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Musing on the Classics: The Mojito

jared@mixellany.com (MIXELLANY BOOKS) — 2010-01-06T11:17:00Z

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 tonics for just this reason. Yet, if you order a Mojito in some of London’s best bars today, the bartender will pack a tall glass with crushed ice.

But the ice is not the primary difference of Cuban Mojitos. There are dozens of varieties of mint. The dominant type for Cuban Mojitos is a variety known locally as hierba buena: a red-stemmed mint with the scientific name mentha suaveolens, which is commonly known as apple mint, woolly mint, or Cuban mint. More vegetal than peppermint or spearmint in flavour, Cuban mint has a refreshing less pungent taste and aroma profile.

Another ingredient that seems to be limited to Cuba is Angostura bitters floated on top of the drink. Bitters were born in tropical heat, to keep people healthy in tropical heat. Perhaps the flavour is only appropriate when the heat and humidity are strong enough to drive everyone to seek shade and rum drinks.

The Mojito is a truly Cuban drink, mingling African and European cultures into a spellbinding, invigorating concoction. In West Africa, a mojo is a cloth bag filled with magic spices and articles crafted to cast a spell. The word “mojito” is the diminutive of this loan-word and means “little spell.” Mojitos have cast a spell on the world for centuries in one liquid form or another. There are a few other theories about the origin of the drinks name. One holds that the name comes from a Cuban seasoning mix called mojo. However, this sauce originated in the Canary Islands and was traditionally made in Cuba with sour oranges, not limes. Another theory is that the name is a contraction of a diminuation of the word mojado meaning “wet”, which would have become mojadito, and then mojito. This is also rather unlikely, though it is broadly accepted.

The Mojito is the direct descendant of a libation favoured by pirates and privateers, especially one in particular. Legend has it that one of the earliest concoctions in cocktail history was invented in honor of a sixteenth-century British privateer, known best for his exploits along the Spanish Main. A hero in the eyes of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth I, Sir Francis Drake was the scourge of the Spanish Crown, who dubbed him “El Draque” [the Dragon]. During the 1570s and 1580s, Drake and his crew, which included French sailors and cimarrones (sometimes also known as Maroons, African slaves who escaped from sugar plantations) took up privateering as a profession. This was a “legitimized” form of piracy sanctioned by the Queen herself. From the Caribbean and the South American coast up to western Canada, Drake plundered Spanish galleons laden with Peruvian gold and claimed portions of the North American coastline in the name of Britain.

Some stories claim that pirate Richard Drake invented a drink, which he named after his boss El Draque. The basic concoction included readily available ingredients from a pirate’s point of view: sugar, key limes (Citrus aurantifolia, a highly acid, highly aromatic Caribbean variety), aguardiente de caña and hierba buena.

In his landmark history of Cuban rum, author Fernando Campoamor detailed that El Draque was given this potion as a medicinal to settle his stomach, affected by the tropical climate and diet. Even after El Draque’s death in 1596, Drakes or Draquecitos were taken as a refreshing break to the day. Cuban author Rámon de Palma wrote in his 1838 story El Cólera en Habana: “I take every day at eleven o’clock a Draquecito and it does me perfectly.”

When did the Draquecito evolve into the Mojito? According to author Ciro Bianchi Ross and Cuban historian Miguel Bonera, the Mojito Batido first appeared in print around 1910 and was served at La Concha in Havana. By that time, commercial ice had been imported and then produced in the city for nearly a hundred years. Havana’s cantineros relished serving icy cold drinks. Muddling the fragrant mint, adding crystal clear ice and topping it with soda water transformed the El Draque into a refreshment deserving a name of special merit.

Many of Havana’s finest hotels and bars embraced the Mojito in the first decades of the twentieth century. But it was the hands of Angel Martinez at La Bodeguita del Medio and celebrity promotion by novelist Ernest Hemingway shaped the drink into an international legend.

