#40. Paradise Cocktail

I had to go back and listen to the podcast to remember what this drink was. I remembered that it involved gin, and I remembered squeezing the juice out of an orange, but couldn't remember what it was called.

Pretty good, though. I remembered that it was pretty good. Equal parts gin, apricot brandy, and orange juice. I probably overdid it a little on the orange juice--i just juiced an orange and that's the amount we used. It was nice, though. Orange and gin is becoming one of my favorite combinations, and the apricot brandy is a pleasant additional sweetener.

So basically, sure. I'd drink it again. Why not? "Paradise" might be overselling it a bit, though, but hey. Hugo had to move a lot of drinks. You can't blame him for a little hyperbole.

#39. The Dutchess Cocktail

Question: Is this an intentional misspelling, to suggest that the duchess is Dutch? or is it just a mistake? I suppose we'll never know.

1:1:1 sweet vermouth, dry vermouth, absinthe. The absinthe makes it palatable, but neither the Bammer nor I enjoyed it much. Strong vermouth aftertaste, and although the absinthe is nice, it's not a drink with much complexity. There are a lot of things in this book that are basically flat and sweet, which is uninspiring but not so bad. Flat and dry seems kind of pointless.

#38. B. V. D. Cocktail

This one is out of sequence because I forgot about it. It is worth forgetting. It is terrible.

Equal parts French vermouth, gin, and rum. What? It's dreadful. It doesn't sound like a good idea, and it isn't a good idea, and you ought not drink it.

#37. After Dinner Cocktail

1:1 apricot brandy and curacao, plus lime juice and lime rind. Pretty good! Apricot brandy and curacao are both kind of mediocre drinks but the combination is pleasant enough and the lime pushes aside the bulk of the artificial taste that comes with low-end spirits. (Seriously: I'd get nice ones if I saw any for sale. But there isn't much of a market for apricot brandy, apparently.)

Pretty good. And, the first drink for the first practice podcast, "The New Old Fashioned." Look for it soon at an iTunes near you!

#36. Daiguiri Cocktail [SIC]

Rum, grenadine, lime. Done. The only question about this one is the loopy spelling. What's that about? No idea. Get it together, Hugo Ensslin, early 20th century bartender.

It's a classic, though. Just the right ratio of rum, sugar, and citrus. I don't know why the world needs so many variations. You don't need them all. Just drink daiquiris. Excuse me--daiguiris. Strike that. Just go with daiquiri.

#35. Oppenheim Cocktail

2:1:1 Bourbon, grenadine, Italian vermouth.

Yeah, this one is pretty much cough syrup. I know we've said that before, about other drinks, but this one really is the winner in the contest to taste the most possible like cough syrup. Congratulations, Oppenheim! Next time I get a cold, I'm just going to drink a couple of you and not worry about big cough syrup getting any more of my hard earned money. You hear that, big cough syrup? I'm onto your game.

Seriously, this wasn't very good, but anything that measures grenadine in units larger than dashes is going to be pretty suspect. This was pretty suspect. Skip it.

#34. September Morn

Rum, juice of half a lime, three dashes grenadine, and an egg white.

So, yeah--a daiquiri with an egg white. Because your standard daiquiri simply wasn't eggy enough. What? You didn't feel like egg whites were missing from your daiquiri? Yeah, I agree with you. I do not understand quite how this one came to be. Skip it.

Distraction; PUNCH in NYTimes

Pretty neat article about punch.

I wanna meet this guy and talk about punch with him, considering how many punches I have to make in order to complete this book.

PUNCH

#33. Blackthorn

1:1 sweet vermouth to sloe gin.

I have a question: does anyone make a good sloe gin? I'm not criticizing the drink. I'm talking about the fact that the only sloe gin I can find is a bottle of Leroux that was collecting dust in the discount corner. It seems like the majority of liqueurs leave me only two choices: Leroux or Hiram Walker. I assume both are highly sweetened and chemical-ized.

G said that the Blackthorn was somewhere in between candy and cough syrup. The sloe gin has a bit of a fake cherry quality, and an aftertaste, which I think explains the cough syrup feel. It's not bad though. It's hard to know what to do with a description like, "oh, kind of like cough syrup, but in a good way," but that's more or less the way it is.

Not a bad drink, but I need to find somebody else's sloe gin to really know. Otherwise I'll just assume that sloe gin is kind of an also-ran spirit.

Difford's recipe for the Blackthorn is nothing like this at all. It's much more like an Appetizer--all Difford's recipes with Blackthorn in the name have gin and Dubonnet. The color and taste are extremely similar, which makes sense. None of the ingredients are the same, per se, but all the ingredients are similar. Both are simply gin, plus a sweetener, plus an apertif wine of some sort.

#32. Appetizer No. IV

Another Dubonnet appetizer: 1:1 gin and Dubonnet with a dash of absinthe.

Pretty nice! I am amazed every time by how far a dash of absinthe goes. It's a lovely addition to the already tasty Appetizer No. 1, giving it just a slight licorice edge. The Jackson is probably the nicest of the gin and Dubonnet cocktails sampled so far, but No. IV is a close second. Recommended.

Not listed by Difford's, but then, he's light on absinthe cocktails in general. Ask for this one around town! Bring back the Appetizer No. IV!

#31. Millionaire Cocktail 1

This made me feel like an absolute Millionaire. Or maybe more of a thousandaire. I mean, it's fine, but you'd expect more expensive ingredients, wouldn't you?

Rum, apricot brandy, sloe gin, grenadine, lime juice. Recipe calls for Jamaican rum, which we didn't have on hand. (Don't tell the booze police!)

This tastes exactly like fruit punch. It scarcely even tastes like it's a drink that you are drinking. It is the color of fruit punch, too. I feel like this is not so much for millionaires as nine year olds. Millionaire nine year olds? Richie Rich? Millionaire Cocktail 1, I rechristen you the Richie Rich. Please put on your short-pants tuxedo, and enjoy.

#30. Saxon Cocktail

Further adventures in nonsense names: The Saxon. Half a lime, a couple dashes of grenadine, Bacardi (specified by name as some sort of product placement arrangement), and orange peel.

Here's my opinion on this drink: how many different variations on rum plus citrus plus sugar do we really need? A dozen? A thousand? A dozen thousand?

