Tag: Jerry Thomas

109. Whiskey Cocktail

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I finally got my gum syrup! Which allowed me to start testing out a whole number of new cocktails from Jerry Thomas, including the following classic. Generally, this is regarded as one of the earlier recipes for what ended up becoming the Old Fashioned. So, yum. Of course, it’s not called the Old Fashioned because it wasn’t old-fashioned yet. And, the gum syrup is really not necessary, if you don’t have it, but it does add some nice smoothness.

There is really very little in the news that’s not cocktail related. I tried “old fashioned,” too, and that was way too broad. So, instead, let’s see what I can spin. Mainly, I just want to wish everyone a great Memorial Day — remember those who have fallen, and also have a good old-fashioned barbecue! This is a classic American drink, so it seems only right to post it today.

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109. Whiskey Cocktail

(Use small bar glass.) [He kind of contradicts this later. I say, use a rocks glass.]

  • 3 or 4 dashes of gum syrup. [Again, you can use simple syrup if you don’t have gum syrup.
  • 2 dashes bitters (Bogart’s). [“Bogart’s” is a corruption of “Boker’s,” which did not exist for a while, and only fairly recently came back. I don’t have this, so I used the classic Angostura. Supposedly should be a little more cardamom-y, maybe.]
  • 2 oz. of whiskey, and a piece of lemon peel.
  • Fill one-third full of fine ice; shake and strain in a fancy red wine-glass.

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Tasting Notes:

BN: This was nice. I mean, it was pretty much an Old Fashioned so honestly there’s not much to say. I missed the big ice cube typical of the OF nowadays, but the gum syrup made it a little smoother, and melded the flavors better together than I’ve seen previously with OFs. Stay tuned, as I’m going to make a post all about comparing gum syrup to simple syrup.

PiC: This was good, if you like that sort of thing. Which I don’t.

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22. Milk Punch

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Knocked out two in a row for this weekend. Why two? Well, because one is exactly the same as the other one, just differs in temperature. The hot version of this is over here. For now, the chilly one.

In the news world, not much to report. Louisiana apparently barred (or rather, chose to not allow) the sale of raw milk, due to health risks. Needless to say, I did not use raw milk for this. Sorry for the lame news (two in a row). It was either this or a story about donated breast milk, which is probably more interesting, but slightly less appetizing.

Continue reading “22. Milk Punch” →

17. Vanilla Punch

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Well, I spent all this time getting curaçao and then decided to make one of his drinks that doesn’t actually need it. Ah well, it was still delicious.

Vanilla Ice performed on the Today Show yesterday. I have no understanding of why this happened. Also, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were involved. This may have been a piece (one of the many) of 90s culture that I missed.

VanillaPunchIngredients

17. Vanilla Punch

(Use large bar glass.) [We didn’t.]

  • 1 table-spoonful of sugar.
  • 2 oz. brandy.
  • The juice of ¼ of a lemon.
  • Fill the tumbler with shaved ice, shake well, ornament with one or two slices of lemon, and flavor with a few drops of vanilla extract. [Presumably, you put the ingredients in first, and THEN fill with ice. Also, I used more like 6-7 drops of extract, and you should too.
  • This is a delicious drink, and should be imbibed through a glass tube or straw.

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Tasting Notes:

BN: I’m not sure why it follows that if it’s a delicious drink, it should be imbibed with a straw, but he’s right on both accounts. Vanilla isn’t a super common drink flavor, other than, say, milkshakes, but it paired really well with the citrus, and the bite of the alcohol. The only change I’d like to make to this drink is to maybe add some soda water, to cut the alcohol a tiny bit and, more importantly, make it last longer. Also, shaking with shaved ice is sort of strange, too, but it seemed to work. It was sweet, flavorful, and not overpowering in any particular way.

PiC: I liked it! It wasn’t too sweet, and I liked how much vanilla there was.

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129. Ale Sangaree

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And we’re back to Jerry Thomas! I’m still a little behind ingredients-wise, so this is one of his simpler ones, but as soon as I buy some non-blue curaçao we should be on a roll. Also gomme syrup, which is apparently like simple syrup but smoother and silkier, which is intriguing. There’s a trip to BevMo in my near future.