It is important to remember that the Mojito is an aromatized Rum Collins or Rickey. Many bartenders try to rusticate the recipe by muddling lime in the drink rather than using fresh lime juice or try to substitute brown sugar for white. These create interesting drinks but not Mojitos. The best Cuban versions always use key lime juice and white castor sugar. The use of castor sugar is important as it acts as an abrasive on the mint releasing its fragrant oils without it being necessary to totally pulverize it as it so often the case. Also cracked rock ice is most appropriate not crushed ice, the dilution comes from the addition of soda. Crushed ice merely pulverizes the mint creating a green soup.

Mojito
50ml Havana Club Añejo 3 Años
25ml Fresh squeezed key lime juice
3 teaspoons Castor sugar
6-8 Cuban mint leaves and two complete stems of Cuban mint

Method
First add the mint leaves and the sugar to a highball glass. Then add the fresh lime juice and stir to dissolve and release the mint aromas. Then add the rum. At this point if possible leave the drink to infuse for a few minutes, perhaps while you make other drinks. Finally fill the glass with cracked rock ice and a splash of soda. Gently use a barspoon to mix the ingredients. Garnish with 2 stems of freshly cut mint, thus allowing the
mints juice to run into the drink. Slap the mint to release its fragrance and serve with straws cut to the height of the garnish.

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

Musing on the Classics: The Old-Fashioned

jared@mixellany.com (MIXELLANY BOOKS) — 2010-01-06T11:15:00Z

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 was defined in The Balance & Columbian Repository (Hudson, NY) in 1806, it was a family of libations, defined as spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters. “Spirits of any kind” left the door open for Gin Cocktails, Whiskey Cocktails, Brandy Cocktails, even Vermouth Cocktails.

You could say it was this flexibility that made the Cocktail so universally popular. Shipping still depended upon wind and wooden boats, on wagons and cobbled streets, on people walking forested paths. So people mostly drank whatever was produced nearby. The most likely cocktail ingredient to be imported, because of its exotic ingredients and easy portability, was bitters. Yet, even this ingredient could be produced locally. The great flexibility of that first recipe was quickly proven as many variations were quickly invented in America, Europe, and the Caribbean.

The earliest European definition of the drink appeared in James Edward Alexander’s 1833 book Transatlantic Sketches: “For the receipt-book let the following be copied:—First, Cocktail is composed of water, with the addition of rum, gin, or brandy, as one chooses—a third of the spirit to two-thirds of the water; add bitters and enrich with sugar and nutmeg: in sling, the bitters are omitted.”

Although Antoine Amedée Peychaud has long been discounted as inventor of the Cocktail (as he was born around the same time as the drink), there can be no question that it caught on quickly in his adopted city of New Orleans:

“Ah! I see; not acquainted with the mixture! Boy, bring up four glasses of brandy-cocktail immediately!”
The slave returned with four partially-filled tumblers upon a waiter, a spoon in each.
“Ah, this is it!” exclaimed the narrator, his eyes glistening with animation: “help yourselves, gentlemen; touch*—very fine. Now the difference between a brandy cocktail and a brandy toddy is this: a toddy is made by adding together a little water, a little sugar, and a great deal of brandy—mix well and drink. A Brandy cocktail is composed of the same ingredients, with the addition of a shade of Stoughton’s bitters; so that the bitters draw the demarcation. Boy, bring up four brandy toddies; you shall taste the difference.”
I declined the favor of a second glass.
“You are new to the city, sir? We all drink; must do it. Nothing like keeping up a heat within, to counteract the heat without…”

[* NOTE: A late distinguished representative in the national councils from the state of Mississippi nearly lost his life in complying with this Southern custom; his glass broke in his hand, and he swallowed one of the fragments. -- New Orleans as I Found It by Edward Henry Durell, mayor of New Orleans, 1845]

By 1842, even Charles Dickens had noted this drink in his American Notes for General Circulation with a footnote to the word cocktail that read: “Cocktail—spirits, bitters, sugar, etc.”

Another Londoner had more to say about it. William Terrington’s 1869 book Cooling Cups and Dainty Drinks. Cups, Punches, Smashes, Slings, Daisies, and many other drinks would eventually be grouped under the heading of “Cocktails”, but this had not yet occurred. At the time, Terrington said, "Cocktails are compounds very much used by 'early birds' to fortify the inner man, and by those like their consolations hot and strong. 'Cocktail' is not so ancient an institution as Juleps, &c., but, with its next of kin, 'Crusta', promises to maintain its ground."

