“THE PENDENNIS CLUB’S FAMOUS SPECIAL
To 1 jigger of dry gin add 1/2 jigger of the best dry apricot brandy procurable. Squeeze in the juice of 1 lime or 1/2 a small lemon, strained of course, and trim with 2 dashes of Peychaud’s bitters which has been made for generations in New orleans…Split a ripe kumquat, now available during the winter in most big grocery or fruit stores; take out the seeds and put the two halves in a Manhattan glass. Stir the drink like a Martini with lots of cracked ice and strain onto the golden fruit. This is a sweeter Grande Bretagne, see Page 47.”

I’ll hand this to the man, by the time you’re breathlessly done reading his recipe entries, you’re certainly ready for a drink. Fortunately, thanks to the efforts of Martin Doudoroff (one of the fine people behind cocktaildb.com) and St. John Frizell¹ there is a “Charles H. Baker, Jr. Companion” that assembles the recipes into a more readable and usable format. You know, a Companion to the Companions, so to speak. Many of Baker’s recipes are suspect at best and absymal at their worst, and the Bumblebee is a nice gem found in the pages of Baker’s South American Gentlemen’s Companion. It is a deceptive drink in that it looks simple enough but reveals a lot about the quality of your rum and the fastidiousness of your preparation when it’s served. Here’s the recipe excerpted from the book:

The BUMBLE-BEE COCKTAIIL–May God Forgive the British-Inspired Pun-Title–a Nice Rum-Honey Thought from Georgetown, British Guiana.

That same old world-wandering friend J.K.L. Ponsonby-Foulcques, the “Jekyll” of Bin-’n'-Gitters fame, Page 24 gave us this unusual, simple yet satisfying drink, also. Mix in shaker:

• 2 oz best medium dark rum
• 1 1/2 to 2 tsp strained honey
• 2 tsp or so, lime Juice
• 2 tsp fresh egg white
• Curl Orange Peel
• Drops Angostura

Shake hard with big ice and strain into pre-chilled stemmed cocktail glass. Dot with 3 or 4 drops Angostura Bitters, and twist curl of orange peel over finished drink for fragrant scent.

I was introduced to the Bumblebee by the fine work they do at Heaven’s Dog in San Francisco and love this drink when the seasons change between summer and fall. Using an aged rum with no small amount of “oomph” is paramount in this drink. Something along the lines of Angostura 1919, Appleton V/X, or Clement VSOP will bring their character through the egg white and honey without overpowering the drink. Too dark or light a rum, however, and the Bumblebee loses its charm.

The proportions of lime juice and honey can be toyed with and doing so is a good exercise in discovering how a rum’s character is affected and brought out by the changes. As for the egg white, measuring out 2tsp can be troublesome so I highly suggest placing an egg white or three in one of those condiment squeeze bottles you see at picnics and cook-outs and dispensing a carefully-measured amount of egg white. Using too much or too little egg will surely kill the drink (thanks to Rumdood for the dispensing tip). It’s a temperamental drink, I’ll admit.

Give this drink a try and practice your dry shaking to get a good froth on top of the drink as it’s key to getting the drops of Angostura to sit properly and keep them from dissolving the foam and sinking down into the drink before their time. My thanks to Erik Ellestad for the full excerpt from the South American Gentlemen’s Companion. On Baker’s writing, I’ll quote my good friend Doug who said, “He’d have been the greatest cocktail blogger of all time.” Likely true, likely true…the bastard.

Last Night's Dogbite: The Bumblebee is a post from: cocktailnerd

1. who, if you’re ever in need of child-naming advice, is the man to go to

The Whoa, Nellie!² calls the Cafe Adelaide and Swizzle Stick Bar in New Orleans its home. It was contributed to the Swizzle Stick’s menu as a tribute to the first Mardi Gras after Hurricane Katrina and in a stupefied fit of unfit drunkenness I ordered it and it broke through my haze of disorientation and inebriation and brought the guiding light of clarity and “Damn, this is GOOD,” to my soul and I scratched out the recipe from the poor bartender’s lips as I slurred my way through understanding.

Whoa, Nellie!

• 1.25oz Rye Whiskey (Sazerac or the like)
• .75oz Dark Rum (Coruba or Myer’s)
• .75oz Cointreau
• .5oz Grapefruit juice
• .5oz Lemon juice
• .5oz Simple syrup

Shake all ingredients and double-strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Think recuperative thoughts.

