David Embury and the Fine Art Of Mixing Drinks

Throughout the history of mixed drinks several personalities very clearly show great influence on the evolution of technique and culture. When interest in this culture became more prevalent over the last five years or so, bartenders and drinkers look to these personalities for guidance and inspiration. The most obvious is Jerry Thomas, the 'grandfather' of the mixed drink, with "How to Mix Drinks, or The Bon-Vivant’s Companion" in 1862, essentially the first bartending book ever published. Later came Harry Craddock's "Savoy Cocktail Book" in 1930, which was not as forthcoming with technique or information, but contained within a wealth of fantastic drinks, many of which are today considered classics. These are the most obvious of early cocktail books, but there have been several others worthy of note, some of which have taught us very valuable lessons and recipes. Sometimes overlooked is perhaps the best bartending book for any learning bartender: David Embury’s “The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks” in 1948. It teaches passion and understanding for the craft, but more importantly the “basic principles for fashioning a quality cocktail.”
Embury was born in 1886 and actually began his adult life as a tax attorney in New York City before eventually leaving to pursue his bartending passion. His book is a must-read for aspiring bartenders and cocktail-nerds alike as it is considerably more engaging and opinionated than the typical recipe encyclopedias. It also contains the aforementioned basic principles, which are essential to improving drink quality.

The Basic Principles for Fashioning Quality Cocktails

• Drinks should be made from good-quality, high-proof liquors. Just like with food, the quality of a drink will never be better than the quality of its cheapest ingredient. Therefore, the highest quality spirits and liqueurs as well as fresh-squeezed juice is of the utmost importance.
• They should always sharpen, not dull the appetite. A cocktail by classic definition is an aperitif and should therefore never have more than a touch of sweetness. Overly sweet drinks will dull the appetite, so avoid using too much sugar, juice, cream, or egg. (Embury says drinks like the Brandy Alexander can be enjoyed after dinner "in place of a half-pound of chocolate cookies.")
• They should be dry, with sufficient alcoholic flavour, yet still smooth and pleasing to the palate.
• They should be pleasing to the eye.
• They should be well-iced. (This principle implies both the quality of ice and the amount of stirring/shaking necessary. The use of large, high-density ice cubes is ideal.)

For a better understanding of mixed drinks as a whole, Embury breaks down not only drinks into categories, but also the ingredients in each to better understand their contributions. Whether recipes are followed specifically or not, learning to separate drinks by type and component is extremely useful when bartending.

The Components of a Cocktail

• Base: The principle ingredient, usually a single spirit that constitutes about 75% or more of the total volume before ice is added. Ex. whiskey, gin, rum, etc.
• Modifying agent: The secondary ingredient that adds character, softens the alcohol, and enhances flavour. Ex. vermouth, amaro, bitters, fruit juices, egg, cream
• Special flavouring or colouring agent: Ingredients used sparingly to impart special qualities, usually a liqueur or special syrup used in place of sugar. Ex. Chartreuse, grenadine, curacao, etc.

The Categories of Cocktails

• Aromatic: Use bitters, aromatic wines, or spirits as modifying agents
• Sours: Use fruit juice and sugar as modifying agents. Embury recommends a 8:2:1 ratio, with 8 parts spirit to 2 parts sour to 1 part sugar (for example, 2oz to 0.5oz to 0.25oz). This shows that most cocktails are just variations of each other, and knowing the overall principle gives comprehension of a wealth of drinks. A Daiquiri is just a Whiskey Sour with rum instead of whiskey, which is just a Clover Club with whiskey instead of gin and simple syrup instead of raspberry and egg, and so on and so forth. 

The Basic Drink Types

Martini

• 7 parts English gin
• 1 part French vermouth

Stir with ice, strain into a cocktail glass, twist lemon peel over the top and serve garnished with an olive, preferably one stuffed with any kind of nut.

Manhattan

• 5 parts American whiskey
• 1 part Italian vermouth
• Dash of Angostura bitters

Stir with ice, strain into a cocktail glass and serve garnished with a maraschino cherry.

Old-Fashioned

• 12 parts American whiskey
• 1 part simple syrup
• 1-3 dashes Angostura bitters

In an old-fashioned glass, add bitters to simple syrup and stir. Add about 1 ounce of whiskey and stir again. Add two cubes of cracked but not crushed ice and top off with the rest of the whiskey. Twist lemon peel over the top and serve garnished with the lemon peel and a maraschino cherry.

Daiquiri

• 8 parts white Cuban rum
• 2 parts lime juice
• 1 part simple syrup

Shake with lots of finely crushed ice and strain well into a chilled cocktail glass.
A final lesson from Embury is that there is no one recipe for any cocktail. The recipe you like best is the one you should use, so find what you like and stick with it. If the drink suits your palate, that's all that matters. However, this should be taken in tandem with his lesson that drinks should be dry and never overly sweet, as I doubt he would approve of a Daiquiri with more juice, syrup, liqueur, sugar soda, and blended ice than rum - even if that’s how you prefer it. Take from this the following important lessons:

• A big-picture view of mixed drinks separated into general categories to better understand all cocktails.
• An attention to detail as well as care and passion put into the drink you're making.
• Aspiration to make your drinks dry to stimulate the palate - never overly sweet.