So many other drinks had emerged by this time that the original was a bit out of date. It had reached the status that would immortalize it. It was old fashioned.

Albert Stevens Crockett wrote in his 1931 book Old Waldorf Bar Days, that the Old Fashioned was invented (or presumably at least named) in the 1880s at the Pendennis Club in Louisville, Kentucky. The great southern writer Irvin S. Cobb said the same in his 1934 recipe book. Granted, there were a few uses of the name prior to the opening of the Pendennis Club, but it is still likely that it was popularized there. The most famous Pendennis Club bartender, Tom Bullock, included the following recipe in his 1917 book, The Ideal Bartender:

OLD FASHION [sic] COCKTAIL
Use a toddy glass.
1 lump of Ice.
1 lump of sugar and dissolve in Water.
1-1/2 jiggers of Bourbon Whiskey.
Twist piece of Lemon Skin over the drink and drop it in. Stir well and serve.

Sadly, the drink was over-garnished during the mid-twentieth century. The muddling of a cherry and an orange slice with the sugar seemed to be the final blow for the original Cocktail. Then, in the 1980s in London, bartender Dick Bradsell created a flamboyant serving method for the Old Fashioned, which he based on a recipe found in David Embury’s Fine Art of Mixing Drinks.

He begins with gum syrup and whiskey, plus an ice cube or two. He stirs. He adds a bit more whiskey. He stirs fervently. He adds more whiskey. He stirs yet again to reach the desired dilution. His Old Fashioned has flavour. It has drama. It has no cherry.

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

Musing on the Classics: The Daiquiri

jared@mixellany.com (MIXELLANY BOOKS) — 2010-01-06T11:08:00Z

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 their saddles, the bottled Canchánchara was not only a welcomed thirst-quencher for the freedom fighters during the long, arduous campaigns against the Spanish colonial army. It was also an effective painkiller for the wounded.

But even this was not the original. A 1754 French-Spanish dictionary defines "Ponche" or "Ponche a Bebida Inglesa" as the combination of aguardiente de caña (rum), lime, sugar, and water. Introduced to western Europe by English sailors who encountered it in India with the addition of tea, Punch was esteemed ancestor that first arrived, in the 1660s, when the British fleet captured Santiago de Cuba.

Canchánchara was certainly present during 1898 Spanish-American War when the town of Daiquirí was the focal point of an offensive that saw Spanish troops attacked from the land by General Calixto García’s Cuban Liberation Army and from the sea by Admiral William T Sampson’s American naval forces led by General William Shafter, who landed 17,000 troops on the shipping docks owned by the Spanish-American Iron Company on Daiquirí Bay.

Some legends say that when the 300-pound, 63-year-old Shafter first tasted the Canchánchara, he declared that, “the only missing ingredient is ice.”

It is just prior to this epic moment, in 1896, that many authorities believe that the Daiquirí was "born". New York mining engineer Jennings S. Cox, Jr. was the general manager of the Spanish-American Iron Company and a member of the American Institute of Mining Engineers. So was colleague F.D. Pagliuchi, who besides being a war correspondent for Harper's Monthly was actively involved in the Cuban liberation movement.

At the end of one day, Pagliuchi suggested it was cocktail time. Cox was out of gin and vermouth, the ingredients for a Martini. So Cox shook up rum, lime and sugar, possibly inspired by the locals’ consumption of Canchánchara.

Upon tasting it, Pagliuchi inquired, “What is this cocktail called?”

“It doesn’t have a name, so it must be a Rum Sour,” Cox replied.

“That’s no name for such a fine, exquisite cocktail! We’ll call it a Daiquirí!” Pagliuchi exclaimed.

There is also a story that a few nights later, Pagliuchi and Cox visited the American Club in Santiago de Cuba and ordered a Daiquirí, knowing the bartender would not know the drink by that name. Thus, when they explained it to him, the barman became the first to make the drink called by that name in a bar. Unfortunately, the bartender’s name was not recorded. (In The Gentleman’s Companion, Charles H. Baker added a friend of his to this cast of characters: Harry E. Stout, whom he said was another mining engineer based with Cox and present for the drink's creation.)