Yes, that's right; we need a dozen thousand, and that's why we've got the Saxon. Which of these ingredients do you think makes it the saxon? The Caribbean rum? The Mediterranean fruits?

This is a fine drink but you have more room in your head for trivia than I if you see any value in keeping all these nearly-identical drinks straight in your brain.

#29. Jackson Cocktail

Here's a nice one: One-to-one orange gin and Dubonnet, plus orange bitters. I assumed, based on previous infusion experiments, that there was no reason not to just leave some oranges in some gin for a long time and call that orange gin. Correct me if I'm mistaken! Good thing no one reads this. Otherwise I'd probably get corrected all the time. ("What? The Golden Bronx Cocktail is my favorite! I drink them every afternoon at the Gentleman's Club!")

Anyway, orange gin, Dubonnet, orange bitters. Lovely! I enjoyed gin and Dubonnet previously, and the extra citrus is understated and delicious. Note to self: make more orange gin, so as to make more Jackson Cocktails.

Difford's doesn't even include orange gin as a possible ingredient. For shame! For shame!

Caught up!

That does it for the August / September backlog. Now, onwards and upwards! Hooray!

#28. Champagne Cocktail

We had some champagne because neighbor A brought some to drink with strawberry basil sorbet. Strawberry basil sorbet and champagne is not in this book, but it is delicious. Note to everyone: get some strawberry basil sorbet, and some champagne, and combine, as it is delicious.

Ensslin's champagne cocktail is angostura bitters, a lump of sugar, orange peel, lemon peel, and champagne. This is a pointless drink, so I'm going to add a new tag: pointless. Look: you're already drinking champagne. Drink the champagne and be happy. Or, if you must add something to it, fine. Get some sorbet. This other stuff is just silly and a needless delay between you and your champagne.

Difford's version is similar but involves cognac too. He doesn't see much point in it either, I might add.

#27. Golden Bronx Cocktail

Ah, yes. Some more egg, please.

We drank this one purely in the name of efficiency. The Bronx, you may remember, was 2:1:1 gin, sweet vermouth, and dry vermouth, with orange juice. The Golden Bronx is the same, plus an EGG YOLK. I can only assume that this was someone's idea of breakfast, or a health tonic, or a masochistic trick. It certainly couldn't have been because someone had a Bronx, which is a pretty reasonable drink, and then decided that it needed an egg yolk for that extra something special.

We only made it because we had an egg yolk left over from the Beauty Spot. And so that we could cross it off the list.

I don't remember enjoying this all that much. Mostly, I just remember thinking over and over again about how I was drinking an egg yolk. I see no reason to try this again.

#26. Beauty Spot

Two-thirds gin to one-third grenadine. Oh, and an egg white.

I believe this drink was the beginning of my downfall, but I'm well on the way to recovery so I forgive you, Beauty Spot. That is an absolute huge amount of grenadine. I've been making my own with straight sugar and either pomegranate juice or pomegranate and cherry, and I'm pretty sure I use slightly less sugar than generally recommended. But even that way, a 2:1 ratio of booze to syrup is a sweet mess.

And the egg, yes. The egg white. On the one hand, it adds some nice froth. On the other hand, that's a lot of egg. With no soda water or anything to cut things a little, it starts to feel like an awful lot of egg. Or maybe that's purely psychological? And I'm just not over thinking that drinking raw egg is a strange thing to do? Not that strange a thought, considering that there is no question but that drinking raw egg is kind of an odd thing to do.

Not a terrible drink, mostly because it's too sweet and nothing that's too sweet can be all that bad. But, pretty unlikely to be a part of my regular repertoire.

Where Were We?

September got away from me, is what happened. A final night in August (or maybe September?) found me drinking too many of these concoctions and suffering the obvious consequences. The worst thought is that, since they went undocumented, I may have to drink them again. We shall see.

But, no, this is not one of the millions of abandoned blogs. I deleted my abandoned blogs already so as to limit my blog footprint. It's just the right thing to to.

#24. Mint Mash

This is just a name variant on the old, familiar Mint Julep. It's pretty tasty. Sugar, mint, booze (Ensslin says rye, bourbon, or gin) topped with fizzy water.

We did bourbon and gin both (No, not at the same time. Gross.) The bourbon was a little better, I think. The bourbon taste came through in a strong but not overpowering way. Gin, I found, faded into the background to such and extent that you could barely remember that it was still around. The gin Mint Mash was downright watery tasting, compared to its tastier, bourbon cousin.

Neither was as good as a mojito, though. Needs that lime, is the thing. Lime is an important ingredient, and one we'd best not forget about. It gives things a nice lime taste, lime does.

To be fair, there are those who insist on all sorts of other rules where mint and juleps are concerned. I've read various arguments about infusing syrup with mint, muddling mint with straight sugar, frosting a silver cup, etc. etc. So maybe I did it wrong and was totally missing out. Still pretty good though.

#23. Humpty Dumpty Cocktail

Considering how often Ensslin sneaks eggs into these recipes, I find it kind of absurd that there's not any egg in a Humpty Dumpty. I mean, it's practically asking for it.

I'm glad it's egg-free, though, because after this one, we tried some egg concoctions? Eggy.

This drink is instead 1:2 maraschino liqueur to dry vermouth. And it's pretty good! Maraschino must be crazy sweet on its own, because cut with the dry vermouth, it's still lightly fruity. And reasonably nice. I might even make it again, on purpose.

But, Ensslin sometimes seems to stumble with certain details. It seems criminal to not put a cherry in this, but his recipe does not call for one. It's got great color, too, so I really think a martini glass would be the right way to serve this. But what do I know?

#22. Brandy Cocktail

This isn't even really a cocktail. Brandy, plus two dashes each syrup and Angostura bitters. Do you like brandy? I don't. Do you like brandy when it's been barely modified with the faintest whisper of bitters and sugar? No? You think it basically tastes exactly the same as straight brandy, only colder, because you shook it with ice?

Yes. That's what I also think. I need more tail in my cocktail. This just lingers in your mouth, with a super-strong, hot, alcohol taste that's just too strong for it to taste like anything. I feel like this sort of drink is the booze equivalent of putting way too much wasabi on your sushi. It's fun, but at a certain point, it just tastes like wasabi, and you forget that any other tastes were involved. (I'm assuming you're drunk when you're eating the sushi. That's why you're so forgetful. It's only fair that you be drunk when you eat the sushi, like I'm drunk now, so that the phenomena are equivalent.)

