While I was working through the Brooklyn Cocktail’s evolution and formula for the previous post, my Bride brought home a couple of bottles of Dad’s Hat Pennsylvania Rye whiskey.
One sip of Pennsylvania rye reminded me that in pre-Prohibition New York, the whiskey in your cocktail was likely very different from the Kentucky-style rye we’re most familiar with these days, Continue reading “Repairing the Brooklyn Cocktail, part 2”
Many bartenders have invented drinks called the Brooklyn Cocktail. The only version with any staying power, the Brooklyn we most often encounter today, is derived from a formula first published by Jacob Grohusko in his 1908 JACK’S MANUAL.
But we don’t encounter it very often, and therein lies a tale.
Given its name, you’d expect the Creole Cocktail to be from New Orleans. You’d be right—sort of.
The Bamboo Cocktail reminds me of the legend of blind men describing an elephant—every bartender’s guide seems to describe this cocktail differently.
There is one thing we do know about it, and it’s the thing that makes the Bamboo important to cocktail history: the Bamboo cocktail is the classic model for combining vermouth and sherry. Continue reading “Searching for the Bamboo Cocktail”
There is a tongue-in-cheek reference to something called a Brainstorm Cocktail in a 1906 issue of a trade magazine called “The Northwest Druggist”:
The “brainstorm” cocktail is the latest. It consists mainly of cracked ice set aside to thaw.
Druggist humor, I guess.
The real Brainstorm Cocktail came along about ten years later; it’s one of Hugo Ensslin’s pre-Prohibition classics, first published in his Recipes for Mixed Drinks (1916).
Continue reading “Whiskey and Bar Spoons: the Brainstorm Cocktail”
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.
I’m always happy to return to my favorite food group: the Manhattan. This time, it’s the Black Manhattan. Continue reading “The Black Manhattan Cocktail”
There are only a few cocktails based on Irish whiskey. My favorite? The Dubliner. Continue reading “Irish Whiskey and the Dubliner Cocktail”
Sometime back I wrote up one of my favorite whiskey drinks, the 1794 Cocktail. At the time, I thought of the 1794 as an improvement of the classic Boulevardier, but it might be just as accurate to think of it as a variant of an even older drink: the Old Pal. Continue reading “The mystery of the Old Pal cocktail”