After independence was won, the Daiquirí became a fashionable drink for the engineers who frequented the Venus Hotel in Santiago de Cuba just to partake in this refreshment. It then made an appearance in Havana at the Plaza Hotel, introduced by its famed bartender Emilio González, who was more familiarly known as Maragato.

But it was in the hands of Constantino Ribalaigua Vert, who took over La Florida in 1918, that the Daiquirí’s more familiar children were born and thrived. Enthused by this simple sour concoction, Constante tested six versions.

That's right. Six versions.

To 60 ml of Cuban rum, the Daiquirí No. 1 used one teaspoon of sugar to 12.5 ml of fresh lime juice. Daiquirí No. 2 (Version A) added 10 ml of fresh orange juice and 5 ml of curaçao to the base recipe. Daiquirí No. 2 (Version B for B Obon) mixed 20 ml of fresh Seville orange juice and 10 ml of curaçao with 2 teaspoons of sugar. Daiquirí No. 3 combined 10 ml of lime juice, 5 ml of grapefruit juice, and 5 ml of marashcino with 1 teaspoon of sugar. Daiquirí No. 5 was a rosy version of No. 4 thanks to the addition of 5 ml of grenadine.

But it was Constante' s frappéed Daiquirí No. 4 that became best known as the Floridita Daiquirí. Before the late 1930s, United Press journalist Jack Cuddy noted in the 1937 book Cocktails: Bar la Florida that Constante blended his concoction with ice in an electric mixer ("one of those malted milk stirrers in American Drug stores"). That was before he ordered a Flak Mak ice-crushing machine from the United States. And when the Waring blender was launched, in 1938, El Floridita was one of the first establishments to adopt its use.

It was around this time that the Daiquirí's famed offspring, the Hemingway Special was also born.

Returning from the horrors of the Spanish Civil War in 1938, Ernest Hemingway settled into the Hotel Ambos Mundos and began to write his novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. The story goes that Hemingway took a break one day and stopped into El Floridita at the other end of the street near Parque Central, where he ordered a Daiquirí from Constante.

In spite of the opinions of his doctor friends, Hemingway was convinced that he had diabetes. Consequently, he excluded all sugar from his diet, though he was never concerned about his alcohol consumption. Constante offered him a sugar-free Daiquirí with a double dose of Cuban rum. This Daiquirí Del Salvaje, soon became the Daiquirí a la Papa, then Daiquirí Como Papa.

Enamored with his new discovery, Hemingway returned every day at 11 am. He always sat on the same bar stool and downed a couple of his special Daiquirís. Sometimes he would return at 5 pm to consume a dozen more.

A few years later, Floridita cantinero Antonio Meilan modified the recipe using 15 ml of grapefruit juice, 5 ml of lime juice, 10 ml of maraschino, and no sugar with 120 ml of Cuban rum, immortalizing it under the appellation “Hemingway Special” or “Papa Doble”.

After Hemingway moved out of the hotel and into his home La Finca Vigía, he continued his frequent visits. Floridita’s Daiquirís became such a source of inspiration for him that sometimes he brought in a thermos bottle to have it carefully filled with his favorite refreshment. Hemingway called this his viaticum [Latin for “provisions for a journey”], his trago del camino [gulp for the road], which helped him prolong the happy reverie begun in the Floridita during the ride back to home.

As tasting-tempting as the potent Hemingway Special is, the classic Flordita Daiquirí still wins hands down. And although key limes are hard to find outside of the Caribbean and the Americas, Nick Strangeway of Hix in London has determined the optimal balance, using conventional limes and authentic Cuban rum:

Ingredients
60ml Havana Club Añejo 3 Años
12.5ml Fresh squeezed lime juice
5ml Maraschino liqueur
1 teaspoon Granulated sugar

Method
Shake the ingredients on a combination of crushed and rock ice and strain into a pre-chilled coupe glass. Garnish with a wedge of lime and a cocktail cherry. If blending, double the amount of sugar and maraschino before blending with approximately 10oz of crushed ice.

