Sorry we haven't been saying much for the past couple of months. Travel is not the greatest thing to do in July when you're seriously growing your winter feasts. Yet nothing can be done when work comes a callin'. Then family arrived from the US for a 3.5 week visit. Back to almost normal.

Now that September is upon us and the first signs of cooler nights and dewier mornings is signaling the onset of autumn, ... << MORE >>

A neighbour of ours knocked at the door the other day bearing a pleasant surprise—5 sacks of frozen bullaces that she had foraged! What a lovely sight it was. But because bullaces are very small and have pits that cling to the meat like a moray on a white shark, we soon realised that we couldn't split the thawed bullaces ... << MORE >>

How did Jared ever convince me to grow red shiso (aka: perilla) last spring? I wasn't planning to hand make any pickled ume plums. Jared is the Japanese cuisine master in this house, not me. And anything that takes 30 days to germinate from seed and looks like stinging nettle is not high on my list of growing priorities. But love does lead one to do things that make little sense, at first.
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What's the most important element in cooking? Timing. (Well, at least that's one of the important elements.) Same holds true for growing and foraging for ingredients to go into mixed drinks and our dining table. There's always a certain level of impatience that occurs when the weather threatens to switch into spring mode. It did a few times the past two weeks. But then we'd wake up to a thick coating of morning frost.
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Cuban rum, mint, lime, ice, soda. The Mojito is such a simple drink. It was born in Cuba, and it still one of the most popular drinks in Cuba. In fact, it is the national cocktail of Cuba. However, it is nearly impossible to find a Mojito made in the classic Cuban style outside of Cuba.

Is it the high cost of ice that prompted Cuban bartenders to add only a few cubes to each drink? British pub landlords are notorious for using only three or four small cubes in their gin and ... << MORE >>

Cocktail. A horse of mixed breeding functioning in the role of the thoroughbred. According to a 1769 British definition, cocktailing was used to mark these mixed horses.

The Old Fashioned Cocktail was not always called the Old Fashioned. When it was born it was simply the Cocktail: A word that has completely lost its original meaning as applied to beverages. It has become a generic term to cover just about any mixed drink, especially those served in a cocktail glass. But the term “cocktail” never referred to a single drink. Even as it ... << MORE >>

The Daiquirí has very close associations with Cuba’s fight for independence, from its birth through its evolution into the world’s most beloved Cuban cocktail. The first cry for freedom, in 1868, was sounded at Yara,  near Santiago de Cuba and echoed through the nearby mining village of Daiquirí.

In their bid for autonomy, the Mambises fortified themselves with the Daiquirí’s parent, Canchánchara. It was simple blend of rum, lime juice, and “honey” (a term frequently used in Cuba to describe molasses). The drink was made in batches and poured into bottles. Strapped to ... << MORE >>

Where do you find the soul of the Manhattan? Is it in the American whiskey that is mandatory in this classic? Is it the healthy dash of bitters without which the drink is lost in the hands of a feeble bartender? Is it the oft-mistreated vermouth that adds unfathomable depths of complexity? There can be little doubt that these ingredients met in nineteenth-century New York. Maybe the events that led up to the final meeting of this symbiotic trio in a glass will offer some answers.

Vermouth had a history long before the Italians and French dominated the market, starting as Greek alchemist Hippocrates' simple cure for intestinal worms as well as digestive and flatulence disorders. By the Renaissance, Switzerland, Germany, and Austria all claimed venerable vermut traditions, crafted in monasteries and appreciated by royalty. The great court of Wallenstein—now the Czech Republic—was impressed with a local 1630 vintage and bought up countless barrels. Britain's Queen Elizabeth I was said to take vermouth regularly before meals.

The masses embraced vermouth when it was popularized in café society. Rich, delectable modern sweet vermouth, invented in 1786 by Italian Antonio Carpano and floral, herbaceous dry vermouth,developed in 1813 by Frenchman Joseph Noilly began a tsunami of commercially-produced versions. Improved shipping methods offered Noilly the opportunity to export its vermouth, in 1844, along with its liqueurs and absinthe to New York. Cheaper transatlantic travel meant that Carpano, G&LCora, and the Dettone Brothers could display their Torino vermouths at the 1853New York Exhibition. It also meant that more German émigrés could introduce their homeland's tradition of vermouth consumption as bartenders in their new American home.

