Ice & Bitters

Marlowe’s gin gimlet

We sat in the corner bar at Victor’s and drank gimlets. “They don’t know how to make them here,” he said. “What they call a gimlet is just some lime or lemon juice and gin with a dash of sugar and bitters. A real gimlet is half gin and half Rose’s Lime Juice and nothing else. It beats martinis hollow.”

Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye

Marlowe's gin gimlet — Marlowe’s gin gimlet

The gin gimlet has a long history, probably being drunk as soon as Lauchlan Rose invented his antiscorbutic lime juice drink for sailors in 1862. His aim was to replace the limes preserved in rum, that had previously been enjoyed by the sailors to ward off scurvy, with a non-alcoholic version. He succeeded, but the officers soon discovered that adding it to a tot of gin added considerably to the pleasure.

Cocktail writers in the US take issue with Chandler’s proportions – describing the half-and-half mix as ‘unbearably sweet’. The problem lies not in the proportions, but I think in the American version of Rose’s lime juice (made with high-fructose corn syrup). I mixed my drink with the UK version of the cordial (which, like the Canadian version, lists ‘sugar’ as the sweetening agent), and I found it sweet, but certainly not unbearable – lively, refreshing & very drinkable instead. Really, the drink tasted exactly how you would want a drink to be in a very hot country, and I can imagine British naval officers in the Bahamas mixing exactly this combination. I think the only stipulation for this drink is that it has to be Rose’s lime juice; the alternative brand, made by Britvic, has a less than natural taste. I used the recipe from Schumann’s American Bar for my drink.

Proportions:

2 ozs gin (Gordon’s dry gin here)

1 3/4 ozs Rose’s lime juice cordial

Stir over ice in a mixing glass, then strain into a glass (I can’t imagine Marlowe drinking from a cocktail glass) & garnish with a slice of lime.

Update: Reading the Speakeasy cocktail book, I found they also dismissed the usual lime cordials as being unbearably nasty, and have replaced it with a cordial of their own making. Again, I believe the problem is not the use of cordial, but their choice of brands; I am certain that if they could get their hands on a bottle of UK Rose’s lime cordial, their attitude would be different. I certainly think their cordial is over-complicating one of the simplest drinks around,

London Cocktail Week, October 2014

London Cocktail Week returns this year, from 6th-12th October. As a week-long celebration of the culture of cocktails and all things mixed-drink related, it is a great introduction to the range of bars and bar people currently in London. One of the key features of the festival is the chance to get discounted signature cocktails at each of the participating venues, though you will need to buy a wristband in order to take part, and these can be ordered here.

The website alone is a great resource – worth checking for the cocktail bar tour maps, based on the 2013 festival week. A very handy way of planning an evening out, even if you are not available to make the week itself.

Craft beer in London

Time Out magazine seems to be championing the craft brewers of London right now. A few weeks ago, they ran a double-page feature on bottled London ales. They have now followed this up with an online piece about the best place to buy craft brewery beers in London, which can be found here on their Now. Here. This. London blog. London’s off-licences can often reveal a healthy selection of bottled beers – in particular, the Time Out article completely missed the brilliant Oddbins near London Bridge station, where manager Simon is an enthusiastic buyer for all kinds of local beer.

The shops mentioned in Time Out’s article are bucking the tend for Doombar and their ilk, and showcasing the amazing range of beers to be found in and around London now. All are worth sampling; if you don’t like one, open the next bottle and discover another set of flavours.

Bitters (4) – clove & coriander

Bitters #2 - clove and cardamom — Bitters #2 – clove and cardamom

For my next batch of bitters, I decided on a more spice-mixed base to see how these flavours would play with rye and other spirits better. I adapted a clove & cardamom recipe that I found online at seriousseats.com. In that strange way that some herbs & spices are available in some countries, but not others, the cinchona bark used in the recipe is hard to come by in the UK. Instead, I used quassia chips, but reduced the quantities as I understand they are a lot more bitter than cinchona.

Ingredients:

300ml of tsikoudia from Crete

1/2 tbs. of cardamom seeds, cracked

1/2 tbs. of allspice, cracked

1 tbs. of cloves, cracked.

10 gr. of cinnamon sticks (about two 10cm. sticks)

1 tsp. of cassia bark

1/2 tsp. of quassia chips

1/2 tsp. of gentian root, broken up

1 tbs. of dried orange peel

zest of 1/2 orange

I put the spice ingredients into a mortar & pestle, and gave them a gentle grind, as I want pieces in the steeping liquor, not dust. Then I placed all the dry ingredients into a clean Kilner jar & poured over the spirit. These will be given a daily shake, and I’ll proceed to the next step in a couple of weeks.

Update (01/08/14): The mixture is now very rich, with a very bitter taste. I felt it needed a bit of a citrus lift, so I have added the zest of a lime to add an extra kick.