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

Musing on the Classics: The Manhattan

jared@mixellany.com (MIXELLANY BOOKS) — 2010-01-06T10:22:00Z

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.]

Musing on the Classics: The Martini

jared@mixellany.com (MIXELLANY BOOKS) — 2010-01-06T10:18:00Z

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.]

Musing on the Classics: The Piña Coalda

jared@mixellany.com (MIXELLANY BOOKS) — 2010-01-06T10:13:00Z

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]

Newsflash! BANISH CHERRY FROM COCKTAIL IN GOTHAM

jared@mixellany.com (MIXELLANY BOOKS) — 2010-01-05T11:33:00Z

BANISH CHERRY FROM COCKTAIL IN GOTHAM

Fruit Growers Alarmed at Ostracism of Succulent Ingredient of Mixture

[Special Dispatch to The Call]

San Jose. Dec. 24. [1908]—News has reached the fruit centers of this city that the cherry and the olive grown in this valley have lost caste with the New York cocktail mixers. In the city of the Great White Way no wine clerks drop cherries or olives into cocktails now, unless someone asks for them, and local growers and packers are somewhat alarmed over this situation.

The proposed increase in freight rates will mean a great burden on this valley, but the ostracism of the cherry and olive by the drinkers of the east is viewed in the light of the straw that broke the camel’s back.

It is feared that the New York custom will spread westward. Many women view with alarm the banishment of the cherry from the Martini or Manhattan. It will deprive them of the opportunity to utter that venerable bromidion: “I don’t care for the cocktail itself, but I like to eat the cherry.”

Of course, the innocent cherry must be repopularized. But how?

Keeping your smile behind the bar

jared@mixellany.com (MIXELLANY BOOKS) — 2010-01-04T12:45:00Z

Back in the 1980s, vitamin C was touted as a wonder drug and everybody was loading up as much as they could. Then studies revealed chewable vitamin C tablets were about as tooth-damaging as crystal meth, and they disappeared from drugstore shelves. Fast-forward a couple decades. Sensodyneand other toothpastes for sensitive teeth are starting to dominate thetoothpaste aisles. Why do people’s teeth hurt? And what does this have to do with bartending?

Lemons. Yes, all those lemons and limes in cocktails are nearly as hard on our teeth as chewable C. Here’s what happens: the outer surface of your teeth is made up of hard calcium salts. It doesn’t replenish itself during your life, but it is very solid. That is, unless you regularly bathe your teeth in acids. These erode the enamel, leaving nerves exposed and the underlying dentin unprotected from decay.

And citrus juices aren’t the only culprit. You have probably heard that cola rots your teeth, but did you know it’s not just the fizzy sugar that does the damage? Carbonated water contains carbonic acid, another destructive substance. So, is it time for the world to switch to white wine? Not in this case, as white wine (even more than red wine) contains a load of tooth-rotting acids as well.

There is a solution. Frequent brushing will ensure that you maintain a healthy pH balance in your mouth and stay above the average (by age 50 the average Brit has lost 12 out of 32 adult teeth). Also, cheese really is the perfect pairing for cocktails as well as wine at least as far as preserving your smile goes. Cheese neutralizes the acids from your drinks.

Another solution? More vermouth-based or balanced drinks. Yeah! Margaritas and Sidecars are great, but you are better off making martinis and manhattans your long-term drink of choice (at least that’s one utterly biased opinion).

When the hangover strikes

jared@mixellany.com (MIXELLANY BOOKS) — 2010-01-02T15:12:00Z

We were on our way to Newark with a chatty driver, and the inevitable question came up: “So, what do you do?” We explained that we are drinks historians, writers, and work in distilleries. Yes, we really drink for a living. Seriously. Bad hangovers? No. Then the driver asked,“What’s your secret? I’m a whisky drinker, and I get the worst hangovers every time I drink.” It’s simple: a large glass of water between each drink. He stared at me in the rear view mirror long enough that I was nervously watching us drift toward the white line. Then he said, “How the heck am I supposed to get through 16 large glasses of water in a night?”

