Being Cosmopolitan

When you can’t wait for the world to become more cosmopolitan yet again this is a good start.

The Cosmopolitan is said to have been invented in 1985 by Miami bartender Cheryl Cook at a South Beach bar called the Strand. Wanting to make a perfect cocktail for a Martini glass Cook used the Kamikaze as a base, changed the regular vodka to citrus-flavored vodka and added a splash of cranberry juice.

Others believe it was first invented by Toby Cecchini in 1988 when he was working at New York’s Odeon. Cecchini used Absolut Citron, the second of the range of flavored vodkas from Absolut and released in 1988, and made it a big hit in the New York bar scene. With the help of the characters in Sex and the City, where the Cosmo was almost an essential part of the plot, the Cosmopolitan turned into a modern classic.

The glass is called Margot and was designed by Felicia Ferrone in 2013.

Cosmopolitan

2 parts lemon flavored vodka (preferably Absolut Citron)

1 part Cointreau

1 part lime juice

1 part cranberry juice

1 lemon twist

Shake ingredients with ice. Strain into cocktail glass and add a lemon twist.

Possibly the Best Way To Fight Scurvy

This is an old one. It was first published in The Bartender’s Guide by Jerry Thomas in 1862 but the concept of the sour was known and loved for over a century prior to that. During the 18th Century sea travel, especially from Europe to America, was an ordeal with malnutrition and scurvy taking its toll on the sailors. Thanks to Vice-Admiral Edward Vernon, The British Royal Navy started to mix lemon or lime with rum and water to stave off scurvy and so the sour was born, one of the oldest types of cocktails. From there it was only a matter of time before someone started to make a sour with American whiskey and made it what it is today.

The Whiskey Sour is traditionally made with whiskey, lemon juice, sugar and egg white, an ingredient that will smooth out the tartness of the lemon juice. Today the egg white is optional and you often find bars serving the Whiskey Sour without it.

On a side note, calling a spirit diluted with water a grog is also because of Vice-Admiral Vernon. He was known for wearing grogram coats giving him the nickname ”Old Grog”.

The glass called Dondolino was designed by Setsu & Shinobu Ito in 2016 and is painted using a technique with Japanese lacquer called Urushi, generally applied on wood.

Whiskey Sour

2 parts Whiskey

1 part Lemon juice

1/2 part Sugar syrup

1/2 Egg white

3–4 drops Angustura bitters

1 Maraschino cherry

Shake whiskey, lemon juice, sugar syrup and egg white without ice (dry shake). Add ice and shake again. Strain into glass and add 3–4 drops Angustura bitters. Garnish with a Maraschino cherry.

Waiting for Bond

If you are waiting for the next Bond movie there is something you can do to make the wait a little bit shorter. Make yourself a Vesper. Named after the fictional double agent Vesper Lynd by James Bond himself the cocktail was featured in Casino Royale, Ian Fleming’s first book about the secret agent, published in 1953.

The instructions Bond gave to the bartender were “In a deep champagne goblet. Three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, then add a large slice of lemon peel.” The only problem making it today is that the bitter Kina Lillet was discontinued in 1969 so you have to substitute it either with Cocchi Americano to get the original bitterness or use Lillet Blanc and maybe add some bitters to the drink.

The glass, On the Rock, was designed by Lee Broom in 2014.

Vesper

3 parts Gordon’s gin

1 part vodka

1/2 part Lillet Blanc

1 lemon peel

Stir the ingredients with ice and strain into cocktail glass. Or if you are James Bond, shake it until ice cold and serve it in a deep champagne goblet.

A Mardi Gras Without the Parade

Nothing is as it used to be with the pandemic still raging around the world. The Mardi Gras parade is cancelled, the Carnevale di Venezia is online and the Carnevale in Rio is postponed indefinitely. What can you do to lighten the mood whilst waiting for the world to be vaccinated if not to make your own Sazerac and dream about celebrations to come.

The Sazerac is claimed to be the original cocktail was created in New Orleans in 1838 by an apothecary named Antoine Peychaud. He mixed up cognac, absinthe and his own herbal remedy he dubbed Peychaud's Bitters and served it in an egg shaped cup, in French called a coquetier. The Americans started calling the cup a cocktay and hence the word cocktail was born. The cognac Peychaud originally used was Sazerac de Forge & Fils but by 1870 the cognac was substituted for rye whiskey. In 2008 the Sazerac was voted New Orleans official cocktail.

