A brand of Dutch vodka has a band of bright blue LEDs secured to the bottle that can scroll one of three marketing messages or a custom, user-programmable message of up to 255 characters. The Times notes special characters, such as hearts, are available “so you can tell your loved one how much you love them, if you suddenly find yourself unable to speak after several shots.”

So you know: how to properly down a shot of vodka. Includes helpful advice on downing shots in general:

First, you need to prevent the burning in your mouth that comes with all hard liquor. The burning likely comes from the oxidation of alcohol to acetaldehyde and acetic acid in the presence of digestive catalysts in the mouth. Thus, Russians evacuate oxygen by powerfully breathing out before each shot.

This has been my drink-of-choice lately. As The Old Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book tells the tale:

And there was McKinley’s Delight. Just why it was McKinley’s delight, I am unable to ascertain. The chances are that President McKinley never found out whether it was or not. In its favor, I may mention that the [Waldorf-Astoria] Bar was a great hangout for the G.O.P.’s of yesteryear, who may have passed their enthusiasm for their candidates across the counter for the barman to translate into terms of liquid intensity.

(photo of McKinley, with crop marks, via The New York Public Library Digital Gallery)

I wager few classic cocktails are named after movies¹ but the Blood and Sand, named after a 1922 Rudolph Valentino film, has endured.

It’s a curious combination that tastes better than it sounds and probably is the least Scotchy a Scotch cocktail can taste.

I’d tried making one of these before, when I first saw the recipe on the Death + Company website. I don’t remember liking it or really thinking that much of it. Recently, I came across the recipe again, this one using different proportions. I made it (using Johnnie Walker Red as my Scotch and Carpano Antica for vermouth) and liked it much more!

A quick bout of research reveals there are two schools of thought on how a proper Blood and Sand is made:

1. The classic equal-parts version. The Savoy Cocktail Book, first printed in London in 1930, calls for 1/4 ounce of each ingredient. Gary Regan, in his book The Joy of Mixology (2003), mentions the Savoy recipe and ups the ante to 3/4 ounce of each ingredient, which is the same version used by Death + Company.
2. The more recent unequal parts version. This one uses the proportions I use in the recipe version printed above. The unequal parts version may have first appeared in Ted Haigh’s book, Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails, originally published in 2004. Since then, it’s been championed by drink blogs such as The Cocktail Chronicles (in 2005) and The Manhattan Project (in 2009).

¹ Close: The Florodora is named after a Broadway musical from 1900. [back]

I received the reprint edition of The Old Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book (1935) today in the mail. Oh, boy! I hope to find a few new cocktail recipe ideas in here.

“The Whole Flavored with Dashes of History Mixed in a Shaker of Anecdote and Served with a Chaser of Illuminative Information” Now those were the days of mighty subheads (and overextended metaphors).

Scan via The Wormwood Society.

How long does vermouth last? (And here I’m referring to sweet vermouth; I don’t like martinis.)

I thought I could get an easy, final-word answer to this question on the internet but it’s one of those head-scratchers with a wildly disparate range of answers, along the lines of, say, “How can I deodorize a musty book?” Everyone’s got a thought on the matter.

A collection of theories appears on this Chowhound thread. The consensus?

...although vermouth is a fortified wine it does eventually oxidize and will either go “bad” or more likely the flavor will become “dull” which affects the flavors in your cocktails. Sweet vermouth will generally “last” longer than dry vermouth.

The consesus on the amount of time it takes to corrupt freshly uncorked vermouth is unclear: anywhere from one to six months. The sooner ya use it, the better, is the hint I’m getting here; perhaps it’s time to replace that liter of Carpano Antica of indeterminate age in my fridge with a smaller, fresher bottle.

American Drink points to a scan posted at The Chanticleer Society of a prescription, issued in 1928 by Dr. “Docie” Ballenger of Batesburg, South Carolina, for “some good whiskey.” A number of similar prescriptions were issued during Prohibition, from 1920 to 1933. You can see several handsome specimens on eBay.