Lastly, go get a copy of "The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks." Classic bartending books are fun, but one written by a man who is so passionate and engaging about his craft is invaluable.


[originally published on www.shakestir.com]

Five Classic Cocktails for a Distinguished Gentleman

While times are changing for the better, most men drink cheap beer, highballs, or sugar-filled shots. Thanks to the growing classic cocktail trends in today's large city bars, the growing number of small distilleries and breweries, and television shows like Mad Men and Boardwalk Empire, more and more are becoming interested in better quality products and more traditional drinks. The mid to late 19th century was the Golden Age of mixed drinks, led by the 'grandfather of mixology,' Jerry Thomas, who in 1862 was the first to publish an all-encompassing tome of bartending. Many great drinks and products were lost during Prohibition, and while the practice of drinking well did continue to a lesser extent from the 1930's until the 1960's, it is for the most part the great classics from the Golden Age that survive today. A distinguished gentleman appreciates these drinks for their taste and history, and cares for the manner in which they are made. This sophisticated man knows there is only one Martini, that anything called a "cocktail" must contain bitters, and that an Old-Fashioned must never contain juice or soda. Below are five classic drinks for this distinguished gentleman.

(As per the previous posts on Classic Cocktails for a Fancy Lady, drink-preference should not be gender specific, and the purpose of this post is historical. Furthermore, should any lady deem herself too dangerous to be fancy, any of the following make excellent substitutes as cocktails for a femme fatale.)

Old-Fashioned
This is the drink with the most variations, the source of so many debates, the biggest growing popularity, yet one of the most misunderstood. Thanks to Donald Draper on TV's Mad Men (who, by the way, makes a terrible Old-Fashioned), this drink is now ordered by droves of non-experienced drinkers. This is an exciting trend. The disappointing news is that practices from the dark ages of drinking (the 1970's to the 1990's) are still alive today, and the drink is often ruined or just unrecognizable. It is a finicky drink to maintain the balance of so few ingredients, and of course most everyone prefers his or hers a slightly different way. The drink’s history is a confusing one because it refers to a style and not one particular drink. In the early to mid 19th century, The Sling was a popular mixed drink that contained only spirit, sugar, water, and perhaps a grate of nutmeg. At some point bitters was added to the mix, birthing the “Bittered Sling,” which came be known as the “Cock-tail.” Faster than you can mix one up, variations were born. Fruits here and liqueurs there muddled up the original, and purists and old-farts began to request their Cock-tails the “old-fashioned way.” Over time this simply became an “Old-Fashioned.” Anything beyond the Bittered Sling recipe is not an Old-Fashioned, though very small embellishments included in Jerry Thomas’ variations (namely orange or lemon oil) are welcomed. The recipe below is from “Modern American Drinks” by George Kappeler in 1895, and is the best way to make a proper Old-Fashioned. (Note the absence of juice, muddling, soda, or any liqueur.) The type of bitters and spirit is up to the drinker and trying new combinations makes for a multitude of exciting options (try brandy and Peychaud’s, tequila and chocolate, or gin and Boker’s for example).

2oz whiskey
2 dashes Angostura bitters
1/2tsp of sugar (or one small sugar cube)
1 piece of lemon peel

Dissolve the sugar with a little water in a whiskey-glass [Old-Fashioned or rocks glass]; add bitters, a small piece ice, a piece lemon-peel, and whiskey. Mix with a small barspoon and serve.

"A small piece ice" can be substituted today with a few nice cubes (don't ruin the drink with small, watery ones), and the lemon peel can be swapped for orange if you please. Express the oil of the peel over top of the drink for best effect. A common practice is to soak the sugar in both water and bitters before adding ice and spirit.

Sazerac
Ordering this drink more than five years ago would have gotten you strange looks. Because of its history and fantastic taste, it was and is an obscure favourite among cocktail enthusiasts. Many claims are made to it being the oldest cocktail, but this is not true. We’ve tracked its inception to 1850's New Orleans in a slightly different form than we most often enjoy now. The Sazerac is the product of two smart men: one who imported the Sazerac de Forge et Fils, and the other who changed the name of his bar to "Sazerac House," where the cocktail was first made and became popular, thus naming it the "Sazerac Cocktail." Peychaud's bitters was literally made down the street, so it was the obvious choice. The first printed recipe in 1908 called for “good whiskey” (which in New Orleans means straight rye) at which point Cognac had become less abundant. The drink's flavour is dry and spicy, and the union of Peychaud's, absinthe, and rye (or Cognac for that matter) is something truly special. Again, the process of making the drink is important for both flavour and anticipation, so follow it closely. Use a good quality spirit, preferably a higher-proof and spicy rye, absinthe if you can, raw sugar, and lastly you can substitute Bitter Truth Creole Bitters for Peychaud's (but go with one fewer dash as it's more potent).

