Having sat out of the last two Mixology Mondays, I didn’t want to let another pass without at least a nod and a tip of the hat, even though it’s been difficult to find the time because I’ve been traveling like Marco Polo for the last few weeks. All work, unfortunately.

Anyway, gin, you say? Well, even though there are many drinks with gin, this one will need to meet three criteria. It should be tasty or in some way interesting, it has to be new to this blog (I’m going on 50 posts and I’ve written about most of the easy ones), and I’d prefer it to be something relatively unblogged in general.

Digging around in Dr. Cocktail’s excellent Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails, I came across the Barnum (Was Right). P.T. Barnum, famous circus entrepreneur, once famously stated that “There’s a fool born every minute,” and you only have to stop and pay attention to what goes on around you to know he was very right.

So that’s the the name. What’s the drink like? Well, I enjoyed it, for what it’s worth. I was looking for worthwhile drinks for my apricot brandy too, so that was a bonus. The gin helps get the sweetness under control, and you can enjoy the taste of the apricot without the cloying stickiness of the brandy, and the flavours combine together well, along with a little citrus bite from the lemon to make it a nicely balanced concoction.

Also, I only found one relatively ancient post by Kaiser Penguin about it, so that’s three out of three for Barnum (Was Right)!

Recipe:

2 oz. Gin
1 oz. Apricot Brandy
1/2 oz. Lemon juice
2 dashes Angostura Bitters

Shake well until very cold and serve in a cocktail glass. Garnish with something citrusy.

Notes:

It helps if you use a good fragrant gin, in order to make the drink as complex as possible. Either that or dial back the apricot brandy a little to stop it from overpowering a weaker gin. After all, gin is what it’s all about today.

Rating:

- Unusually pleasant and well balanced.

Check out the rest of this Monday’s contributions at Oh Gosh!

When Great Britain was still the colonial power in the world, one of the lesser-known colonies it held was Burma, the largest country in Southeast Asia. Modern Burma, or Myanmar, is a thoroughly unpleasant place to live because of the oppressive military dictatorship that runs the place, especially in recent times.

Back when it was a colony, on the other hand, life was good if you were a foreigner. If you could get past the local climate, which was probably unlike anything you had ever experienced before if you were European, your quality of life was much higher than that of any local. Decent food, all the gin-and-tonics you could stomach (for medicinal purposes, of course) and in the evenings you could head to the club, just like any British gentleman.

One of these clubs was the Pegu Club. experts can’t agree on whether it was located in Pegu, a town about 60 km. northeast of the capital, Rangoon, or if it was in Rangoon itself. Regardless of its physical location, it was well regarded by its patrons, which included people like Rudyard Kipling, and must have been a pretty special place.

It’s signature drink was known just as the Pegu Club Cocktail. A simple mix of gin, Cointreau and lime juice, it is one of the great classics that has descended into obscurity with the passing of time. However, since the recipe is so simple, there really is no excuse for at least trying it once.

The problem is that all-too-common lack of an authoritative recipe. Thankfully it’s just a problem of proportions, since the list of ingredients is agreed-upon, and it allows you to mess around with what you prefer. I tried the version in Ted Haigh’s Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails, and a few others I found on the net, and finally decided on one that reduced the amount of lime juice somewhat, since I felt it was overpowering the drink. Here is what I came up with.

Recipe:

2 oz. Gin
1/2 oz. Cointreau
1/2 oz. Lime juice
2 dashes Angostura Bitters

Shake with lots of ice until the shaker is frosty, and pour into a cocktail glass.

Notes:

I think with a good pungent gin I might push the gin back to 1 1/2 oz., but I’ll need to wait until I can get to a liquor store to try that because my gin stocks are currently very low.

Still, it’s pretty good. I’d encourage you to try it.

Rating:

- Let’s get hot and sweaty.

This is the drink I was going to write about for the last round of Mixology Monday, which I unfortunately missed due to being on holiday in a tropical jungle in the Congo, or the technological equivalent (i.e. my in-laws’ place). It’s what happens when one is too lazy to prepare things in advance.

