Blending spirits + infinity bottles.

Posted on 28th August 2017 by Andy

Infinity x2

Starting an infinity bottle.

When it comes to aged spirits – whiskey, rum and cognac – distillers usually mix the contents of a variety of the barrels in their warehouse to create their final product for bottling. The blender’s art is a well refined skill and it takes considerable expertise to achieve the character and consistency that is desired. It can be quite fun to have a crack at something like this yourself. The “infinity bottle” is a great way of blending spirits at home. First save an attractive empty spirit bottle and soak off the label. Then add the spirit of your choice – whisky and rum are good places to start but I suggest keeping like with like, at least at first. In other words don’t be mixing Scotch with bourbon or white rum with aged. It makes sense to start with your favourite spirit as that is the one you’ll be buying the most different types of. Of course you’ll have the great advantage of starting with a selection of finished products so your task is relatively risk free as long as you stick with quality spirits. Use a couple of solid examples of the spirit type as the base and tweak it with smaller amounts of those that have more specific attributes. Try to be conscious of where you want to move the flavour profile of your bottle. Does it need more spice? More smoothness? More sweetness? Drier? Do you want to be boosting the ABV or reducing it? You also need to give any new addition at least a few days to fully integrate itself into the blend – know as “marrying” in the Scotch whisky business. Once you have a blend you like, try not to be too heavy handed with future additions and remember to keep adding a little of your “base” spirits to keep the bottle from going dry. Top it up as you use it because if you let it get too low the balance will be too easily skewed. It can be tempting to throw something into your infinity bottle because you didn’t like it on its own but that will usually do more harm than good and can ruin the whole batch: Garbage in – garbage out, as they say. Some people try to catalogue what they put in their blends for repeatability but I personally find it more enjoyable to “freestyle”.

My first infinity bottle started many years ago as a way of making more shelf space; I poured a bunch of almost finished bottles of rum into one and much to my surprise and delight it really turned out to be quite a tasty combination. I kept adding to it in a more considered way, nudging it in one direction or another with a couple of ounces of one rum or another. It became the go-to rum in a Mai Tai or Rum Old Fashioned. Only more recently did I discover that the “infinity bottle” was even a thing. However a single infinity wasn’t enough for me so I’ve just started a bourbon infinity bottle too. Because this is newer I can even tell you roughly what it comprises of – for now – about 35% Makers Mark, 25% Four Roses Small Batch, 25% Wild Turkey 101 and 15% Old Overholt Rye. These choices keep the ABV at just above 45% which I consider the sweet spot for bourbon. The small amount of Old Overholt Rye is intended to hold back the sweetness and add a touch of spice without moving the mix out of the bourbon zone all together.

I hope that gives you the inspiration to start your own infinity bottle – it’s a wonderful route to enjoying and understanding your favourite spirits in a new and unique way.

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The Claymore.

Posted on 25th August 2017 by Andy

Sliced ice, baby.

The Claymore.

I’m a big fan of Glayva – a Scottish whisky based liqueur with hints of spice, honey and tangerine. Sounds a bit Tiki to me. Should we do some Tiki magic? I thought so. Glayva is strong enough (35% ABV) to use as a base in itself but it is also very sweet and needs a generous measure of sourness to bring it into balance. Since Scotch and lemon juice are best buddies let’s start there. Let’s also use Myers’s rum because you’re all tired of me calling for rums you can’t easily find and also because it’s a really under-rated dark rum. Myers’s is a little sweet and any sweetness in a spirit should always be taken into consideration but in this case the extra lemon juice has us covered. I’ve been tinkering with this basic idea for quite a while and it has taken me to an unexpected place – a massive dose of the lemon juice and a little simple syrup. In theory you could cut some of the lemon juice and all the syrup but it’s just not the same. Two dashes of orange bitters rounds the Claymore off rather nicely.

But what would Tiki be without a bit of icework? Luckily this one is a breeze: Fill your DOF glass of choice about a third full of water and put it in your freezer at an angle of about 45° (tip: a bag of frozen peas makes a useful prop). Next day you’ll have a beautifully frosted glass with a slice of ice in the base. If that sounds like too much work just use a chilled glass. For the full Tiki effect we’ll blend this one with crushed ice. It benefits from a little dilution in any case.

We could get all twatty and call this kind of thing NeoTiki or McTiki but that’s just not how we roll, is it? The name? Well, if you say “Glayva-Myers” quickly enough it sounds vaguely like “Claymore” – an enormous Scottish sword.