As my friend Rick said upon first tasting this drink, “The first sip reminded me of the Alamagoozlum in its strangeness. The melange of ingredients produces a symphony where no one instrument is heard, yet a chorus of sound echoes in your ears.” Yes, something like that.

The Whoa, Nellie! brings the unusual pairing of Rye and Dark Rum together in a way that allows this to be more than a sour but, even with the grapefruit, less than tiki. It’s one of my favorite types of drinks, built on simple and easy-to-find ingredients but bringing with it enough complexity to be wildly interesting without being fussy and demanding voodoo-like ritualistic principles of process or construction to achieve its goals. In short, it’s divine and yet accessible. It also goes great with hearty summer dishes such as grilled sausages, grilled flat-iron steak, or barbeque. This is a drink that cries out to be put into rotation as the mercury threatens to burst out of the thermometer out your window and poison the Hydrangeas you’ve nurtured so well.

Also, if you’ll allow me, back to Ted Haigh and New Orleans. Tales of the Cocktail is next week and, with it, a gaggle of cocktailians, bartenders, and other enthusiasts descend upon the Big Easy and raid bars like the Swizzle Stick and make them their own. One of the things I look forward to most at Tales this year is the release of a new version of “Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails,” by Ted Haigh³ . The first edition was the second serious cocktail book I purchased, right behind “The Joy of Mixology.” Ted opened my eyes to such wonderful drinks as the Blue Moon, the Alamagoozlum, Picon Punch, the Income Tax Cocktail, the Pendennis, and many others. He also did it with a degree of grace, detail, and intrigue that made it great fun to read.

In this deluxe edition Ted brings us back to those drinks but with new insights, new sources, and with a look at how the Internet has affected and supported the burgeoning cocktail culture. If you are thinking of dipping your toe into cocktailian waters and are at a loss for a place to start, you can’t do much better than this guide. If you are a seasoned mixologist or aficionado of quality drinks and don’t yet have this on your shelf, your library is incomplete. Buy it at Tales and get it signed by Ted himself⁴ or order it on Amazon, it’s one of the good ones.

Last Night's Dogbite: Whoa, Nellie! is a post from: cocktailnerd

1. alsonotreally
2. one of the top 10 modern drink names, to be sure
3. remember I mentioned those great achievements, this is one of the honest-to-god ones
4. this was fact-checked through SeanMike – beat him senseless when Ted wonders why you’re harassing him with a book in your hand

2070 Swizzle

• 1 oz Angostura 1919 Rum
• 1 oz 151 Demerara Rum
• 1/2 oz fresh lime juice
• 1/2 oz rich simple syrup
• 1/2 oz honey syrup
• 1/4 oz St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram
• 4 drops Pernod
• 2 dashes Angostura Bitters
• 1 pinch freshly-ground nutmeg

Add all ingredients to a glass. Fill with crushed ice. Insert barspoon and swizzle until frost forms on the glass. Top with extra ice if needed. Serve with a straw.

The honey syrup is a simple 1:1 honey-to-water combination that is stirred over heat until all of the honey is fully dissolved and it lends a fabulous backbone to this drink that everything else hinges to. This is, I’m sad to say, the first swizzle I attempted and it was highly rewarding. So much so that at my mother-in-law’s birthday party, after a good number of Sazeracs and Lion’s Tails and John Collins and you-name-it, I made a couple of these and shoved them in everyone’s face demanding they try it, NOW!, and sing the praises of Martin lest I limit them to the slightly-warmed Heineken mini-keg I had in waiting. Needless to say, I had many takers, with many smiles. I must say, I can be an intense host when serving drinks.

Martin Cate notes the Twenty Seventy is influenced by the classics, and soon after making this, I found the 151-Swizzle in Beachbum Berry’s Grog Log to be closely-related though I have yet to try it. Of course, upon entering the Mixoloseum Bar and lauding the 2070 I was met with a knowing, and accurate, analysis by Craig who said (and I’m paraphrasing), “Ah! The honey and lime or grapefruit combination or a punch of pastis and bitters is classic in Don the Beachcomber-style drinks.”³ See, I told you I left these things up to better people than I.