Update (08/08/14): The liquid is now strained into a small bottle, whilst the solids go into a saucepan with enough water to cover them. I’ll boil these together for 10 minutes, then cool and bottle them (water & solids) in my Kilner jar as before.

Update (31/08/14): The alcohol mixture has now been mixed with liquid from the solids jar (strained) and 2 tablespoons of a rich sugar syrup. The flavour gas a massive kick of cloves and cinnamon, so I am debating whether to call these Christmas, rather than just clove, bitters…

Rob Roy

Cocktails made with scotch whisky are not that unusual, but the general opinion is that whisky is too flavourful a drink to mix well with others, and should be enjoyed by itself. That might be the case for many single malts, which have such a unique flavour profile that it is hard to see them sitting well with any other flavours in a glass (the exception being such modern drinks as the Penicillin, which features Laphroaig), but blends have been designed to have a consistent, if less characterful flavour. They then lend themselves to mixed drinks better than the unique single malts; part of this comes from the combination of more neutral grain spirits, mixed with some malt whiskies, to produce the blend’s own flavour.

The Rob Roy can be seen as a Manhattan made with whisky, but the smokiness and slightly less sweet nature of scotch produces a quite different drink which stands in its own right. Like the Manhattan, a Rob Roy can be ordered dry (with only dry vermouth), perfect (a mixture of dry and sweet vermouths), though the standard drink is made with sweet only. The result is a rich, smoky cocktail, with a touch of herbal & wine-y flavours from the vermouth. One element that must not be overlooked is the presence of bitters. As per the Manhattan, the usual bottle to reach for would be the Angosturas, but I think that something with a more citrus flavour suits this drink better, and as I was mixing my version from the recipe in Parson’s Bitters book I followed his advice: I made my drink with Peychaud’s bitters, although Fee’s Orange would also be a good choice. Garnish follows the Manhattan route: cherry for the sweet version, lemon peel for the dry/perfect variants; I used a lemon peel in my straight Rob Roy: it seemed to me the lemon flavour cut through the sweetness slightly better.

Proportions:

2ozs of scotch whisky (Grant’s in this version)

1oz of sweet vermouth (Martini Rosso here)

2 dashes of bitters (Peychaud’s here)

Glass: 3oz Martini glass, chilled

Stir in your mixing glass, over ice, until well chilled. Strain into the Martini glass, and garnish with either lemon peel or cherry, to your choice.

History notes: There’s not much debate to the story behind this one: in 1894, the barman at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel was asked to create a cocktail to mark the opening of Rob Roy, an operetta written by Smith & De Koven; the barman mixed a Manhattan with scotch whisky, and named it for the hero of the piece. The operetta seems to be lost in past, but the cocktail recipe lives on.

Espresso Martini

I have never been keen on flavoured Martinis, but our recent dinner at the Porthminster Café in St Ives featured an Espresso Martini on the menu. Seeing as I had started the meal with their Dark & Stormy, it seemed like a very good idea to try their coffee-based Martini as a post-dinner drink. The menu gave few clues to the ingredients, but my understanding of the original Dick Bradsell creation is that it shouldn’t feature many in the first place: a decent vodka, freshly-made espresso coffee and sugar syrup, and a touch of coffee liqueur, all shaken until you have a thick crema on the top of the cocktail, then strained into a glass. The result is an instant pick-me-up. The Porthminster’s version was beautifully made, right down to the classic three coffee beans on the foamy head. You wouldn’t want to drink more than one, but as a way to finish a meal, it was perfect.

On reading Tristan Stephenson’s book, The Curious Bartender, I noticed his recipe omits the coffee liqueur. I’d be interested to know why; perhaps he finds it too sweet, but you could always lessen the quantity of sugar syrup to compensate for this.

Update: I looked at the recipe in Richard Godwin’s The Spirits, to find he, too, omitted the coffee liqueur. So that’s two votes against. Goodwin’s argument is that if the espresso is good and you have the sugar syrup, then you don’t need the liqueur. I understand, but I’d rather omit the sugar & use a really good coffee liqueur – like Borghetti (see below).

Proportions:

50ml of good vodka (Grey Goose I believe)

20ml of fresh espresso coffee (preferably a mix of robusta & arabica beans)

15ml of sugar syrup (rich or simple, to your taste)

8ml of coffee liqueur (Kahlua I think was used here, but I prefer Borghetti)

Glass: 3oz Martini glass, chilled

Shake well in a shaker over ice, then strain into the Martini glass. Garnish with three coffee beans in the centre of the glass.

Update: Checking the menu at the Café, I spotted a detail that I had missed: the syrup was Tonka bean syrup. That explains the rich vanilla-y flavour that the cocktail had, as Tonka beans are like vanilla with knobs on. It is one of the major flavour components of Abbott’s bitters, which I understand causes a few problems in the US, where it is considered hazardous to health.

