s Knees I’d ever had. I used Back River Gin from Maine, which is reminiscent of Plymouth Gin in its sort of mineral sweetness but with some savory notes that pop in cocktail use. I used it because I had it on hand, but any medium-bodied gin with a reasonably traditional profile will work for this drink. The honey was regular store-brand clover honey from the local supermarket. The lemon juice was from a lemon. Simple pieces, spectacular result.

I suspect that the dry shaking process also affected the flavor, perhaps releasing more of the honey’s aromatics (also a temperature-dependent process) and trapping some of them in the air bubbles in the foam. But honestly, I’m not sure! And in the course of an admittedly cursory look through Google and the usual cocktail suspects, I was unable to find any other reference to dry-shaking honey drinks. This one might be a true original, kids.

All that being said, if you’d rather make the honey syrup than shake the drink twice - perfectly sensible if you’re going to be making a lot of these - you’ll want to substitute 3/4 oz. of syrup for 1/2 oz. of honey.

For best results with the dry shake technique, you’ll want to start with honey at room temperature. If you want to add a splash of warm water to the jigger to get the last bit of honey out of it, go for it (I did!). Just keep it under a teaspoon so you don’t over-dilute the cocktail by accident.

~~~~~

And now, on to today’s question cocktail. Let’s talk a bit about the Jasmine and why it is that we’re talking about the Jasmine.

A veritable contemporary classic, the Jasmine was invented in the early nineties by a Very Big Deal cocktail renaissance figure named Paul Harrington. It was created on the fly for a friend and patron whose surname was Jasmin, but Harrington didn’t discover that error until some time after the drink had achieved popularity (possibly after it was included in his own book, which was coincidentally also published in 1998). It turns on Campari, which was gaining steam in the nineties bar community but hadn’t been used in an influential and novel way during that period before Harrington came along. It also tastes strongly of grapefruit despite containing none. It’s famous, it’s simple, and it proves that it’s still possible to invent successful drinks in the classical style. It is absolutely going in the book.

The only problem is, it didn’t taste quite right when I tested it. To my own surprise, I felt that it needed something: a dash of Regan’s orange bitters, which vastly improved the result.

Here’s the thing: This isn’t really a drink that’s up for debate. Far from there being disagreement about what goes into it, nearly every published recipe for the Jasmine gives the same proportions for the same list of four ingredients, orange bitters not among them. And unlike many older classics I might want to tweak, the creator of this drink is still alive (and almost certainly still way better than this than I am),

All of which inclines me to look first for what I might have done wrong, rather than for issues with the recipe. My hunch is that the trouble is my triple sec. It’s very tasty, and locally made at Short Path Distillery, but I think it has less of a pronounced bitter-orange note than others I’ve had, and some of its non-citrus botanical flavors fill that gap. If I’m right about this, adding that dash of Regan’s may have had a similar effect to swapping my triple sec out for a different one with a more conventional profile. And if that’s the case, the recipe is right as it is.

My request for today: Try this drink with these proportions and whichever ingredients you have on hand. Let me know how you like the balance. Tell me about any flavors that you felt were strongly represented (for better or for worse), or else that were weak or missing in your view. Let me know which brands you used. And if you feel moved to do so, add a dash of orange bitters and tell me how it changed the drink - and whether you liked it more or less.

Jasmine
1 1/2 oz. Gin
3/4 oz. Lemon Juice
1/4 oz. Campari
1/4 oz. Triple Sec
Shake. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. If desired, garnish with a lemon twist.

Happy drinking!

Notes:

(*) Those would be The Business, which is a Bee’s Knees with lime juice instead of lemon (say the names out loud and you’ll get the joke), and the Gold Rush, which is a Bee’s Knees with bourbon instead of gin.

(†) I coined the term “Cocktail Baroque Period” back in 2016 or so, and it seems to have since begun to seep into the vernacular. Though I do worry that the coronavirus-induced shutdowns may bring a premature end to the contemporary baroque artistry in cocktails.

(‡) Honey comes in a variety of textures depending on its origins. There is a honeymonger here in Cambridge called Follow the Honey, which often sells Atchafalaya honey from Louisiana. That particular honey is about the consistency of simple syrup or Grade A maple syrup right out of the jar, and makes lovely cocktails. If you want to get into honey, there’s a lot more out there than you might expect!

