Rum blending part 2. Proof white rum blend.

Posted on 5th June 2026 by Andy

Rumbunctious!

Rum blending part 2. Proof white rum blend.

Today we are going to be blending ourselves some rum! Why? Because we are the kind of badass gozers who do that kinda crazy shit. And because it can sometimes be difficult to find a decent white rum for a reasonable price. I don’t use white rum that often but when I want a Daiquiri or a Mojito where a white rum is a major component I like something with a bit of flavour. But let’s back up a bit while I categorise white rum into three broad groups. Most other rums defy such simple grouping but we can get away with it here because most white rums are column distilled from molasses and minimally aged so terroir and local rules have much less impact than with other types of rum.

First of all we have our bottom shelf whites, distilled as described above and usually diluted to the legal minimum (as low as 37.5% in the EU). Unsurprisingly these rums have very little in terms of flavour and are as I like to say, “rums for people who don’t like rum”. As there are plenty of folks like that these rums make a tidy profit for the distillers with their simple and economic production methods and a rapid still-to-supermarket time. So, yes, largely pointless for the cocktailista – except this time. Examples are Don Q Cristal, Bacardi white, Captain Morgan white, El Dorado white, Cruzan white and various others – you get the drift. Next we have the slightly aged and better made type. Probably also entirely column distilled but this time with an age statement, typically 3 years. Most of the difference here is the ageing and that they are usually not quite so diluted. These rums have a little more character and the rough edges are somewhat smoothed out by dem tropical barrel years. Good examples of this type are Havana Club 3, Doorly’s 3, Plantation 3 stars, El Dorado 3 and Chairman’s Reserve white. Yup, the number 3 on the label is what you seek. Next up we have the mighty Jamaican Overproof white rums. These dunder-fermented, pot-stilled, funk-monsters always come in at 63% (give or take 1% very occasionally) and are still minimally aged if at all. They don’t need it as that intense love-it-or-hate-it funkiness only drifts away with ageing. You’ll pay a bit more for these but considering their high strength they are still pretty good value. Examples are the ubiquitous Wray & Nephew Overproof, Rum-Bar Overproof, Worthy Park Overproof and the great grand-daddy of them all, Rum Fire.

Furthermore there are some higher end blended white rums that contain elements of each of those but are quite a bit pricier. Examples are Veritas/Probitas, Tiki Lovers white and some other “multi-island blended white rums”. And ‘tis those that we are going to emulate here. But without that last factor!

After much tinkering and inspired by my trip to E & A Scheer a couple of years ago I arrived at the following formula that I feel produces a delicious white rum for use in, well pretty much any recipe that calls for white rum, although it is particularly excellent in a Daiquiri. From the bottom shelvers I used some Don Q Cristal (which is rarely seen on these shores) as my base. 200ml of that goes into a clean empty 500ml bottle. Not much going on there yet until we add 200ml of Havana Club 3 year old. While HC have recently and regrettably reduced this rum from 40% to 37.5% in my ‘hood it remains a smoothed out mellow rum which will reduce the harshness of our cheapo Puerto Rican base. Now it gets fun. It turns out a little Jamaican overproof rum goes a long way and 100ml of it (or 95ml if we are being particularly particular) has far more effect on the whole that you could ever imagine. I used the hard-to-find but spectacularly funky Rum Fire. Funk: check! In these proportions the overproof rum also has the benefit of raising the strength of the weaker, cheaper rums to an acceptable level. In my case almost 43% abv but of course dependent on the strength of the other two. The combination very nearly hit the mark for me but I felt we could do just a bit better. After some tinkering I discovered that gap was filled by just a teaspoon of moderately aged “bridge” rum and I finally settled on Appleton Estate 8 – an excellent example of that style. I might be nuts but to me it brings the whole blend “together” and adds just a hint of colour to the mix. The result is a white rum very much to my liking – and hopefully yours – that doesn’t break the bank. I know it will be difficult to replicate this exactly but just use the rums in each category that are available to you. Be sure to avoid any nasty sweetened rums and you should be fine. While the Rum Fire will likely be out of reach for all but the luckiest, Wray & Nephew Overproof is very widely available. Naturally feel free to scale my recipe up to 700ml or a litre but I find a 500ml both handy and easy to portion.