More than just about any other ethnicity,Germans dominated American bar operations during the late 1800s. Think of it.New York barmen Willie Schmidt and George Kappeler were not the only Germans who plied their craft in the city's famous watering holes. Between 1860 and1900, the number of bartenders and saloon owners west of the Mississippi rose from under 4,000 to nearly 50,000. Forty percent were recent immigrants, and twenty-five percent of those were of German descent. Thirty percent of saloon proprietors in Colorado at that time were German and no doubt knew the proper use of a doppelfassbecher as well as the joys of quaffing vermut. And if they didn’t, according to the San Antonio Express in 1886, there were a number of bartending manuals printed in English and German for them.

Aromatic bitters made landfall in the US long before vermouth: in fact, before the thirteen colonies became a nation.Richard Stoughton's aromatic bitters became, in 1712, the second compound medicine in the world to receive a patent. In less than two decades, his formula was being exported to the North American colonies. The next piece of the Manhattan equation, however, positioned itself when Dr Johann Gottlieb Benjamin Siegert's Amargo Aromatico bitters arrived, in 1876, from Angostura,Venezuela.

American whiskey had been produced inMassachusetts and Pennsylvania during colonial times. But the ryes and bourbonsthat the United States became famous for did not emerge until the 1790s, whenScots-Irish emigrants headed to the "wild west" of Kentucky andTennessee practice their distilling tradition, exporting their wares from coast to coast. Preserved cherries were another traditional colonial favourite, foundin cherry bounce, a cordial made by steeping cherries in rum and brown sugar for six months.

All of these Manhattan ingredients converged on the island with the same name in the late 1800s. But where andwhen?

It is possible, as William Mulhall said in his 1923 Valentine’s Manual that “The Manhattan cocktail was invented by a man named Black who kept a place ten doors below Houston on Broadway in the sixties…” Approximately ten doors below Houston Street at that time was the Metropolitan Hotel, built on the site of a popular watering hole called Niblo’s Garden, a grand Broadway theater which was immortalized by poet Walt Whitman.The site was also remembered as the 1860 home of the Japanese Embassy, in whose honour Jerry Thomas created the Japanese Cocktail. The Professor’s bar at the time was also nearby.

What were these bars like? They were true spectacles: shrines to drink and art. To attract customers, the better places lined their walls with art that now hangs in some of the world's top museums. Bouguereau's Nymphs and Satyrs once hung among many other paintings in the Hoffman House. Its proprietor Edward Stokes paid $10,010 for it at the time, or roughly $250,000 in today's currency: a fraction of the painting's current value. But we digress.

What is really more important: where a drink was first mixed, or where it secured its place in history? The Manhattan Club opened in 1865. The club's archives remember that the drink was invented there. However, it was certain that another drink born there was the one destined for immortality: the Sam Ward (yellow chartreuse over crushed ice in a cocktail glass, rimmed with a long thin lemon twist).

What about the whole Samuel Tilden story?There are too many questionable elements for this tale—that young socialite Jennie Jerome created the drink to salute him—to be true. On the evening of 29December 1874, a party was held at the club for Samuel Tilden and William Wickham, then governor of New York State and mayor of New York City,respectively, as well as Democrats' great hopefuls. Tilden was a longtime member.

The Club's food and drink was said to rise above the finest New York restaurant of its time, Delmonico's: save for the ice cream, which they bought directly from Delmonico's. The wine cellar was renowned. So, it would be likely that their bar was of the same caliber.

The night of the Tilden event, one Republican reporter raved about the food and drink. Although his exact words are lost, it is very possible he mentioned the Manhattan Cocktail. However,neither he nor anyone else who recorded the evening's events mentioned any member of the Jerome family, or for that matter any woman let along JennyJerome Churchill, attending the event. 

If it was born there, the Manhattan would have been created by the club's bartender. Drinks created by members were normally acknowledged such as the Manhattan a la Gilbert: whiskey, French vermouth, and Amer Picon). It could have made the list as early as 1865 whent he club opened, or any time prior to 1874. 

However, if you recall the date of Angostura Bitters’ arrival in New York, it would be impossible for a Mahtattan made with Siegert’s bitters to have been created until later. The club's recipe? Whiskey, vermouth, orange bitters. No garnish is listed. It is interesting to note that at the turn of the century, there was a panic amongst California olive and cherry growers that garnishes were a fading fashion in NewYork. Bartenders were no longer automatically garnishing drinks, unless acustomer asked. And the fruit growers searched for ways to reverse the trend. 

So what is the perfect recipe for this trueAmerican melting-pot potable? The best Manhattan we’ve had was made by Jake Burger at Portobello Star in London. Here it is:

 

50ml Sazerac Rye

15ml Carpano Antica

10ml Noily Prat vermouth

2 drops Angostura bitters

1 drop vintage Abbots bitters

Long stir, strain into a chilled coupette, garnish with a Griottines cherry.

