The Long Drinks Project
(This post is part of a series that I’m using to help write my next book, the new edition of 100 Classic Cocktails, and provide inspiration for home bartenders in these times of social distancing. Some of the recipes are ones I’m trying to workshop, and I’m asking my readers to test the recipes at home if able and send me their thoughts on the questions I have. Others are ones I think I’ve nailed that can be easily made with common household ingredients, and I’m sharing them to help my readers keep their spirits up while spending a lot more time at home than usual. I’ll always specify which is which. For more background on all of this, including the book, you can check out the first post in the series here. All posts will be tagged “(100) Classic Cocktails”.)
“Long drinks” is a broad term for mixed alcoholic beverages of appreciably greater volume than is the standard for cocktails. In practice, many long drinks can be more precisely described in other ways (e.g. tiki drinks, highballs, bucks, etc.), and the generic term “long drink” is sometimes used to refer specifically to simple combinations of spirits and juices in which the latter predominate.
It will not surprise my readers to learn that these drinks - the Screwdriver, the Cape Codder, and the like - are not ones that I ordinarily order or make. It’s not that they don’t taste good, necessarily. They can and often do! But they’re usually simple and not terribly spirit-forward, two things I don’t look for in an adult beverage.
In any case, a number of them will be included in the book, and this is another category that makes for a pretty perfect twofer post: I’d love to get feedback on the recipes, and I can virtually guarantee that every single one of you will be able to make at least one of these at home.
After a lot of research and contemplation, I determined that I wanted to use the same proportions for these across the board. I don’t want drinkers to have wildly uneven experiences if they’re making all of these at home based on my book, and I do think it makes sense to think of these drinks as having parallel structures until proven otherwise. My working proportions are 1 1/2 oz. of spirit to 4 oz. of juice, which with an eighty-proof spirit gives a mixed drink about 11% alcohol by volume, or something in the ballpark of a glass of wine.
Juice-forward drinks are often elaborations on one of three classics: the Greyhound, the Screwdriver, and the Cape Codder. Here are my takes on a bunch of them. Today’s Question for Tasters: Which drink(s) did you try, and were you satisfied with these proportions? If you weren’t, what would you change (or did you change) to bring the recipe more in line with your tastes?
Note that almost all of these are vodka drinks. In case you don’t have vodka, I note common substitutions in a couple of cases; other substitutions won’t help me much, but you’re welcome to try them recreationally.
Greyhound
1 1/2 oz. Vodka
4 oz. Grapefruit Juice
Combine ingredients in a tall glass with ice and stir.
Salty Dog (Elaboration on the Greyhound)
Prepare in all respects like the Greyhound, but rim the glass with salt before making the drink. (For guidance on salting the rims of glasses, see the previous post.) The Salty Dog may also be made with gin in place of the vodka.
Cape Codder
1 1/2 oz. Vodka
4 oz. Cranberry Juice
Wedge of Lime
Combine liquid ingredients in a tall glass with ice and stir. Garnish with the lime (it is expected that the end user will squeeze the lime into their drink to their personal taste; the lime juice is actually essential to this drink).
Sea Breeze (Elaboration on the Cape Codder)
1 1/2 oz. Vodka
3 oz. Cranberry Juice
1 oz. Grapefruit Juice
Wedge of Lime
Combine liquid ingredients in a tall glass with ice and stir. Garnish with the lime, as in the Cape Codder.
Bay Breeze (Elaboration on the Cape Codder)
1 1/2 oz. Vodka
3 oz. Cranberry Juice
1 oz. Pineapple Juice
Wedge of Lime
Combine liquid ingredients in a tall glass with ice and stir. Garnish with the lime, as in the Cape Codder.
Screwdriver
1 1/2 oz. Vodka
4 oz. Orange Juice
Combine ingredients in a tall glass with ice and stir.
Harvey Wallbanger (Elaboration on the Screwdriver)
1 1/2 oz. Vodka
1/2 oz. Galliano
4 oz. Orange Juice
Combine vodka and orange juice in a tall glass with ice and stir. Float Galliano on top (i.e., pour it gently down the back of a spoon so it forms a layer above the rest; this is traditional for the Harvey Wallbanger, although why it became traditional to float a liqueur on top of a drink that’s nearly the same color, I do not know).
Further Elaborations on the Screwdriver
Back in the Disco Days, many drinks with “clever” and “risqué” names were created as riffs on the Screwdriver, in which some characteristic of the added or substituted ingredients became a descriptor for what kind of “Screw” the person wanted. I may or may not bother to share this information in Classic Cocktails, but if you’re bored at home, here are some Screw variations to play around with. Note that these are stackable - one can have, e.g., a Slow, Comfortable Screw Against the Wall, etc. - and that the Slow Screw is usually the base upon which the others are built:
Comfortable Screw - Add 1/2 oz. of Southern Comfort
Fuzzy Screw - Add 1/2 oz. of peach schnapps
Hard Screw - Add 1/4 oz. of overproof rum
Slow Screw - Add 1/2 oz. of Sloe Gin
Screw Against the Wall - Add 1/2 oz. of Galliano*
Screw on the Beach – Add 1/2 oz. of peach schnapps and replace half the OJ with cranberry juice
Screw with a Bang - (Same as Hard Screw)
Screw with a Kiss - Add 1/2 oz. of Amaretto
Screw with Satin Pillows - Add 1/2 oz. of Frangelico
Left-Handed Screw - Replace the vodka with gin
Mexican Screw – Replace the vodka with tequila (sometimes called “Screw, Mexican Style”)
Wild Screw - Replace the vodka with bourbon
Screw Between the Sheets - Replace the vodka with equal parts brandy and filtered aged rum†
Screw in the Dark - Replace the vodka with an aged or black rum†
Cold Screw - (Sometimes tacked on, referring to the ice)
Elderly Screw - Add 1/2 oz. of elderflower liqueur‡
Notes
(*) Generally if Galliano is the only thing added to the drink, it’s still called a Harvey Wallbanger. The “Against the Wall” moniker is deployed only when more than one Screw variation is employed simultaneously.
(†) For rum categorization reference, see the previous post about the Daiquiri. The aged and filtered style of rum common to Cuba and Puerto Rico and generally labeled as “white” seems like the most appropriate one for the Screw Between the Sheets, though if you don’t have that, choose a lighter-bodied “amber” rum aged 1-4 years should work. For the Screw in the Dark, I recommend an aged “amber” rum rather than a sweetened black rum, because the drink is already going to be fairly sugary; but this is a matter of personal taste.
(‡) St. Germain, the first elderflower liqueur, wasn’t released until 2007, long after the heyday of these Screwdriver elaborations. But it’s tasty, you can make a pun out of it at least as readily as you can with with the rest of these liqueurs, and these days it’s likelier to be in most homes than most of them are. So feel free to give it a try as an update to this tradition.