Here’s a scan of one issued in March 1933 in Cleveland by one Dr. Ralph S. Mann. I poached it from an eBay bid ending October 13 and the seller, ginger.1, noted “It was issued by the Treasury Department and when held to the light, INDUSTRAL ALCOHOL is partially watermarked.”

Prohibition began on January 16, 1920. The following week, a New York Times editorial was already explaining that many physicians of the time gave whiskey to patients in the “wasting stages” of influenza for stimulation, stressing that “the lives of a great many people may hang in the balance if whisky cannot be procured, and whisky of good quality.” Druggists, the editorial concluded, “should put behind them their fear of being ‘identified with the liquor traffic.’”

As might be expected, counterfit and forged prescriptions flooded the city. The government limited physicians to one book of 100 blank whiskey prescriptions every 90 days, each prescription good for a pint. Patients were limited to one prescription every 10 days.

An apparently tongue-in-cheek Time article from April 1933 notes that Congress lifted practically all restrictions on medicinal liquors that month following a long bout of lobbying by the American Medical Association.

The victory outmodes many a sorry practice of the past decade. John Doctor need no longer risk prison by selling his prescription blanks to druggists. The amateur cellarer need no longer cut a pint of genuine, drugstore rye with alcohol, water and sherry to get a gallon of drink with a palatable rye flavor. The druggist may cast off his furtiveness, again function as a respectable businessman.

And by the end of the year, Prohibition had ended.

What to do with applejack when one tires of the autumnal Jack Rose?

Try a Marconi Wireless. I certainly have. They’re exceptionally alcoholly but have a surprising and welcome spicy tang. Despite the goofy name, Lauren Clark at drinkboston.com wonders whether the cocktail could hail from the very early 20th century; the recipe appears in The Old Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book, so it’s at least from 1935, the year that book was first published.

For vermouth, I use Carpano Antica, the first brand of Italian sweet vermouth. My bitters are Fee Brothers West Indian Orange. And my apple brandy, of course, is New Jersey’s finest.

Sucker Punch, “a delightful cocktail made from the sweat of Lady Summer herself” contains equal parts limeade concentrate, club soda, tequila and Mexican beer. Yeah, I know; but it tastes great and sneaks up on you like a ninja. It truly is the New Age Beverage of summer.

Cucumber pairs so well with gin it’s a summer sin to keep ’em apart. So I’ve been quaffing these, made with Plymouth (Henrick’s would work well, too; or, one day I’ll dismount from my highfalutin horse and buy some Beefeater or Gordon’s).

I’ve lost the source for this recipe (and edited-down the simple syrup from 3/4 ounce to 1/2) but I know it was adapted from the version published in the April 2009 issue of Bon Appetit (apparently not online).

I may be using too much ice in mine (or my rocks glasses are a substandard size) because the drink made this way won’t fit into any cocktail glass I own; I just drink ’em straight from the mixing (pint) glass.

Using a chunk of the money my grandma gave me for Christmas, I attended a classic cocktail class taught by cocktail historian David Wondrich at Astor Center back on April 9. Only now have I dusted my notes to write this belated entry.

The word “resurrecting” might be inaccurate, admitted David Wondrich as he served a Russian Cocktail made from a lost century-old recipe—possibly the first on record for a vodka-based mixed drink. No, tonight, we’d dabble in necrology, blowing the dust from brittle bartending guides and back issues of long-folded New York dailies. We’d attempt to reassemble the tipples via modern methods and ingredients, Meddling With Powers We Couldn’t Possibly Comprehend. We’d become mixology acolytes. We’d get toasty in the process.

But one must begin with a clear head. Back in the day, cocktails were more complex. Measurements and techniques were written in a shorthand that no longer exists. Some ingredients are gone and can’t even be Googled. (Well, now they can—it’s gotten challenging to unearth drinks that haven’t been rediscovered by some hip bar or rival cocktail historian.)