The most memorable Manhattan in Manhattan was made for us by Michael Waterhouse, who has a unique style. He places lemon,lime and orange twists in a chilled cocktail glass, douses them with Angostura bitters and works them around the inside of the glass with a bar spoon. He then stirs 2 ounces of Maker’s Mark with one ounce of Carpano Antica vermouth.Before straining the mix into the glass he spills out the twists and excess bitters. Then he garnishes with three Luxardo cherries perched on the rim of the glass.

[This article originally appeared in German in 2009 in Mixology Magazine.]

Without question, the undisputed king of cocktails is the Martini. Clean, clear, and simple, the Martini has a life of its own. The story of its birth and its name, however, are probably the most convoluted of all drink origins.

Over a decade ago, we tried to pin down not only the Martini's creator but the truth of the drink's name. What we ended up with, at first, was a laundry list of contenders as well as competing tales of the provenance of its name.

One assertion is that the Silver Bullet was born in 1884 at the Turf Club in New York. The signature drink at this esteemed gentlemen's club has much in common with a Martinez: orange bitters, maraschino, absinthe,French vermouth, and Plymouth Gin.

The Martinez, the Martini's predecessor, is said by some to have been invented by Julio Richelieu in the 1870s, inspired by a prospector making his way from the Sierra Nevada gold deposits to San Francisco via the town of Martinez. While the good citizens of Martinez erected a plaque commemorating the Martini's birth on the northeast corner of Alhambra Avenue and Masonic Street, there is no corroborative evidence to support this claim. Jerry "The Professor" Thomas, the P.T. Barnum of mixology, proclaimed the Martinez was his invention, created when he was working in San Francisco. But wasn't the Martinez nothing more than a fancy name for a Gin Cocktail?

We were not convinced that the Martinez was the Martini's parent. It was more likely a sibling. The bitters, maraschino, French Vermouth, gomme syrup, and Old Tom Gin, a style of spirit distilled with macerated sweet spices are very close to the Gin Cocktail documented by William Terrington in his 1869 Cooling Cups and Dainty Drinks, which used ginger syrup instead of gomme syrup. We think the Gin Cocktail was the Martini's mother. How could we say that?

Harry Johnson's 1882 Martini Cocktail (mislabeled Martine Cocktail on the accompanying illustration) follows the basic Gin Cocktail equation. So does his Marguerite Cocktail, which substitutes anisette for curacao.In this same book, however, the Martini also experiences a transformation.

Called the Bradford a la Martini, the drink called for Old Tom Gin, a few dashes of orange bitters, and vermouth. Not a speck of liqueur is to be found. Instead, the recipe calls for the peel of one lemon to be placedi n the mixing glass. Similarly, in George J Kappeler's 1895 Modern American Drinks, the Martini calls for orange bitters, lemon peel, and equal parts Old Tom Gin and Italian vermouth.

By the late 1800s, imbibers and mixologists alike seemed to find the Martini's real bones. Dashes of additional sweetness were unnecessary to achieve balance. Gin, vermouth, and citrus notes from the orange bitters and lemon peel seem to ring out with a clear voice. Orders became common for a Martini made with Italian vermouth, a Dry Martini made with French vermouth. Martini. Not Martinez.

But why call it a Martini or a Bradford a la Martini? Dwell on some historical facts. Although Noilly Fils & Cie exported French vermouth to New York as early as 1844, before the company changed its name to Noilly-Prat, no one thought to call the blending of gin and Noilly vermouth. However, the exportation of Martini vermouth by the Martini, Sola & Cia to New York beginning in 1867 seems to coincide with the emergence of the Martini. The company went nose-to-nose withNoilly-Prat to gain the American market, in 1900, when it introduced its Extra Dry Vermouth. It is very likely the Martini cocktail took its name from the brand of vermouth. This is not as romantic a story as the cocktail being born in Martinez (or created by Jerry Thomas, or being named after the Martini rifle, or created by Martini di Arma di Taggia at the Knickerbocker Hotel in New York, or at the Savoy hotel in London to name a few of the contenders). However, it seems the most plausible of the potential origins of the Martini cocktail's name.

Demand for Dry Martinis soared as the world entered the Great War, while the Martini became known as a Gin and It or Gin and French in Great Britain. Who knows if it was a depressed economy, unavailability of ingredients, or bartenders streamlining their formulas that dropped the orange bitters from many cocktail recipe books between the wars. But the saddest evolution in the Martini's life was when the vermouth,French or Italian, began to dry up.