The final word on this, for me, is that the rums are critical (another sign of a well-constructed tiki drink). I’ve tried several iterations of this and none match the Angostura 1919 (one of my favorite rums right now) and 151-Demerara combination. In the interest of saving my 151-Demerara, which I can’t replenish here and should tell you just how many of these I’ve downed, I have replaced it with a split of 151-Bacardi and 80-proof Demerara rum. But, as you’d expect, it’s not quite the same. Barring any Demerara at all, well, the Barbados rums are the closest I’ve gotten. A dark Jamaican rum just kills it entirely I’m afraid. I’d be interested in any thoughts any of you have on rum replacements absent Demerara. Also, in my first attempt at this, I dumped a bit too much Pernod and really went heavy on the nutmeg – I didn’t, and still don’t, regret it one damned bit.⁴

I’ve become such a fan of Cate’s creations that I featured the Dead Reckoning in my November Oklahoma Magazine article and find the architecture of his drinks to be extremely-well done. You can almost taste the time and care he spent in constructing them, and that’s always a great and rewarding thing. Too bad he makes for a terrible Elvis.

And, for the record, the second swizzle under my belt, which is surprisingly good, is the Cilician Voyage that came out of the 10/02 Thursday Drink Night! via the addled brains of Rick and Marshall⁵ . If you have Strega, check it out.

Last Night's Dogbite: 2070 Swizzle is a post from: cocktailnerd

1. god bless you, Paul
2. Martin, I only got to meet you briefly on the Saturday night of Tales gallivanting about with Jeff Berry, but you were a fine, and tired, gentleman
3. see the Test Pilot, Montego Bay, or Never Say Die as object lessons
4. however, this does lead most people to look at the drink oddly the first time and wonder, based on my usual taste, why I like it
5. good work gentlemen
6. I kid, of course. Paul is a prince among kings.

Hendrick Cocktail²

• 2 dashes syrup
• 2 dashes bitters (used Angostura)
• 1 dash absinthe (used Mata Hari)
• 1 jigger old Kentucky bourbon³
• 1 slice of lemon

Fill an old fashioned toddy glass 2/3’s full with ice. Stir, and serve in the same glass without straining.

Don’t get me wrong, this is a total bourbon bomb but it hits a peak after about 5 minutes of sitting that is divine. Joana, upon tasting it, noted, “It’s somewhere between an Old-fashioned and a Sazerac,” and that’s a pretty fair assessment of its charms. However, if you let it sit for more than 10 minutes it starts to deteriorate rapidly, so be mindful of your progress and take heart.

The bitters are really forward in this and their spiciness calls for a sweeter bourbon such as Woodford Reserve. Blanton’s also worked wonderfully. I was tempted to add more absinthe to the drink but in retrospect am glad I didn’t as I can see it easily reaching a tipping point that masks any of the light citrus and may conflict with the bitters too much.

A note on the absinthe: I used Mata Hari because its profile, less fully anise than most, seemed better suited alongside the bitters. As Darcy used it in the Green Swizzle, I see it being used here. And, yes, there’s an ad over there and it makes a really awful absinthe frappe, but I think it suits this drink very nicely.

MxMo XXXI: Hendrick Cocktail is a post from: cocktailnerd

1. Knob Creek, Blanton’s, Bulleit, Eagle Rare, Booker’s
2. From Christopher Lawlor’s “Mixicologist”
3. 2 ounces

1. I remember it being tasty and have notes to that effect…
2. While not the absolute hands-down best drink I had at TotC or during my time in New Orleans, that is the most awesome piece of ice I’ve seen in a a while. It’s like ice porn.¹

Now let’s be clear about this drink. If you’ve had one at a typical glorified-juice-stand bar recently it was probably made like this:

“Singapore Sling”

• 1/2 oz grenadine syrup
• 1 oz gin
• sweet & sour mix²
• club soda³
• 1/2 oz cherry brandy

Pour grenadine into the bottom of a collins glass, and fill with ice. Add gin, and almost-fill with equal parts of sweet and sour and chilled soda. Top with cherry brandy, and serve unstirred, garnished with a cherry. (courtesy (I use that term charitably) of drinksmixer.com)

The Singapore Sling is a venerable drink with a great heritage. And to have it reduced to the status of a Pat O’Brien’s Hurricane is sad and unfortunate. The Singapore Sling was developed at the Raffles Hotel’s bar in Singapore by one Mr. Ngiam Tong Boon sometime in the early 1910’s (though dates vary). Nowadays, however, in the name of commerce and no small amount of avarice the Raffles bar serves the neon-tastebane shown above⁴ . Simon Difford actually recounted⁵ how he flew to Singapore solely to have a Singapore Sling at its birthplace and came away dismayed, and much lighter in the wallet for such a terrible drink. He advises you don’t go.