The Revolution glass was designed by Felicia Ferrone in 2001.

Sazerac

1/4 part Absinthe of Herbsaint

1 sugar cube

2 daches Peychaud’s bitters

4 parts Cognac or Rye Whiskey

1 Lemon twist

Twirls Absinthe or Herbsaint to cover the inside of the glass, then discard. Muddle sugar and bitters. Stir sugar, bitters and Cognac or Rye with ice. Garnish with a lemon twist.

What Is A Sidecar?

As often with old classic cocktails there are many different stories about the origin. The Sidecar, possibly the most famous of the cognac cocktails, is no different. The two most common stories both involve an army captain arriving to a bar in the sidecar of a motorcycle sometime during World War I. The bartender mixing the first Sidecar was either Harry MacElhone at the famous Harry’s New York Bar in Paris or Pat MacGarry, bartender at the Buck’s Club in London and inventor of the Buck’s Fizz. However Harry MacElhone himself gave MacGarry credit for the cocktail in his book ”Barflies and Cocktails” from 1927.

Another explanation for the name is that it rather derives from a bartending term for the leftovers in the shaker after pouring the drink. This is poured into a shot glass and served alongside the cocktail and is called the ”sidecar”.

The cocktail was first published in two books in 1922, “Harry’s ABC of Mixing Cocktails” by Harry MacElhone and “Cocktails and How to Mix Them” by Robert Vermeire. Both original recipes calls for equal parts Cognac, Cointreau and lemon juice but as time passed the ratios have been altered to two parts Cognac, one part Cointreau and one part lemon juice.

The silver cocktail glass is called Millennium and was designed in 2000 by Lella & Massimo Vignelli.

Sidecar

2 parts Cognac

1 part Cointreau

1 part Lemon juice

Shake ingredients with ice. Strain into chilled glass. Garnish with an orange twist.

Pisco Sour Day on Saturday February 6

The Pisco Sour is said to have bean created by Victor Vaughen Morris, an American expat who moved to Peru to work for the Cerro de Pasco Railroad. According to legend he ran out of whiskey when he was to make 5,000 Whiskey Sours to celebrate the inauguration of a new railway line. He found the solution in substituting the whiskey for pisco.

In 1916 Morris left the railway business and moved to Lima to open his own bar, simply called Morris’s Bar. One of his bartenders Mario Alfonso Bruijet Burgos added bitters to the cocktail making it what it is today.

That said, a cookbook called ”Nuevo Manual de Cocina a la Criolla”, published in Lima in 1903, presented a cocktail with all the same ingredients save bitters. That means the cocktail was clearly already around when Victor Morris moved from Salt Lake City to Peru in 1903.

The Pisco Sour is so celebrated it even has its own day. Pisco Sour Day is celebrated on the first Saturday of February.

The glass is called Fabulös (Fabulous in English) and was designed by Gunnel Sahlin in 2009.

Pisco Sour

2 parts Pisco

1 part Lime juice

1/2 part Sugar syrup

1/2 Egg white

Shake Pisco, lime juice, sugar syrup and egg white without ice (dry shake). Add ice and shake again. Strain into glass and add three to five drops of Angustura bitters.

Finally We're In Mexico

Reading through classic cocktail books you won’t find that many tequila-based concoctions but this is a classic, the Margarita. The Margarita is basically a tequila-based Daisy, a type of cocktail made with spirit + usually orange liqueur + lemon or lime juice. As it happens the Spanish word for Daisy is Margarita. The first mention of the Tequila Daisy was in 1936 when the editor of the Moville Mail told the story of trying the drink in a saloon in Tijuana where it was first made by mistake when the barman reached for the wrong bottle when making a Daisy.

A fun fact is that cocktail with the exact proportions of a Margarita but with the name Picador was included in the British Café Royal Cocktail Book by William J. Tarling in 1937 meaning the famed cocktail might actually be a British invention.

The first time the cocktail was seen in print and called Margarita was not until 1953 when it was published in Esquire magazine.

Their are lots of other claims to the origins of the Margarita. For example that it was first concocted by Carlos (Danny) Herrera in 1938 at his Rancho La Gloria bar in Rosarito, Mexico for a showgirl called Marjorie King. King was allergic to all alcohol except tequila, but didn’t like to drink the stuff straight. 

Or that it was named for actress Rita Hayworth, who was offered one by an admiring bartender during a theater job in Tijuana in the 1940s. (Hayworth’s real name was Margarita Cansino.) 

