Classic Cocktails: Last Call

(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”.)

My manuscript deadline is looming, so this post will be the last opportunity to influence the contents of Classic Cocktails before it comes out! To that end, I’m skipping the history and the theory and just listing the cocktails I have lingering questions about. If you have feedback on any of these, give me a shout at info@herzogcocktailschool.com as soon as you can!

Don’t worry, I’ll still keep this blog series going after the manuscript is done. There’s a lot that I’ve learned that I’d like to share, and plenty more of these recipes are easy to make at home in a socially distant world. (Plus I now have an interesting story about the Lemon Drop, which is a sufficiently unexpected outcome of all this that I think I have to share it.)

In the mean time, however, if you’d like to help me out and/or see your name in print in the book’s acknowledgements, mix up one of these and tell me what you think:

Diamondback

(Lower-Octane, Original Version)
1½ oz. ~80-proof Rye
¾ oz. ~80-proof Apple Brandy
½ oz. OR ¾ oz. Yellow Chartreuse

Stir with ice. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with maraschino or brandied cherries.

(Higher-Octane, Contemporary Version)
1½ oz. ~100-proof Rye
¾ oz. ~100-proof Apple Brandy
½ oz. OR ¾ oz. Green Chartreuse

Stir with ice. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with maraschino or brandied cherries.

Question(s): Did you try the lower- or higher-octane version? Within that version did you try it with ½ oz. or ¾ oz. of the Chartreuse variety specified? Did you find it well-balanced, too spirit-forward, too sweet, not spiritous enough, or not sweet enough?

(Inconveniently, this is both alphabetically first and the one on the list that has the most permutations to inquire about. Your feedback on any one of them will be helpful data in working out an overall consensus; the rest of these are much more straightforward.)

Gin Rickey
1½ oz. Old Tom Gin or London Dry Gin
Juice of ½ Lime
3 oz. Club Soda

Juice half a lime into a highball glass. Add ice, gin, and club soda, and stir. Garnish with the spent lime shell.

Question(s): Is this palatable or too sour? Does it need more soda, more gin, or both?

Jasmine
1½ oz. Gin
¾ oz. Lemon Juice
½ oz. Campari
½ oz. Curaçao or Triple Sec

Shake. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

OR

1½ oz. Gin
¾ oz. Lemon Juice
¼ oz. Campari
¼ oz. Curaçao or Triple Sec

Shake. Serve without ice.

Question: Is this better with the extra ¼ oz. each of Campari and curaçao, as in the top recipe; or without, as in the lower?

Margarita
2 oz. Blanco Tequila OR 1½ oz. Blanco Tequila
½ oz. Triple Sec
½ oz. Lime Juice
1 tsp. Simple Syrup (or agave syrup, or another sweetener)

Shake with ice. Strain into a chilled cocktail grass with a salted rim. Garnish with a lime wheel.

Question(s): Is this better with the additional ½ oz. of tequila, or without? Additionally, what sort of sweetener did you use, and did you find it improved the drink, compromised it, or had no discernible effect?

Pegu Club
1½ oz. Gin
¾ oz. Triple Sec or Curaçao
¾ oz. Lime Juice
2 dashes Angostura Bitters OR 1 dash Angostura Bitters and 1 dash Orange Bitters

Shake with ice. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Question: Is this better with both Angostura and orange, or with just Angostura?

Seelbach
1 oz. Bourbon (~50% ABV preferred)
½ oz. Triple Sec
7 dashes Angostura Bitters
7 dashes Peychaud's Bitters
3-4 oz. Sparkling Wine

Stir all but the wine with ice. Strain into a chilled flute and fill with sparkling wine. Garnish with an orange twist.

OR

Chill all ingredients. Combine bourbon, triple sec, and bitters in a flute and stir, then fill with sparkling wine. Garnish with an orange twist.

Question(s): Which way did you prepare it, and did you enjoy it? What was the proof of the bourbon you used, and did the whiskey flavor come through enough (or too much) for your tastes?