Post-war mixologists (both the first and second world wars) did not have the luxury of a proper bar education like their predecessors. Bartending knowledge was always transferred from master to apprentice. Many masters were lost in the wars, and their knowledge died with them. The wisdom of using fresh vermouth seemed to disappear at about this time.Vermouth is an aromatized wine, and consequently, subject to the same pitfalls as wine if left open in a warm room for days, weeks, and months. Vermouth sours to a scary point. Why ruin the perfect Silver Bullet with more than a whisper of sour vermouth? The ratio of gin to vermouth went from 3:1, to 6:1, to 12:1, in favour of gin. Want some spiciness? Add olives!

Due to diminished distillation standards and the scarcity of raw ingredients, gin also lost position to vodka between and immediately following the wars. Who wanted to savour the spicy, complex nature of a below-bottom-shelf gin? Allegedly tasteless, odorless, colourless vodka and even more olives were reasonable augmentations in an up-and-coming corporate world.

Lucky for the Martini, these faux pas were remedied during the current Great Cocktail Revival. Once again, sweet and/or dry vermouth meet fine-quality gin in a marriage made in heaven. The reintroduction of fine arts such as bitters-making have returned orange bitters to the drink as well. The result? A classic Martini with prominence and provenance, even though its name may have well been entirely marketing-driven. Here's the recipe:

MARTINI COCKTAIL

3 parts Beefeater 24 gin

1 part French vermouth or Lillet Blanc

2 dashes orange bitters

Shake all ingredients over ice. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish  with a large slice of lemon peel. Olives? Serve them on the side, but preferably not in the cocktail.

[This article was originally published in German in 2009 in Mixology Magazine.]

James Bond never ordered one. It is hard to picture Ernest Hemingway setting a frosty one down next to his typewriter. Yet the Pina Colada is the drink of choice for countless cruise ship passengers, sun burnt tourists sporting loud Hawaiian shirts, countless infrequent imbibers, and, in truth, the one of the most broadly influential cocktails ever created.

Of course, like many great flavor combinations, before the drink's history began, the Pina Colada had an extensive pre-history. Literally translated, Pina Colada means "strained pineapple". Minus the coconut,the combination of rum and pineapple dates back centuries. In his 1824An Essay on the Inventions and Customs of both Ancients and Moderns in the Use of Inebriating Liquors, Samuel Morewood wrote, "Time adds much to the mildness and value of rum, which the planters, it is said, often improve by the addition of pineapple juice."

By this time, rum infused with pineapple was also very popular in parts of Europe, where fresh pineapple was far too costly for all but the wealthy. In Charles Dickens' 1838 book The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club: "Mr. Stiggins was easily prevailed on to take another glass of the hot pineapple rum and water, and a second, and a third,and then to refresh himself with a slight supper previous to beginning  again."

The recipe was simple, as given in Modern Domestic Cookery, and Useful Receipt Book By Elizabeth Hammond, circa 1817: "An excellent flavour may be given to it by putting into the cask some pineapple rinds. The longer rum is kept, the more valuable it becomes. If your rum wants a head,whisk some clarified honey with a little of the liquor, and pour the whole into the cask. Three pounds of honey is sufficient for sixty gallons."

The first record of Europeans encountering a pineapple points to the island of Guadeloupe—November 1493. Sailors on Columbus' second voyage named the curious fruit pina as it resembled a giant pine cone. The native Tainos were already drinking pineapple juice (which they called yayamaby) for refreshment and as a digestive aid, especially after consuming meat. Taino women were known to use it as an exfoliant and skin whitener. It was Columbus who brought the first pineapples to Spain. And this exotic fruit enchanted Europe.

It was not long before the pineapple became a symbol of wealth and hospitality throughout Europe and the colonies. Ship captains would mark a triumphant return from the tropics by placing a pineapple at their front gate: a gesture adopted from Caribbean tribes. Plus, thepineapple became the crowning glory on many upper-class European tables.

In the Caribbean, jugo de pina became pina fria in the early 1800s, after Cuban officials issued a plea for ice that was answered with shipments both from Spain and New England. By the turn of the twentieth century advances in transportation meant flocks of tourists could join the Caribbean planters enjoying frosty rum and pineapple libations. A US publication, Travel, recommended the drink in detail in 1922: "But best of all is a pina colada, the juice of a perfectly ripe pineapple—a delicious drink in itself—rapidly shaken up with ice, sugar, lime and Bacardi rum in delicate proportions. What could be more luscious, more mellow and more fragrant?"

