At the violet hour, the hour when eyes and back and hand
Turn upward from the desk, the human engine waits–
Like a taxi throbbing waiting at a stand–
To spring to pleasure through the horn or ivory gates.¹

The Violet Hour is a drink that was submitted and featured at Tales of the Cocktail…2008. Yes, sometimes it takes me that long to trudge through a deck of 300 recipes to find ones that show some promise and don’t require my traveling to the plateau of upper Tibet in search of Witches Bane root to be steeped in Unicorn saliva for 20 years under the shade of a Wispwillow tree. I am remiss in taking so long to get to it, as it’s quite dandy.

Toby Maloney opened the Violet Hour in 2007 and it has received accolades as one of the best bars in America. And, certainly, when one visits Chicago, it has become a must-visit attraction for cocktailians. And while I’ve not seen the Violet Hour cocktail on their current menu, Toby apparently featured it at last year’s Tales of the Cocktail as a means of honoring his bar and honor it he has.

The Violet Hour

• 2oz Bourbon (used Bulleit)
• 3/4oz Sweet Vermouth (used Carpano)
• 1/4oz Dry Vermouth (used Cinzano)
• 1/10oz Cruzan Blackstrap
• 3 dashes Fee’s Old Fashioned Bitters

While very much like a Brooklyn that’s been inverted and is using Blackstrap instead of maraschino as a sweetener, the Blackstrap and heavy dose of bitters makes different enough to warrant its own place in a cocktail rotation. The Violet Hour starts with a very Manhattan-esque flavor and then a caramel back with just enough cassia and cardamom from the bitters holds sway to give you something else to think about and consider. Using Fee Old Fashioned is critical in this one. Having tried several others, the rest not quite giving the baking spice zing of Fee’s and allowing the drink to fall off, Fee’s is the order of the day.

The other note I have on this drink is the Blackstrap. 1/10oz is around 1/2 teaspoon and I believe it could use a touch more. And by “touch” I mean about twice as much. The caramel character blending with the spice of the bourbon and the bitters at the back-end of this drink is, to me, what makes it special. Even if you up it to 1/8oz (3/4t) you’ll have an improved drink. So, my recommendation is to use 3/4t or 1t Blackstrap in the drink and move back from there if you find it overly tacky or aggressive.

Otherwise, sit back and enjoy the violet hour, which usually falls around 8:00pm this time of year. A perfect time for a drink, don’t you think?

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

1. this is a line prior to Eliot’s revisions to the first draft of “The Waste Land”, and I prefer it still to the folderol re: Tiresias and his bloody “throbbing”

Upcoming TDN: DOM – B&B and Benedictine

B&B and Benedictine are classic and elegant ingredients used in a host of cocktails from the Singapore Sling (ok, *some* versions) to the Widow’s Kiss to whatever you decide to make at this Thursday’s TDN. THIS week’s special feature will be a LIVE! broadcast of the goings-on at the Monkey Hut where Craig, Blair, Rick, and special guest star Jeffrey Morgenthaler will be mixing and waxing poetic the whole evening. As always, festivities begin at 7pm EST in the Mixoloseum Bar.

TDN Vermouth Wrap-up

It was going to be tough to follow TDN: Mata Hari what with its awesome live action at the Tabard Inn and mocking of Oklahoma and sinking of such glorious failures of drinks as the Cannibal Curse (1.5oz Batavia Arrack, I rest my case) but TDN Vermouth came close. Vermouth, in many ways, gave birth to the modern cocktail and opened up endless possibilities beyond the simple “spirit, sugar, bitters, and water” make-up of the earliest cocktail form. The Manhattan, Martinez, and, in turn, the Martini, of course, being the primary examples of the explosion that happened after vermouth was introduced and popularized in the U.S. Whether our contributions will reach that same level of global appreciation and ubiquity remains to be seen, but at least it wasn’t for lack of trying:

Winning Drink

If I had no shame I would award it to my own drink, The Right Stuff, because the use of Pisco and how it came together was really sexy. However, the Financial District was a widely-tried and very well-regarded drink submitted by drink-well of LA who needs to get ahold of me to pass along his information to get his prize to him. Congrats, sir¹ .

Financial District

• 1.75oz Bourbon
• .75oz dry vermouth
• .25oz coffee liqueur
• dash orange bitters
• dash peychaud

Stir, strain, and garnish with a lemon twist

Other drinks you should try:

By beautiful wonderful, me.

The Right Stuff

• 2oz pisco
• 1oz bianco
• .5oz grapefruit juice
• .25 simple
• .25 curacao (used Grand Marnier)
• 2dash old fashioned bitters

Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Submitted by Paul who warns, sharply, do NOT use McClelland’s Islay single malt for this drink, gabe.

Ex

• 1.5 oz sweet vermouth
• .5 oz cask-strength rye
• .5 oz Campari

Stir & strain in glass rinsed with Islay single malt

Offered up by Rick who will claim it’s the greatest drink ever made, and is dead wrong. But it is awfully damned good.

Jaynestown

• 2oz Firefly sweet tea vodka
• 1oz Dolin blanc
• 2 dashes lemon bitters

Stir and strain over ice

R.W. APPLE’S ORCHARD

• 1.5 oz apple brandy
• 1.5 oz Dolin blanc²
• dash peach bitters
• dash Decanter bitters³

Stir/strain and garnish with a lemon twist

Offered, presumably with affection, by Rick and Craig.