Damn fine Daiquiri.

I also took this as a bit of a challenge as how cheaply I could make a bottle of good white rum and I think did pretty well at just over €10 for 500ml (about €14.50 for 700ml). All four rums I grabbed were on sale which is not always possible but for the exercise: Don Q Cristal €8.95 for 700ml, Havana Club 3 €13.95 for 700ml, Rum Fire for about €25 for 700ml (yeah, I know!) and Appleton 8 for €24.95 for 700ml.

Proof White Rum Blend

200ml Cheap white rum (see text).

200ml Slightly aged white rum (see text).

95ml Overproof Jamaican rum (see text).

5ml Good moderately aged rum of choice.

Add to 500ml bottle, shake to mix and leave for a few days to “marry” and enjoy!

If you want copy of the label to print for yourself drop me an email at andy@proofcockails.nl

Title it “label please!” or something similar so I can find it amongst the endless sea of spam.

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Moose Factory.

Posted on 1st May 2026 by Andy

There’s a moose loose…

Moose Factory.

As my regular readers will remember over a year ago I embarked upon a quest to deUSAify my cocktail shelf* in favour of more ethical options. Experimentation gleaned some useful substitutes from Canada but to my immense surprise my boycott has so far failed to bring the administration to its knees. Ah, well – can’t win ‘em all. Undeterred today I shall honour Canada’s impressive resistance to coercion, bullying and general nastiness from its southern neighbour. In cocktail form! So with a bottle of Lot 40 Canadian rye whisky in hand we take arms against a sea of Trumple and mix our way to freedom. My paen to Canada is, I hope, an interesting cocktail which plies its route between such whisky classics as the Manhattan, Boulevardier and Old Fashioned, is deep and complex yet still simple to prepare. Indeed, in preparation we shall take a leaf from the Negroni’s book (and thus also the related Boulevardier) to stir with ice, strain over a large block of ice in an Old Fashioned glass with a twisted orange garnish. “But, but, but, what of the other ingredients?” I hear you cry. Fear thee not and be enlightened hencewith. Campari! “But are we not then making a Boulevardier?” Mai non! For we shall eschew the vermouth having already and Italian ingredient and having a need to also honour the French Canadians. Grand Marnier (King of the orange liqueurs imho) shall be deployed in small quantity for both its Frenchiness and affinity with Campari. We’re leaning just a touch sweet here so a couple of dashes of bitters will both remedy this as well as adding even more depth. I chose Bogart’s – the German reboot before you accuse me of hypocrisy – but another aromatic bitters is fine should you lack it. And there we are: fighting the forces of hate and division on drink at a time. What? Oh, right sorry. I named my creation after a small town on the Hudson Bay.

Moose Factory.

2oz/60ml Canadian rye whisky.

0.75oz/22ml Campari.

0.25oz/7.5ml Grand Marnier.

2 dashes Bogart’s bitters (or other aromatic bitters).

Stir with ice and strain into a double Old Fashioned glass containing a large block or sphere of clear ice. Garnish with a twist of orange peel.

Toast the good folks of Canada.

*And, to the maximum practicable extent possible, my life in general.

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Rage in Eden.

Posted on 3rd April 2026 by Andy

All the rage.

Rage in Eden.