There weren’t many news stories to go after with these particular words, but I found this article that says that Shakespeare’s father was an official ale taster for Stratford. Pretty sweet job, if you ask me. And speaking of sweet ale…

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129. Ale Sangaree

(Use large bar glass.)

  • 1 teaspoonful of sugar, dissolved in a tablespoonful of water.
  • Fill the tumbler with ale, and grate nutmeg on top.

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Tasting Notes:

BN: This was a rather vague recipe; I assumed that it wanted you to mix the first ingredient with the ale in the tumbler, rather than just sort of look at it while you drank the nutmegged ale. For the beer, I used the Mammoth Brewing 395 IPA that I brought back from my trip, partially because it was around, but mainly because I thought that the sage and other herbal notes in it would work well with the nutmeg, which they did! In terms of the drink overall, it initially just tasted like beer, with a hint of additional spice, but I think our glass was probably larger than expected, and so there wasn’t enough sugar to go around. So, I added more (probably about double) and then you definitely got the sweetness, which was pretty nice. Hit the bitterness of the IPA and toned it down. However, at the end of the day, it was just sweet beer, which was not too exciting. Nothing compared to the Port Wine Sangaree…

PiC: I thought this tasted good but I wasn’t that impressed with it as a cocktail per se. Maybe the beer tasted worse in his time, so this made it easier to drink? I would drink it, but I wouldn’t make it again, unless I had a beer that was really bad.

Blogger’s Note:

This is not related to cocktails, but rather to the blog itself. As you know, I switched to a self-hosted wordpress site at the beginning of April and, well, it sucks. The hosting itself, that is. I have a bad provider, and while it’s free, I’d rather pay money and get faster loading, fewer errors, etc, because it doesn’t make it easy for readers like you to enjoy the content. So, does anyone know of any good options? I’m looking at BlueHost right now, which is recommended by WordPress itself, and has pretty enticing pricing. Thanks all!

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143. Gin Sour

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There are a large number of drinks in The Bartender’s Guide that are modifications on other drinks that he lists, and there are also some pretty classic ones. The Gin Sour manages to be both. I stupidly didn’t also make the Gin Fix (141) which is literally the exact same as this, but with seasonal fruits on top (and no lemon juice). I probably will wait a while to make that one, though, so you can just imagine it for now. In terms of sours, I’m much more used to whiskey and amaretto sours, but it stands to reason that you could make them with other spirits as well.

I couldn’t find anything super relevant for Gin or Sour on the news front, but I did find this cool article from The Daily Beast from a few weeks ago talking about the rise of gin‘s popularity in 1700s England. They equate it to meth, in that everyone was making it in their basements, and it was causing all sorts of trouble in society (more crime, obviously more drunkenness, etc.) Everyone developed a taste for it on the continent, and it was cheap and easy, so they brought it back. A fun quick read, and I’ll work on getting more punny news articles next week.

Gin Sour Ingredients

143. Gin Sour

(Use small bar glass.)

  • 1 tablespoon of sugar.
  • ¼ of a lemon.
  • 1 oz of water
  • 2 oz of gin.
  • Press the juice of the lemon in the glass. Fill two-thirds full of shaved ice. Stir with a spoon. [Technically I’m combining two recipes, the Gin Fix and the Gin Sour, to make the one understandable without the other. Don’t worry about it.]

Gin Sour Process

Tasting Notes:

BN: This was pretty good. It’s pretty sweet (I wonder if a tablespoon might have been smaller back then and I therefore put too much in), and I’m not the hugest gin fan. The herbal notes of the gin, though, might distract from how sweet it is (a good thing), so maybe with another spirit it would be too much. If I made it again, I’d like something to cut it, maybe a bitters?

PiC: I liked this. It tastes like what I might imagine a lemon drop martini would taste like, or one of those lemon drop candies. It’s a little medicinal (the gin, probably). I’d drink this — but I’d like a sugar rim on it! [BN: Jerry Thomas actually does do this for some drinks, which he calls “crustas.” Stay tuned!]

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205. Scotch Whiskey Skin

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Don't make this.