2 oz straight rye whiskey [or Cognac]
1 sugar cube
2-3 dashes Peychaud's bitters
Absinthe
Lemon peel

Fill an Old-Fashioned or Sazerac glass with cracked ice. Put the sugar in a mixing container, add the bitters and a little water and let dissolve. Add the whiskey, fill with ice, and stir. Dump the ice out of the glass and pour in a little absinthe, and roll around to coat the glass before discarding. Strain the whiskey mixture into the glass, then express the oil from the lemon peel over top and drop it into the glass.

Manhattan
This one is the probably the most famous and enduring of all classics, enjoyed by many in literature and film, particularly gentlemen, but also by bad-news ladies like Marilyn Monroe in “Some Like It Hot.” Vermouth entered the mixed drink equation sometime in the 1870's, drastically changing things for generations to come. Suddenly cocktails weren't just spirits with small additions of liqueurs, bitters, sugars, and sometimes fruits. Now spirits shared the spotlight or even had a supporting role in many popular drinks. Arguably the first of these was the Manhattan, made at the Manhattan Club in, yes, Manhattan. Its first mention was in the 1870’s, its first recipe in 1884, and the closest recipe to what we use today appeared in 1892. Early incarnations included maraschino, absinthe, gum syrup, and no whiskey specification, but the drink simplified over time. The type of whiskey and bitters are still optional, and like the Old-Fashioned make for very different drinks. A higher-proof whiskey mixes better, with rye being drier and spicier and bourbon being fuller and sweeter. Always stir, never shake, serve up and not on the rocks, and the garnish is always optional.

2oz whiskey
1oz sweet vermouth
2-3 dashes bitters

Add ingredients to a mixing glass, add ice, stir, and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a real cherry, or a citrus peel (optional).

Martini
The Manhattan-style cocktail at times contained gin instead of whiskey, which became known as the Martini - the same drink save the spirit choice. The origins of the Martini are some of the most disputed of them all, numerous ones appearing around the same time, but the concept remained the same. The Turf Club is the simplest, while The Fourth Degree contained absinthe, and The Martinez contained maraschino and twice the amount of vermouth. The later and most popular incarnation, The Dry Martini, made an important change in recipe: swapping Italian vermouth for French. As time wore on after Prohibition, Martinis got drier and drier, reducing the vermouth down to smaller and smaller amounts. In the later half of the 20th century good-quality vermouths were harder to come by and the lack of knowledgeable bartenders left it sitting on shelves instead of fresh and in the fridge, and the vermouth became essentially non-existent. Furthermore, James Bond confused many by calling his Kangaroo Cocktail a "Vodka Martini" (which even confused the Bond girl). A classic gentleman does not drink a Martini with vodka, though will sometimes drink it dry. However, a Martini without dry vermouth or bitters is not a Martini. Below is the classic 1890's version, in which you can reduce the amount of vermouth and swap the orange peel for a lemon if you please. The olive is a later addition, and can mask the flavours of the drink, but to each his own. Be sure to use fresh vermouth - it is wine and should be kept in the fridge and will spoil and then ruin your drink. Choose a good gin and a great vermouth.

2oz gin (Old Tom traditionally, but London Dry works just fine)
1oz dry vermouth
1 dash orange bitters

Stir ingredients with ice and strain into a cocktail coupe. Squeeze a piece of orange peel over top.

Negroni
In 1860’s Italy, Gaspare Campari invented the most famous of amari, aptly named Campari, before settling down and opening a cafe. The signature drink there was the “Milano Torino,” combining Campari from Milan and Cinzano vermouth from Turin then topped with soda. The early 20th century brought an influx of American tourists, among whom the drink found popularity and was renamed the “Americano.” (It found popularity elsewhere too, even being the first drink James Bond ever ordered). In 1919, Count Camillo Negroni asked the bartender, Fosco Scarselli, at the Caffe Casoni for a stronger version of this drink by swapping the soda with gin. This drink subsequently became wildly popular in Europe. In 1947, iconic director/actor Orson Welles was working on his film "Cagliostro" in Rome, and spoke to reporters about his new favourite drink, The Negroni, saying "the bitters are excellent for your liver, the gin is bad for you - they balance each other." It wasn't long before the drink became popular in the U.S., though in the more American style it was enjoyed up rather than on the rocks. The three ingredients balance and accent each other beautifully, and as such the Negroni structure has been used for numerous variations and new concepts. The most notable - drinks also worthy of a distinguished gentleman - are the Boulevardier, which replaces the gin with bourbon, and the Old Pal, which switches gin for straight rye and Italian vermouth for French. While Campari is very bitter and therefore an acquired taste, it's a worthwhile one, and the Negroni is a drink bound to be in your life for good.

1oz London Dry gin
1oz Italian vermouth
1oz Campari

Add ingredients together and stir with ice. Strain over rocks in an old-fashioned glass. Garnish with a slice of orange a piece of lemon peel.