The Claymore.

1.5oz / 45ml Myers’s dark rum.

1oz / 30ml Glayva (if you really can’t find any try Drambuie instead).

2oz / 60ml fresh lemon juice.

0.5oz / 15ml simple syrup (1:1)

2 dashes orange bitters.

Blend with a handful of crushed ice for 5 or 6 seconds.

Pour into prepared DOF glass (see text).

Toast Jesse Ray – Claymore swinging 1980s, ahem, pop sensation.

 

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Queen’s Park Swizzle + swizzling.

Posted on 18th August 2017 by Andy

Have I told you lélé that I love you…

Swizzling.

Everyone knows you can shake a cocktail, stir a cocktail or blend a cocktail. But what did bartenders do before there were electric blenders? They swizzled. Swizzling is a great way to make a drink as well being a great word. Swizzling gets a drink super cold, well mixed and diluted and creates a lovely thick frost on the glass but it’s also gentle on your ingredients. There is a small but significant set of Tiki drinks known as swizzles, the King of which is the Queen’s Park Swizzle. Hmmm. To swizzle you need some crushed ice and a swizzle stick. Kind of. The true swizzle stick – or bois lélé – is the branch of a certain Caribbean bush that is snapped in a certain way to create a kind of human powered blender attachment. You place it in a tall glass, fill with crushed ice and chosen liquids (let’s be honest we’re talkin’ rum here) place the stick between your palms and rub them back and forth with all holy fury. Lift you hands as you spin the shaft (right on!) to mix the drink evenly. There is no more satisfying way to mix a drink; I could just swizzle all day. The problem is that genuine swizzle sticks are a bit pricey for what is, after all, A Fucking Stick (and that’s a relatively cheap one) so I suggest just using a bar spoon in the same way until you are sure you want to become a regular swizzler. Why someone doesn’t market a stainless steel version of one of these sticks is beyond me.

Queen’s Park Swizzle.

King of the swizzles, the Queen’s Park Swizzle, was invented at the Queen’s Park Hotel in Trinidad in the 1920’s. Fortunately. The QPS was a favourite of Trader Vic who famously called it “the most delightful form of anesthesia given out today.” I can’t argue with that. The astute cocktailien will immediately notice similarity to the Daiquiri formula but with a little more sugar syrup and the addition of mint and bitters. Or that it’s a Mojito with darker rum and bitters. The extra sugar is for two reasons; a long drink needs a touch more sweetness due to the extra dilution and, in any case, we need to counter the bittering effect of all that Angostura to maintain the drink’s balance. While Demerara rum is often called for in the QPS I particularly like it with Plantation Original Dark rum which is partially sourced from Trinidad and also just happens to be one of the most versatile and value-for-money rums around. Because this drink contains mint we have to take care not to swizzle it into tiny pieces (always a no-no) so I assemble my QPS as follows:

Insert the swizzle stick (or barspoon) in an empty Collins type glass and fill it 3/4 full of crushed ice. Add the liquid ingredients including 2 or 3 dashes of bitters and swizzle hard for about 20 seconds, raising the stick up through the ice and back down. Then add the mint and swizzle much more gently to incorporate without shredding the leaves. By now the drink will have settled somewhat and the glass should have a good frosty coating. Remove the swizzle stick and top up with crushed ice and fire another 3 or 4 dashes of Angostura bitters on top. Insert a straw and stir just enough to distribute the bitters through the top layer of ice. Add a mint sprig and proceed with anaesthetisation.

Queen’s Park Swizzle.

3oz / 90ml dark or Demerara rum (I used Plantation Original Dark).

1oz / 30ml fresh lime juice.

1oz / 30ml simple syrup (1:1 and preferably made with demerara sugar).

5 to 7 dashes Angostura bitters in total (see text).

5 or 6 mint leaves.

Follow process described above.

Garnish with mint sprig. Add straw.

Toast the Queen’s Park Hotel in Trinidad (1895 – 19??)

 

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The Sidecar.

Posted on 11th August 2017 by Andy

Mission accomplished!

The Sidecar.