For example, the ruhinoy in the Russian Cocktail: what is that? The original recipe, which offhandedly notes the drink has been “much appreciated in the Northern part of Europe” and is now appreciated by connoisseurs at the St. Charles Hotel in New Orleans, doesn’t say. At first Wondrich thought it could have been a corruption of ryabinovaya (rowanberry liqueur), then learned it’s an extinct Russian cordial made of cherry stones. Cherry Heering mixed with a splash of Kirschwasser served as a substitute. The funky, nutty flavor of the Kirschwasser, a light and sweet brandy distilled from whole cherries (including their pits), lends a lightness not present in the sweet, dark Heering liqueur but found in contemporary Russian cordials.

Wondrich had perfected the Russian Cocktail adaptation beforehand but he hadn’t touched any of the next four on the syllabus, all recipes likely unmade by anyone living today. It was also the first time, he said, that he’d used his two-liter cocktail shaker (allegedly purchased in a classic metric-system conversion error), in order to make drinks for the class at once.

He made for the class a dry martini using maybe the first recipe (1891), with modern equivalents of Plymouth gin and splashes of Grand Marnier, orange bitters and Noilly Prat vermouth, with a twist of lemon peel. Exactitude in small amounts hadn’t a chance—Wondrich defined “a drop” as “whatever spilled off my barspoon there.” He deemed the finished product light, brisk and bracing.

As an aside to break up these woozy blocks of text, here’s a photo of my class workstation, complete with barware, glassware, copious notes and an egg.

Cocktails simplify over time, shedding frills and minor flavors to satisfy hurried barkeeps.¹ The Jack Rose is a great example of this. Here are the contents of a modern Jack Rose: applejack, lime juice (or lemon; each citrus has its camp) and grenadine. Wondrich found a recipe (again: possibly the first!) from the very-rare 1910 edition of Jacks’s Manual and it has more than twice the number of ingredients, yet retains a certain Jack Rose-ness.

I don’t think the drink was named after him but the Jack of the Manual was one Jack Grohusko, bartender at an Italian restaurant on William Street in Manhattan. Things were different then. He would have been familiar with the Wall Street Jigger, for instance. Back then a normal jigger was two ounces but the Wall Street variety was 1.5 ounces for the traders who nipped in for a quick midday drink and couldn’t afford to leave completely drunk. This adaptation uses the classic bonus ingredients but returns the jigger of ’jack to post-5:00 p.m. proportions.

I picked up some handy tips making this one. Sugar doesn’t dissolve well in spirits so always mix a cocktail’s nonalcoholic ingredients first. For the raspberry syrup, Wondrich alluded to its long-ago popularity by noting it “was the St. Germain of the 1910s.” (He used a brand called Marco Polo.) He also pointed out that he prefers to use applejack, a blend of brandy and grain alcohol, instead of Laird’s traditional bonded apple brandy, which is straight 100-proof craziness and often too harsh for cocktails.

Next, the class crafted a drink from the same manual as the Russian Cocktail. It was a disaster. The Venus combined an egg yolk with dry gin, creme Yvette, lime juice and muddled mint. “This hasn’t been made in 99 years!” said Wondrich, by way of a toast. The group sipped and there was a round of silent frowns. He added, charitably: “This needs to be made with cognac, not gin.” One thing I did learn from this exercise was to not overshake a cocktail with mint—for this one, we treated the mint tenderly, muddling it with the Yvette, then discarding it.

We closed class with a Rag Time Cooler from 1912. My notes get sparse at this point for a variety of reasons but this obscure mingling of spirits was made with two teaspoons lemon juice and one teaspoon sugar, stirred with 1/3 jigger each of dry catawba (a semi-dry white wine not included in Astor’s robust inventory but made in Northern Ohio—we substituted German Riesling), cognac and arrack (for a “funky edge”). We then topped it with seltzer, stirred and strained it into a Collins glass and added a pineapple-slice garnish. Refreshing!