Welcome to yet another of my own creations that doesn’t look very exciting and has a kinda dull unappealing rusty colour. You’re welcome. Hopefully that has scared off all the skin-deep riff-raff types and now you – the enlightened cocktail lover – can dig into a rather tasty and unusual tipple. I am a fan of what I call the “hybrid sour” which twists the more traditional sour with a bit of amaro or other aromatic component – at the cost of an inevitably muddy hue. This lack of visual appeal perhaps explains why you will rarely see such a drink on a cocktail menu. While we do care somewhat that our drink looks good we care much more about what it tastes like, right? I thought so! And so here we are with my Rage in Eden which uses calvados as its base spirit. In the unlikely event that you be all “WTF is calvados” a quick explainer. Despite being no expert on the other other spirit I can tell you that it is an apple based spirit made in Normandy in the north of France and with an ageing nomenclature familiar from the cognac world (VO, VSOP, XO). Other apple brandies could be used if calvados is unavailable. In the US, for example, applejack* is an acceptable substitution but, frankly, calvados is as good as you are going to get for an apple brandy with a good VS or VSOP being the best range for mixing. Chateau du Breuil (as pictured) is a good choice and probably easiest to find and I’m also keen on Coquerel. Having come up with this cocktail in the ass-backwards fashion of listening to an album  and thinking, “That would be a good name for a cocktail” I proceeded to experiment with ingredients that were vaguely “on message” and ended up with the following in addition to the glaringly obvious calvados: Lemons and honey which always work so beautifully together. Cynar – that slightly quirky Italian amaro with its pleasing vegetal notes. If Cynar eludes you Ramazzotti or Averna are close enough. For the rest nothing complicated is required – just shake with ice and double strain into a largish chilled champagne coupé. In this case I was lazy on the garnish but I see no reason not to employ a thin slice of apple if only to distract from the uninteresting colour of the drink.

Santé!

Rage in Eden.

2oz / 60ml Calvados (see text).

1oz/ 30ml Fresh lemon juice.

0.75oz / 22ml Cynar.

0.5oz / 15ml Honey syrup (3:1).

Shake with ice and double strain into a chilled largish champagne coupé.

Toast Ultravox’s best album** Rage in Eden.

*Europeans unable to find applejack for the likes of a Jack Rose would in any case do better to use calvados.

**In my controversial opinion.

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Red Hugh.

Posted on 6th March 2026 by Andy

Red who?

Red Hugh.

There’s a saying in cocktailand that goes “Everything is a Daiquiri.” While it is an enlightening concept when you first get into cocktails it is not quite right. “Everything is a Daiquiri or a Manhattan.” is closer to the truth. All but the strangest cocktails are a variation on one of these two and they serve as an excellent starting point in creating your own recipes. I love a Manhattan and today we shall be slightly tweaking it to come up with our own drink. For example in that modern classic the Black Manhattan all of the vermouth is replaced by an amaro and it is indeed a delicious drink but we do need to tread carefully when switching out the vermouth as we must be careful to keep the bitter to sweet balance intact to succeed. Amari are usually fine as the tend to be as bitter as they are sweet but this is not true of some other ingredients. Most liqueurs will sweeten our Manhattan variation to much to remain palatable but there are a few candidates which – like Amari – have bitter botanicals to help us out. Enter the sloeberry most often found in sloe gin* but also in the flavourful Spanish digestivo pacharan (aka patxaran) which we shall be using today – although I reckon you could use either. Sloe being a strong flavour we shall switch out only half of our vermouth which, as always in my case, is Punt e Mes which has the benefit of being beautifully bitter itself. Furthermore we shall ditch the bourbon (or more properly rye) and sub in some decent Irish whiskey – my current boycott of US products being only co-incidental this time. For the rest this is simply made as a Manhattan right down to the maraschino cherry nestling in the bottom of the chilled glass and you know how to make one of those already I should expect. The result is a pleasing drink with complex bitter notes from the pacharan, vermouth and bitters but enough sweetness from the first two of those to keep the balance we must always seek. All we need now is a name and thanks to a story from an Irish friend while we were on holiday in Valladolid a couple of years ago I have the perfect title for our new creation. Red Hugh was an Irish folk hero who ended his days in Spain thus giving us the name for our conveniently red drink with Spanish and Irish ingredients.

Txotx!

Red Hugh.

2oz/60ml Irish whiskey.

0.5oz/15ml pacharan/patxaran or sloe gin.

0.5oz/15ml Italian vermouth – ideally Punt e Mes.

2 dashes of aromatic bitters.

Stir with ice and stain into a chilled champagne coupé or Nick and Nora glass. Add a single maraschino cherry.

Toast Red Hugh (1572-1602) who stood up to the English occupiers, alas without much success.

*Which is paradoxically actually a liqueur.

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Champs-Elysees + L’Emitage Saint Valbert.

Posted on 6th February 2026 by Andy

Champin’ at the bit.

Champs-Élysées + L’Emitage Saint Valbert.