Vodka Espresso
2 oz. Vodka
1 oz. Fresh Espresso
½ oz. Coffee Liqueur
½ oz. Simple Syrup

Shake until foamy. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with three coffee beans, if available.

OR

1½ oz. Vodka
1 oz. Fresh Espresso
¾ oz. Coffee Liqueur

Shake until foamy. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with three coffee beans, if available.

Question(s): Which variation did you use? Did you find it overly sweet or not sweet enough? Too spirit-forward or not spiritous enough?

Vodka Sour
1½ oz. Vodka OR 2 oz. Vodka
1 oz. Simple Syrup
¾ oz. Lemon Juice

Shake. Serve up.

Question(s): Is this better with the additional ½ oz. of vodka, or without? And is the below version perhaps even better?

‘Lemon Drop’
1½ oz. Vodka
½ oz. Simple Syrup
½ oz. Triple Sec or Curaçao
½ oz. Lemon Juice

Shake. Serve up.

Whiskey Sour
2 oz. Bourbon
¾ oz. OR 1 oz. Simple Syrup
¾ oz. Lemon Juice

Shake. Serve down.

Question: Is this better with ¾ or 1 oz. of simple syrup?

The Lemon Drop and the Irish Coffee

(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”.)

EDIT: It has been brought to my attention that neither of these Lemon Drops is, in fact, a Lemon Drop, because a Lemon Drop also includes an orange liqueur. How I went all these years without knowing that, I have no idea. In the interest of spreading clarity rather than misinformation, I’m leaving the original post up as it was and adding this disclaimer - note that the proper name for the drinks described herein is, in fact, the Vodka Sour.

I have very little to say about the Lemon Drop. Uncharacteristic of me, I realize. The drink has no particularly interesting history I’m aware of; it’s simply vodka with sugar and lemon juice, and was in all probability invented independently by dozens of people who chanced to have those three things on hand. It’s often served as a shot or falsely called a ‘Martini’, and probably sometimes both.

Not much else to say. It’s not like it doesn’t taste good - it’s basically lemonade with vodka, in a single-serve format - but my usual sources for recipe…research, haven’t spent a lot of time on this one.

Fortunately, sours tend to follow one of a few standard patterns, and I’ve narrowed our Lemon Drop down to two:

Lemon Drop
1 1/2 oz. Vodka OR 2 oz. Vodka
1 oz. 1:1 Simple Syrup
3/4 oz. Lemon Juice

Shake ingredients with ice. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Never call this drink a Martini.

Both versions are much improved by a dash of orange bitters, but this is well outside the tradition of the drink and won’t be included in the book.

Today’s Question for Tasters: Having tried either or both of these, what did you think? Was one too weak? Too strong? Too harsh? Not balanced enough? And if you tried both, which did you prefer?

———

Our quarantine cocktail today is the Irish Coffee, the recipe for which I am ‘researching’ word-for-word from the Dead Rabbit’s second iteration as documented in Punch.

Irish Coffee
1 1/4 oz. Irish Whiskey
1/2 oz. 2:1 Demerara Simple Syrup
3 1/2 oz. Freshly Brewed Coffee
1 oz. Heavy Cream

Combine whiskey, simple syrup, and coffee in a mug (or, ideally, a 6 oz. heat-safe glass with a handle or stem) and stir. Briefly whisk the cream in a bowl until the bubbles dissipate and its texture is thicker. Float the cream on top of the drink - it should form a layer, not plop in (the latter is aesthetically displeasing, but the drink is delicious either way).

If you don’t have 2:1 Demerara simple syrup, you can substitute 1/2 oz. of 2:1 regular simple syrup, or use 3/4 oz. of 1:1 simple syrup and get to more or less the right level of sweetness. You can also experiment with light cream, whipping cream, half and half, and so on if those are more available to you. The coffee does kind of have to be coffee, and the whiskey Irish. Either way, the drink is a good pick-me-up, and this easy-to-make-at-home version is stolen from the best.