That was the official end of the semester and more than 3/4 of the class left. But I lingered because I figured any outing involving a renowned barkeep/drinker would sport some afterhours action. Sure enough, Wondrich said, what the heck, shame to let these leftover ingredients go to waste. He called the remaining 10 or so of us down from our seats to gather ’round and make a Silver Fizz, a restorative concoction about which he’s written, “Before Alka-Seltzer, there was the Silver Fizz. Damn you, progress!” I toasted Wondrich with this one. Good show!

¹ Yet, note that the converse of this is true among the Tiki species of cocktail. The original Trader Vic and Donn Beach recipes are much more simple than the juiced-up, fruit-festooned versions often seen today. [back]

Sunkist navel oranges have hit 50 cents each at Hoon’s, my local fruit-bodega. As it gets warmer, they’ll go lower, but I wanted to get my drink on tonight so I bought one after work and whipped up a Ward Eight or so.

How is it I’d never previously home-made one of these? (I’ve had at least one, a few years back at the Flatiron.)

On account of these tough economic times, I reached for my dusty Old Overcoat. I agree with Wondrich’s commentary on this one: the fruit juices—plus that sweet tad of grenadine—muzzle the rye’s bite without silencing its bark. It’s nice because it occurs to me now the Ward Eight is the closest to a summer whiskey-based cocktail I’ve ever made. I’m sick of calling warm-weather cocktails “refreshing” but dang it, it is, and so be it.

Instead of making another Planter’s Punch tonight, as I’d planned, I made this and I’m glad I did. It’s a refreshing cocktail to drink while quietly sweating in the summer heat. It’s also quite green.

I lost track of where on the internet I found this recipe but I do remember that it’s based on the version served at Rye, a cocktail bar in San Francisco, with slightly different ingredients and proportions.

The original Trader Vic and Donn Beach versions of Tiki cocktail recipes are much more simple than their modern adaptations, which tend to go bananas with fruit, juices, liqueurs and garnishes.

Case in point: Planter’s Punch. Lord knows what passes for a drink with that name these days, but the original contained nothing but fresh citrus juices, a touch of sweetener and a stiff two jiggers of dark rum. Funky stuff.

I made one over the weekend and I’m already looking forward to another after work tonight. I used one of my new Collins glasses and Smith & Cross, a traditional Jamaican rum.

Coincidentally, David Wondrich, the cocktail-historian/master-barkeep, who reprinted the 1947 Trader Vic version of the recipe I used, acted as a consultant for the production of the rum, a new brand from a long-defunct distillery.

I’ve been drinking a lot of these lately, the Double Fill-Up. The recipe’s from Death + Co. although they’re not on the menu currently. I never bothered to learn whether the name is a pun; one of the head bartenders at D+C is named Philip.

You can find pomegranate molasses at an Indian or Middle Eastern food store. I bought a bottle of Al Wadi brand at Kalustyan’s. It’s sweetened and thickened pomegranate juice with a kick of citric acid that makes the cocktail pleasingly tart. I like mine that way, so I add a scotch more than a teaspoon and a scotch less of simple syrup.

For the simple syrup, I made it myself from Sugar in the Raw: two parts sugar to one part water. Boil it and stir it until the sugar dissolves completely and the solution is thick. Let it cool in the pan then funnel it into a bottle, adding a shot of vodka to retard spoilage.

I don’t muddle the mint much; the shaking will loosen a lot of its flavor into the drink.

For the rye, my regular Rye Rules apply: use Rittenhouse bonded (100 proof) when I need it strong, Sazerac when I need it smooth and Old Overholt (“Old Overcoat”) when I need it cheap (but still tasty; any drink this sweet with this many ingredients doesn’t always need a top-shelf spirit).

With winter fast approaching, I had a sneaking suspicion the Flatiron Lounge had finally swapped their summer menu for their autumn one and I was correct. When I stopped by after work tonight, I had a Carroll Gardens, Death + Co. bartender Joaquin Simo’s “Guest Mixologist” contribution to the drink-list. Rich, hardy and evocative of the season, as they say, it contained a potent pour of Rittenhouse bonded rye, punt e mes, Nardini amaro and a touch of maraschino, stirred with ice and strained into a coupe with what I believe was a twist of orange peel on top.