Despite my optimism that the Chartreuse Crisis would gradually resolve itself (after the hoarders had hoarded enough) it regrettably appears to have endured and become permanent. Despite living in one of the alleged “core markets” I can barely ever find a bottle and even when I do I am loathe to shell out the new asking prices of €70-90 knowing a few years ago it was a “mere” €35 for a bottle of the green stuff. Almost three years ago I posted a synopsis of the crisis with some possible solutions, none of them 100% satisfactory but more recently I espied something I thought worthy of investigation. L’Emitage Saint Valbert seems to have come from nowhere yet claims to have been in monky production in France since 1864. It weighs in at the same 55% as the “real” juice which is certainly encouraging as is that it costs much the same as pre-crisis green Chartreuse did. On the flip-side it does not look to be widely distributed outside of Europe apart from some East Asian airport shops. Also on the negative side of the ledger, a careful reading (between the lines) of the “history” on the back of the bottle suggests to me that this is a modern creation designed specifically to capitalise on the current crisis and that has been “history-washed” – a not uncommon practice in the world of booze. But is it any good? Sipped side to side with my dwindled remains of green Chartreuse I found the new contender to pretty similar but less intense. The Chartreuse has a wonderful rounded herbal flavour and pleasant mouth-feel whereas L’Ermitage feels a touch less integrated, a little more watery and has a slightly bitter finish that the Chartreuse lacks. But to be fair the differences are slight and when mixed with other ingredients as in a cocktail fade away almost entirely. Those who like to sip upon their Chartreuse might be disappointed but the mixin’ masses are served well enough by this “newcomer” – if it is available in their area.

But all of this is just an excuse to mix us up a classic French prohibition era cocktail called the Champs-Élysées which as surely everyone knows is the wide boulevard that runs from L’Arc de Triomphe down to Place de la Concorde in Paris. Emerging somewhat vaguely in the 1920s the Champs* got its big break by being included in Harry Craddock’s Savoy cocktail book of 1930. Harry gave a recipe to make enough for a small group and most recipes since have been based on a reduction of that leading to a consensus on the ingredients but not so much on the proportions. The version I give below is my preferred recipe but feel free to tinker away yourselves. I do however insist on using real French cognac and not some random “brandy” with my preference for a mixing cognac being Courvoisier VS which punches well above its moderate-ish price. It’s a classy drink and as such demands quality ingredients yet in the current situation L’Ermitage Saint Valbert is just good enough. It also requires attention to detail: The chilled glass, double straining, care of measurement, a neatly trimmed garnish.

Champs-Élysées.

1.5oz / 45ml cognac.

0.5oz / 15ml green Chartreuse or substitute.

0.75oz / 22ml fresh lemon juice.

0.25oz / 7.5ml simple syrup

2 dashes of Angostura bitters

Shake with ice and double strain into a chilled Champagne coupe.

Garnish with lemon twist.

Toast France’s most famous street.

*I avoid using the full name as adding all those weird-ass French letters is a pain in WordPress.

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Thoughts on the Old Fashioned + J.P Wiser’s 10 year old review.

Posted on 3rd January 2026 by Andy

None the Wiser…

 

Thoughts on the Old Fashioned

+ J.P Wiser’s 10 year old review.

I don’t have an Old Fashioned very often but every time I do I think, “I need to have an Old Fashioned more often”. Made well, there is perhaps no better cocktail. Given that the OF is pretty much the first cocktail, some unknown protococktailian got it right. First. Damn. Time. Respect – whoever you are. “Are” not “were” because that bastard is probably also immortal. If you, like me, are an all too infrequent imbiber of this hallowed original cocktail then I beg of you – listen to me just this once and listen thee well. If there is a time for an Old Fashioned it is this accursed month of January. That useless dead month of darkness, weariness and dread. A social wasteland of enui, mundanity and self loathing. 31 days of listlessness, boredom and bleakiosity. Yeah, it’s a bit shit. But there is an antidote and, trust me, it’s not dry. For the Month of Doom is best mollified by the daily ingestion (at precisely 19:30) of a single, perfectly made Old Fashioned cocktail. The precise construction of which is intensely, intensely personal but for the sake of having something to fucking write about I shall give you my personal variation which is not particularly controversial. The basic concept of the OF, as I am sure most of you already know, is to take your favourite spirit and stir it with ice, bitters and something sweet to create a sympathetic and slightly diluted version of something you love. A variation that adds colour and depth to the already endeared. Fuck, yeh. Be your love mezcal, rum, whisky, arak, brandy, gin or tequlia* there is an Old Fashioned version of that spirit that is right for you. That said, if there is a problem with the OG OF that is that it is frequently made too sweet. I’ve seen American bartenders insist that half an ounce of sugar syrup and a dash of bitters goes into their standard OF. I know a lot of Americans have a sweet tooth but HFMoG it is not meant to be a sweet drink. While personal preferences must be sometimes (grudgingly) respected the starting point should be two ounces (60ml) of whisky, a teaspoon of syrup (I suggest Demerara), at least two dashes of bitters and a modestly sized citrus garnish. Balance, as always, is the key to a perfect cocktail. Otherwise you have only succeeded in making sweet whisky**. Bleugh. My ramblings concluded for now I shall proceed with the next step in my quest to find a pleasing alternative to US whisky with another dig into the Canadian offerings.

