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.
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