Whatever the origin though, this is one amazing cocktail.

The glass called Sultan was designed by Nanny Still in 1966.

Margarita

2 parts Tequila

1 part Cointreau

1 part lime juice

Rub the rim of the glass with lime and dip it in salt. Shake ingredients with ice. Strain into glass and garnish with a lime wedge.

The Perfect Brunch Cocktail – Mimosa

Whether you go straight for the eggs benedict, the huevos rancheros, the chicken waffles or a short stack it is hard to imagine a brunch without a Mimosa or two.

The Mimosa, essentially a fruitier Buck’s Fizz, was created in 1925 by a bartender called Frank Meier at the Ritz Hotel in Paris. (Buck’s Fizz was first made in 1921 at the Buck’s Club in London). The Mimosa calls for equal measures of Champagne and freshly squeezed orange juice served over ice whilst the Buck’s Fizz uses 1 part orange juice to 2 parts Champagne without the ice.

Some suggest the Mimosa was first made in San Francisco in the 1940’s by none other than Sir Alfred Hitchcock. A story that isn’t very likely since it first appeared in Frank Meier’s own cocktail book ”Artistry of Mixing Drinks” in 1936. That said Hitchcock did make the Mimosa popular in the US making it the brunch cocktail we know and love.

The Smoke Champagne glass was designed by Joe Colombo in 1964.

Mimosa

2 parts Champagne

2 parts orange juice

Pour half the Champagne into ice-filled glass. Then pour the orange juice and finally the rest of the Champagne. Stir gently. Garnish with a half orange wheel.

December 25 – Cocktail Extravaganza

The last day of the X-mas Countdown is the best day. All the prints are 20% off, not only the cocktails featured these last 24 days but also two more, the classics Satan’s Whiskers and the Daiquiri. Please tell me what cocktails, long drinks, fizzes, cups, Rickeys or other I should make next or if you have any favorite glasses I have overlooked thus far.

Have a Fabulous and Happy Holidays!

December 24 – Brandy Alexander

The first Alexander was made with gin, not brandy and is said to have been created by Troy Alexander while working as a bartender at famed New York City restaurant Rector’s operating from 1899 to 1919. It was made celebrating the fictional character Pheobe Snow, a beautiful woman all dressed in white promoting the use of clean-burning coal on the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad. Mr Alexander wanted to make a white cocktail to fit the character. Interestingly one of the ads featuring Phoebe Snow promoted that the railway line could take you to Scranton, Joe Biden’s home town.

The recipe was first printed in “Recipes for Mixed Drinks” by Hugo Ensslin in 1915.

When Henry George Charles Lascelles, 6th Earl of Harewood, and Princess Victoria Alexandra Alice Mary, daughter of King George V and Queen Mary got married in London in 1922 the gin in the Alexander was replaced with brandy in honor of the event.

The cocktail was so popular with John Lennon he called it his milkshake.

The glass, Theme Formal, was designed in 1965 by Russel Wright.

December 23 – Bellini

The Bellini was created in 1948 by Giuseppe Cipriani at the world famous Harry’s Bar in Venice. The drink was named Bellini because its pink color reminded Cipriani of the toga of a saint in a painting by 15th-century Venetian artist Giovanni Bellini. Harry’s Bar first opened in Venice in 1931 and was a favorite hangout for Ernest Hemingway, Truman Capote, and Orson Welles. In 2001 Harry’s Bar was declared a national landmark by the Italian Ministry for Cultural Affairs.

The Jellies Family Flute was designed by Patricia Urquiola in 2014 for Kartell.

December 22 – Dark and Stormy

In 1806 an English clipper commandeered by James Gosling was bound for Virginia. Unfortunately the wind was too still so the ship headed towards Bermuda instead and this is where James Gosling decided to stay. There, coming from a family of spirit makers, he created Gosling’s Black Rum. That paired with ginger beer, also made on the island, made for a perfectly refreshing drink. Legend has it a sailor commented the drink looked like “the color of a cloud only a fool or a dead man would sail under” and so the name was set. Technically, it isn’t a Dark and Stormy if it is not made with Gosling’s Black Seal Rum.

The glass called Spring was designed by Jørn Utzon, the architect behind the Sydney Opera House, after a meeting with Frank Lloyd Wright.