J.P Wiser’s 10 year old triple barrel

Canadian whisky.

As you may have noticed, I have for a time been in search of viable bourbon and US rye whisky replacements for reasons most Trumpian***. The rye issue was solved by Lot 40 but I was still short a simple and inexpensive substitute for the former. Enter Wiser’s 10 year old triple wood whisky from the same stable as good ‘ol Lot 40. Wiser’s comes in a simple square section clear glass bottle with a metal screw cap and stings my wallet oh so lightly at just over €20. The label is kind of ordinary looking and lacking much designyness although looking at their website there seems be a new and equally uninspiring label since I bought my bottle. So far, so dull. However we also have the 10 years triple wood statement that makes us go, “Hmmmmmm”. There are a few Canadian whiskies that claim long ageing yet are quite inexpensive compared to almost any other aged spirit and I’m not entirely sure how they can do this. Sure, spirit ageing progresses at a more leisurely pace in colder climes (Windsor, Ontario in this case which is counter-intuitively just south of Detroit) but surely the warehousing and barrel switching costs remain similar? If anyone has an answer to this puzzle please feel free to inform us in the comments. The three woods are used bourbon barrels, new oak and used Canadian whisky barrels which sounds like a mix that could serve us well – although the actual times spent in each of the different woods remain a mystery. A strength of just 40% is uninspiring but probably also unsurprising at this price yet J.P Wiser’s certainly stimulates my curiosity and the best way to continue is, I eventually decide, to open the bottle. The light copperiness in the glass could be a result of 10 years in wood or added caramel leaving us none the wiser (no pun intended) but is attractive enough anyway. The nose is quite subtle but hints of toffee, grain and vanilla poke through but it really doesn’t smell very woody so far. The first sip from a relatively full bottle is a little disappointing being quite harsh and astringent but the finish delivers more being relatively long with a lingering bittersweet baking spice vibe. This is all fine for the modest price but I really can’t see this as a sipping whisky. But that’s not why we’re here is it? Used in an Old Fashioned and some other simple cocktails that normally feature bourbon Wiser’s holds its own pretty well with its safe middlegroundy flavour leaning in a sufficiently Bourbony direction that, for example, a Scotch could never pull off. As long as we don’t ask too much of it this Canadian whisky performs well enough and doesn’t carry those peculiar flavours that similarly priced US whiskies starting with Jim (peanut butter) and Jack (bananas) bring to the game. I think, at least for now, I have found what I was looking for – an affordable sub for an everyday mixing bourbon. Given the very fair price and flexibility I’m gonna give J.P Wiser’s 10 year old triple wood whisky a possibly over-generous mark with the understanding that it is valid only in this specific context:

B.

*Vodka can just fuck right off.

**Or, of course, some other spirit.

***Especially as of this very morning (3.1.26).

Posted in Spirits | 2 Comments

The Humanist.

Posted on 5th December 2025 by Andy

…Don’t put the blame on me.

The Humanist.