[Photo: Cary Grant]

Five Classic Cocktails for a Fancy Lady

Taste should not be gender-specific. Good food and drink are enjoyed by any, and there shouldn't be "manly" drinks and "girly" drinks - but there are. There are a few reasons for this:
- Generally, women taste things differently than men - they tend to be more sensitive to flavour, particularly bitter. Because of this sensitivity, women often have more distinguished palates. (Again, this is a generalization, but scientific research does support it).
- In western culture, the woman was seen as the weaker sex and therefore shouldn't be enjoying the same things men do, such as strong drink. This is particularly true for cocktails in the first half of the twentieth century when many a book and magazine told women what they should be drinking in order to be a proper and all-around good lady. These drinks were colourful and sweeter.

In the dark ages of bartending (the 1970's-1990's) the above points were interpreted into drinks involving copious amounts of sugar, artificial colour, drinks with 'feminine' names, and a lot of vodka so as to further disguise the taste of alcohol. Many of the classics had both pretty colours and names but also happened to be great drinks, and strong ones at that. These cocktails were not gender-specific, or often started as a "gentleman's drink" (see the Clover Club) before becoming popular amongst the female folk, likely due to the media and populace deciding that a pink drink should be for a woman.

For this list, I'm taking inspiration from the 1920's to 1940's in particular, when men were gentlemen and women were ladies, and there were excellent drinks on both sides to be enjoyed by all. Should you wish to drink like a fancy lady of the time, below are some classic suggestions.

Clover Club
This light and pink drink predates Prohibition when it was enjoyed by the members of the Philadelphia men's club of the same name. By the 1930's, it had lost popularity, and 1949's "Handbook for Hosts" from Esquire placed it in the "something for the girls" section. If made properly this drink can be drier than expected, using fresh raspberries and not artificial liqueurs or commercial sweeteners. The Okanagan Spirits liqueur is an excellent substitution for real raspberry, tasting both dry and natural. If using a home-made raspberry syrup, bump up the gin and juice or lower the sugar amount. Below is the recipe from Pourhouse in Vancouver, which is fairly close to the recipe of old:

1.5oz London Dry gin
0.5oz fresh lemon juice
0.5oz simple syrup
0.5oz Okanagan Spirits Raspberry Liqueur
1 egg white

Combine ingredients and dry-shake. Then add ice and shake again. Strain into a cocktail coupe.  

French 75
A refreshing start to your evening, particularly a celebratory one due to the addition of sparkling wine. As with any drink, it should be made dry so as to awaken your palate and if so it makes an excellent aperitif. Created in 1915 by Harry MacElhone at the New York Bar in Paris, it was named after the WWI French 75mm field gun - which “packed quite a punch." German officers famously order it at Humphrey Bogart's bar in 1942's "Casablanca." Cocktail historian David Wondrich suggests increasing the gin to 2oz and serving over ice in a Collins glass. While this tastes better, I prefer the drink in more elegant attire. Here is the Savoy Cocktail Book recipe from 1930:

2/3 gin [1oz]
1/3 lemon juice [0.5oz]
1 teaspoon powdered sugar [0.5oz simple syrup]

Shake ingredients with ice and strain into a Champagne glass or cocktail coupe, then top with chilled Champagne or a dry sparkling wine (Brut).

Sidecar
This cocktail's origins are of some dispute, as so many are, but while the Ritz Hotel in Paris claims its birthplace, there are earlier and more reputable sources that differ. Harry MacElhone's 1922 cocktail book "Harry's ABC of Mixing Cocktails" gives credit to Pat MacGarry at Buck's Club in London some time after WWI. It was named after the motorcycle sidecar in which an American army captain was driven to the Paris bistro where the drink was created for him. It is essentially a Brandy Daisy, a style of drink dating to the mid 19th century. There are several recipes, namely the "French school" which has each ingredient at equal parts, and the "London school," which has 2:1:1 brandy to liqueur to lemon. David Embury's very influential "The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks" in 1948 recommends 8:2:1. I like my drinks dry, and below is my go-to recipe. Avoid the sugar rim, a practice that popped up in the 1930's and is both sticky and unnecessary. This drink is fruity but boozy and perfect for an elegant lady who has come in from the cold. It also happens to be Cointreau's signature drink, a liqueur represented by the fanciest lady alive today: Dita Von Teese.

2oz Cognac or other brandy
0.5oz Cointreau
0.5oz lemon juice

Shake ingredients with ice and strain into a cocktail coupe.

Champagne Cocktail
In the 19th century this drink was one of the very first variations on the “cock-tail,” a combination of spirit, sugar, water, and bitters. Embellishments were inevitable, and the best of them is likely the addition of brandy (technically making this a “Brandy Champagne Cocktail”). Adding this extra punch to the equation balances the sugar much better. This cocktail has shown up in both literature and film, most famously in 1957’s “An Affair To Remember” with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr, and again in “Casablanca.” Don’t skimp on the bitters, and be sure to use a very dry sparkling wine lest the drink be cloyingly sweet.

1 raw sugar cube
Several dashes of aromatic bitters (Angostura)
1oz Cognac or other brandy (optional)
Champagne or dry sparkling wine

Drop the sugar into a Champagne coupe or glass and soak it in the bitters. Pour in the brandy, then top with the wine. Garnish with a lemon twist.