December 21 – Sazerac

Claimed to be the original cocktail the Sazerac was created in New Orleans in 1838 by an apothecary named Antoine Peychaud. He mixed up cognac, absinthe and his own herbal remedy he dubbed Peychaud's Bitters and served it in an egg shaped cup, in French called a coquetier. The Americans started calling the cup a cocktay and hence the word cocktail was born. The cognac Peychaud originally used was Sazerac de Forge & Fils but by 1870 the cognac was substituted for rye whiskey. In 2008 the Sazerac was voted New Orleans official cocktail.

The Revolution glass was designed by Felicia Ferrone in 2001.

December 20 – Martinez

The Martinez is sometimes called the missing link between the Manhattan and the Martini. It first appeared 1884 in OH Byron’s Modern Bartender’s Guide. A few years later in 1887 the legendary bartender Jerry Thomas made the recipe into what it is today. The story goes that Thomas made it for a customer traveling to the city of Martinez, California. To make this classic it is preferable to use Old Tom gin, a type of gin that is something in between Dutch genever and London dry gin.

The Coupe glass was designed by Felicia Ferrone in 2018.

December 19 – Hot Toddy

The history of the Toddy dates all the way back to British-controlled India in the early 17th century. The Hindi word ”taddy” meant “beverage made from fermented palm sap”. By 1786 the Brits had changed the official meaning of taddy and defined it as “beverage made of alcoholic liquor with hot water, sugar, and spices”. The British claimed it as their own and started serving it in pubs during the winter months using Scotch whisky, hot water and exotic spices from India.

Another origin story tells of a 19th-century Irish physician named Dr. Robert Bentley Todd who used to prescribe his patients a mix of brandy, cinnamon, sugar and hot water, making it a Toddy. In an article in the Burlington Free Press in 1837 about ”How to Take Cold” made out the hot toddy to be a cure-all but even though we all know that a cure-all is really a cure-nothing a hot toddy is still a fabulous drink on a cold winter day.

The Form 2000 cup was designed in 1954 by design legend Raymond Loewy for Rosenthal.

December 18 – Negroni Sbagliato

The Negroni Sbagliato was created in 1972 when Mirko Stocchetto at Bar Basso in Milan added sparkling wine instead of gin by mistake in a Negroni. A little lighter than a regular Negroni and close to the Spritz Veneziano. Now, almost 50 years later it is a classic in its own right.

The X-series glass was designed by Finnish designer Tamara Aladin in 1961.

December 17 – Milano-Torino

Milano–Torino. As with a lot of older cocktails the origin is unknown and there are several different origin stories. The same goes for Milano-Torino. One story is that it was first served at Gaspare Campari’s Caffè Camparino in Milan in the 1860’s. Another that it was created in 1932 to celebrate the inauguration of the A4 Highway that connects Milano and Torino. Whatever the origin it is made with equal parts Campari from Milano and Punt e Mes from Torino.

The glass is one in a series of three glasses called Calci Milanesi and was designed by Agostina Bottoni in 2018 as a tribute to Milanese architecture.

December 16 – Spritz Veneziano

The Spritz Veneziano, also known as Aperol Spritz, originated around the 19th century in Venice. The Hapsburg soldiers that occupied the area thought the Venetian wines were too strong in alcohol so they started adding a spritz of water to the wine. At the turn of the nineteenth century, soda water was added instead of water and during the 1920s and 1930s a bitter was included, making it a real cocktail. Not until the 1990s Prosecco was finally added to the Spritz Veneziano.

The glass, called Smoke, was designed by Joe Colombo in 1964 and was made to make it easier to hold your cigarette and your glass in the same hand.

December 15 – El Presidente

One of the origin stories of El Presidente is that it was created by the American bartender Eddie Woelke who worked at the Jockey Club in Havanna during the Prohibition. He made it in honor of Mario García Menocal, president of Cuba from 1913 to 1921. It was originally made with equal parts rum, French vermouth and a bar spoon of grenadine. Legend has it that when president Gerardo Machado took over in 1925 he demanded his own version and so a bar spoon of Curaçao was added to the cocktail.

The glass was designed by Misa Tanaka in 2009 and is a combination of glass and ceramics.

December 14 – Black Velvet

The Black Velvet was first served in 1861 as a tribute to Prince Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria, after his death of typhoid fever on December 14. It was created after a steward at Brook’s Club in London ordered that even Champagne should be in mourning, dressed in all black.

The Fujiyama glass was designed by Keita Suzuki in 2012 and made at the Japanese glassworks Sugahara. The design is inspired by Mount Fuji and when used for beer the head will form a snowy top on the mountain.