At this time of year I always think to myself, “Better come up with something a bit festive”. And sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t. This year a different thought popped into my empty head. With all this Christmas and Hanukkah malarky bouncing around how about we honour those of us who follow no religion aside from the belief in humanity itself? Fuck, yeah. Don’t get me wrong; I’m at the front of the line when there’s turkey and presents* being handed out but the “holiday” season arrives with remarkable frequency, promising peace on Earth and goodwill to all men before disappearing in a puff of tinsel, cinnamon and torn wrapping paper with all such promises in similar tatters. I’d better stop before I incur the wrath of the masses and get accused of Scrooginess by my family (yet again) and proceed directly to my recipe.

My paean to the religiously non-aligned is based upon a wonderfully simple cocktail which gets along fine without any fancy bells, whistles or flourishes. With just gin, lime and sugar the Gimlet is a classic that lends itself to some gentle tweaking – and tweaked it I have – while keeping it easy on the cocktailista. I mean who needs any extra hassle at this time of year, right? All I’ve touched is the sweet component subbing in some ginger syrup and berry liqueur. It sounds like a strange combination but you need to trust me on this. I used a blackberry liqueur (crème de mûre) but you could go with other flavours such as raspberry, blackcurrent or cherry. I tried many different ones and found that blackberry worked best but that could just be a matter of personal taste. Just remember to adjust for sweetness as all liqueurs are not created equal. The Humanist is a simple year-round cocktail that that is popular and accessible to all. If you really want to Christmasify it you could try using cinnamon syrup instead of the ginger syrup. I didn’t. Obviously.

Best wishes to all humans and a better New Year!

The Humanist.

2oz / 60ml dry gin of choice.

1oz / 30ml fresh lime juice.

3/8oz** / 11ml ginger syrup.

3/8oz** / 11ml berry liqueur (pref. crème de mûre – see text).

Shake with ice and double strain into a chilled coupé glass. No garnish but if you happen to have a fresh berry that matches your choice of liqueur you could certainly drop one in the glass.

Toast Humanists.

*Now would be a great time to make a little donation to a little cocktail website what with it being the season of giving and with the annual web-hosting bill arriving imminently. Feel free to hit the yellow donate button and wallow in my appreciation kind reader.

**This sounds like a finicky amount but what we are really calling for here is 0.75oz / 22ml of sweet component equally split between the syrup and liqueur.

 

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The Last Train.

Posted on 7th November 2025 by Andy

Woo woo.

 

The Last Train.

A while back I was making myself a pre-dinner Negroni as I am wont to do and I had a “let’s mix this up a bit” moment (as I am also wont to do) which took me to a strange place. A Negroni is such a classic drink that I long assumed all vaguely logical variations had been tried and codified: the Boulevardier, the Kingston Negroni, the White Negroni etc. Mais, non. Having let my bottle of Amaro Montenegro languish at the back of the cocktail cabinet a little too long I have spent much of this year rediscovering its manifold joys – as you may have noticed from recent articles. Knowing that it has a particular affinity with mezcal I did what seemed incredibly obvious and used it in place of Campari in a Mezcal Negroni for an equal parts combo of mezcal, Montenegro and Italian vermouth (which IMHO simply must be Punt e Mes in a Negroni). A slice of grapefruit peel completed the picture. And? Well, it was damn tasty if I do say so myself. So tasty that my first thought was that this must be a well known variation that I’ve simply never come across. I Startpaged it (I don’t Gxxgle anymore) and while there are a few things that come vaguely close, to my shock this simple and elegant combination appears unrecorded in the cocktail canon. I immediately decided this should be called a Montenegroni but sadly that perfect name had already been snagged by Montenegro for a slightly tweaked Negroni using their own amaro in place of Campari. Ah, well, you can’t win ‘em all. I guess I’ll just have to dig into my little notebook of obscure cocktail name ideas. An important observation is that with Montenegro being a tad sweeter than Campari you really neeeed to be using Punt e Mes as your vermouth as it is slightly bittered itself. I you can’t get any I suggest adding a dash or two of aromatic (eg. Angostura) bitters to a more normal Italian vermouth. When cutting your garnish don’t be afraid to go a bit deeper than normal as a little bitterness from the pith will do no harm in this case.

I did my due diligence and tested my recipe on a couple of pretty hard-core Negroni-heads and it got their stamp of approval so here for your sipping pleasure I present:

The Last Train.

