Next up is the ALICE COCKTAIL, which uses our hard-earned bottle of kümmel. Punch magazine has a nice write-up of new things people are doing with this old spirit, but we aren’t doing anything particularly modern, of course, so never mind about that. Redbird in Los Angeles does an Alice, Mine cocktail which also uses equal parts…
This week’s recipes require two new ingredients: blackberry flavored brandy and Russian kümmel. Both of these items have the potential to sit ignored on my shelf for years to come and it’s no surprise I can feel my feet dragging behind me these days. Can’t we just skip these drinks or make some intelligent substitutions…
The ALFONSO SPECIAL has some good things going for it in the naming department. Brian may disagree—he has written about cocktail naming before—but I think it the Alfonso Special gets points for having an interesting person or place featured in the name and I like the traditional nature of the “special”, which of course makes one…
One thing this Rituals project has taught me is that a cocktail’s name is actually important. Previously, it didn’t matter much whether the drink was called an Attaboy or a You’re Gonna Get It or a Ronda Rousey (all fictional, by the way). The ingredients were there to speak for themselves, right? Who cared what…
The AFFINITY is a Perfect Rob Roy for somebody with a vermouth fetish. A Rob Roy is a Manhattan with Scotch, and a Perfect Rob Roy divides the normal sweet vermouth allocation into equal parts sweet and dry vermouths. But while a proper Perfect Rob Roy usually combines 2 parts Scotch with 1 part vermouth (half dry and…
The ADONIS was created by New York City’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in 1884 to promote a long-running burlesque show called, well, “Adonis.” Punchdrink.com says “Adonis” is often credited as the first-ever Broadway musical, which makes this cocktail’s history pretty special. Finally, a cocktail with a pedigree. This is our first encounter with a sherry-based cocktail, however, and we are,…
Tonight’s session is a low-stakes affair, with only three cocktails on the schedule: the ADONIS, the AFFINITY, and the AFFINITY COCKTAIL. There is port to be purchased and there is dry sherry to be purchased, and once again we are confronted with the utter foolishness of this endeavor. We buy bottle after bottle of obscure…
Previously on the Rituals: We dutifully marched through the ADDINGTON (a nothing drink) and the ADIOS AMIGOS (a worse-than-nothing drink) without feeling any sense of life fulfillment. But we still need to meet the Admiral—or three creepy versions of the Admiral, anyway, like some boozy version of The Prestige. So, like gluttons for punishment, we soldier on to…
ADDINGTON 1.5 oz Sweet Vermouth (Carpano Antica) 1.5 oz Dry Vermouth (Dolin) Club Soda (Q) Combine everything (except the club soda) with ice and shake. Strain; add ice and club soda. Add a twist of lemon plus the peel. To look at the recipe you would never know the complex subtlety of this drink. At…
Prohibition was a double-edged sword. Organized crime and bootlegging were bad for the United States but they were great for the world of cocktails. Would we have the cocktails we have now if there was no Prohibition? Questionable. If I had a DeLorean that could take me back in time to the days of Prohibition…
ABBEY COCKTAIL 1 ½ oz. gin (Bombay Sapphire) ¾ oz. orange juice ¼ oz. sweet vermouth (Punt E Mes) 1-2 dashes of Angostura bitters (Rituals DIY House Bitters) Combine with ice; shake. Strain, add ice, top with a cherry! This sometimes seems to be referred to as an Abbey Martini; it’s also related to the…
Since the first few meetings were consumed with getting the dreaded A-1 PICK-ME-UP off the ground, we are tingly with excitement to get started on the first four cocktails after the A-1: the A.J., the ABBEY, the ABBEY COCKTAIL, and the ABERDEEN ANGUS. We will be mixing, and talking, and consuming, and comparing, and contrasting,…