Hoo boy. Well, you can’t win ’em all. That’s really the only intro I have for this drink.

On the current events front, in something that will be old news by the time this goes up, Scotland is really sucking in the Six Nations rugby tournament. Sucking almost as bad as this drink does (eight straight losses). Rugby, though, is really cool actually, and the USA’s own Pro Rugby league is starting up this spring! Just don’t drink this while you’re watching.

Use these for something better.

205. Scotch Whiskey Skin

(Use small bar glass.) [Or a mug, because it’s hot. Or just don’t make this.]

  • 2 oz. Scotch whiskey.
  • 1 piece of lemon peel.
  • Fill the tumbler one-half full with boiling water.

Please don't make this.

Tasting Notes:

BN: In case it wasn’t abundantly clear, I hated this. It tasted like really hot watered-down scotch that was slightly bitter (from the lemon peel). So, exactly what it was. I generally like toddies, but they really need a sweetener in there. I’m not sure how anyone can drink this. There’s a small chance a stronger-flavored scotch could have made it better, like a Caol Ila, but I sincerely doubt it.

PiC: Eugh.

228. Soda Nectar

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This was a very exciting drink for me, less for the particular flavors and mix itself, and more for the interesting technique it allowed me to learn. In short, if you put a little baking soda into an acidic drink, it makes it bubbly! Which totally makes sense, but it’s not something I had ever thought about before. Who needs a SodaStream when you have baking soda? (But note that I still do have one.)

The Soda Nectar is also notable for being non-alcoholic. Thomas actually has a number of non-alcoholic concoctions in his book — a lot of various lemonades, among other things — and I’m excited to go through those as well. Especially the orgeat lemonade, but that’s another entry.

One note about this one: he uses “carbonate of soda” which is technically different from baking soda (Na2CO3 versus NaHCO3) but may not actually be edible? Obviously it’s basically edible (you can actually make it just by heating up baking soda for a while) but there were enough conflicting sources online that I chose not to use it. Also it’s hard to find. “Washing soda” is the other name for it.

In a surprisingly relevant piece of soda news, Pepsi is going to be opening a restaurant in New York Meat Packing District this spring called the “Kola House,” with cuisine “inspired by the exploration of the kola nut.” Which actually sounds kind of cool, as long as they’re open to serving Coke instead of Pepsi.

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228. Soda Nectar

(Use large tumbler.)

  • Juice of 1 lemon.
  • ¾ tumblerful of water.
  • Powdered white sugar to taste. [I probably used about 3 tablespoons, which shows you how sweet sodas are.]
  • ½ teaspoon of carbonate of soda. [Again, I used baking soda here.]
  • Strain the juice of the lemon, and add it to the water, with sufficient white sugar to sweeten the whole nicely. When well mixed, put in the soda, stir well, and drink while the mixture is in an effervescing state.

Soda Nectar Fizz

Tasting Notes:

BN: As I mentioned before, the drink itself was not super fascinating; it’s basically just bubbly lemonade. However, I just can’t get over the baking soda thing. It kept it bubbly for a while, too — it wasn’t like a grade-school volcano — and I definitely want to try it again in other circumstances!

PiC: It was cool! It was basically like a lemon soda — it’s a cool way of doing that and it didn’t taste like baking soda which was good. Let’s try it with other flavors! (And can we do it with non-acidic flavoring? SCIENCE!)

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88. Mint Julep

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In case you hadn’t noticed (since the first recipe was #125), I am indeed skipping around a bit. This is partially due to the availability of ingredients, and partially because I don’t necessarily want to be making punch after punch after punch, and then julep after julep after julep. What is an effective categorization method in a book is not the most fun in the kitchen.

So for this one I wanted something I had heard of before. Was this first version a classic Mint Julep? Short answer: no. It’s pretty different, except for shaved ice and mint, but is a really nice drink on its own. Score another one for Jerry Thomas.

In other news, the U.S. Mint recently announced the national parks that will be on this year’s America the Beautiful (read: fancy) quarters: Shawnee National Forest in Illinois, Cumberland Gap National Historical Park in Kentucky, Harpers Ferry National Historical Park in West Virginia, Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, and Fort Moultrie (Fort Sumter National Monument) in South Carolina. The first will be on shelves (in wallets? What do you say?) on February 8th. Riveting news, I know.