1.5oz / 45ml* Mezcal of decent quality.

1.5oz / 45ml* Amaro Montenegro.

1.5oz / 45ml* Punt e Mes.

Stir with ice and strain over a big clear ice cube (or ball) and garnish with a slice of grapefruit peel. No grapefruit? OK orange will suffice.

Toast Swervedriver , especially this song from their excellent 1993 album Mezcal Head.

*This makes for a largish drink but you can easily scale it back, given its equal parts construction, should you prefer.

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Japanese Highball + Improved Highball.

Posted on 3rd October 2025 by Andy

Say “hai” to the Highball.

Japanese Highball + Improved Highball.

I am recently returned from a trip to the land of the rising sun and it would be remiss of me not report on Japanese drinking culture. It’s not, at least in the mainstream, a very cocktaily culture but aside from the sake and beer staples there is a mixed drink that merits some discussion: the Japanese Highball. This simple drink is just a Scotch (or sometimes Japanese whisky) and soda and is served in literally every bar and restaurant as well as the ubiquitous Seven Eleven store in a can. Unsurprisingly this just tastes like watered down, fizzy cheap scotch which may sound a bit uninspiring but in the heat of late summer/early autumn was pretty welcome when served ice cold with plenty of clear ice*. In the years following the Second World War Japan was occupied by American forces and certain small chunks of American culture became popular with some of the youth. Denim jeans, Rock ‘n’ Roll, beer and whisky being perhaps the most notable. The thing with whisky was that during the war America largely ceased production leaving barely enough Bourbon and rye for the home market. Winston Churchill on the other hand allowed the distillation of Scottish whisky to continue. Some say as a way to lift morale but more likely because he was drinking a sizeable slice of the production himself. Thus the occupiers of Japan were awash with Scotch and over time the locals also found a taste for it too eventually deciding they could probably make it just as well as the Scots. They were not far wrong. At this time Americans often called a long mixed drink a “highball”, a phrase which dropped out of favour in the US but stuck in Japan coming to mean specifically a Scotch and soda.

Improvey time!

But I think we can take the Japanese Highball and elevate it somewhat. I’ll take my inspiration from the fact that there is sometimes a variation on offer where ginger ale is subbed for the fizzy water (which 100+ years ago would have been called a Mamie Taylor in the west but let’s not worry about that). I wondered about splitting the difference and adding a bit of garnish flavour and came up with this tweaked Highball which I quite like. The first step was to upgrade the whisky from a base level blended scotch to a base level single malt. I picked some Glen Moray which in Scotland we might call a “supermarket malt” which is not super exciting but for just a few more currency units provides a little more smoothness and sophistication which I think is important here given the nakedity of this mixed drink. Of course you can use any damned whisky you like in your Highball and definitely should. A very small amount of ginger syrup takes the edge off that raw scotch flavour as does a swathe of nice fresh lemon zest and a a slice of fresh ginger. While the changes are minor I found the taste more approachable whilst staying fairly true to the original recipe. Kampai!

Improved Highball.

1.75oz / 50ml Japanese or Scottish whisky (see text).

0.25oz/ 7.5 ml ginger syrup

Pour into a well iced Collins glass.

Top up with good quality sparkling water and stir gently.

Garnish with a slice of fresh ginger and a swathe of lemon peel.

Toast the films of Akira Kurosawa (1910-1998).

*Japan has no truck with cloudy ice and nice clear cubes fresh out of the Hoshizaki are found everywhere.

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Valkyrie.

Posted on 5th September 2025 by Andy

Do, do, do, dooooo, do, doooo…

Valkyrie.

This quick. Busy month. Holidays! Last month Montenegro. Montenegro good! This month more Montenegro! Own recipe. Gin, Montenegro, lemon juice, ginger syrup, bitters. Shake. Up. Yum! See you next month!

Valkyrie.

1.5oz / 45ml Gin of choice (but not flavoured!)

0.75oz / 22ml Amaro Montenegro.

1oz / 30ml fresh lemon juice.

0.5oz / 15ml ginger syrup.

2 dashes orange bitters.

Shake and strain into a chilled champagne coupe. No garnish.

Toast flying Scandi chicks.

 

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