The Suffering Bastard is noteworthy for being a tropical drink that doesn’t use rum. Apart from the name, of course, which makes it instantly memorable. It was created around 1950 at the Shepheards Hotel in Cairo, Egypt, and the name supposedly comes from some British officers mishearing a passing comment about a “suffering bar steward”.

In his seminal Grog Log, Beachbum Berry remarks that the original was made with brandy and ginger beer instead of bourbon and ginger ale. I didn’t have any ginger beer around, since it’s difficult to find here, and just swapping brandy for the bourbon would make a Horse’s Neck with some gin and lime juice thrown in, so I only tried the newer version.

So what’s it like? Well, it’s ok. The bourbon overpowers the drink somewhat, and doesn’t leave much room for tasting everything else. Maybe with a robust gin and a delicate bourbon it might work better, but I don’t think I’ll be making another one in a hurry.

There was one good thing, though. I was toying with not including a photo because I couldn’t get any decent ones (I’ll have to work on that), but I couldn’t resist showing you a close-up of a successful lime twist after the Fog Cutter attempt.

Recipe:

1 oz. Bourbon
1 oz. Gin
1 oz. Lime Juice
4 oz. Ginger Ale
1 dash Angostura Bitters (to taste, I like two or three dashes better)

Notes:

As I mentioned above, the Bourbon overpowered the rest of the drink. I used Jim Beam bourbon, since I didn’t want to try something more expensive on an unknown cocktail. Maybe something more delicate might work better, but I have my doubts, so I didn’t bother…

Rating:

- Cool name, pity about the drink.

I’m on a bit of a Beachbum Berry run here, since acquiring a batch of his books. You’ll have to forgive me, and rest assured I will stop before I get to plagiarism.

Today I bring the Fog Cutter, another Tiki standard from Victor ‘Trader Vic‘ Bergeron. In his Grog Log, the Bum quotes Trader Vic as saying: “Fog Cutter, hell. After two of these you won’t even see the stuff,” and there’s no doubt that it’s a potent mix. Two ounces of rum in a cocktail can already be considered a generous serving. If on top of that you add another ounce and a half of hooch, you get something pretty explosive. And I haven’t counted the float yet.

There were a few reasons for trying this one out. Firstly, it’s a classic in its realm. Also I had all the ingredients, which is pretty rare for most of the Bum’s recipes. Well, with one exception, but I’ll get to that. This includes my latest toy, Orgeat syrup.

The rum mentioned in the book is light Puerto Rican rum, which is a euphemism for Bacardi Carta Blanca. I always substitute a decent rum instead of that particular one, and it’s usually Havana Club Añejo 3 Años. The spicy notes add character to any drink, and it’s probably the most historically correct anyway. There is no note in the book of when the drink was created, but the Bacardi that all these Tiki legends used was made in Cuba in the same distillery and using the same recipe as the current Havana Club. Even if the drink wasn’t created prior to the Cuba embargo, I reckon Trader Vic knew exactly what he was aiming for when he used Bacardi, and this was probably it.

My missing ingredient was sweet sherry, since I usually keep some of that around in the winter. The summer in Spain calls for the dry Fino or Manzanilla varieties of Sherry. I had a reasonable substitute, though, in Málaga Virgen, a sweet fortified wine made from Pedro Ximenez grapes. These grapes are used at least in part in most sweet sherries, and although the wine is missing some of the character of being fortified with sherry brandy, it’s pretty similar.

It wasn’t much of a big deal anyway, because I used sherry brandy in the drink, whereas most people would probably use something from France. So all the elements ended up there, even if the components were a little different.

By the way, have you noticed the photo in this post? I figured that it would be a good idea to start doing that with this new design, you know, to spruce things up. If by sprucing up I mean highlighting my failures, of course.

First of all, you may have noticed I’m not exactly Rick from Kaiser Penguin when it comes to taking pictures of drinks. I hope to improve, but until then you’re stuck with my experiments. Second of all, you see that brown sludge at the bottom of the glass? That’s the float. Yeah, I know, let’s pretend it didn’t happen. And third of all, even though I tried to follow Jeffrey Morgenthaler’s instructions to the letter, my orange twist sucks.