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88. Mint Julep

(Use large bar glass.)

  • 1 table-spoonful of white pulverized sugar. [Powdered sugar.]
  • 2½ do. water, mix well with a spoon. [do. is “Ditto” in ye olden days.]
  • Take three or four sprigs of fresh mint, and press them well in the sugar and water, until the flavor of the mint is extracted; add one and a half wine-glass [3 oz.] of Cognac brandy, and fill the glass with fine shaved ice, then draw out the sprigs of mint and insert them in the ice with the stems downward, so that the leaves will be above, in the shape of a bouquet; arrange berries, and small pieces of sliced orange on top in a tasty manner, dash with Jamaica rum, [I took this to mean dark rum] and sprinkle white sugar on top. Place a straw as represented in the cut, [I didn’t have a straw, but we’re getting some! By “in the cut” he means the image on that first Jerry Thomas post, which appears to just be in the drink. Not sure where else you’d put it.] and you have a julep that is fit for an emperor.

Fit for an emperor, eh? Pretty cool. Apart from the spirit choice (brandy instead of whisky), this started out like a pretty classic julep, but then he just goes crazy and adds all sorts of things to it. Only modifications I made (besides no straw) were to use new mint sprigs for the garnish because the muddled ones were kind of gross-looking.

Mint Julep Prep

Tasting Notes:

BN: I found it interesting that he didn’t use whisky, as that is a pretty common spirit back then — but I guess that wasn’t how he heard about the drink. I’ll look into when that switch occurred. The addition of the fruit and rum was really delicious though, especially the citrus — it gave it a lot more depth than I’m used to in a simply sweet and minty julep. I wanted a little more mint flavor but I should have just muddled more. I also liked the ombre (PiC is proud of my vocabulary) effect that was made when the rum was added to the top – dark rum to orange brandy to green sugar-mint water.

PiC: A little alcoholic for me, but i like it. Even making it a little sweeter would be good. I especially like eating a raspberry off the top and then taking a sip.

125. Port Wine Sangaree

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My first thought upon seeing this particular recipe was that it was going to be like a sangria, due to the name. But it turns out that a) it’s not, and b) Sangaree is an older term for a rather vague set of cocktails from either the Antilles or Spain. Apparently, and this makes sense and I can’t imagine why I didn’t notice it before, it’s because they are usually reddish, and therefore look like blood (sangre in Spanish). Yay for etymology!

Anyways, I don’t really like port, but I thought that this might be a good start for good old Jerry, to see if he knows what he’s talking about. And he does! Though simple, this recipe brings out some good flavors and makes it easy to drink the spirit.

And, today, during a demonstration held in support of migrants, a number of protestors illegally boarded a ferry in the PORT of Calais, suspending operations. Just another event in a series caused by more and more migrants streaming into Europe from the Middle East. Luckily, this one does not appear to have been a bloody interchange. So, as the Spanish would say, no SANGRIENTA.

I’m both hilarious and informative.

This, and all recipes will be copied verbatim from the 1862 edition, with comments in italics.

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Port Wine Sangaree

(Use small bar glass.)

  • 1½ wine-glass of port wine [A wine-glass is equal to 2 oz., ish, so this is 3 oz.]
  • 1 teaspoonful of sugar.
  • Fill tumbler two-thirds with ice.
  • Shake well and grate nutmeg on top.

I’ve encountered this problem where he doesn’t really specify between a mixing glass (I think that’s what he means by tumbler) and the final delivery vessel. Perhaps I’ll figure it out soon, but for now I combined ingredients and shook in a Boston shaker, then poured into ice in the glasses, adding the nutmeg after.

Port Prep

Tasting Notes:

BN: I liked this — it didn’t taste medicine-y like a lot of port I’ve had (which, generally, I hate), and the sugar somehow made me like it better, even though port is usually too sweet for me. I couldn’t really taste the nutmeg, but maybe I didn’t put enough in.

PiC: I liked this. I don’t know much about port, but I could taste the nutmeg at the end of the sip. It’s good!

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