Brooklyn

1 1/2 oz. rye whiskey
1/2 oz. dry vermouth
Dash or two Maraschino liqueur
Dash aromatic bitters

Four out of the five boroughs of New York have cocktails named after them, of which the Manhattan is by far the most famous. Staten Island, somehow, is the teetotaler.

When the other three borough-cocktails are mentioned, it's usually to pan them. Embury tells us that far more Manhattans than Brooklyns are made even in Brooklyn, which, while definitely true, is perhaps rubbing it in a little too much. It's a very pleasant drink from time to time.

Among those who bother to make it, there are two schools of the Brooklyn. One simply makes it a dry Manhattan (implicitly making the sweet Manhattan coextensive with the Manhattan category). This, too, is an enjoyable cocktail, but there isn't much reason to give it its own name.

I prefer the second school, which adds Maraschino liqueur to the mix, creating a decidedly different drink. Maraschino fills out the body and adds a sweet, earthy dimension to the flavor profile.

I went with Dutch's Boomtown Bitters, previously written-up, on top. Amer Picon is often specifically indicated, in this and other cocktail recipes, but there's no need to wring your hands if you haven't got it. It's a bitters. Experiment with your own citrus or aromatic bitters until you find one that you like.

I should also note that my above recipe is approximate. The Brooklyn is a great tinkerer's drink. If you find you like it with a tablespoon of Maraschino, more power to you. These proportions should at least have you playing in in the right ballpark.

Vieux Carré

Vieux Carré (dry)

1 oz. rye whiskey
1 oz. Cognac
1 oz. dry vermouth
2 barspoons Bénédictine
2 dashes Angostura bitters
2 dashes Peychaud’s bitters

Stir before adding bitters. Serve neat or with ice, as you prefer.

I’ve been wanting to put this one up for a while. I made these left, right, and center while Mardi Gras was upon us, but they were going down so fast I never got a photo of one. Until now!

"Vieux Carré" is the French name for what Anglophones would call the French Quarter, New Orleans’s oldest, most famous neighborhood. The Vieux Carré is not New Orleans’s most famous cocktail, that honor probably falling to the Sazerac, but it was invented there, at the Carousel Bar of the Hotel Monteleone.

This is a nice cocktail in that all of the recipes are very similar. It’s not quite as formulaic as the Negroni, but it’s reasonably easy to get in your head. Start with equal parts of whiskey, brandy and vermouth. Add a spoonful or so of Bénédictine, then top with equal parts of Angostura and Peychaud’s (ordinarily one or two dashes). All the recipes I’ve seen for the Vieux Carré can be described like this, although they quibble over the precise numbers. Mine is more Bénédictine-heavy than most, but, hey, I like Bénédictine.

The Vieux Carré is most commonly found with sweet vermouth. I have to credit Ted Haigh’s Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails with the knowledge that it can be made with the dry stuff as well. It’s a perfect one-for-one substitution. That’s not always the case - Jon and I had to do a lot more doctoring when we tried to make a dry Americano. But in this case, don’t stress about your vermouth. I just use whichever I feel like that day, or in this case, happen to have on hand.

According to Haigh, this drink had been forgotten at the Carousel Bar itself, until very recently. I’m happy to report that this is no longer the case. The Carousel Bar is, in fact, where I first met the Vieux Carré, during Tales of the Cocktail in 2012.

Sidecar

Sidecar

4 parts (2 oz.) Courvoisier cognac
1 part (1/2 oz.) Cointreau
1 part (1/2 oz.) fresh-squeezed lemon juice
Sugar rim

This is where that lemon juice I mentioned went. The Sidecar may well be my favorite of the classic recipes. It’s also one of a very small number of drinks I consider to be “solved” - that is, I’ve found a way to make them that I like so much, I see no reason to deviate.

Courvoisier is far and away the best cocktail cognac. Hennessy, its closest cousin in terms of quality, has a harsh bite to it that relegates it to use in brandy/rye and brandy/bourbon cocktails, which are already covering a parallel trait in the whiskey. Courvoisier retails in the low thirties.

Cointreau is an orange liqueur with a neutral base. Most bars use it for their Sidecars. If you have your own orange liqueur, feel free to substitute it. Luxardo’s triple sec, Solerno blood orange liqueur, and the inimitable Grand Marnier all make pleasant Sidecar variations, although you should note that the substitution is not as easy in most drinks, particularly in the case of Grand Marnier. (Thus, “inimitable.”)