I also noticed that with the new menu, all cocktails are now $13, a dollar more than they were when I was there last in October. (For those readers dwelling outside of New York City: yes, people here will pay double-digits for cocktails.) When I asked the bartender, whom I’d never seen before, when they hiked the prices, he said, “Oh, six or eight months ago.”

Bartenders are full of shit.

Later I learned I’d missed seeing a special guest appearance by chef Jamie Oliver by a mere day.

After work, I drank my favorite, a Double Fill Up (rye, muddled mint, lemon juice and pomegranate syrup), at Death & Co. then bought a pair of Kubrick-like miniature toy figurines at Toy Tokyo and gave the Peecol one (a guy-in-a-hazmat-suit designed by low-res German art collective eBoy) to Vincent when we met later for a manly dinner and drinks at our favorite local honky-tonk, Rodeo Bar & Grill. According to the character’s bio, “Hazma never landed his dream gig as a chemical cleaner, but he heads to his desk-job in a Level A suit anyway.” In between this frivolity, I somehow procured a new hardcover copy (for half-off!) of John Hodgman’s new book, More Infomration Than You Require, even though its sale date is October 21. Hooray for rifts in space and time!

Speaking at length with Ryan the bartender at Flatiron Lounge, on account of he and I being the only people in the place the whole hour-plus I was there, I turned the conversation to cocktails and got some tidbits of information and gossip.

1. Flatiron will likely release its Fall cocktail menu next week; they’re having an all-bartender powwow with Flatiron partner Julie Reiner on Tuesday or Wednesday, during which the bartenders get to present new creations; if a majority of bartenders and Julie like the drink, it goes on the menu. Nice.
2. There’s an unused chunk of Pegu Club that Audrey Saunders thought could be a VIP area but it’s been unused since the place opened. There’s a obscured partition near the restrooms that slides open to allow access to this back area, with room for 30 to 40 more seats. Apparently you can see the secret-room windows from Houston but they’re papered over. Secret rooms are cool
3. Beyond the usual suspects, Ryan’s recommendations for great new(ish) places to get cocktails are Tailor and Apotheke, the latter of which is a former Chinatown opium den that is now known for its cocktails made with homemade herb infusions and bitters
4. Ryan confirms Milk & Honey has changed its “secret” phone number for reservations. Reportedly, even local barkeeps were left in the dark and most of them still don’t have it. Although I was thinking, “Maybe it’s just YOU, Ryan, who doesn’t have the new number.”) Or he had it and didn’t want to give it to me.
5. Lenell’s may move to Manhattan. Apparently they’re having legal trouble with their lease renewal. That and they thirst for the big-time of Manhattan. Don’t we all.
6. Lenell herself has been trying to open a bar for some time and it will finally come to fruition in 2009 under the name “Mason Dixon Line” or somesuch. She wants the place to have an herb garden and live hens, so she can use fresh raw eggs in her drinks that require them. Hmm.

Details are sketchy but robots are mixing cocktails. At first, I thought “Great!” because, you know, robots. Upon consideration, I prefer the human touch in matters of mixology, where creative spark and lack of exactitude result in appealing creations.

Also, I recall the brief scene in The Fifth Element in which a bartender from the future serves Ian Holm’s character a drink:

Father Vito Cornelius

[Confiding to an off-screen bartender.] I know she’s made to be strong but she’s also so fragile, so human. Know what I mean? [Pull back. Bartender is revealed to be a robot.]

Bartender

[Shakes head, “No.”]

Let those clinking, clattering cacophonies of caliginous cogs and camshafts stick to what they do best: welding and destroying Skynet.

After work, stopped by the Flatiron Lounge for a few more cocktails. I tried a bracingly crisp Mint Jules (90-proof Buffalo Trace bourbon, muddled mint and smashed limes) and a Ward 8 (rye whiskey, lemon and orange juices and grenadine). Both were deliciously expensive.