I want to say that this might be a drink you'd like if you really liked brandy, but on second thought, if you were a brandy connoisseur, you wouldn't put up with your brandy being adulterated, so this drink is for no one.

I chose it because I'm drinking alone, and I like saving the stuff that seems like it could actually be good for when friends are around. When you're drinking alone, you shouldn't drink anything too tasty. That makes it too fun. Drinking alone needs to be a little unpleasant. Just to be safe. For safety.

#21. Gin Buck

Wow. We really hit a lot of these. Gin buck is the same as a London buck, only the gin buck is lime, ginger ale, and gin, not lemon.

It's great, obviously. Lots of lime and ginger ale. That would make anything taste great. I scarcely needed to actually make it to know it was great. I almost could have just thought about it, long and hard, and imagined it. But I made some anyway, in the interest of SCIENCE.

#20. Phoebe Snow

Phoebe Snow? Who's that, you say? Well, according to wikipedia, she's an American singer, born in 1952, far too late to have Ensslin name a cocktail after her in 1917. So maybe she's named after the cocktail?

Also according to wikipedia, she was originally a character in adverts for rail travel, starting in 1900, so that's probably where the drink actually originated. It's 1:1 Dubonnet to brandy, with a little absinthe.

Not bad. My friend, he of the Maker's Mark, I think called it the worst thing ever, but he laughed so I'm not convinced he meant it.

I don't know anything about brandy, so the brandy I got is probably horrible, so my Phoebe Snow is probably inferior to yours. But, the Dubonnet again proved itself a lovely, mellow mixer, and I like absinthe no matter what anyone says. So, Phoebe Snow gets a pass. I probably won't make it again, but it's not bad.

#19. Bourbon Highball

My neighbor-to-be came by too, and brought a bottle of Maker's Mark, because he's awesome like that. I'm a total bourbon novice, but this stuff was pretty great, and I suspect I could learn to appreciate it, and plan to.

The highball is pretty straightforward. Booze, ice, fizzy water, lemon peel. Ensslin says carbonated water or ginger ale, but that strikes me as ridiculous. Ginger ale and carbonated water or about as different as could be, despite looking the same. Winn Dixie has club soda in aluminum cans, so I got some--I can't recycle glass bottles, so I didn't want any of those, and the usual way it's available is in liter bottles, and I never need a whole liter bottle before it goes flat. We drank a lot today and didn't make it all the way through a single can. (I'm finishing it off now, with lemonade. Mmmm. Lemony.)

This is a pretty basic operation. So long as you basically like the base spirit, a little fizzy water and lemon peel can only make things better. Works for me.

#18. Dixie Cocktail

This falls into the Canadian cocktail category--that grouping of drinks with totally inexplicable names. Gin, dry vermouth, absinthe (2:1:1), a quarter orange, a dash of grenadine.

Opinions were mixed. GG will barely bring herself to taste anything with any absinthe, and this has a strong absinthe scent. (A little absinthe goes a long way, which, frankly, is part of what I like so much about it. It's fantastic as a flavoring agent in small quantities.) Another sampler said, I believe, that it was the worst thing ever, but all my friends who've tried a few of the earlier concoctions were perfectly happy with this one.

The taste is mostly absinthe and orange, with some grenadine sweetness. The gin and dry vermouth get pushed to the side.

This is complicated, with big, competing tastes, but it's also pretty nice. Reminds me of some discussions of licorice with a British coworker. In this country, we eat hardly any licorice, and when we do, we eat it straight, and prefer it rubbery. In Britain, they mix licorice with Everything, and it's awesome. I would eat orange licorice by the handful if anyone wanted to sell it to me. It works just fine, unless you are an absinthe hater. And who wants to be an absinthe hater? If it was good enough for Van Gogh, it's plenty good for me.

Closest I can find to this one in Difford's is a Maurice Martini, which includes sweet vermouth but no grenadine. Similar, and different. I probably like this one, with the grenadine, better, but maybe I'll try a Maurice sometime.

#17. President Cocktail

Hail to the chief, 'cause he's the one we all say 'hail' to! Rum, orange slices, grenadine. Rum and citrus is pretty much a gimme. Any variation on the rum+citrus+sugar formula always works. It's really just a question of how good it is, not whether or not it'll be good. It'll be good.

Friday is always a good day. I get extra help working through these drinks, and as a result, my listings are a bit out of order. That's okay, so long as I get them all in, one way or another. (Basically, I forgot that I started the night with a bourbon highball, which should be 16, but I'm moving it to 19 instead. Oh, well.)

Difford's informs me that contemporary grenadine is junk, a position I verified by looking at bottles of grocery store grenadine. It's just corn syrup and red dye. Oh, and natural flavors. You know, from nature. But, Mr. Difford also let me know I could just buy some pomegranate juice and dissolve a bunch of sugar in it and then BAM--grenadine.

This is a good drink, probably because I'm so good at making grenadine. (The trick? Stirring.) Or more because of the fool-proof formula listed earlier.

So far, two ingredients are, to me, standouts--ingredients that have largely fallen into disuse but should make a return. Absinthe, and oranges. (Will we get to taste them together? Only time will tell!)

The orange juice makes for a milder citrus flavor than the more typical lime, but still blends quite nicely with the rum. Winner!

#16. Gin Cocktail

So- the recipes available to me have increased substantially, due to the addition of orange bitters to my liquor cabinet. Thanks, Martin Wine Cellar! That's a pretty good store. I wasn't paying that much attention to the wine, which of course the place is named after. But, they had a pretty great selection of spirits, too, so anything that Rouse's can't provide me I can probably get there, unless I can't get it anywhere. That is also a thing that will happen.

This gin cocktail barely has enough stuff in it to call it a cocktail. It's just gin plus orange bitters, with a twist of lemon.

But, it does prove that my vermouth-drinking skills are terribly weak, since I probably liked drinking this more than almost any of the previous entries that included vermouth. I'd still prefer a gin & tonic to this gin cocktail, and I'd have enjoyed this more in a better chilled glass or (blasphemy!) with a piece of ice. But, i found it quite tolerable. The bitters and lemon peel, I think, were just enough of a distraction from the gin to keep this from feeling too strong. It's pretty strong, obviously- it's essentially pure gin, plus a few drops of flavoring, plus the trivial amount of water that melted during the stirring.

