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Track down cocktails according to your favorite spirit.

Chasing the Gibson Cocktail

Gibson Cocktail (detail), photo © 2016 Douglas M. Ford. All rights reserved.

Steward: “Cocktail before dinner?”

Thornhill: “Yes, I’ll have a Gibson.”

So begins one of Alfred Hitchcock’s most amusing scenes, the famous club car seduction scene between Cary Grant’s Roger Thornhill and Eva Marie Saint’s Eve Kendall in North by Northwest. Seduction isn’t really the right word; it’s more of a pickup scene between two people who don’t seem to be in the habit of resisting. Grant’s Thornhill seems the type to always have his motor running; clearly, it’s Eve who’s shifting the gears. Continue reading “Chasing the Gibson Cocktail” →

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Mixing the Pisco Sour

The Pisco Sour, photo © 2016 Douglas M. Ford. All rights reserved.

We don’t often encounter the Pisco Sour, mainly because we don’t often encounter the Peruvian brandy called Pisco these days. (For that matter, we don’t seem to encounter very many brandy cocktails of any sort, but that’s another story.)

The Pisco Sour is a classic brandy sour, differing little from what we might call the Jerry Thomas brandy sour template. It uses lime juice (instead of lemon) to provide the sour component, but its hallmark difference is an ostentatious eggwhite foam.

Continue reading “Mixing the Pisco Sour” →

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Rum and Falernum — the Corn ’n Oil Cocktail

The Corn 'n Oil Cocktail, photo © 2016 Douglas M. Ford. All rights reserved.

Drinks are named for places, religions, sweethearts, politicians, even political parties. Some drinks draw their names from song lyrics, some reflect ideas and aspirations. And some have names are utterly inscrutable, like the Corn ’n Oil Cocktail.

Continue reading “Rum and Falernum — the Corn ’n Oil Cocktail” →

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The Olympic Cocktail

Olympic Cocktail (detail), photo © 2016 Douglas M. Ford. All rights reserved.

The Lusitania, the Kaiser Wilhelm, the Titanic—before World War I, the great ocean liners were the peak of traveling adventure, luxury, and technology. It was the age of the “greyhounds of the seas.”

Their British and German owners competed for speed, for luxury, and for bragging rights; the twenty years between 1895 and 1915 saw the launches of ever-larger ships, each more lush and decadent than its predecessors. The story of the Titanic provides one of the world’s best-known cautionary tales about the dangers of overweening pride in technology, but, oh, that was a handsome, luxurious, and well-fed ship—for all of the five days it stayed afloat.

As it turns out, the Titanic had a sister ship; Continue reading “The Olympic Cocktail” →

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Classic Tiki: the Jet Pilot

Making the Jet Pilot cocktail (detail), photo © 2016 Douglas M. Ford. All rights reserved.

My uncle was a pilot. Hal flew light, high-wing planes, the type you’d fly into northern Ontario to hunt moose. A couple times a year, he’d fly to visit us, landing in Trimble’s pasture across the road from our house. A low fly-over to let us know he was there, a tight turn over the telephone lines, and there he’d be, roaring across the clover to park by the electric fence next to our mailbox. He knew how to make an exciting entry.

Continue reading “Classic Tiki: the Jet Pilot” →

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Dark Horse: The Preakness Cocktail

The Preakness Cocktail, photo © 2016 Douglas M. Ford. All rights reserved.

I’ve never been a follower of American horse racing, but I do enjoy the hype and pageantry of the three-race set known as the “Triple Crown” — in the US, it’s the Kentucky Derby,  the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes.

The Kentucky Derby falls near my birthday, so for decades my birthday partly has been a Derby-watching event, replete with fancy outfits, good hats and, especially, whiskey juleps. The Mint Julep is the universally accepted symbol of the Derby, and the Run for the Roses starts the ice-crushing season right.

Continue reading “Dark Horse: The Preakness Cocktail” →

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Chasing the Jungle Bird

Nothing says “jungle movie” like a sound track with plenty of evocative “ka-dawing” bird calls and monkey yelling. Throw in the occasional tiger roaring in the darkness, and you have a convincing, if clichéd, aural impression that transports us right into the exotic elsewhere of the tropical jungle.

When I hear a soundtrack done well, I can feel the heat. I can smell the mud and the trees.

When it’s done right, the movie soundtrack is a powerful thing.

Of course, it can be done wrong, and all that power flows in the opposite direction.

Continue reading “Chasing the Jungle Bird” →

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Tequila and Grapefruit — the Paloma

La Paloma: grapefruit, lime and tequila. Photo © 2016 Douglas M. Ford. All rights reserved.

It’s May of 1862, the early days of the American Civil War. Mexico had a war on its hands, too; they were fighting the French, and it was going poorly.

Continue reading “Tequila and Grapefruit — the Paloma” →

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Tall and Cool: the Gin Rickey

The Gin Rickey (detail), photo © 2016 Douglas M. Ford. All rights reserved.

It’s summer of 1883 in Washington DC. The air shines and wavers; you can see it, and you can smell it—the horses, the pavement, the flats of the Potomac River. A few blocks from the White House, on a section of E Street known as “Rum Row,” the dive bars are filling up with journalists, lobbyists, and any legislators who haven’t left town. At Shoomaker’s Bar, sometimes described as the “third room of Congress”, George Williamson is mixing drinks. On the other side of his bar stands Joe Rickey—“Colonel” Joe Rickey of Missouri—who is about to become that rarest of all things, a man with an entire category of drinks named after him.

Continue reading “Tall and Cool: the Gin Rickey” →

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