Update (2): On Saturday night, I mixed another version of the espresso martini, using a recent find in Italy: Borghetti coffee liqueur. This is much less sweet than the usual Tia Maria or Kahlua, and to my mind, much better suited to this drink, as you can control the sweetness with syrup.

Sidecar

Following the disappointment with the Aviation earlier (too harsh, too acidic), I remembered another classic, lemon juice-based drink: the Sidecar. But, unlike the Aviation, this recipe is perfectly balanced, with proportions of one sour (the juice), one sweet (Triple Sec) & two strong (Brandy or Cognac). Shaken rapidly over ice, then strained into a cooled glass, the drink has a sharp and refreshing hit followed by a warming glow from the two alcohols. The combination of the two fruits, lemon & orange, are really well matched. I used the proportions as laid out in Tristan Stephenson‘s book, the Curious Bartender, in a classic 1:1:2 combination. Made like this, the drink comes out as a sophisticated relative to the Margarita.

Proportions:

20ml of fresh lemon juice

20ml of Cointreau or Triple Sec (I used Gabriel Boudier Curaçao Triple Sec)

40ml of Brandy or Cognac (I used Chateau de Millet Bas Armagnac)

Glass: 3oz Martini glass, chilled

Shake well in a shaker over cubed ice, then strain into the Martini glass. Without garnish is the traditional way to serve the drink.

Martinez: Dry version

The Martinez is a very old drink. Many regard it as the forerunner to the Dry Martini. It can be found in O. H. Byron’s 1884 Modern Bartender, where it becomes a Manhattan variant; other stories have it named after the mining town of Martinez. Cocktail historians suggest it ought to made with genever, rather than modern dry gins, as this would have been the drink available in America at the time the cocktail began to appear.

On the face of it, this is simply a Manhattan made with gin. But there’s more to this drink than that, especially in the modernized ‘dry’ version I mixed here.. The dry gin I used, Gordon’s, has plenty of citrus notes, and that marries really well with the herby notes in the sweet vermouth (Martini Rosso). An added complexity is a bar spoon of maraschino coupled with some dashes of bitters (I used my ‘house’ Bt bitters, as their sour cherry note seemed like a match). The results are really intriguing; it really isn’t just a gin Manhattan, but something else altogether. Frankly, if you didn’t know it contained gin, you might be hard pushed to spot it. Certainly, I wouldn’t omit the bitters or the maraschino, both add important notes to the final mix, and I would use a robust, dry, bitters recipe (Fee’s Orange bitters might be too delicate for this, for example).

Proportions (using a jigger/pony measure):

1 jigger of gin (Gordon’s dry in this version)

1 pony of sweet vermouth (Martini Rosso here)

1 bar spoon of maraschino (La Briottet Marasquin)

3 drops of bitters

Glass: 3oz Martini glass, chilled

Stir all the ingredients together in a shaker, then strain into the Martini glass. Garnish with a piece of lemon zest.

Martinez, dry version

Brooklyn: Sweet Vermouth

Tonight, a variation to a favourite recipe: the Brooklyn is based on the traditional Manhattan sweet, but instead of the bitters, a few dashes of maraschino are added to give a more fruity flavour. The combination makes the drink sweeter and somehow less intense, but it is distinctive enough to warrant a whole new name, I think. I have found descriptions of the recipe which include Galliano, but I cannot imagine how that would turn out.

This recipe is one of the ‘Five Boroughs collection’, cocktail recipes that represent distinct areas of New York: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx & the Staten Island Ferry.

My version comes from Schumann’s American Bar, simply one of the best cocktail books published. The recipe calls for neither bitters, nor a garnish (two things I look for in a true cocktail), but adding a slice of orange hardly seems like a major crime. There seems to be some disagreement as to whether the cocktail should be mixed with sweet vermouth or a dry aperitif (see the notes about Amer Picon, below); I am using a sweet vermouth here – we can try the dry version another time.

Proportions – Schumann’s recipe (using a fluid ounce measure):

1 oz of Rye Whiskey – Knob Creek Rye here

3/4 oz of sweet vermouth – Martini Rosso here

Dashes of Maraschino – Briottet‘s version, marasquin here

Glass: 3oz Martini glass

Method: Put all ingredients into a shaker with ice & stir until well chilled. Strain into Martini glass & garnish with a slice of orange peel (or a cocktail cherry, if preferred. I think the citrus hit of the orange is preferred however).

History notes: The cocktail seems to originate at the turn of the C20th, in a book called Jack’s Manual (J.A. Grohusko, 1908). Back then, the recipe called for a rare aperitif called Amer Picon, which seems unavailable to drinkers in N America, though still available to us in Europe – Gerry’s stocks it, naturally.