But whatever, I’ll give you the recipe and you can try and do better.

Recipe:

2 oz. Lemon juice
1 oz. Orange juice
1/2 oz. Orgeat Syrup
1 oz. light Rum
1 oz. Brandy
1/2 oz. Gin
1/2 oz. sweet Sherry

Shake everything — except sherry — with ice cubes. Pour into tall tiki mug and add more ice cubes to fill. Float sherry on top of drink.

Notes:

The first time I made the Fog Cutter I skipped the float altogether, and only included it the second time for completeness and the photograph. That didn’t work out too well, and I ended up mixing the float with the rest of the drink, which wasn’t too great.

I’m left without knowing what it’s like made exactly right, but I’ll probably be skipping the float the next times I make it. The cocktail is strong enough without it anyway, and the tartness just right.

Rating:

- A good drink, but too strong to enter my regular rotation.

It’s been a difficult week here at Casa Dave. First, I managed to catch a ‘flu (in August for crying out loud!), and have been on medication for a few days. This has cramped my cocktail style like nobody’s business. If you add to this the descent of my in-laws over our previously peaceful abode, then you’ll be able to appreciate my predicament of wanting to contribute to this round of Mixology Monday without actually being able to get in the mixin’ and drinkin’ mood.

However, I’ve managed to eke out a swift half-hour, from 23:30 to 00:00 on Monday actually, to perform a quick experiment and report back on the results. Ironically, since I’ve been unable to actually try any drinks, I’ve been thinking about this month’s theme quite a lot. The theme is Orange, which is so broad as to be infuriating. What am I after here? A cocktail made of only orange-based ingredients? Any cocktail that has any orange in it? An orange-coloured drink?

I was baffled. Then, while reading my new copy of Beachbum Berry’s Sippin’ Safari, I saw just the drink I was after.

The Hula Hula Cocktail is unusually rum-free for a tiki-style drink. It is also fairly traditional in structure. Created in 1934, this drink comes from Ray Buhen, one of Don the Beachcomber’s original cocktail mixers. The three ingredients are gin, curaçao and orange juice, making this drink the perfect subject for a quick-and-dirty post.

I’ll admit I used blue curaçao in mixing it up, since it’s the only one I have at the moment (hey, the only difference is the food colouring — check out my curaçao page) and it ended up looking very modern and blue. Unfortunately, it was pretty dire. Equal amounts of everything made it taste kind of sludgy, and I had my brain on overdrive thinking of how to save it given that I only had about 10 minutes of my allotted time left.

I had done everything right — a decent gin, Marie Brizard curaçao and fresh orange juice — and still, it wasn’t even an O.K. drink. My first reaction was to add another ounce of orange juice, to try and clear up the mess it left on the palate. It was an improvement, but still too similar to the original. In a flash of inspiration, I added a couple of dashes of bitters and yet another ounce of OJ (hell, the theme is orange, isn’t it?).

That seemed to do the trick. If you ignored the swamp-green colour in the glass, the drink was pretty nice. There was a certain clarity to the flavours that wasn’t there before, and it was distinctively orangey without tasting of oranges. On its own I don’t think it has much future, but as a base for further explorations I think it shows promise.

Sorry to Mr. Buhen, since I know I’ve probably picked a drink he never meant anyone else to taste (the Bum mentions it’s from his personal notebook). Still, I’m happy just to play around with drinks. I’m a bit of a geek that way…

Oh, and it’s a little past midnight here in Spain, but there are still a few more hours of Monday left elsewhere in the world, so I’ll take the leeway and run with it.

Recipe:

1 oz. Gin
1 oz. Curaçao
3 oz. Orange juice (1 oz. in the original)
2 dashes Angostura Bitters (none in the original)

Shake everything together and serve in a (large) cocktail glass.