Arsenic and Old Lace

This one is a little more obscure, but perfectly fit for a classic lady in that it’s floral, light purple in colour, and dry. Descending from the pre-Prohibition Attention Cocktail, this one hails from the 1940’s and was considerably more dry. Modern recipes for both are basically the same, with the Attention having the addition of orange bitters, which makes for a more interesting drink with a less interesting name. The name comes from the black comedy play from 1939 which was later adapted by Frank Capra into a film starring Cary Grant. The story revolves around a drama critic who tries to protect his homicidal aunts who like to murder old men with poisoned elderberry wine. The recipe below changes the classic one by reducing 0.5oz of pastis to an absinthe rinse. Absinthe makes the flavour more complex, but is more potent than pastis and can overwhelm the drink so no more than a rinse is necessary. It employs crème de violette, an ingredient lost for decades until a few years ago. The quality of this violet flower liqueur will determine the overall quality of this drink, so be sure to avoid overly perfumey artificial ones and to balance accordingly.

1.5oz gin
0.5oz dry vermouth
0.25-0.5oz crème de violette
Absinthe rinse

Rinse a cocktail coupe with absinthe by pouring a little into the glass and spinning so it coats the inside before discarding the excess. Stir gin, vermouth, and violette with ice, and strain into the coupe. Garnish with a lemon twist and express the oils over the top of the drink.

Next post (which you can see here) I'll be sharing another five classic cocktails for a lady, then we'll get into those for the gentlemen.
[The science of taste and intoxication and how they relate to gender can be found in the science section of this site.]

The Margarita

To top off the series of posts on tequila, here is one exclusively on the most famous of tequila drinks, and one of the most famous cocktails there is - The Margarita.
Unfortunately, there's no definitive birth of the drink, but I'll go through each of the supposed stories. Double unfortunately, this drink is often butchered by use of artificial sour and fruit mixes, and blenders, so below I'll give you the most traditional recipe we know of, as well as some fun variations if you want to try something new.

The History
There are several stories as to how, when, and where the drink was created. One such story is that Don Carlos Orozco at Hussong’s Cantina in Ensada, Mexico, invented it in 1941. Orozco was visited by Margarita Henkel, the daughter of a German ambassador, and offered his latest experiment to her before naming the drink after her.
Carlos Herrera also possibly created the drink at the Rancho la Gloria Hotel near Tijuana, where he invented it for a dancer named Marjorie King, who was supposedly allergic to all alcohol except tequila, which she still refused to drink straight. The owner of La Plaza Hotel in San Diego brought the recipe from Mexico to the U.S. where it became popular after 1947.
Another story for which I can’t find much detail is that Santos Cruz created the drink for singer Peggy Lee at the Balinese Room in Galveston, Texas, in 1948.
There is also a story of a bartender in Juarez who was asked to make a Magnoliia cocktail, but couldn't remember any ingredients except Cointreau, so just made up something new and named it after a different flower - the Margarita.
Lastly, and most likely, it appears to just be a variation on the very old and constantly evolving Daisy cocktail, which hails from the mid to late 1800’s and originally contained brandy and lemon with dashes of curacao, rum, gum syrup, and soda. In the early 20th century, this evolved into brandy and lemon with grenadine and sugar, or brandy and lemon with curacao (which eventually became The Sidecar), and then other spirits started to get used, leading to a Gin Daisy (which evolved into the Cosmopolitan with vodka), or even a Tequila Daisy in the 1940’s. Increase the amount of orange liqueur and switch the lemon to a lime and you have a Margarita - which actually means "daisy" in spanish. Such is the evolution and creation of almost any cocktail. There are hundreds of recipes that vary only slightly on different themes and ingredients, but they all basically break down to a handful of classic recipes - the Cocktail, the Crusta, the Daisy, etc.

Stories and decorated histories is part of what makes cocktails so much fun, but most of the time there are just a lot of bartenders everywhere at the same time doing simple variations on a theme and coming up with new ideas.

The Recipe
The traditional Margarita is just tequila, triple sec (Cointreau is best), and lime juice, served on the rocks (with a salt rim or not), and definitely not blended.  Below are 3 separate recipes for you to try at home, starting with the most basic.

Traditional Margarita
There are countless recipes for this drink, so the best thing to do is experiment and find what you like. 3:2:1 or 4:2:1 (like the Sidecar) is always a good way to go for a sour, so let's do that!
2 oz tequila blanco or reposado
1 oz Cointreau (or other triple sec / curacao to taste)
1/2 oz fresh lime juice
Shake all ingredients with ice, and strain into a rocks glass filled with ice. 
Garnish with a lime wedge if you like, and salt the rim if you like (but I would suggest not if you have a really nice tequila).
How to salt a rim? Well I can't find a video anywhere at the moment that doesn't either do it in a rimmer tray by dunking the glass in, which is not only messy but also not nearly as classy as it should be, or one that does the rim really messily. I'll find good pictures or a video and do a whole post it on next time.