Here’s a cocktail with a solid 100 years on the clock. Created in Paris (Harry’s New York Bar and the Paris Ritz Hotel both claim the honour) during the first world war, legend has it that it was the tipple of choice of an army officer who used to travel around in a motorcycle sidecar. At the time such a thing was no doubt considered a bit unusual if not downright eccentric and hence the drink found its name. Consisting originally of equal parts Cognac, lemon juice and Cointreau (known as the French recipe) the Sidecar was later converted to a 2:1:1 ratio (known as the English recipe). But using either of those old school recipes results in a very tart and bracing drink, moderated only slightly by a sugared rim. It does make me wonder if Cointreau was sweeter in the past than it is now. More modern bartenders have brought the drink into a more pleasing balanced form by adding a little more sweetness and – usually – omitting the sugar from the edge of the glass. I think the new version really is a thing of decadent delight even if it’s really just a brandy sour at heart. Choice of brandy is key to a good Sidecar and a bona fide French Cognac of at least VS level is the minimum requirement. Go VSOP by all means as the extra smoothness will do no harm. Cognac is a delightful spirit to mix with, almost always resulting in a rich and velvety experience, and the Sidecar is the perfect place to begin.

The Sidecar.

1.5oz / 45ml Cognac (I used Courvoisier VS).

0.75oz / 22.5ml fresh lemon juice.

0.75oz / 22.5ml Cointreau (you could also try other orange liqueurs).

0.25oz / 7.5ml simple syrup* (1:1).

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

Toast Captain X – his name lost to history – and his three-wheeled cocktail quest.

*Skip the syrup element to taste of the old school version.

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Jungle Bird – three versions.

Posted on 5th August 2017 by Andy

A-well-a ev’rybody’s heard about the bird…

Three little birds.

Created at the Kuala Lumpur Hilton in the mid to late 1970’s the Jungle bird is an unusual Tiki drink in a number of ways. How many bona fide Tiki drinks were created during The Dark Ages? Approximately one. How many Tiki drinks contain Campari? Roughly one. And how many Tiki drinks re-jigged themselves to become modern revival classics? Not all that many. But this little bird had a long and troubled flight to fame. Soon after its birth the poor Jungle Bird was all but extinct, killed off by – yep, you guessed it – The Dark Ages. As so often we have Jeff Berry to thank for the Bird’s resurrection in his 2002 book Intoxica! (which was later folded into Remixed) but the Bird wasn’t done evolving just yet. We’re getting ahead of ourselves though. The original Jungle Bird was a an interesting drink thanks to the unusual inclusion of bitter Campari but it was still pretty mild due to a low rum count and a rather heavy hand on the pineapple juice pour. It was good but not yet great:

Jungle Bird (v1.0 1970’s).

1.5oz / 45ml Myers’s Jamaican rum.

0.75oz / 22.5ml Campari.

0.5oz / 15ml fresh lime juice.

0.5oz / 15ml simple syrup (1:1).

4oz / 120ml fresh pineapple juice.†

Shake with ice and pour unstrained into a medium sized glass.

The internet says it was New York startender Giuseppe González* who made the key transformation of slashing the pineapple content and playing around with the rum component in 2010. That resulted in the inclusion of Cruzan Blackstrap, a unique, dark, rich, spicy and sweet Caribbean rum that does a nice little tango with the Campari. As a result it’s a much more satisfying drink than the original. Of the three recipes here Giuseppe’s is easily the best so, as long as you have access to Cruzan Blackstrap this is the recipe to use.

Jungle Bird (v2.0 2010’s).

1.5oz / 45ml Cruzan Blackstrap rum.

0.75oz / 22.5ml Campari.

0.5oz / 15ml fresh lime juice.

0.5oz / 15ml simple syrup (1:1).

1.5oz / 22.5ml fresh pineapple juice†.

Shake with ice and strain into a glass containing a big ice block.

The problem is that Cruzan has, in recent years, become impossible to acquire here in Europe and the secret pipeline I’m building to St Croix is barely past the Azores. Given this dilemma perhaps we should take a leaf from Giuseppe’s book and work on that rum component ourselves. While there is no close match for Cruzan Blackstrap on these shores we should be looking for something dark and deep. A little more kick wouldn’t go far wrong either. I think this might be a job for one of my favourite rums; Wood’s 100, a navy proof Demerara rum that is bottled and sold in the UK – and sometimes a little further afield. It’s powerful stuff that’ll put hair on your chest and, hopefully, feathers on our Bird. A 50:50 mix of Wood’s and Myers’s hits the spot:

Jungle Bird (v3.0 2017) aka Surfin’ Bird.

0.75oz – 22.5ml Wood’s 100 Navy Rum (57%ABV)

0.75oz – 22.5ml Myers’s rum

0.75oz / 22.5ml Campari.