Tiki Antica

• 1.5oz Carpano Antica
• 1oz Appleton Extra
• .5oz dark Jamaican rum (used Coruba)
• 1oz Licor 43
• .5oz lime
• .25oz falernum
• float 1oz ginger beer and .5oz Blackstrap Rum

Kick Rick and Craig’s collective asses with a swizzle stick for throwing in the kitchen sink where it’s not likely needed, and then make think and probably enjoy it.

Submitted by John, a surprisingly good drink that I would cut back on the orgeat with if made again.

Well Stocked Bar

• 2oz gin
• 1oz lillet
• .5oz cynar
• .5oz dry vermouth
• .75oz orgeat
• 1oz lime
• 1 egg white
• 2 oz soda

Shake, strain, top w/ soda

NOTE: In the future, TDN judging will be handled in a new and exciting way. YOU can be part of selecting the winning cocktail each week. The host(s) will select a group of 4-5 cocktails they feel are worthy of consideration and post them on Friday in a poll on the Mixoloseum blog. Then, over the next few days, try the drinks and vote on your favorite and it will be declared in Tuesday’s wrap-up. Viva la Democracy!!

Original Vermouth Recipes: TDN Vermouth is a post from: cocktailnerd

1. or ma’am, you never can be sure
2. I used Cinzano Bianco
3. I used Fee’s Old Fashioned

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

So, I present to you, To Have or Have Not, a movie that discovered Lauren Bacall at 19 (!) and brought she and Humphrey Bogart together during and after the filming of it (he would divorce his wife soon after and marry Bacall, much his junior) and is essentially a poor man’s Casablanca. Not to say it isn’t a great film, but beside Casablanca it falls well short; though Bacall and Bogart’s chemistry is mesmerizing. In this case, a bottle of whisky is used to underline the burgeoning tension in their relationship, and the exchange of the bottle between them, after she’s swindled it from an unsuspecting French Naval officer, underlines how they are vying for both information about each other as well as control over the dynamic between them. After he’s left her at the bar with the naval officer we get this:

She’s brought a bottle of whisky (or rum, he uses water with it, but because they’re in Martinique it may well be rum) and she goads him about her behavior at the bar though he denies it bothered him. Finally, once he makes them both drinks and he asks her about her ’story’, because she took a slap in the face from the Vichy gestapo without flinching, she gets upset and leaves; him, literally, holding the bottle.

It takes him all of about five seconds to beeline for her room across the hall – wouldn’t you? -where, once again, the bottle is treated as currency; neither of them willing to commit to its ownership but both using it as impetus to see more of and learn more about one another. 

Soft mood music begins playing as he knocks on her door and she, distraught and upset about his challenging her to expose herself, invites him in. The bottle continues to be used as an excuse to connect with each other as he says, ‘You left this.’

The discussion continues to escalate their emotional gamesmanship and she begins to divulge details about her life, how she brought the bottle to Bogart’s character to embarrass him, and her possibly sordid past. Finally, after the climax of the scene, captured in the image at the top of this post, he leaves, her looking forlorn and lost, and once again, looking to use the booze as a pretense to join him.

‘There’s that bottle again,’ Harry says when he finds her at his door again, mentioning what a ‘problem’ the bottle is becoming. However, the third time is the charm as in this exchange and ‘gifting’ of the bottle between them the interaction culminates in their first kiss as the critical moment in the film arrives; when Harry decides to help the French Resistance and, in the process, Bacall’s character ‘Slim’. The tension released, the bottle disposed of in their thoughts, and Slim remarking that they must simply try the kissing again (but next time with Harry shaved), she leaves Harry’s room with the immortal line:

Slim: You know how to whistle, don’t you Steve? You just put your lips together and…blow.

So, you’ll have to pardon this lengthy and self-indulgent post all in the name of my recognizing more and more how drinking is used in classic films as a stand-in for emotional development, again, as shorthand for social dynamics and character depth or dimensions (see: Bogart’s soliloquy in Casablanca, ‘Of all the gin joints, in all the world…’ with his lonely drink in hand). Mind you, not a drop of alcohol is actually consumed in the scenes I’ve outlined, but it’s an ever-present calling card to the universal appeal of alcohol in its ability to bring people together and be used as a catalyst to connect strangers. Whereas, with the mores of today’s cinema, as I’ve mentioned, it’s almost exclusively portrayed as a self-destructive element or to quickly, and lazily, outline a characters’ major character flaws. In To Have or Have Not it’s treated as a great companion to an affair of the heart, and I couldn’t agree more. Cheers, Harry and Slim.

And just so you don’t go away empty-handed, here’s a cocktail developed in the name of Humphrey Bogart called the ‘Bogey Cocktail’.

Bogey¹

• 1 oz gin
• 1 oz dry vermouth
• 1/4 oz Bourbon
• 1/4oz Pernod
• 1 dash lemon juice

Add all ingredients to a mixing glass with ice and stir until chilled then strain into a cocktail glass.

A minor variation can be found here. And as the man himself said, ‘I should never have switched to martinis.’

On a side note, Jay at Oh Gosh! did a nice (and much more concise) piece on drinking and classic films with Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows. Check it out here, good stuff.

Drinking in Film: 'To Have and Have Not' is a post from: cocktailnerd

1. from Stan Jones’ Jones’ Complete Bar Guide