Margarita Especial
I got this one from Charlotte Voisey on her Small Screen Network show, The Proper Pour. It's a fun way to play with the agave flavour of tequila. If you can't find agave nectar, you can use agave syrup (which you can just buy in Safeway or just about anywhere), but you need to cut down the amount by half because it contains a lot of sugar.
2 oz tequila (reposado preferred)
1 oz agave nectar (or 1/2 oz agave syrup)
1 oz fresh lime juice
Shake all ingredients with ice and strain over a rocks glass filled with ice. 
Garnish with a lime wedge.

Now here's a really awesome one that my brother made me in San Francisco, but I'm not sure where he found the recipe. It's a totally different collection of flavours, but they all really compliment the tequila. It's definitely worth trying out if you have the ingredients and want something new!
3/4 oz Mezcal (or tequila reposado)
3/4 oz tequila blanco
1/2 oz Green Chartreuse
1/2 oz lime juice
1/2 oz grapefruit juice
1/2 oz simple syrup
Shake ingredients with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.
My brother tells me you're supposed to float a peaty Scotch over the top of the cocktail, which would really accent the smokiness of a Mezcal if you have it, but just the above by itself is fantastic. If you do want to experiment with smokey flavours, you can also try throwing a dash of Lap Sang Su Shong tea or infused syrup in there.

Experiment, switch some ingredients, throw dashes of new things in there (maraschino pairs with tequila in a cool way) and have fun!

The Culture
California in the early 20th century was really a progressive and unionized state, and by WWII they had old-age assistance, unemployment compensation, workplace safety rules, and over 120,000 union members in many professions. Los Angeles became the centre of the universe in terms of film-making, San Francisco became an industry power-house, and San Diego became a hub for American military and defense.
California really acclimated itself to Mexican culture, particularly in San Diego (which was for a time actually part of Mexico), and Mexican food, film, music, and the Spanish language all became integrated into American life there.
The biggest musical influence of Mexican music was Mariachi, which had become prevalent in the mid-1800’s and really accepted into America in the 1940’s. Mariachi actually originated in the state of Jalisco, which is where tequila is made (see how I came full circle there).

Perhaps the most famous and prolific film and music stars in Mexico throught the 1930's to 1950's was Pedro Infante, who not only made over 60 films through the golden age of Mexican film, but also recorded more than 350 songs. Listening to his music you can really hear a Mexican tradition but also an American influence in the production and arrangements, which pairs very nicely with the Margarita which also has a blend of the two cultures.
Enjoy your Margarita of choice while enjoying this classic by Pedro Infante - Serenata Tapatia.

20th Century Italy Part 2 - The Negroni

First came the Americano, but it just wasn't stiff enough for some, so next came the Negroni.

The Cocktail

The Negoni was supposedly invented in Florence, Italy, in 1919 at Caffe Casoni when Count Camillo Negroni asked the bartender, Fosco Scarselli, for a stronger version of his favourite cocktail, The Americano, by adding gin instead of soda water. So, Scarselli made the switch and added an orange garnish rather than the usual lemon to soften the new mixture. The drink became popular and the Negroni family actually started producing a pre-mixed version called "Antico Negroni 1919," which is still made but with a different recipe.

The drink became popular outside of Italy when Orson Welles, while working in Rome on his 1947 film, "Cagliostro," spoke to reporters about his new favourite drink, saying "the bitters are excellent for your liver, the gin is bad for you. They balance each other."

The Negroni is considered one of the greatest classic cocktails, and like the others on that list, it's extremely simple in its ingredients and perfectly balanced (if made right).

There are many ways to enjoy it, but I don't agree with adding juice so as to hide the flavours. I think this is yet another compensation for people not developing the bitter palate and adding more and more sugar and fruit. Too much sugar ruins cocktails, and one as complex and interesting as the Negroni should have nothing of the sort added! There are also numerous bartenders of great skill and reputation that substitute Aperol for Campari, or use some of each in varying proportions, which leads to a more palatable and less bitter drink. While often delicious, and something I often experiment with at home, this is not a Negroni and should not be named as such.

The two classic ways to enjoy it are:

a) The Italian way, which is to serve the drink in a short glass over ice so the drink stays cold and the flavours develop,

b) The American way, which is to serve the drink straight-up in a cocktail glass. This makes a much more stiff and bitter drink and is still fantastic, but it is an Italian drink and the Italians do swear by their recipe... so I'll stick with them for now.

The Recipe

1 part Gin (each kind will change the drink dramatically - see my Beginner's Guide To Gin for some ideas)

1 part Italian vermouth (Cinzano Rosso would be fitting, Carpano Antica would be very fancy, Punt e Mes works wonderfully but makes a more bitter cocktail, but really any kind will do - experiment! Also see my previous post on the Americano)

1 part Campari (see my previous post on the Americano)

Either,


a) build in an old-fashioned glass over ice and stir, or


b) add all ingredients with ice, and stir for 30-60 seconds to taste, then strain into a cocktail glass.

Garnish with orange zest, or lemon will do nicely as well, depending on your taste. Orange oil is much sweeter and will soften drinks, while lemon is more aromatic and excellent for balancing stronger flavours and smells.