I’ll take a moment to note that this drink, despite its “sling” moniker, has little to nothing to do with the slings made as progenitors of the “cocktail”. A classic sling is simply a blend of a spirit, water and some sugar and, if you’re lucky, a spot of ice. I can’t recommend these, but in Imbibe!… Wondrich tells us that with a bit of nutmeg they’re passable and curious study of pre-cocktail drinking. I’ll take his venerable word, one gin sling was enough to satisfy my curiosity and make me glad we discovered bitters, liqueurs and, well, everything else.

Singapore Sling

• 1 1/2 oz gin⁶
• 1/4 oz Cherry Heering
• 1/4 oz Gran Marnier
• 1/4 oz Benedictine
• 1/2 oz fresh lemon juice
• 2 oz pineapple juice
• 1 dash Angostura bitters

Add all ingredients in a mixing glass. Add ice an shake vigorously for 6-10 seconds. Strain into a tall glass with fresh ice. Garnish (usually with a pineapple flag)

This is tasty, almost tiki in style but with a tart and herbaceous back to it from the lemon juice and Benedictine, respectively. Now, there are endless variations of this drink, some of which use lime juice and more Heering, some which add orange bitters and muck about with proportions⁷ , and some which follow the Savoy example and simplify it to a matter of gin, lemon juice, cherry brandy, and soda water and call it a day. Here’s what I say, start with the above and adjust from there to taste. Dale DeGroff’s recipe is highly regarded, so in that direction you may find nirvana. To see how exhaustive and just how wonky we cocktailians can get on these sorts of mysteries I suggest the following:

Jay’s walkthrough of the “Straits Sling” and other incarnations
Drinkboy’s piece on the Singapore Sling and his slight adjustment to the recipe
Dr. Cocktail’s exhaustive white paper on the Singapore Sling, its history, and just where we lost our minds

MxMo XXIX: Sling This! is a post from: cocktailnerd

1. Dr. Bamboo, sitting next to me, took note and said, “Dude, you gotta get a picture of that…”
2. I assume until you fill up the glass, or some shit
3. after your arm gets tired of pouring sweet & sour I presume
4. despite their coaster’s recipe, it apparently is a pre-mix solution
5. in his ‘Great bars of the World and What Makes Them Great’ seminar
6. Plymouth, naturally, would ask that you use Plymouth Gin here
7. a Straits Sling recipe

Among the many she found were the winners of last year’s Tales of the Cocktails competition; the Crescent City Blossom, the Starfish Cooler, and the Sparkling Sakepom as well as several from the Food Network and Martha Stewart websites including the Laughter in the Rain¹ , the Killer Mango Champagne Cocktail, the Grand Champagne Cocktail, and the Frizzante Mojito. Now, many of these require more work than I’m immediately willing to put in sight unseen² but several of these I could try with little pre-work and had the right ingredients ready, and willing, to go. We tried the Starfish Cooler, the Crescent City Blossom, and the Frizzante Mojito. Each had their considerable charms, and none fell flat or disappointed.

Crescent City Blossom

• 2 1/2 oz Moet & Chandon White Star
• 1 oz Plymouth Gin
• 1 oz St-Germain Elderflower Liqueur
• 1/4 oz Stirrings Blood Orange Bitters

Combine all ingredients in an ice filled mixing glass. Stir until well chilled and strain into a Champagne glass. Top with Moët & Chandon White Star. Garnish with a thin, 8 inch orange peel spiral.

This drink is by Martin Cate of the Forbidden Island Tiki Lounge in Alameda, CA and my hat’s off to him. When looking at this recipe for the first time my eyes popped at the high volume of St-Germain. As I mentioned in my last post this has been a problematic ingredient for me that has only come together perfectly well when put with champagne. This drink changed that. Everything else in the drink is designed to tone that syrupy sweetness down and tame the liqueur into a floral accent instead of an overwhelming, but well-meaning, brute.