0.5oz / 15ml fresh lime juice

0.5oz / 15ml simple syrup (1:1).

1.5oz / 22.5ml fresh pineapple juice†.

Shake with ice and strain into a glass containing a big ice block.

Toast the Bird.

*According to research by Thirst Magazine.

†The best option by far is juice squeezed from a fresh pineapple but the bottled juice from a good health food store is a reasonable second choice. Carton juice? Nah, not so much.

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The Gold Rush + A Proper Drink.

Posted on 1st August 2017 by Andy

The gold standard.

The Gold Rush.

Sometimes you just want a simple cocktail devoid of fancy ingredients and techniques. Sometimes you want a cocktail that doesn’t have a complicated history or backstory. Sometimes you want a Gold Rush. Created by Milk & Honey (kind of) co-founder T.J. Siegal, the Gold Rush contains just three ingredients, all of which you should have to hand: Bourbon, lemons, honey. You can use any bourbon and it will certainly leave its stamp on this very forgiving drink but I like my Gold Rush smooooth. Double charcoal filtered G Jack fits the bill quite nicely here, resulting in an extremely high quaffability quotient. And yes, I know the Gold Rush is very, very close to being a Whisky Sour but somehow honey in place of simple syrup makes a big difference. Sasha Petraske must have thought so too as he put it right there on the name of his bar.

The Gold Rush.

2oz / 60ml bourbon (I used Gentleman Jack).

0.75oz / 22ml fresh lemon juice.

0.75oz / 22ml honey syrup (3:1 honey/water).

Shake with ice and strain into a DOF glass containing a large block of ice.

Toast T.J. Siegal for a great drink and allowing M&H to exist.

A Proper Drink.

If you are interested in the story of the cocktail revival I suggest A Proper Drink by Robert Simonson. It’s definitely a book for the cocktail nerd rather than the general public – although it does contain a small number of excellent recipes. But if cocktail nerd is where you’re at – or where you’re headed – this really is essential reading. For me it was the book that finally put all the pieces of the puzzle together. Oh, and The Gold Rush is right there on page 96 at the end of the chapter on Milk & Honey.

A Proper Drink by Robert Simonson. Ten Speed Press ISBN 978-1-60774-754-3.

 

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Apprentice + internet recipe hunting.

Posted on 26th July 2017 by Andy

You’re fired! Not.

Internet recipe hunting.

We’ve got it easy these days. The internet gives us access to an enormous array of cocktail recipes – and of course I’m pleased to play some small part in that. But the downside of this ocean of cocktails is that there is a lot of crap floating around there too. So how do we recognise a good recipe? Well there are certain clues. Does the recipe look balanced? There should be a balance of sweet to sour or sweet to bitter in almost any decent cocktail so if you are seeing only sweet, only sour or only bitter ingredients that should be an immediate warning sign. Does the recipe call for quality ingredients? Those that call for specific brands are likely to be more considered creations. If a recipe consists of Jagermeister, orange soda and vodka that tells you that it’s some kind of student dare chugger. Are the quantities realistic? You should be looking for a total volume of around 3 – 4.5oz for most cocktails (a bit more for Tiki) and a alcohol equivalence of 1.5-2.5oz at 40%ABV (again a bit more for Tiki). For long drinks you should be seeing something similar but just “lengthened” slightly with ice and soda or a decent mixer such as ginger beer. Of course there will be exceptions and outliers but these tips should filter out most of the dross. On the other hand you also need to be on the lookout for the kind of overworked hipster BS cocktail that’s all presentation without any real quality content. Over-emphasis on the garnish and particularly obscure liqueurs and bitters are your warning signs of this kind of “Fur coat and nae knickers*” drink.

If you do see a recipe that looks interesting, write it down and try it out. If you like it keep that recipe in a safe place for future use. And, just in case you should end up writing about it, note the source. While there is no copyright on cocktail recipes (with a trio of silly exceptions) it is considered polite and proper to give credit where due, whether to a particular individual, bar or website. While we are on the subject of recipe collection might I recommend the Android app I use for all my recipes. Note Everything is [update: no longer supported so I now use the similar but simpler:] Simplenote is particularly well suited to making a simple cocktail recipe book and syncs automatically across different platforms. After all it would almost kill us to lose all those great recipes.