With a drink like this, so simple and with so few ingredients, always use fresh lemon juice. I tell people a drink is never better than its worst ingredient. Sometimes you can get away with a weak link, if it’s a bit player in the act. Here you can’t.

I recommend shaking for the Sidecar. It’s advisable for all drinks with fruit juices in them, to be sure everything distributes evenly. The bit of water from the melting ice also opens up the flavor of certain spirits, including brandy. All that said, you can stir this one without too much worry.

The eternal Sidecar question is, “Sugared rim?” The answer may be yes or no. Certainly you shouldn’t be afraid of it. The sugar is there to answer the sour of the fresh lemon. The drink works without it, but sometimes you’re in the right mood. If you’re worried you’ll look girly drinking out of a sugar-rimmed glass, stick to Old Fashioneds until you’re secure in your masculinity. The rest of you, keep reading.

To sugar a glass, pour some powdered or granulated sugar into a small dish or saucer. Please be sure your dish is larger than the glass you intend to coat, and your sugar isn’t in clumps. Chill the glass in the freezer for a few minutes. When you take it out, there will be condensation on it. Overturn the glass into the dish of sugar, and give it a few turns. The sugar will stick to the wet rim of the glass. Something similar may be accomplished by filling the glass temporarily with ice cubes to chill it, or by running a bit of lemon around the rim. So long as it’s wet, the sugar will stick.

This works any time you need to sugar a glass, or salt one, if you’re making Margaritas. Assuming all your dishes and glassware are clean, you can even return the leftover sugar to its container when you’re finished. Or revel in the decadence of pitching it. Up to you.

Martini

Martini

5 parts (1 1/4 oz.) Booths London dry gin
2 parts (1/2 oz.) Noilly Prat dry vermouth
Twist of lemon

Drink No. 2 in the rundown of Embury’s basic/classic cocktails is the Martini. If the Manhattan is the most accessible, the Martini is probably the least. Most people who drink “Martinis” or [word]-tinis would balk at the big glass of gin that is an actual Martini. The Herzog Cocktail School offers counter-instruction.

There are many kinds of gin, with different production processes and resulting flavor palates. For the purposes of cocktail mixing, I find it useful to describe three types: dry, herbal, and neutral. Dryness is a flavor you become accustomed to when you drink a lot of gin. If you haven’t experienced it, “un-sweet” is probably the best footing to put you on. It tends to feel boozy, and heavy, relative to other gins.

Herbal gins are your Botanists and Hendrick’ses. They have a really powerful flavor of herbs and spices. “Botanical” is the more prevalent term among aficionadoes, but calling Botanist gin “botanical” doesn’t seem particularly helpful. Neutral gins don’t jump out either way. They may be slightly citric, a little sweet, or a little more juniper-y. They’re your most versatile base for gin cocktails.

Booths is not a neutral gin. It is a very dry gin, as will be anything labelled “London dry.” In a dry-gin Martini, you want to be very careful there’s enough vermouth to offer a counterpoint. In general, between 3:1 and 7:1 gin:vermouth is a reasonable proportion for the Martini, making our 5:2 a little off the vermouthy side. Trust me when I say the gin needed it. Cocktails are a game of balances.

The classic Martini question is not, in fact, “Vodka or gin?” but, “Olive or twist?” Another way to put this is, “Savory or sour?” Which direction to bring the drink in? The Martini has many cousins which wrestle with the same issue. I opted for the twist of lemon, chiefly because I had lemons but no cocktail olives. Both are valid. The lemon version is a crisper drink, the olive one heavier. Dirty Martinis, which incorporate the olive juice, are heaviest of all.

Incidental note: I haven’t got a citrus zester, unlike our friends at Don’t Blame the Gin. I improvised the twist you see there, by cutting a lemon in half, and shaving off the rind around the edge with the knife, cutting away any fruity bits when I was done. Not too shabby a job, if I say so myself.

What happened to the rest of the lemon, you ask? Check the next update to find out…

Old Fashioned

Old Fashioned

2 oz. Bully Boy American Straight Whiskey
1/2 or so tsp Demerara simple syrup
2 dashes Angostura bitters

The Old Fashioned is the original cocktail. When the word “cocktail” was coined, it referred to a combination of a spirit, sugar, water, and bitters. In the way that Sour, Flip, Fizz, Daisy, Fix, Crusta, and so on are drink categories characterized by particular formulas, so, originally, was Cocktail.