Not bad, though. Not bad.

#15. Snyder Cocktail

Ah, Snyder. Ol' Snyder liked his martini in a highball glass, with a little curacao and orange peel. That's what this is, really- a relatively dry martini, sweetened with curacao, garnished with orange peel. Two thirds gin, one third dry vermouth, two dashes curacao, and orange peel.

It's not terrible. The curacao and orange peel make this more interesting than it would be otherwise. I like the subtle citrus, but still get a strong vermouth aftertaste. Maybe if I drink enough of it, I'll start enjoying vermouth? Here's hoping! Otherwise, this is going to be a real slog.

Difford's calls this a Snyder martini, and uses Grand Marnier instead of curacao. But I'm with Ensslin on this one, if only because Grand Marnier is expensive (Seriously Expensive) and curacao is basically free. At least, the horrible blue stuff that I got was super cheap. I wish it weren't blue, though. It makes everything look like Kool-Aid.

#13.1: Best Homemade copycat of Orange Blossom

The Best Homemade is just an Orange Blossom with a little less gin. It's the same thing. The best homemade, though, is the better of the two, as it keeps the gin:orange juice at a more reasonable level.

Someone should've told Ensslin that he didn't need to pad out his book. He's got some good recipes. Why reprint these duplicates? Guy needs an editor.

#8.1 Fluffy Ruffles- Copycat of Little Princess

How sensible that the Fluffy Ruffles would have a name equally as ridiculous as the Little Princess, since it's the same drink. Yet another copycat spotted. The only difference is that the Fluffy Ruffles gets some lime rind. Both are equal parts rum and dry vermouth, and both are terrifying. I consider this one tested as I was sure to slice up some lime when we tried the Little Princess, thinking that if nothing else it would help the rum go down a little smoother. It did not.

I should probably be trying some of these with white rum, as I think that's the preferred method. But, I might not. Mixing rum with vermouth, no matter the color of the rum or the vermouth, just strikes me as a horrible idea, so I have a hard time imaging it improving with any substitution, other than, of course, swapping out the vermouth for ginger ale.

#14. Bronx Cocktail

I must say- the Bronx is the best of the vermouth-heavy numbers so far. Half gin, plus a quarter each of sweet and dry vermouth, plus a quarter of an orange. The orange mixes nicer than the lime in this case and gives this one a nice citrus smoothness. Reminds me more of the Dubonnet drinks than the vermouth-heavy entries. Not too shabby.

Soon, though, I'll have to make a Noon Cocktail, which is just this plus an egg white. Madness! Ensslin and his eggs. People used to put eggs in everything, if Ensslin is to be believed.

To summarize: best of the vermouth-based drinks so far, not that that's saying that much. But, it is saying something.

Difford's includes the exact same recipe with the same name, which is a bit of a rarity. Most of these recipes have endured some changes over the years in either name or content, but this one is a rock. Difford claims this was the first cocktail to use fruit juice, but really, that's the sort of thing I'm confident is utterly unverifiable.

#13. Orange Blossom Cocktail

I don't know about some of these 1916 proportions. Ensslin calls for a "drink" of gin and the juice of half an orange. A "drink" is a vague measure that is more than a jigger, but I'm not exactly clear how much more. A note from Wondrich's introduction says that a whiskey glass was four ounces for Ensslin, so that's likely how much a "drink" ought to be.

I like drinking gin, but if you can handle four ounces of gin, with nothing but a splash of orange juice, in a glass desperate to warm up to room temperature, then you like gin quite a bit more than I.

Knowing my limits, I went with two ounces of gin rather than four. This is not a bad cocktail. The orange flavor is strong, but the fresh orange juice is lighter and blends better than I expect an equivalent amount of supermarket OJ would. I don't know about you, but I don't love orange juice as a mixer. It always tastes like breakfast to me, no matter when I drink it, so, for instance, vodka and orange juice makes me feel a bit like a hardened alcoholic waking up for a drink, which is a feeling I don't particularly enjoy.

But, I would still rather take my gin with a little tonic and lime. The lime, even though usually in a much smaller dose than the orange juice in this cocktail, takes more of the edge of the gin. This is a good pairing, but not quite good enough to make it into my regular rotation.

Difford's recipe is more complicated. It seems that over time, the orange blossom collected some grenadine and lime juice. I think I'd prefer the modern version.

#12. St. Croix Rum Sour

Another drink with tons of citrus taste. Lemon, lime, syrup, rum.

Cruzan is the St. Croix rum of choice at Cocktail Century headquarters, but you could make this with any rum, or possibly gasoline, and not notice much difference. The lemon and lime are so strong that this is pretty foolproof.

This is another drink that, while pretty good, is simply not good enough to compete with various other, less labor-intensive cocktails. For instance, I'd take a dark and stormy (rum & ginger beer) over a St. Croix rum sour every time. And, if you order this at your corner bar, you're likely to get one made with sour mix instead of lemon and lime, and no one wants that, do they?

#11. Canadian Cocktail

There should be a subsection of this blog listing cocktails named after places that have relationship to the place that they're named after. A Canadian cocktail should have at least one ingredient that's Canadian, like maybe Canadian whiskey. Instead, this one is half a lemon, powdered sugar, curacao, and a tiny bit of rum. No idea what any of these ingredients have to do with Canada. Maybe Canadians liked this cocktail in 1916 because it made them feel like they were somewhere tropical and not Canada.

This is a fine drink, but anything with such a strong citrus taste can't be that bad. It barely tastes like a drink at all. It's more like some new kind of orangey lemonade. That's really my principle complaint about this drink--it's kind of overkill. It would be much easier and more satisfying to just mix something with lemonade, and not go through all the lemon squeezing. (Side note: last night I saw Fleur de Tease at a casino on a boat. A dancer made lemonade on stage. More entertaining than it sounds just from me saying "a dancer made lemonade on stage.")

So, the Canadian Cocktail is pretty good, and next time I'm hanging out with some Canadians, I'll show my hospitality by offering them one, since it's the national drink of Canada, I'm sure. Otherwise, I'll pass as there are easier ways to combine citrus and liquor.

#10. Bill Lyken's Delight

I had high hopes for this drink. Or, at least, I hoped it wouldn't be terrible, but it kind of was. Equal parts dry gin and dry vermouth, topped with 4 dashes curacao, shaken with lemon and orange rind, served with a cherry.