Here’s a recipe that caught my eye and now, a few months later, I can’t find the original source. Luckily I wrote down enough details to be able to credit its creator – Trey Hughes of Portland Hunt and Alpine Club. The Apprentice isn’t on their current menu but Trey is mentioned as the bar manager so that seems to fit. It’s an example of the increasingly popular “brown and stirred” category of cocktails that balance spirits, liqueurs and amari of differing sweetness and bitterness. This recipe easily passes the above tests and is devoid of daft garnishes and unnecessary bitters that are there only for exclusivity. Ingredients are (largely) called for by name and reasonably available and the quantities suggest that some fine tuning has taken place. By no means a classic or even a well known drink, the Apprentice is just an example of how to identify a promising original recipe on the internet. To prove the point – I didn’t even make and taste this drink until I’d written all of the above. Is it any good though? Yep, not bad at all. Cheers Trey!

Apprentice.

1.5oz / 45ml rye whiskey (I used Old Overholt).

1oz / 30ml Campari.

0.75oz / 22.5ml Amaro Montenegro.

0.25oz / 7.5ml Heering (an excellent Danish cherry liqueur).

Stir with ice. Strain into a chilled champagne coupé. Garnish optional.

Toast Trey Hughes – creator of the Apprentice.

*Scottish saying: Spending all the money (or effort) on appearance by skimping on the basics.

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The Last Mariachi + mezcal.

Posted on 21st July 2017 by Andy

Ay, ay, ay, ay.

The Last Mariachi.

Here’s the thing: I’ve recently developed a bit of a mezcal habit. For a long time I thought, like many of us, that mezcal was a cheap and somewhat dodgy version of tequila. And it often was. It turns out the Mexicans have been running a clever game and keeping the good stuff for themselves. Who knew there even was good stuff? Well there most assuredly is and it really is something very special. At the risk of generalisation the good stuff doesn’t contain a drowned worm and inhabits a similar range of prices to single malt Scotch and in many ways the single malt comparison is the best way to think about quality mezcal. Each village makes its own mezcal in a labour intensive and time-honoured fashion from various species of agave plant. It’s a wonderfully aromatic spirit with smoky, spicy, floral and earthy notes and a strange ability to cut through other flavours which makes it a tricky spirit to mix with. That most of the drinks containing mezcal taste mostly of mezcal is fortunately a happy thing but it does make it difficult to let other flavours have their say. I’ve found the solution to this is to use a second spirit to keep the mezcal under control and let other notes back in. As here, a reposado tequila usually does the trick but I’m keeping my options open. This time I decided to see how mezcal responded to the Tiki treatment and I think it was well worth the effort. I almost called it a Mexican Milkshake but I wasn’t sure that sounded very appetising so I settled on The Last Mariachi instead. If you want to release your own inner mariachi you’ll need to know how to make some coconut syrup first: Pour 125ml of boiling water over 220g of fine sugar and stir until clear. Add 250ml coconut milk and stir in. Add 3ml of coconut extract (optional). It will keep in a sterilised bottle in the fridge for several weeks and is also suitable for freezing.

The Last Mariachi.

1oz / 30ml mezcal (I used Los Siete Misterios Doba-Yej*).

1oz / 30ml reposado tequila (I used El Jimador).

1oz / 30ml white grapefruit juice (fresh or good quality bottled).

1oz / 30ml fresh lime juice.

0.5oz / 15ml Licor 43 (a sweet Spanish liqueur with strong vanilla notes).

0.5oz / 15ml coconut syrup (see text above).

Shake with crushed ice and pour unstrained into DOF glass.

Toast Ron Cooper who was largely responsible for freeing the mezcal.

*Del Maguey Vida would be another excellent choice.

 

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The 1015 + “the best bitters in the world*”.

Posted on 18th July 2017 by Andy

What glows together…

The 1015.

You’ll have to indulge me on this one if you’re not from the good ole Netherlands as all the ingredients in this drink hail from Amsterdam and are, at this time of writing, spectacularly unavailable beyond the Dutch border. We’ve all heard the cookery adage that “what grows together goes together”; well it turns out that works just as well for cocktails as well. A while ago the guys who developed Veld tulip vodka approached me to whip up a couple of recipes for the website and product launch. As well as a couple of bottles of their wonderful tulip vodka they had also brought along a bottle of Willem’s Wermoed (aka vermouth), an only marginally less new (and unconnected) independent startup, to see what we could do with it. It was a total no-brainer to mix these two with another Amsterdam ingredient but that means a bit of a time-out from the main story.

Them Bitters.