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.

Distilled Knowledge Cocktail: The Greyhound

(Not sure what the title means? The Distilled Knowledge announcement should fill in the gaps.)

I'm counting down the days to publication with a series on the cocktails mentioned in Distilled Knowledge. They're an odd bunch, I'll grant, but each serves a purpose in the narrative.

Pride of place goes to the Greyhound, the cocktail that taught us not to mix grapefruit juice with medicine.

As you may have heard, it's a bad idea to drink grapefruit juice if you're on any kind of prescription drugs. It has a tendency to lead to higher-than-intended blood concentrations of your medications, with consequences that range from "mildly inconvenient" to "literally fatal."

You may not know that we learned this entirely by accident.

Researchers were studying the effects of ethanol on a blood pressure medication called felodipine. It was important for the experiment's success that the subjects not know whether they'd been given booze or not, so the researchers tried a variety of mixers (for science!) and concluded that the taste of the alcohol was best masked by grapefruit juice. 

In the course of the study, they found that their subjects' blood felodipine levels were higher than expected across the board. Imagine their surprise when they realized they'd made a major scientific discovery "following an assessment of every juice in a home refrigerator one Saturday evening."

Distilled Knowledge Greyhound
2 1/2 oz. Double-Strength White Grapefruit Juice
1/2 oz. Vodka
Stir with ice. Serve on the rocks.

If what you're looking for is a drink with the taste of the booze completely hidden, mixing five parts grapefruit juice with one part vodka is a surefire way to get there. It is not, however, the way the cocktail is ordinarily served; merely an approximation of the concoction the felodipine researchers were using.

Note that if you'd like to add felodipine to this drink and make a Felodipine Greyhound, do not do so under any circumstances. Did you know that it's possible for your blood pressure to be too low? It is, and you don't want to find out what that's like.

On the other hand, there are many other versions of the Greyhound that don't threaten your health nearly as much. These days, it's commonly made with a 3:2 or a 2:1 ration of grapefruit juice to vodka. Personally, I prefer the former; grapefruit juice can be quite a lot when it's the majority of a drink by volume.

Contemporary Greyhound
3 oz. Fresh Grapefruit Juice
2 oz. Vodka
Prepare as above.

I still advise stirring, because shaking a drink that's mostly juice by volume just seems excessive. Note that a fresh grapefruit will yield about 3 oz. of juice, and the Greyhound needn't be a particularly exact drink; if you'd like to remember the recipe as "two ounces of vodka and a grapefruit," I won't stop you.

With a pinch of salt and more around the rim, this becomes the Salty Dog, which I assume is so called because "salty Greyhound" doesn't have the same ring. 

With a gin base instead of a vodka one, it becomes...the Greyhound. Yes, this is one of the (many) cocktails that got its start as a gin drink and evolved into a vodka one as tastes changed.

It's first attested in the Savoy Cocktail Book, where it's mentioned as a variation on the older Grapefruit Cocktail, a concoction involving grapefruit jelly. In any case, it was a gin drink, and it would be some years before vodka came into vogue this far west.

Savoy Greyhound

"Take three and a half glasses of Gin and the juice of   1 1/2 good-sized Grapefruit. Sugar to taste, plenty of ice. Shake and serve."

Near as I can figure, that works out to about seven ounces of gin, four and a half ounces of grapefruit juice, and sugar to taste. This would have been a batch, with each drink closer to three ounces total. Still boozier than the modern version, and much ginnier-tasting. 

Once introduced to vodka, the Greyhound ran off with it and never looked back. And honestly, I can't blame it; I say this very rarely, but I think this drink makes more sense with vodka. It's a simple cocktail. It hits a few notes (sour, bitter, ethanol) and it hits them hard. Tossing juniper in there seems more distracting than enhancing in this case, and I expect most people who Really Like Gin will prefer not to cover its flavor with an even larger dose of grapefruit.

That'll do it for the first installment. Stay tuned for more!