No doubt people in cold climates were by now taking advantage of pineapple shipments from Jim Dole's newly founded Hawaiian Pineapple Company which strove to put the fruit in every American grocery store.

In Puerto Rico, the ingredients even played a pivotal role in local politics when, in 1917, Prohibition was voted on by local referendum.The ballots (designed to be easily understood by a rural populace with a low literacy rate) were printed with a bottle of rum on one side anda pineapple on the other. Surprisingly, the pineapple was the overwhelming favorite, and Puerto Rico became officially dry until 1934.

Cuban ever succumbed to the Noble Experiment. A National Geographic writer in 1933 reminisced: "I have sat at a sidewalk cafe table, surrounded by well-dressed, well-fed people, sipping a pina colada, and listening to an orchestra..." But what was he sipping at the time?

Harry La Tourette Foster, in his 1928 travel book The Caribbean Cruise,wrote: "For the tea-totaler, there are plenty of non-alcoholic drinks obtainable in most places. In Havana, for instance, a favorite iced drink is jugo de pina or pina colada..."

A Hartford Courant article published on 20 August 1922, reflects this ambiguity: "Down in Havana, Cuba, there is a soft drink that is verycaressing to the esophagus, known in Spanish as either pina fria colada or pina fria sin colada, which might be copied in the United States where soft drinks are now legion."

A1950 column in The New York Times titled "At The Bar" mentioned that"Cuba's Pina Colada (rum, pineapple and coconut milk)." Yet, the official 1948 book of Cuba's bartending guild, El Arte del Cantinero,contained only a non-alcoholic recipe for chilled and sweetened pineapple juice under the title "Pina Colada". It is likely that drink had been served for more than a century in at least one legendary Havana location. In 1820, a bodega called Pina de Plata (The Silver Pineapple) opened in Havana. It is said they sold fresh juices, andtheir beverage sales were so successful that in 1867 they became a bar,changing the name to La Florida, later to become El Floridita.

Farmore important than the first collision amongst rum, pineapple, and coconut in a blender is the drink's transition from ignominy to ubiquitous cabana libation. Who standardized the Pina Colada into the drink we all know today? The mass media and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico claim that the modern Pina Colada was introduced in San Juan, on15 August 1954 at the Caribe Hilton's Beachcomber Bar. Opened in 1949,with a prime beachfront location and modern amenities it drew an affluent, international clientele: John Wayne, Elizabeth Taylor, Jose Ferrar, Gloria Swanson and a host of others. Joan Crawford declared the Caribe Hilton's Pina Colada was "better than slapping Bette Davis in the face." These were the celebrities who made the drink glamorous and,for a short time, far more sophisticated than any frozen drink has aright to be.

One claim frequently ignored by most cocktail authorities is that Coco Lopez launched the Pina Colada out of obscurity. This appears to be true. Certainly, the modern Pina Colada would not exist, much less become widely adopted, if not for pre-made cream of coconut.

A common cooking ingredient throughout the tropics, but very labor intensive to prepare, cream of coconut was first packaged as Coco Lopez, in 1954, by Ramon Lopez Irizarry, an agricultural professor from the University of Puerto Rico who automated this arduous task. Irizarry personally approached bartenders and chefs around San Juan, encouraging them to experiment with his new creation. The Coco Lopez company then continued to spotlight the Pina Colada in its promotional literature for over thirty years, spreading the drink around the world. It finally found its way into the Mr. Boston Deluxe Official Bartenders Guide sometime between 1970 and 1972.

The Pina Colada has been described as sickly sweet, a dessert in a glass, a beginner's drink. But like many other classics, it has stood the test of time because in the right time and place, prepared properly, it can be the perfect drink for that moment. The time and place might be mid-afternoon in a South Beach hotel swimming pool, or on the in the shade of an ocean-side cabana flanked appropriately by coconut palms.

The ideal recipe is as follows:

PINA COLADA

A cup of shaved ice

120ml pineapple juice

45ml anejo blanco rum

60ml coconut cream

Combine all ingredients in a shaker. Shake well. Strain the mixture into a frozen collins glass. Then add the shaved ice directly from the shaker.Garnish with a chunk of fresh pineapple. Decorate it with an umbrella if you must. Optional: a few dashes of Angostura Bitters prior to blending produces a more complex and balanced drink.

[This article was originally published in German in 2009 in Mixology Magazine]