Ordinarily, I encourage the shaking of drinks that feature syrups, but the Old Fashioned has been around longer than cocktail shakers, I say stir. It’s a rough drink, rough in the sense that Teddy Roosevelt was rough. It’s nearly all whiskey. Careful measurements and advanced mixological techniques don’t belong here.

Old Fashioneds historically were made with rye, then with bourbon for many years, and now with rye again. Rye is more complex nine times out of ten, which matters a lot when the flavor palate you’re working with comes 85% or so from the whiskey. I used Bully Boy’s American Straight Whiskey (distilled in Boston!), which is made from a mash halfway between a bourbon and a rye mash. The result is very interesting and very smooth - smoother even than a lot of bourbons, which are allegedly the sweeter American whiskey. Whatever you use to mix these, be sure it’s of decent quality, and you enjoy it. Your particular whiskey selection should be one you would sip on its own.

There is a newer school of Old Fashioneds that involves muddled fruit. These can be enjoyable, but yield a distinctly different drinking experience. I’ll cover them some other time. For now, our foray into Embury’s basic/classic cocktails is concluded. The Daiquiri and the Jack Rose will follow eventually.

Finally, a shout-out to Jon, whose Demerara simple syrup was the sugar I had on hand for this. Demerara has a rich flavor, and makes a syrup that’s almost black. It blends very well with aged liquors.

Manhattan

Manhattan

3 parts (1.5 oz.) Old Overholt rye whiskey
2 parts (1 oz.) Martini & Rossi sweet vermouth
3-4 dashes Angostura aromatic bitters

Yesterday was a snow day for me, so I decided to whip up examples of David Embury’s major classic cocktails. There are six he says everybody ought to be able to make, as a basis for cocktail knowledge, and for further experimentation. I realize I’ve put up plenty of innovations and outlandish drinks, but the really essential standby cocktails haven’t gotten much airtime. That changes now.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t make all of them. A trot out to the corner store (good on them, being open) got me the citrus I needed, but I was still short the Daiquiri’s light rum and applejack for the Jack Rose. The others will show up as I load them in, all tagged appropriately.

I started with the Manhattan, one of the most famous and most accessible classic cocktails. The Manhattan is that rare drink that is not merely more, but something else entirely than the sum of its parts. A well-mixed Manhattan does not taste like whiskey or vermouth. It tastes like a Manhattan.

The recipe you see here is a bit of a poor-man’s Manhattan. Old Overholt is perfectly serviceable, but it is bottom-shelf, by rye standards. Now, fortunately, rye whiskey is like applejack, brandy, gin, and dark rum, in that the cheapest stuff you can possibly find will be miles ahead of the glorified ethanol that comes packaged as bottom-shelf vodka, light rum, or nonspecific “whiskey.” I’ll indicate in later posts on the Manhattan what price point we’re talking about. The Manhattan, like many of the classics, falls into the “easy to learn, hard to master” category. It can be varied greatly.

For now, though, let’s talk about the poor-man’s Manhattan. Old Overholt and Jim Beam are the two cheapest ryes on the market. Expect to pay $15 for a fifth. I’ve seen them anywhere from $11 to $22, but $15 is a good estimate. I happened to have Old Overholt, although I tend to prefer the Jim Beam, which is slightly more complex. A tenth-size bottle of Martini & Rossi will hit around $7 or $8 at the most. It is the cheapest vermouth on the market, but as with rye, cheap vermouth is still plenty drinkable.

Never be stingy with the non-whiskey ingredients in a Manhattan, but especially when you’re using bargain ingredients. I say 3-4 dashes here. The bourgeois Manhattan would call for 2-3. The royal Manhattan uses such good stuff the bitters falls to one dash. The vermouth percentage also falls as the whiskey gets better - but I reiterate, don’t be stingy. If your Manhattan is drier than about a 3:1 whiskey:vermouth ratio, you’d be better off with an Old Fashioned.

The end result is extremely drinkable, and a good example of how to do cocktails on a budget. If you (and your guests) are used to drinking nothing but highballs, the Manhattan is a great transition drink. Just be careful with your vermouth, which will eventually spoil if left out. Keep it in the fridge, and you should be fine.