The History

1940's Italy was a very different time than the early 20th century when the Americano was gaining popularity. The 1940's were really the start of an artistic renaissance for Italy after leaving the clutches of Nazi Germany and Moussolini's fascist regime and allowed to both experience foreign art to a full extent and explore new ideas freely. A renaissance of film-making was occurring in the 1940's with a new generation of directors who started a new movement called Neo-realism, whereas almost no film at all was produced over the previous 20 years. The music scene in Italy was very interesting because during the fascist era throughout the 20's and 30's, there was a lot of censorship of both foreign art, but also of Italian art if it was deemed "insufficiently Italian." Certain composers were even kicked out of music schools or attacked on the street if they didn't include fascist songs into performances and compositions. Opera, which had been Italy's musical identity for almost 200 years, continued to have an influence on new popular music. Folk, classical, and jazz were incorporating operatic ideas and melodies, and big bands were even playing opera pieces. Jazz (from America) had already infiltrated Italy and most of Europe in the 1910's via James Reese Europe (a very important yet often unknown name in the history of jazz), and again in the 1930's when Louis Armstrong was allowed to tour.

A particularly popular swing/pop group named Trio Lescano (sort of the Italian response to the Andrews Sisters) was extremely successful in Italy in the 1930's until the late 1940's. Interestingly, they were actually sisters but were Dutch, not Italian, and changed their names to suit the Italian swing they were singing. They became so popular that even Mussolini recognized them on the street, and in 1941 were offered Italian citizenship. Sad were the times, however, and because of their mother's Jewish origins their radio shows were cancelled, they were stripped of their citizenship, arrested, and imprisoned on the grounds that their songs contained hidden messages for Italy's enemies. After the war, they performed one last time on radio in 1945, then disappeared to South America.

Enjoy your Negroni, perhaps the Italian way, while listening to one of the most popular European pop groups of the 1930's and 40's: Trio Lescano.

The Daiquiri

I feel compelled to write about this drink for a couple reasons. First of all, it's definitely in a family of cocktails that was butchered in the Depression-era of cocktails (Jamie Boudreau's term, not mine) - the 70's and 80's - and continues to be ruined today by many a bar and many a sour mix. The Daiquiri is a very old drink and a very simple and delicious one, yet most places you go will serve a blended (a no-no for anything that's not Tiki) mess of cheap rum and a ridiculous amount of sugar - usually in the form of some cheap, flavoured fruit-mix. Cocktails don't need to be overly sweet, and anytime they are it either comes from trying to mask cheap or bad-tasting ingredients, or trying to mask the flavour of the alcohol, which begs the question why you're having a drink in the first place. A well-made cocktail tastes delicious without heaps of sugar! If you don't agree, you haven't had a well-made cocktail. I digress...
Secondly, rum is a spirit I didn't know much about until more recently, so I started buying different kinds, trying new drinks, and looking more into its history and that of its cocktails.

The History
The origin of the Daiquiri is not confirmed. It's a very, very old drink using a very, very old spirit, and as such there are several origin stories. One story is that it was invented by an American engineer around 1900 in Santiago, Cuba, near an iron mine named Daiquiri. While entertaining other American guests, he ran out of gin, so tried a simple sour using rum, which was nearby and plentiful in the area. About 10 years later, US Navy officers tried the drink and brought it back to the Army and Navy Club in D.C. where it gained American popularity. Other stories include its invention for keeping the Daiquiri mine workers happy and complacent by feeding them rum, softening it with sugar and water, and getting them the vitamin C they need to avoid scurvy via lime juice.
However, the latter story is also essentially the same as the grog that British sailors drank aboard ship from the mid 18th century forward. This too included rum, lime or lemon juice for vitamin C, and sugar to make things more palatable. Like most early cocktails, its origins are rooted in health remedies and primitive medicine. The sailors travelled around the world, but particularly the Caribbean, and could have easily spread the drink into Cuba.
The Daiquiri has evolved into many variations, the most famous of which were known from the El Floridita bar in Havana. It was published by David Embury in 1948 in his very famous and influential book, "The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks," where he lists it as one of the 6 basic cocktails. His ratios stated a basic 8:2:1 of spirit:sour:sweetener, but over the years as people lost interest in cocktails and the culture changed, particularly in North America, the sweet portion has increased and increased until we were left with the sticky, gross, pink and blue messes that restaurants continue to serve and abuse the name of a classic drink. A Daquiri is simply a rum sour.