A couple of notes on the other ingredients though. I think it’s important to use Plymouth Gin specifically here as most London Dry gins will bring a cymbal crash of juniper down on this drink that may not be entirely helpful. You might get away with another non-London Dry such as Citadelle, Van Gogh, or Hendrick’s but I’d stick with the Plymouth. Also, don’t mess with the bitters. Stirrings’ bitters are a whole different beast than your Fee Brothers or Regan’s No. 6 Orange Bitters and replacing the Stirrings’ with a full 1/4 oz of one them is suicide.

This drink really impressed me and I loved how balanced it came across without sacrificing depth (my main complaint against a lot of Collins/Fizz/Mojito-style drinks). The proportions were perfect for a standard champagne flute and I’m definitely going to be back to this one again and again. I don’t think the Moet & Chandon is particularly important, and certainly not as important as the type of gin and bitters, but my oh my it sure was nice.

Starfish Cooler

• 1 oz Moet & Chandon White Star
• 1 oz Lemoncello
• 1 oz PAMA Pomegranate Liqueur
• 1 oz Unsweetened Iced Tea
• 1/2 oz Simple Syrup

Muddle orange slice and mint leaf in a collins glass. Combine all ingredients.

This drink was submitted by Stacey Smith of GW Fins in New Orleans and it won the competition in last year’s competition. I’m going to give Stacey the benefit of the doubt and assume that there’s ice involved in there somewhere. Now, in buildingthis drink and looking at my collins glasses there was no way 4 1/2 oz. of ingredients were going to look anything this side of pathetic in my 12oz glasses. So, from my Gin & Tonic experience I knew that this volume, with ice, would fill a double old-fashioned glass nicely and it certainly did. So, if your collins glass are anything like mine they’re hell to muddle in and poorly suitedd to this drink. But, logistics aside, how was it?

This is a nice low-octane drink that brings rarely paired ingredients together and lets them play. I love the use of Unsweetned Iced Tea as, for me, it was the ingredient that really stood in the center and made this unique. The PAMA, Lemoncello, and champagne all do their thing but none of them really have enough character to make the drink completely sing. My wife and mother-in-law really enjoy this and it held up well when I made a pitcher of them for the Easter brunch we served ourselves. A good mid-morning to early-afternoon starter, but, all in all, too sweet for my tastes. I dialed back the simple syrup and upped the champagne quotient and it was less tacky but lost some of the iced tea punch that made it special. So, a couple of notes on this one, for me, are to ensure the tea is nice and strong and pull back on the simple syrup; between the PAMA and Limoncello there’s plenty of sweet to go around in this one. I also went with a Lemoncello that has a sharper lemon rind tang to it, versus a sweet lemon juice focus, and it also helped. So, if you have the luxury of selection, go with a drier one. Also, you should click the link above to see the picture on the Tales of the Cocktail site, it’s quite pretty and significantly superior to mine.

Frizzante Mojito

• 1 1/2 oz light rum (preferably Cruzan)
• 1 oz simple syrup
• 3/4 oz fresh lime juice
• 6 fresh mint leaves
• 2 dashes Angostura bitters
• 2 oz champagne or prosecco (chilled)

Muddle together mint, lime juice, and simple syrup to release mint oils in a mixing glass. Add rum and bitters; shake over ice. Strain into a cocktail glass or coupe; top with Champagne.

This starts as a fairly standard mojito with the addition of Angostura bitters and champagne. However, the uptick in simple syrup, alarming to me at first, turns out to bring all this together to retain the spirit of the mojito despite the heavy addition of champagne. This is really refreshing, as you’d expect, and the addition of champagne and bitters really provides some complexity that a straightforward mojito lacks.

An interesting thing about this drink though; I’ve made two pitchers of this for parties and whatnot since initially trying it and in my first attempt grossly overcalculated the amount of bitters a pitcher would call for (we’re talking about orders of magnitude 10x or more here) and managed to cut it down by increasing the remaining ingredients so it was only 3-4x as much called for and, shockingly, it was a huge success. Naturally I took the Julia Child route, acted as if the recipe were spot-on, and never made mention of my mishap to my guests until long afterwards, but the second pitcher, made to spec, wasn’t as good in my opinion. It was good, but upping the bitters even further seemed to take this to another level. Worth a shot at least should you try it.