Ingredient three was De Ooievaar Angostura bitters or, as I call them, The Best Bitters in the World*. But, don’t they look like a knock-off of real Angostura bitters? I mean can they even call them that? Yes they can, because these ones actually contain Angostura bark and Angostura bitters don’t. De Ooievaar (who mostly go by the name Van Wees – and don’t even ask me why they have two names) are a tiny and, to say the least, idiosyncratic family business who have been making quirky liqueurs (with names like “shirtlifter” and “parrot soup”) and more since at least 1782. Their bitters, delivered in a uniquely bartender-unfriendly stone bottle, are deep, spicy and incredibly well rounded with strong hits of cinnamon and a funky pepperiness that I like to imagine is the Angostura bark talking to me. They come in tiny 40ml bottles and are sometimes a bit tricky to find so I always grab a few bottles whenever I come across them. While I use them a lot I’ve shied from tagging them in many of the recipes on this site due to their scarcity. They are not a replacement for common or garden Angostura in Tiki drinks but in the likes of an Old Fashioned De Ooievaar (trans: the stork) Angostura bitters are revelatory. Just go easy on them: they pack quite a punch.

Three Amsterdammers on their way to a cocktail.

But back to the main story. Willem’s Wermoud is a premium and extremely well crafted Italian style vermouth that’s packed to the gills with botanicals and has a wonderful, almost glowing, coppery hue. Amazingly, not only are these three ingredients from the same city, they are all originate from the same postcode. Yep, that would be 1015 in the very corner of Amsterdam’s maze-like Jordaan district. I narrowly missed out by once living just over the canal in dry old 1013. In any case, with three ingredients this special the recipe virtually wrote itself. Basically an age-old Gin and It with a dash of bitters and Veld in place of gin (Veld is in many senses more of a gin than a vodka anyway) it was simply a case of getting the balance just right. At the proportions below you get to taste the best of each of these great ingredients without them stepping on each others toes – just be careful not to make those dashes of bitters too generous. Earthy, peppery, spicy and just a touch floral, the 1015 is one of my very most favouritest cocktails.

The 1015.

2oz / 60ml Veld tulip vodka.

0.75oz / 22.5ml Willem’s Wermoud.

2 dashes De Ooievaar Angostura bitters.

Stir with ice and strain into a (small) chilled champagne coupé.

Garnish with a sprig of fresh air.

Toast the Van Wees family for their sublime bitters.

*This being my opinion and not an empirical statement.

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El Diablo.

Posted on 14th July 2017 by Andy

Diabolically delicious.

El Diablo.

One might be forgiven for thinking that all classic Tiki drinks are rum drinks. The truth is that up to 5% of them use *gasp* other spirits. But this one is truly an outlier among outliers – you can count tequila based Tiki classics on the fingers of one thumb. For some reason tequila just wasn’t on the radar of exotic drink pioneers like Don Beach and Trader Vic despite its abundance just across the Rio Grande. And is wasn’t just them, apart from a brief and desperate flirtation with tequila during prohibition, the spirit was barely touched in the US until the 1950’s. Even the noble Margarita is a relatively recent drink in classic cocktail terms. So The Trader was well ahead of the game when a version of this drink, the Mexican El Diablo, appeared in his 1946 book  Trader Vic’s Book of Food and Drink (a lesser known tome than his influential 1947 Bartender’s Guide). It’s not clear if Vic actually invented this drink or if the recipe came from the same place as the tequila but in any case it was a bit of a flash in the pan. Vic probably didn’t help sales by commenting “Go easy on this one – it’s tough on your running board”. Whatever the reason, it disappeared for well over a decade but then, in 1964, Vic got into the Mexican restaurant business and suddenly the El Diablo was back on the menu. It’s a highly quaffable drink that is mostly overlooked these days but it’s been a guilty pleasure of ours since we put it on the menu of our very first cocktail party back in the late 1990’s.

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking of this as a long drink – the trick to the perfect El Diablo is not to drown it in ginger beer. Speaking of which, try to use a ginger beer with some cojones such as those imported from Jamaica.

El Diablo.

1.5oz / 45ml tequila (I used El Jimador reposado).

0.5oz / 15ml fresh lime juice.

0.75oz / 22.5ml creme de cassis (a blackcurrant liqueur).

2oz / 60ml ginger beer (not ginger ale which is much milder).

Stir gently with ice and strain into a glass filled with crushed ice.

Garnish with a lime slice or wedge.

Toast Trader Vic again – it won’t be the last time.

 

 

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