The Culture
One reason this drink definitely became more popular in the United States in the 1930's and onwards is because of the Good Neighbor policy put in place by Roosevelt in 1933. This policy stated that there would be no armed intervention with another country (namely a Latin American one), and that the US would "engage in reciprocal exchanges with Latin American countries." It was meant to create new economic opportunities, trade agreements, and of course, assert influence over Latin America. This policy stood until the Cold War "began" and US foreign policy in general took a dramatic turn.
During the 30's and 40's though, there was an influx of Latin culture, food, drink, and of course, music. This was reciprocated to places like Cuba, and the birth of Latin jazz was a big artistic evolution of the time. American jazz artists such as Dizzy Gillespie started incorporating Latin rhythms, chord structures, and melodies into bebop, and in Cuba bands started incorporating bebop improvisation and big band instrumentation into their music. Even today, Latin jazz is basically divided into 3 subgenres - Brazillian (bossa nova), Purto Rican, and Afro-Cuban. Cuba was already a melting pot of African and European music (breeding both the term Afro-Cuban and also famous Baroque composers such as Esteban Salas y Castro), and the sound of Cuban music became even more unique.

The Recipe
The drink itself is very simple and easy to make. First of all, make sure you're using FRESH lime juice from a real lime! Then, make some simple syrup. It takes 10 minutes and you'll use it in a lot of recipes. Using sugar doesn't always end well as not all of it mixes, and crunching on granules while trying to enjoy a drink is no fun. NEVER use sour mix - they're full of chemicals, fake flavours, fake colours, and don't taste very good or balance well.

Simple syrup is just equal parts of sugar and water. To make it, just add equal parts of sugar and water into a pot (I usually use a cup of each), simmer on medium-low heat until the sugar is dissolved, then pour it into an empty bottle of some sort. Keep it in the fridge. That's it. It's that easy. Because it's that easy, I don't ever want to see you using sour mix or crappy sweeteners anymore.

As mentioned above, Embury's published recipe has a 8:2:1 ratio. The current International Bartender's Association has it at 9:4:1 rum:lime:syrup. The ratios are all over the place depending on who you talk to. I always prefer things on the more tart side, which is traditionally how cocktails were made, so as such I often make it like this:

2 oz rum
3/4 oz fresh lime juice
1/2 oz simple syrup
Shake in a cocktail shaker with ice, and strain into a cocktail glass. 

Though more and more I've started knocking the lime down to 1/2oz as well, really letting the rum take over.

You can also serve it just on ice in a rocks glass, which is how they would have served it in Cuba mid-century.

Experiment and see what you like!

The Rum
I'll chat about rum in general another time, for now I'll just talk about choosing a good one for home mixing.
White rum has a very subdued flavour and mixes very well, but is not as interesting. Gold rum has a little spice to it and more fruit and vanilla flavour and I find it makes fantastic fruit drinks, such as Daiquiris. Aged or Dark rum will have a much heavier taste and has more molasses character. Certain dark rums can overpower a cocktail, but can also be great in drinks like the Old Cuban, or a rum Manhattan. When I say spice, by the way, I don't mean these rums have actually been spiced. When they are aged in barrels that contained spices or whiskeys, they pick up those flavour profiles. You can also use spiced rum, which will really change the cocktail. It will be much sweeter, so you won't need as much syrup to balance.

What rums should you buy? Well, Appleton Estate Extra Old (from Jamaica), and Mount Gay Extra Old (from Barbados) are smooth, interesting, and really great for the price point - and they're available in most BC Liquor Stores. They are, however, somewhat pricey in B.C. at $40 and $45 respectively. More affordable but still awesome rums are Havana Club 7 Year Old at $35 (which is the most fitting, being a Cuban rum! - also check out their 3 and 4 year old white rums) and Mount Gay White Rum or Eclipse (gold rum) at $26. If you want to try a spiced rum, Sailor Jerry's (from the Virgin Islands), which goes for $29, is a typical choice but I find it much too sweet. Kraken is a more exciting choice, but overall I suggest staying away from spiced rum. There are so many rums that are amazing on their own from all the natural and normal processes that spiced isn't really worth your time.
[[ Edit: since writing this post I've tried MANY more rums, and the range of flavour and quality is mind-boggling. Zacapa to El Dorado to Banks there are just so many great rums out there that will dramatically change your cocktails. Affordability-wise, I stick to the above: Mount Gay, Havana Club, and Appleton Estate, but will add Flor de Cana to the mix. Their white rum is very usable, and the 5 and 7 are very dark and great for mixing]]

For a Daiquiri, my favourite of the above for light rum is probably Mount Gay Eclipse gold rum. It pairs really well with fruit, but has enough interesting flavours and subtle spice to draw your attention through any cocktail, and I even drink it straight it's so smooth and yummy. I also definitely suggest trying out the Mount Gay silver rum, which is the same price and a little less interesting, and obviously a little sharper due to the lack of aging, but still very delicious. The more expensive rums are arguably wasted on a fruit cocktail, so I wouldn't go for those unless you're rich or just want to drink rum straight or old-fashioned.
A final note: don't buy Lamb's or Bacardi. They suck. If you pay a few dollars extra - literally - you can get way more interesting and delicious rum.

In the future I'll be doing a rum post, similar to those I've done on tequila, bourbon, and gin, so as to have a comprehensive list of the rums available to us here in B.C. and which ones are worth the price tag.

So, sip your delicious Daiquiri with some delicious rum and enjoy this song by Tito Gomez with Orquesta Riverside, a popular Cuban jazz group during the 1940's and 50's who blended Afro-Cuban music with big band instrumentation.