The blue curacao left the drink an unpleasant blue-green that made it look like it was going to taste horrible. Its actual taste didn't do much to change anyone's opinion. The dry vermouth taste dominates, with only the slightest citrus character as competition. I don't know what the point of the cherry was at all.

I wanted the curacao to do something more interesting than it did. I probably used more than strictly necessary--the dashes turned into perhaps a half ounce, in a drink split three ways. But, the main factor here is the dry vermouth. If you don't like it, you won't like this drink.

We talked this one through a bit as we endured it. To the modern palate, it's odd to have so many drinks that don't involve any mixers but rather just booze. GG noted the Delight's odd combination--it tastes both too hot and too sweet. "Hot" meaning that the taste and feel of the alcohol is quite pronounced. Usually, sweetness covers up heat and makes a drink taste "weaker" than it actually is. In this case, the cocktail managed to taste too strongly of alcohol while remaining cloyingly sweet. This apparently delighted Bill Lyken, but Bill must have had bad taste in drinks. I never need to drink one of these again.

Closest corollary in Difford's guide would be the Snyder martini, which is the same basic mix

minus the rinds. I'm going to assume that it isn't terribly good either.

#9. Absinthe Cocktail

Finally, we get somewhere. Absinthe, water, syrup, Angostura bitters. L gave me a lovely bottle of absinthe more than a year ago. It was beyond time for us to break into it for a test. Glad we did, but sorry I didn't start in on it earlier, as it's tasty.

I am not yet familiar enough with the Angostura bitters to have much of an opinion on them. This cocktail has such a strong absinthe character that I couldn't tell you what the bitters are adding. It would be a nice experiment to leave them out and try it again, and then try a third time, using the bitters. Also not sure about dashing--it's possible I should have used more.

In any case, the simple combination of high quality absinthe (Lucid is the name--don't know about your town, but in New Orleans, this is one of only a couple of available absinthe labels, and it's a top-shelf operation) and sugar makes for a lovely licorice sweetness that's simple and great. There are a lot of other recipes in Ensslin's book that involve absinthe, but I'd be perfectly happy to work my way through the rest of the bottle using this mix alone.

#8. Little Princess

What country has a princess who's drinking an equal mix of dry vermouth and rum? Surely this nation was never a world power. It was probably somewhere obscure like Bohemia or something.

In short, this was not a good drink. Rather than complementing each other, the rum and vermouth seemed to maintain their worst aspects. The harsh herbal character, almost savory, of the vermouth did nothing to combat the rum's heavy, chemical feel.

I had a feeling this one was going to be rough so I cut up a lime, thinking it would help, since of course rum and lime go together like funny hats and the Pope. It wasn't enough, though. The addition of lime just made it taste like the same mess, plus lime. Some other samplers hunted around the kitchen for extra additives, and threw in some ginger and sugar, and reported that that helped.

OF COURSE it helped! You can add ginger and sugar to anything, and it will taste marvelous. That proves nothing at all. I don't care how miserable your booze is- if you top it off with a generous layer of ginger ale, it will be imminently palatable. That doesn't prove anything. You add all this stuff, and you're essentially saying, "Hey, if you make this into a totally different drink, it tastes fine." Yes, well.

Skip this one. And, while you're at it, skip anything whose recipe is just some kind of liquor and dry vermouth because it's almost certainly undrinkable. There. I said it. Do whatever you must, vermouth lobby. I can take your fury. I've seen worse.

#7. Submarine Cocktail

The Submarine is 1:1:2 sweet vermouth, gin, and Dubonnet. The higher proportion of Dubonnet gives this a nice sweetness and beautiful cranberry color. Tonight was quite productive in terms of drink sampling, so I can't remember if I liked this more or less than the 1:1 Dubonnet and gin. I'm going to call it a wash.

Difford doesn't have anything that matches up to this one, but that could just be because it's so similar in character to the other Dubonnet and gin drinks he does describe.

#6. Appetizer No. 1 / Dubonnet Cocktail

Wikipedia tells me that the Queen enjoys herself a spot of Dubonnet and gin before lunch. This amuses me so I choose to believe that it is true.

I include these two cocktails together because they're the same thing. Ensslin calls for more booze in the Dubonnet cocktail, but the ratio is the same. Hence, it's the same thing, and I'm not going to check and see if there's any extra nuance if I drink this drink in separate amounts. (Also, for all of today's entries, I had help, meaning that we made a few of these at once and all tasted, with results that were, at best, mixed.)

This was one of the better entries of the night, though. Dubonnet is similar to sweet vermouth, which I prefer to dry considerably. The Dubonnet and gin feel like a nicer mix, though, and I found this combination more balanced than any of the gin and vermouth drinks sampled previously. I'd still rather drink gin and tonic, but this one has an understandable appeal.

Though not my favorite, the Dubonnet seems to me like a nice break from all the vermouth, and so I can imagine drinking another one of these in the future. Tonight basically killed my gin, though, so no more gin & Dubonnet until I restock.

Difford's has a Zaza cocktail, which is this recipe plus orange rind. Ensslin has this recipe too, though. I'll wait to cross off Zaza until later. I've got a good amount of Dubonnet left over, and the Zaza is sure to be equally easy to drink, so I'm in no hurry.

#5. Bacardi cocktail / Cuban cocktail

These two are identical. Rum, sugar, lime. DONE. They get separate listings, though the only difference between the two is that Ensslin calls for a "drink" of Bacardi and a jigger of Cuban rum. The Bacardi cocktail is the stronger drink, but considering that we're dealing with units like "dashes" and "half a lime" I think it's fair to go ahead and count these two at once.

You cannot lose with this one. This is probably the way the majority of all rum has been consumed. Some combination of sugar, lime, and sometimes water is the typical way to make Caribbean rum tasty, and it works. No frills. I read all about it in And a Bottle of Rum which is a wonderful book about the history of rum.

There's no reason at all to use Bacardi, of course. I did, but only because Ensslin told me to, and I try to obey the letter of the law and the spirit. I would have rather used the perfectly good (perfectly better, in my opinion) bottle of Cruzan I've got, but that can wait for a recipe that asks for St. Croix rum since that's what it is.