As a side note, a cat named Allen Katz³ provided this recipe to Martha Stewart’s site along with the Laughter in the Rain cocktail above and I’ve yet to run into a recipe of his that hasn’t rocked my socks off. And, in googling him the instant I’m typing this I’ve come to find out there’s a fine reason for that. Apparently he knows what the hell he’s doing and we should all damned well pay attention when he recommends something. Well done, sir, well done. I can’t wait until Tales of the Cocktail 2008 to meet or see all these fine people.

Fizzy Lifting Drinks: Redux is a post from: cocktailnerd

1. this is another drink that uses cucumber in its preparation, like the Flying Cucumber, to good effect; bit too sweet for me though
2. I’m looking at you Killer Mango thingy
3. yuk yuk

If I can’t be gratuitous with the new camera and photos I’m able to take, what joy in life is there, no? This was my second attempt at an entry in MxMo XVIII that didn’t make the cut; not because I liked it less than the Sleeping Giant, because I actually preferred this drink, but because even though it uses orange juice it just didn’t feel like it was jiving in the spirit of the thing. This is a more traditional Tiki cocktail in that it’s a blend of 2-3 juices in moderate proportions as well as a liqueur and a couple of rums thrown in for good measure. According to Jeff ‘Beachbum’ Berry this drink was created in 1970 by Hank Riddle, while working at the famous ‘Don The Beachcomber’s’  restaurant as a competition entry. I gravitated towards this because it offered an opportunity to use Cherry Heering, an ingredient I’ve only recently acquired through the generosity of my in-laws and have been wanting to use sooner than later.

Aloha Cocktail

• 1/2 oz lime juice
• 1/2 oz orange juice
• 1/2 oz grenadine (used homemade cold-process)
• 1/2 oz 151 Bacardi Rum
• 1/2 oz white Puerto Rican Rum
• 1/2 oz Cherry Heering ¹
• 2 dashes Angostura bitters

Shake well with ice cubes and strain into a cocktail glass.

This has a really nice subtlety to it that the Sleeping Giant was lacking. The sweetness is still there but the tart of the lime juice, the herbals of the Heering, and the complexity of the bitters all balance this out to make it a much more enjoyable and well-rounded drink. I’m impressed at how well the Heering comes through and given that this is my first drink using it I’m anxious to see how it performs in something that focuses its flavor a touch more. The 151 has the effect of reminding you that you are indeed drinking an alcoholic drink and keeps it from sinking into a mire of dullsville. Overall it’s an above average drink that surpasses the balance I find in a lot of Tiki cocktails, so hat’s off, and aloha, to Mr. Hank Riddle for this one.

Aloha Cocktail Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Last night's dogbite: Aloha Cocktail is a post from: cocktailnerd

1. Can substitute with a cherry-flavored brandy but an eau de vie should be avoided

Champagne Cocktail

(Pint bottle of wine for three goblets.)

(Per glass.)

Take 1 lump of sugar.

1 or 2 dashes Angostura bitters.

1 small lump of ice.

Fill the goblet with wine, stir up with a spoon, and serve with a thin piece of twisted lemon peel.

A quart bottle of wine will make six cocktails.

Basically, all roads to the Champagne Cocktail lead from this, the recipe from Jerry Thomas' quinessential book, 'Bar-Tender's Guide or How to Mix Drinks'. These days we typically build this in the champagne glass in the order given; take a sugar cube, douse (well, I douse) with Angostura bitters, place the soaked cube in the flute glass, top with champagne, and voila! For me this is a very simple cocktail that acts as a wonderful palate cleanser which I serve as an apertif before meals, as a morning/brunch drink, or as a light drink between heavier cocktails. In fact, unless we're drinking actual capital-c Champagne, we rarely drink our bubbly straight-up anymore and drink this instead. However, I have two stylistic peculiarities with this drink, and everyone I have served the version above to, as well as my own, have preferred mine. Ok now, staunch purists with the pitchforks, cover your eyes. Done? … no? Seriously, cover them or skip over this section… Still here? Look you rat bastard, I can't help the palpitations you're about to experience so sign this waiver here: ________________________. Did it? Clean your screen afterwards? Good.