Notes:

There isn’t much else to say that I haven’t mentioned already in my account above. Maybe with a gin that differs significantly from the “standard”, like Plymouth or maybe even Genever, it might have been different.

Rating:

- Not great on its own, but useful as a base for further experimentation.

Check out the rest of the Mixology Monday entries at Intoxicated Zodiac.

July’s Mixology Monday brought us a whole host of cool drinks, from many great blogs. Interestingly, the bramble was the only drink mentioned by two different people, and this attracted my attention.

Originally mentioned over at Bartender Thinking, the Bramble is the child of Dick Bradsell, a respected London bartender. As the Thinking Bartender points out, it can be adapted to many different fruit liqueurs, such as creme de cassis, etc. I haven’t gone that far in my experimentation yet, but the idea of using a gin/lemon juice combination as the base for a fruity drink doesn’t seem too bad to me. I will try other variations.

The recipe calls for Plymouth gin, something I haven’t been able to find here. I have no idea what it adds to the drink, but I can tell you that with both Bombay Gin (regular, not Sapphire) and Seagram’s, the result is quite good. Also, I tried both variations mentioned in the post and ended up using the original recipe. The variation was just too sweet for me.

Recipe:

1 1/2 oz. Plymouth Gin
3/4 oz. Lemon juice
1/2 oz. Simple Syrup
3/4 oz. Creme de Mure

Build everything except the Creme de Mure over crushed ice and stir. Add a straw and slowly pour in the Creme de Mure to create a cascading effect.

Notes:

The final drink is just a delivery mechanism for Creme de Mure. Not that this is a bad thing, of course. It takes a very sweet liqueur and turns it into an enjoyable and refreshing drink, without masking the original flavour or adding too much extra. It just goes to show that originality can be tied to simplicity.

Rating:

- A great little drink.

There was some talk recently on the Drinkboy Forums about the Jasmine cocktail. Supposedly a good introduction to both gin and Campari, it’s also an attractive pink colour that fool those friends you have that don’t appreciate good drinking. These might also be swayed by the drink’s uncanny resemblance to grapefruit juice, and might be convinced to use the Jasmine as a gateway drink to further gin and Campari debauchery.

At about the same time, I noticed that Drinkboy himself, Robert Hess, had done a video on the Jasmine also extolling the similarities to grapefruit juice. Well, I can’t lay off if something seems difficult to believe, so I set out to construct one of these mythical creatures.

The result isn’t too bad. The gin is fairly subdued, as you would expect in a drink directed at people who don’t like gin. It is fruity and interesting, though, and pretty nice.

Still, I was left wondering where it is that Mr. Hess buys his Campari-flavoured grapefruit.

Recipe:

1.5 oz. Gin
1 oz. Cointreau
3/4 oz. Campari
1/2 oz. Lemon juice

Shake everything up and serve in a cocktail glass.

Notes:

It still tastes of Campari. I’ll be trying some different versions reducing the Campari in the search for that elusive grapefruit juice taste. Even if I don’t find it, it’s still not bad.

Rating:

- Not bad, but not incredible either.

Recipe:

1 oz. Tequila
1 oz. Vodka
1 oz. Gin
1 oz. Light Rum
1 1/2 oz. Coconut Cream
1 oz. Grenadine

Mix everything in a blender with crushed ice.

Via: Coco Lopez

Notes:

Ouch. (again.) I found this drink quite by accident, looking for something else. Still, it looked so over-the-top I couldn’t help myself. Actually, it’s not as bad as it looks. The (cheap) tequila gives it a slightly unpleasant edge, but it’s otherwise just another girl-drink (it is intensely pink). Keep this in mind for bachelor-parties and other such events.

The original recipe called for 151 rum, I changed that to regular rum because I figured that might be overkill. Shouldn’t have bothered. Also, I adapted the recipe to one serving.

Rating:

- Has its uses, but I’m too old for them (unfortunately).

Recipe:

1 oz Gin
Juice of 1 Lemon
splash of Green Creme de Menthe
Dash of Angostura Bitters

Shake the ingredients well with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.