Difford's guide includes a pretty interesting story about this one. Apparently Bacardi ended up suing a bar for not using Bacardi when people asked for a Bacardi cocktail. I'm not convinced it was worth suing over, but I see their point. It does only seem fair that a person get the liquor they ask for. Maybe if Bacardi has lost their lawsuit (they didn't) bartenders would just give us whatever they wanted when we say, "Ketel 1 and tonic, please," and we'd have to watch carefully to make sure we didn't get Cosmonaut or whatever. (I just made up cosmonaut, but I see no evidence that there's already a brand of vodka called Cosmonaut. I CLAIM IT. This will be my vanity vodka brand, ala Ciroc. Only mine will be better, because each bottle will have been FLOWN INTO SPACE. That is the COSMONAUT guarantee!)

Also I'm using simple syrup instead of gum syrup because I'm pretty confident it's the same thing, or near enough. Gum syrup might be a bit sweeter, and it might last longer at room temperature. Whatever. I'm calling simple syrup close enough.

Also, let's have another one of these, yeah?

More Notes on Ingredients:

All the ingredients in Ensslin's book pretty much can be divided into a few categories.

1. Straightforward, easy to find, and not too expensive. For instance, the juice of half a lemon, or dry gin.

2. Specific, easy to find, and super expensive. (Chartreuse, or absinthe.)

3. Impossible to find, or even understand. What is calisaya, for instance? No idea.

4. Tricky.

Here I include, for instance, Cuban rum. I'm going to go ahead and use Bacardi for every recipe that asks for Cuban rum, even though I don't like it much and it's made in Puerto Rico. During Ensslin's era, I'm reasonably confident that Bacardi was the signature Cuban rum, which explains it getting its own "Bacardi cocktail." (Identical to the "Cuban cocktail.")There may It's no longer Cuban, of course, and I have no idea if it contemporary Bacardi resembles 1916 Bacardi. So, let's not worry too much about it.

Maraschino. There may be a reference to a maraschino cherry in here somewhere, but for the most part, Ensslin calls for various liquid measures of maraschino, never modified by helpful words like "liqueur" or "syrup." There is a liqueur, which I think may be near impossible to find in the US. There is also a syrup ala grenadine, but that just seems to be artificially cherry flavored gunk that interests me little. I may try to make my own (Difford suggests making one's own grenadine by making a syrup out of straight pomegranate juice and sugar, which is apparently what grenadine used to be before slowly being replaced by red corn syrup.) or I may try to get some Italian flavor syrup like you'd make into an Italian soda. I'm not sure.

So complicated! And costly!

UPDATES on some ingredients:

1. Old Tom Gin is available at Rouse's, at least in one variety, and it isn't outrageously priced. It's about a dollar more than most of the nicer London dry gins, like Bombay or Tanqueray. Sigh of relief.

2. Orange bitters. None at Rouse's, which perplexes me. There were lots of other weird flavors of bitters, but no orange. So what to do about that, huh?

3. Curacao. There are various orange liqueurs that a person can grab, but the only curacao at Rouse's (or at least the only thing that goes ahead and calls itself curacao) is Leroux blue curacao. Leroux is one of those weird brands of cheap flavored stuff. I'm not happy about this, particularly, but I went with it. Curacao is used in a number of recipes, but often sparingly, so I'm not terribly concerned. But, I do want to be as accurate as possible.

4. Dubonnet. I know it comes in more than one color, but Rouse's only had the red. Not sure what to do about that, since Ensslin I think never refers to it by color. I think it's kind of like vermouth and comes in red and white both. I seem to recall drinking some white Dubonnet years ago from my corner liquor store in Providence.

[EDITS]

I've made a few decisions based on limited research. One is that Maraschino almost certainly means the liqueur, so I'll have to find some. Dubonnet seems to be most widely available in rouge, so that's good. So, some things solved, or at least better understood.

#4. Seventh Regiment Cocktail

I'll get some extra ingredients this week so I can branch out better, but for now I'm stuck with a lot of gin and vermouth concoctions that are all similar to each other and not super tasty.

This regiment prefers, apparently, a wet martini with lemon rind. Gin to sweet vermouth in a 3 to 2 ratio, and Ensslin calls for two pieces of lemon rind.

This gets into one of my only complaints about Ensslin's book--garnish. I assume that the lemon rind is garnish, as it doesn't make any sense to shake up a drink with lemon rind and then strain it. At least, I don't think it makes sense. Maybe that was Hugo's plan. In any case, his instructions can be more than a bit ambiguous.

This is not a particularly good drink. The sweet vermouth is way too strong and I feel like it overpowers the gin handily. I thought that the lime in the polo cocktail helped smooth things out considerably, but the lemon rind is barely a participant in this drink. It makes my martini glass prettier (this is a lovely looking drink, to be sure) I can barely detect citrus.

This is not a bad mix, to be fair, and I'm sure I'm enjoying it more than I would enjoy gin and dry vermouth in a similar ratio. But, It feels only tolerable. Were I not trying to work my way through this book, I would have much rather had a gin and tonic. The 7th regiment is the sort of simple drink that does not stand up against simpler drinks, and for that reason, is not one I'll be making again anytime soon. It's not bad, just not memorable. Mostly, I just want to know more about this seventh regiment. Seventh regiment of what? And why are they drinking so many martinis?

#2.1 Leap Frog [copycat]

Had Ensslin a more careful editor, he could have avoided some of these copycat recipes. Or, perhaps he was under contract with El Bart gin. We probably will never know.

In any case, the Leap Frog is the same as the London Buck, save for the fact that Ensslin calls out El Bart gin by name, rather than simply saying dry gin. I am considering the Leap Frog already drunk.

I understand having a preference for one brand of spirit over another. I do not understand giving the same drink different names when using different brands, though. This is particularly true if the name of the liquor isn't in the name of the drink. A confusing practice, but it cuts down on the total number of recipes I have to follow, so I won't judge Hugo too harshly. Maybe El Bart was giving him a little kickback.

#3. Polo Cocktail

Because I'll have to build up my bar quite substantially to make it through the book, I'm hitting some of the simpler recipes first, which means a lot of gin and vermouth. The polo cocktail is exactly like the perfect cocktail, with the inclusion of the juice of half a lime.

The lime makes a surprising difference. The addition makes the whole thing pleasantly citrusy, like a slightly sour grapefruit. I also find myself thinking of a fruit salad mixed in lime juice. Sour, but also sweet and fruity. I think it's a big improvement over the poorly named perfect cocktail.