I vary the technique above in two ways. First, I place the sugar cube in the bottom of the flute or glass and then douse the sucker with bitters until it's dark brown throughout and there's still puddle to spare at the bottom of the glass (Note: I do vary the amount based on the volume of the glass I'm working with so as to not completely overwhelm the champagne). Next, and this is where it gets ugly – hold on to your socks – , I muddle the cube into oblivion. There, I said it. Hello, my name is Gabriel and I muddle the sugar cube in my Champagne Cocktails. 'Hi Gabriel…' Thanks guys. This process does two things for me; it really brings out the Angostura flavor and the sweetness from the sugar takes much more quickly into the drink to balance it so you get a much more intense set of flavors, and it prevents the champagne from fizzing up as quickly and potentially spilling over, thus reducing the amount of time it takes to pour the glass. That's my experience at least. And, again, I've tried all sorts of variations on technique (place the cube on the Angostura bottle then tip over and count to 3, place the cube in the bottom of the glass and dash from above and pour the champagne without muddling, altering pouring angles, etc. etc.) and everytime I've served another style against this one, people have preferred this technique. So, go crazy folks! Be a rebel! Try it, you might like it. And as long as we're here, check out two other very fine posts and videos regarding the Champagne Cocktail to be found at Erik Flannested's site 'Underhill Lounge' here, and at Drinkboy's 'The Cocktail Spirit' show here. Now, on to the big guns.

French 75²

• 2 oz gin (used Tanqueray)
• 1 oz lemon juice
• 1 tsp simple syrup
• Champagne

Shake all but the champagne in an iced cocktail shaker. Pour into a tall glass (collins, zombie, or Champagne flute). Fill with champagne, stir gently, and garnish with a long, think lemon spiral and a cocktail cherry.

Gin…goooooood, lemon juice and simple syrup…gooooooooood, champagne…gooooooooooooooooood. Together… holy batcrap is that a dry drink! Big guns indeed! Naturally, my wife loved it. For me, t
he dryness of the champagne and the whole 2 ounces of gin fought together and never quite settled down on the tongue leaving the lemon juice and simple syrup to play alone in the background, forlorn and muted. I will say that serving this in a collins glass (I typically use a 13.5 ounce) helps it out a bit. The additional champagne required to top it off seemed to level it out. However, in the future I will adjust the recipe more towards Robert Hess's version here or Gary Regan's which both reduce the other three ingredients against the champagne. This, to me, is an improvement and my heart cries out to serve this in a champagne flute instead of a collins glass (though it is awfully close to a Tom Collins with champagne instead of club soda) which will be more easily achieved with their reduced proportions. And now, let's gamble, or do an Ian Fleming impression, or something…not sure.

Casino Royale³

• 1 oz gin
• 1 oz fresh orange juice
• 1/2 oz maraschino liqueur
• 1/4 oz fresh lemon juice
• Champagne

Shake all ingredients except the champagne and strain into a chilled martini [sic] glass. Fill with champagne and garnish with an orange peel.

The first thing I notice about this drink is that the appearance isn't much to look at; it's fairly dull and unremarkable. I skipped the orange peel garnish because 1: that was my last orange there in the picture and I didn't want to ruin it (sacrificing for asthetics) and 2: I wasn't sure what he meant by 'peel'. Even in DeGroff's own garnish section of the book everything is referred to as 'zest', either for flaming or as a spiral, so rather than worry about it I skipped it. And, I must say, the drink must not have suffered a bit. The scent of the drink was fresh and citrus-y with the dryness of the champagne and herbals of the maraschino liqueur just peeking through. The drink only suffers from being a little overly sweet, but it is very refreshing and a nice use of champagne in a mixed drink as the effervesence adds to its refreshing quality. This is a good drink to offer those who like sweeter drinks but you just can't get yourself to make them another pina colada, coco loco, or other sickly mixture to save your life. I think a larger cocktail glass assists in drying out the drink a bit and, if possible, should be used. The number of fresh fruits to squeeze and the small proportions of lemon juice and maraschino liqueur make this a bit of a labor-intensive drink so it's not a good party drink unless you want to get stuck behind the bar, but this will go into our private regular rotation for Summer. And, for my wife, so will the French 75, though she will probably reduce the number of those she has in one sitting…wow.

Champagne Cocktail Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

French 75 Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars (as made above)

Casino Royale Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Last night's dogbite: Fizzy Lifting Drinks is a post from: cocktailnerd

1. I'm using the term 'champagne' for sparkling wines as well but I know and appreciate the difference I assure you
2. from Ted Haigh's 'Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails'
3. from Dale DeGroff's 'The Craft of the Cocktail'