I was going to post this yesterday, but somehow the night before I neglected to squeeze in 8-10 large glasses of water. But that wasn't my only error. I know exactly how I got my hangover. I make the same mistake every New Year’s Eve. Being partial to cocktails, I stick to cocktails. Then, at dinner someone inevitably starts pouring red wine. As midnight arrives, I saber open a few bottles of Champagne and I rediscover my weakness for bubbly. There have been a bunch of articles over the last few weeks about vodka giving the lightest hangover based on its low level of congeners. Wine is riddled with them, especially red wine. And what happens? The spirits and wine combine in your system to equal the congener levels of a hardcore whisky. Did I say whisky? Make that cheap brandy.

The cure? Time of course. In the meantime, we're partial to multivitamins, rehydration, and dim sum.

Bols Genever Launches in London

jared@mixellany.com (MIXELLANY BOOKS) — 2008-11-07T21:04:00Z

Running into my old friends Wayne Collins and Dave Wondrich is always a good time. There was an added bonus the other night--they were mixing with the new Bols Genever. It's a recreation of a long-lost classic product from the original 1820 recipe book (if you think you can decipher the formula from my photo, I'll send you a high-res version).

The most important words of the night came when Dave said he'd tried using it where recipes called for gin and it never tasted right. Then he tried using it in place of whiskey, and it worked perfectly. Out here in Ealing, we've been mixing Manhattans with Bokma 5-year for quite some time but never really thought about why it worked until Dave said he'd hit on it, too. Genever's production--malted grain, pot stills--has a lot more in common with whiskey than gin.

I always loved new make and white dog, the unaged spirit that becomes whisk(e)y after a long rest in a barrel. But it never occurred to me that genever is basically new make flavored with juniper.

Here's Bols master distiller Piet van Leijenhorst, looking like a proud father:

Birth of the barspoon

jared@mixellany.com (MIXELLANY BOOKS) — 2008-11-07T20:38:00Z

I was searching through eBay.fr for a bar spoon. I decided to try the French word for spoon cuillere. This turned up thousands of listings. Most were boring. Some were interesting (the cuillere glacons ice spoons that appear to predate Kentucky Fried Chicken's spork). And one was astonishing: the cuillere medicament. This 17th or 18th Century French apothecary spoon looked so much like a modern bar spoon I thought it was mis-listed at first.

Then in a reprint of the 1898 Farrow and Jackson catalogue (Thanks Jeff M.!), I found a page offering a choice of a regular bar spoon, or a French mazagran spoon. Mazagran normally refers to coffee-related sundries (cups, spoons) in French, and the name comes from a coffee town in Algeria. But this former apothecary spoon, in service as a coffee spoon according to its name, was being sold to British bartenders as a bar spoon.

The origins of the bar spoon? Perhaps.

Compass Box Does It Again

jared@mixellany.com (MIXELLANY BOOKS) — 2008-11-07T20:24:00Z

John Glaser caused a bit of uproar among the whisky anoraks* when he made Orangerie, a combination of first rate whisky and orange. So we won't tell them that he's made another batch. And it is good. We've been drinking it with a splash of the water we brought back from Islay. We even made toddies with it (40ml Compass Box Orangerie, 100ml boiling water, manuka honey, and lemon to taste) .

Looking or an ideal Christmas gift for someone who enjoys whisky? This is it. Tumbler not included. Some assembly required. Recommended for adults 21+.

*Americans might not know this term. It comes from the lightweight beige jackets once favored by those who spend all their spare time trainspotting**.

** Americans may not know this term either. Trainspotters are people who spend all their spare time looking at trains -- some of which are pretty impressive. Yes, I still occasionally need a translator in England.

Oldest known shaker?

jared@mixellany.com (MIXELLANY BOOKS) — 2008-11-07T19:58:00Z

I thought about opening this blog with some statement about its purpose. But the purpose is pretty obvious. There's so much we've encountered along the way that might not merit an article or a book, but is still interesting. For example, I saw this at an exhibition called The Art of Drinking at the Victoria and Albert museum last year.

It is two interlocking cups of equal size, about ten inches tall. The caption doesn't call it a shaker, but then they labeled a cocktail glass a "martini glass" as well. Here's the accompanying caption from the display:

"...when not in use."? I wonder if there are any illustrations from that period of these "beakers" in use? Developing. Stay posted.