I do think this all might be proving my theory that I don't like vermouth, though. I'm not sure if I'm enjoying the combination of lime and vermouth, or if I just like the lime covering up the vermouth. Hard to say but there are plenty of vermouth-heavy recipes left to go, so I may find out yet.

Difford's includes nothing that comes any closer to this recipe than the martini perfect, which has orange bitters instead of lime. I'm going to assume that that's about the only remaining legacy of these two different 1916 equal-parts sweet vermouth, dry vermouth, and dry gin recipes. Probably because I'm not the only one who doesn't rank vermouth as a favorite spirit.

#2: London Buck

I wanted to reward myself for all the vermouth I drank yesterday by picking something that was sure to be delicious. Gin, lemon, ginger ale. I think the final proof that I don't have the most sophisticated palate is the simple fact that I would drink pretty much any gut rot available if there were ginger ale (or better yet: ginger beer) to mix with it. Ginger ale plus anything is great.

The London Buck was actually a little nicer than I anticipated. The lemon, rather than being a garnish, is a full participant in this--Ensslin calls for the juice of half a lemon. The London Buck has a strong lemon scent and aftertaste. At first I thought the gin was overpowered by the ginger ale but it works quite well. The ratio is a bit off, though, I think. Perhaps ice was expensive in 1916, so Ensslin calls for a single cube in a Collins glass. I think filling the glass with ice would be better, both because it would keep the ice from melting as fast, and increase the strength of the gin flavor. I'll try it that way next time.

Not sure if I committed a mortal sin or not, but I went ahead and shook the gin and lemon juice with some ice, then topped off with the ginger ale. The book doesn't say to, but as I was following instructions and only using a single ice cube, I thought it would be nice to chill the gin first. My ginger ale was in the fridge, but my gin was not. I think it worked fine.

Difford has this exact same recipe, only uses the shorter name "Buck." "London Buck" sounds better though. More classy.

Research notes: Gin vs. Gin

Ensslin was doubtless a fantastic barman, but his book opens the door for all manner of confusionism. There are slight errors throughout--the book is nominally in alphabetical order within each section, but there are plenty of failures to keep things in order.

There are also--and this is more of a problem--a number of cases in which the ingredients are less than strictly clear, because they are not labelled consistently. Gin, perhaps the most-used spirit in the book, is a particular bit of trickiness. We have references to gin, dry gin, Old Tom Gin, El Bart Gin, English gin, Holland gin, and possibly others I haven't spotted. So. What's it all mean?

Holland gin, at least, I assumed to be a separate spirit, which is correct. It is, by reputation, sweeter than the (here) more prevalent London dry. I hope I'll be able to find a bottle. Initially I assumed that both Old Tom and El Bart were particular makes that Ensslin wanted to suggest.

Old Tom, though, is a style of gin, not a particular product. It is sweeter than dry gin and but drier than Holland gin, and I suspect the most difficult to come by of the three. Difford's includes a small number of drinks that call for Old Tom gin, but Difford never does me the favor of specifying a brand of Old Tom that I might be able to buy. Of course, Difford is based in the UK so he probably has far more gin choices readily available than I.

This still doesn't account for all of Ensslin's notes, though. On page 16 is the Fifty-Fifty cocktail, half "dry gin" and half "French vermouth." (Ensslin uses "French" to designate dry vermouth.) On page 17 is the Gibson cocktail, half "gin" and half "French vermouth."

So what am I supposed to do about that, Hugo Ensslin? Either "dry gin" and "gin" aren't the same thing, or Ensslin is padding out his book with multiple names for the same drink. Or, it's a simple editing error, in which case I'm pretty much out of luck.

The Gibson is widely used today to refer to a subtle martini variant--a martini with cocktail onions instead of olives. Assuming that Ensslin's Gibson has some connection to what we now think of as the Gibson, I have a hard time imagining that the gin in his Gibson ought to be anything other than dry.

Hence, I can only assume that these cocktails were offered different names by Ensslin because he says that the Fifty-Fifty is to be stirred, and then Gibson is to be shaken. Truly, we are dealing with a sophisticated science if that subtle a variation is enough to distinguish two drinks from each other.

For now, I'm going to deal with this by assuming that there are three kinds of gin that Hugo wanted me to use--London dry, Old Tom, and Holland. Anytime Old Tom or Holland are not listed, I'm going to assume any reasonably nice London dry will be acceptable. I'll hold off on the recipes that call for Old Tom for now, until I either find a bottle, or decide that it's too difficult to come by.

#1. The Perfect Cocktail

I thought the perfect way to start off this project would be with a 1916 martini. However, in my mind Ensslin called for gin, vermouth, and Angostura bitters, but in real life, he wanted orange bitters, which I have not yet acquired.

So instead, I went with "The Perfect Cocktail" which is a mix of gin, sweet vermouth, and dry vermouth. I was leery of the vermouth, my lone experience with it at home being an attempt to make vodka martinis with Martini Rosso vermouth many years ago. I used too much; I found the mix almost undrinkable.

This time around, I got Noilly Prat for both the sweet and dry, and I have to say, this is not a bad drink at all. It's not going to be my new favorite or anything like that, but I enjoyed it more than I expected.

Overall, the gin dominates the nose, but I think the sweetness of the red vermouth is the stronger taste. I notice a fair bit of gin aftertaste (I used Bombay) but the drink itself is almost like drinking strong red wine cold. Lots of herbal taste, though, and I thought a little sweeter than I would prefer. I look forward to some of the many other gin / sweet vermouth / dry vermouth drinks that pepper Recipes for Mixed Drinks in different rations. I think I'd probably like this mix pretty well with a higher ratio of gin to vermouth.

Throughout this project I'll be checking to see if these drinks still get references in modern guides or whether they've been forgotten. I'm checking with Difford's first because I got a copy of the 8th edition of his bar book and I find it tiny and fantastic. The closest I can find in name and recipe at his site is the Martini Perfect, which is exactly like Ensslin's recipe only with the addition of orange bitters. If I happen to try it again, I'll add the bitters and see what I prefer.

But, on the whole, a pleasant surprise, since I kind of expected not to like this one. Unlikely to drink too many of these in the future, but not bad at all.

[ADDENDUM] Went to see Prayers for Atheists (great show, by the way) after writing this and had an Abita Amber at the bar. And, it tasted just like dry vermouth, which was extremely unpleasant. The perfect cocktail seems to be a bit of a palate ruiner, so I'm going to downgrade its charms slightly. Not a good drink to order if you plan on enjoying anything else after.

Notes on Ingredients

In some cases, these recipes can only be made with liqueurs singled out by brand name. For instance, Chartreuse is a proprietary liqueur, made by a group of French monks. (It's a fascinating story--I recommend "researching" it on wikipedia like I did.) I could substitute something else, but that would defeat the entire purpose. In other cases, Recipes for Mixed Drinks may list, for instance, a particular gin Ensslin favored in 1916. I will feel free to use whichever gin I have on hand should his favorite be unavailable or defunct.

As a rule, I try to use spirits that are good values. That means that these recipes will never be tested with super-premium booze unless someone wants to send me some. They will be strictly mid-shelf, although I will try to track down all the modest liquors that taste expensive. The reasons are two-fold. First is of course my own modest finances, and the shear volume of liquor involved in such an undertaking. (The book lists dozens of different spirits, not even counting all the bitters and mixers I'll have to stock. ) The second justification is that while my palate can generally distinguish good from bad, there are infinite variations within "good" that may be clear to some but often elude me.

I'm also not going to do anything fancy, like buy special ice or freeze spring water. Unless I somehow am convinced otherwise, I'm going to assume that my ice, from New Orleans municipal water in 2010, is at least as good as New York municipal water in 1916. (And my water might even be better. I'd hate to think we've made no progress in the last century.)

I suspect some drinks will simply be impossible. Certain liqueurs have gone out of fashion or out of business, certain bitters have fallen into disregard as well, now that no one thinks they're useful as medicine. Just in the last few years, though, there's been a huge resurgence in interest in some of these old products, so I think in many cases I'll be pleasantly surprised about the kinds of things I can get with a little effort. Some drinks are doubtless lost to us forever, though this is only appropriate. Our trip back to 1916 will necessarily be imperfect. Some mystery will always remain.

Why "Recipes for Mixed Drinks"?

Ensslin's Recipes for Mixed Drinks was picked only due to a number of factors of ease and personal preference from a less than exhaustive collection of cocktail books. Mudpuddle has reprinted a brilliant line of antique bar books, which I came across at the bookstore where I work when they were brought in for the annual Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans. These are all listed at cocktailkingdom.com along with a bunch of old school ingredients.

Looking through dozens of different cocktail books from different eras, I decided that Enslin's was the clear winner. Any of the titles newer than Prohibition felt a little too contemporary for my purposes. Many of the 19th century books were exciting to thumb through, but described drinks much more difficult to replicate. The 19th century guides often include horrifying recipes for concoctions like handmade tomato wine or bizarre elixirs involving pots of boiled potatoes. One of my coworkers has, on his shelf, a drinks book from 1826. It's fascinating, but if you go back far enough, the "publican" was less a bartender as we understand things and more a microbrewer, so I wanted something slightly more modern.

Other books were rejected out of my own laziness. The units of measure in Ensslin's book are relatively quick to transpose, which I found much more attractive than dealing with antiquated measures like sixths of a gill. And, some otherwise excellent books were abandoned due to being far too long. I'd like to get through this in a year or two, or at least by the centennial of the book's first edition, in 2017.

Ensslin tops out around 300 recipes, depending on how you count the various variants, like the different highball recipes that differ in base spirit only. This seems to me a highly approachable figure for this project, and it starts to look even easier when I skip the the various punches for teetotalers.

Recipes for Mixed Drinks also has the advantage of ingredient availability. Most of the proprietary spirits listed are still widely available. The cocktail culture was similar enough to our own that we're mostly discussing divergent tastes rather than too many abandoned ingredients. (For instance, what's with putting eggs into everything? Egg whites for froth I can almost understand. But yolks? I am not looking forward to some of these drinks in the slightest.)

Why drink all these drinks?

Why drink every cocktail in a 1909 bar manual? Why not drink every cocktail in a 1909 bar manual? That’s just as good a question. Or, even better, “Why just drink Miller High Life all the time?” “Why do anything at all?”

It is possible that we are all destined to assume that our era is the least glamorous of all. I can easily imagine hipsters in 1909 yearning for the New York of the 1890s, before it sold out and stopped being cool.

The 2000s, though, were pretty bleak. Politics were an unmitigated disaster through the Bush years, and while the Obama era promised a respite, hope and change quickly began to feel like more of the same.

I think this is a partial explanation for the resurgence in all things quaint. It seems as though as social conditions more and more resemble the Great Depression, our entertainment conditions do, too. New Orleans, at the very least, has retro cocktail bars and burlesque shows sprouting up like mushrooms. I expect this is a particular trend of escapism--let’s live anytime at all besides this one.

The cocktail trend is also part of broader currents within our eating and drinking habits. Just as health, taste, and environmental concerns drive more people to an interest in locally produced foods, a similar impulse is driving a desire for handcrafted beverages. Yes, it’s nice to know that I can show up almost anywhere and cold, familiar Budweiser will be available to me, but isn’t it nicer to drink something carefully prepared for you, with style and personality?

Cocktail culture is also a sort of last-refuge for booze snobs, so its development was probably inevitable. My father was part of a wave of expansion of the American wine industry, vinting in southern Oregon in the 70s and 80s. Shortly thereafter was a huge expansion in microbrews and craft beers. Having only been drinking myself for about a decade (and for most of that, strictly as an amateur), there were doubtless plenty of trends that passed me by. But, cocktails became particularly flashy in the 90s. Every restaurant and bar in New England, where I went to college, tried to cultivate an aura of “hip” by featuring signature martinis. None of these drinks were martinis in the classic sense--they were fruity, vodka-based elixirs served chilled in a martini glass. I think this era at least let people acclimate to the idea of cocktails more complicated than the party-standard “something and something” drinks we all swilled in college dorms.

I think the current trend toward looking to what folks were drinking a century or more ago is much more exciting. I like the sense of continuity with an older era. I also enjoy any trend that seeks to pull back some aspect of human life from the realm of mass production and back into the world of craft. I’d like to be part of that, if only in a small way. I’m not sure that I’ll develop any particular insight or understanding of our forebears, but I do know I’ll be drinking a lot of interesting drinks, and that is itself a worthy purpose.