Monster in a Glass

As we have been doing these cocktails for a while, we have come to recognize several scenarios in how cocktails get their name, how their ingredients evolve and how they become popular. The Aviation follows one of these patterns so exquisitely that it serves as a perfect example to demonstrate how a cocktail with a popular name evolves into a winner. Jay started his research with information everybody knows...Hugo Ensslin created the Aviation we're familiar with in 1916. This is undeniable. However, in Straub's Manual of Mixed Drinks he located a cocktail called the Aviation with a completely different recipe...apple jack, absinthe, lime juice and grenadine.  In the early 1920s we find an Aviation in the Philippines made with gin, pineapple juice and brandy.  Another totally different set of ingredients.  We've seen this before. When a cocktail takes a name that is a popular thing, idea, personality, etc. numerous cocktails might be created independently all over as a celebration of that thing or idea. So we end up with many cocktails sharing the name but having none of the ingredients in common. In the case of the Aviation, we assumed it got its name because the drink was "going to make you fly/get you high" but also the advent of manned flight was new and had to be completely amazing at the time. The word "aviation" probably meant a lot more back then than it does today. The word and the concept was popular and worthy of a cocktail and many Aviations were so created. Prohibition killed all of them immediately. It essentially acted as a "do over" or blank slate, so that when Prohibition was finally repealed, those bartenders waiting ready with cocktail recipe books for publication, primarily Harry Craddock and Patrick Gavin Duffy, became the foremost experts on what these cocktails were.  Duffy's cocktail book had Ensslin's recipe for the Aviation and with Duffy as the preeminent expert on mixing cocktails (because he had the most recent book published post-Prohibition), his word about anything alcohol became gospel and so Ensslin's recipe became the one and true Aviation cocktail. The most shocking revelation Jay had to share was that based on all of the early versions of the cocktail, being blue wasn't significant.  In fact, creme de violette was kind of rare and hard to procure. Ensslin's blue Aviation would not have been popular for bartenders to mix and would have been difficult to consistently count on being available.  Granted, the blue color makes the drink really damned sexy and that might be the reason Duffy picked it for his cocktail book and that too would have made it a popular drink that has lasted as a favorite even today. What’s in it:

It is important to note, despite Jay's assurances that the drink isn't predicated upon its blueness, that the commonly accepted version of the Aviation does contain creme de violette. If you order an Aviation in any bar in this day and age, you will be served a blue drink.  I also feel confident in saying that you will likely enjoy it a whole lot more than the above recipe we've provided. When Michael made the drinks for us, he was sure to make both versions. Across the board, all of us at the bar appreciated the modern version over the one without the creme de violette. Without the violet liqueur it is way too lemon forward almost entirely obliterating the maraschino flavor. The version without the creme de violette may have been first and maybe the blue color wasn't necessary, but the blue flavor sure seems necessary after sampling both side by side.

This is an amazing episode. Since we recorded it, I've flipped it back and forth in my mind considering the content. My position on the Gimlet story has changed since I first heard it, but I'm still astounded by how it all comes together. Jason started be describing how he located the recipe first in Patrick Gavin Duffy's book, The Official Mixer's Manual and then verified that it was also in the UK Bartenders Guild's Cafe Royal Cocktail Book. Jay explained that when he does preliminary searches and finds the recipes first in these post-Prohibition usually he finds the first printed example of the cocktail in question in Harry Craddock's Savoy Cocktail Book or Harry McElhone's ABC of Mixing Cocktails. In this case, he found the Gimlet in both which means that McElhone had the first printed version of the recipe in 1925. All evidence points to McElhone as the originator of this drink. Now, we're not saying that he's the first person to put gin and lime juice together. What we are saying is that he's the first person to serve it in a bar as an enjoyable beverage, give it the name it has, list it in a recipe book and have that all carry forward through history as this one drink. The rest of the story all depends upon the name. What everybody knows (or at least what every early 20th century bartender knows) is that a gimlet is a tool for boring into wood usually to vent gas from a cask. It's a simple design that makes the task easy even turning it by hand. This is the obvious origin of the name. Named after the tool, it's another cocktail that generally denotes getting wasted as the drink has a sharp bite of the lime followed by the penetration of the gin. We could stop there. It would be very easy to. However, further investigation reveals that in the Covey Crump manual of British Naval slang a gimlette is the 19th century name for the British Naval lime ration (originally instituted in 1795, this is why British are called "limeys") mixed with gin. This word can be directly correlated with an individual, a Mr. Thomas Desmond Gimlette, who was a British Naval surgeon stationed in Malay around 1878-79 who was known for instituting a citrus ration in gin to the sailors to prevent scurvy. This is a fact, well-known and solid. Because Harry McElhone enlisted in a branch of the British Royal Navy in 1916 it is extremely likely that he became familiar with the gin-lime ration and its name so that when he returned to civilian life in 1919 and began working at Ciro's in London he had a new cocktail recipe ready to try out at the bar. So we have two really good origins for the cocktail name and one, though more complex, seems very likely. The problem with this is that familiarity with the best story is not likely, so by default most people would assume the easiest story. As Rachel points out, it's not hard for the stories to get conflated and in a way start to be true in both cases. Unfortunately, it seems that the T.D. Gimlette story has a good chance of vanishing entirely even though there is a good chance it is truly the origin of the cocktail name. Its return to cocktail culture in the 50s was caused by the popular novel by Raymond Chandler The Long Goodbye wherein one of the characters expounds upon the virtues and proper recipe for the Gimlet. Rachel expanded upon the idea of the popularity of prepared foods in the 50s, a middle class luxury making life seem upper class, and how Rose's Lime Juice Cordial fits right into that narrative also making the Gimlet a perfect cocktail for the age. Sixty-five years later the Gimlet makes a second return as both craft cocktails experience a resurgence in popularity in conjunction with the popularity of the cocktail drenched television series Madmen. What’s in it:

Another big shocker in this episode was the age of Rose's Lime Juice Cordial. Children of the packaged food generation, we expect all of these over-preserved, food-prep-short-cut ingredients to have been formulated in some Frankenstein lab somewhere in Ohio in the 50s. It's one of the prejudicial crosses we bear. To learn that it was invented by a Scotsman in 1867 blew us all away. We're also used to decrying preserved foods out-of-hand, but to learn about its role in supporting global travel and expansion puts the practice under a new light. It played a part as a stepping stone to global human achievement, one that is now less visible because our need to preserve foods has been supplanted by new developments in transportation and food production. Nevertheless, humbling. Michael brought us two versions of the Gimlet. The Brixton version, following the latest trend in fresh/artisan/craft food and drink, used only fresh lime juice and dressed it up with a sugared rim and as always an original/classic version following the recipe from our book. Truth be told, most considered the Rose's version to be more smooth and drinkable. Only Bethany preferred the fresh lime juice to the Rose's. I, of course, discouraged by all things lime flavored, could leave this drink for the Brits.

The Martini is another one of those cocktails that is legendary in the world of classic cocktails. It's so major that the glass it is served in is a symbolic archetype for cocktail round the world. That's huge. Many other drinks try to borrow some of that presence through -tini association. The problem is that it's kind of hard to figure out just what a Martini is. As Jason unfolded the story of the Martini we tried to figure out what it was that makes the Martini so special and the more we explored the more trouble we had determining a sound definition. One would think that the recipe would make the drink; that is usually the defining difference for any cocktail, but according to Jay, the Martini appears first in Harry Johnson's 1888 cocktail book as gin, vermouth and Bokers bitters, a mixture that would be unrecognizable today as a Martini, but then around 1910 the drink shed its bitters, and then its vermouth until it was little more than a glass of cold gin.  That's not a mixed drink, yet that, as well as all of the variations along the way would be accepted as a Martini.  And then there are the modern derivatives such as the appletini and chocotini that are wildly different and some would classify (though many wouldn't) as a Martini. So it would seem that the ingredients don't make the drink in this case...especially since this "cocktail" can be one ingredient. Maybe it's the garnish. We usually accept that a Martini is dressed with three green olives, though some today would garnish with a lemon twist, but as Jay discovered, in the early 21st century recipes varied on the garnish. A Martini can have all kinds of things floating in it and still be called a Martini. So finally, the obvious answer is that it must be served in a Martini-style up-glass. It really seemed that anything served in that familiar v-shaped stemmed glassware could be called a Martini. We were content with that idea, until Michael at the Brixton brought out the classic Martini in unexpected glassware and then explained how the up-glass would not have been an acceptable glass to serve it in originally to any self-respecting man, until the 1950s when Sammy Davis Jr. and Frank Sinatra made it OK. So then. It's not even the glass. So what the hell is a Martini? Maybe there is a clue in the origins of the drink. There is a theory that the Martini is a version of another cocktail called the Martinez, which is essentially a Manhattan using gin instead of whiskey. Jay details several origin stories for the Martinez, none of which he says make sense given the information provided i.e. the lack of better evidence in each tale is a limitation toward believing it.  So aside from its first appearance in print in 1884 in O.H. Byron's Modern Bartenders Guide we don't even have a solid origin for the Martini's supposed forebear. Taking it to the bar, our assessment of the classic version was completely mixed. Bethany thought there wasn't enough vermouth, I thought there was too much and Nicole thought it was perfect. Michael brought us two more versions, one that was just gin and then another with pernod substituting the vermouth.  Honestly, I thought that the original tasted of its time, the one with pernod was deliciously 21st century and the other was just cold gin in a glass.  All in all, Kevin liked the classic version, even with the olives, Rachel enjoyed them but thinks cold gin in a glass called cocktail is cheating (I do to), Nicole learned that olives weren't so bad either, Bethany was not a fan of the more traditional martinis but anything that tastes like black licorice is good (I agree on that point as well). It's funny. Not even Martini drinkers can be easily defined.

The first thing I learned about this cocktail is that when you tell the story of the Margarita you have to tell the story of tequila.  Because tequila was virtually unheard of prior to the 1930s, there are no mixed drinks using it in the time period when most cocktails would earn their classification as classics. The first form of tequila is the beverage pulque, derived from the mashed and fermented maguey plant that grows only in Mexico. The tradition of making pulque is pre-Columbian and nearer its origin the drink was used in spiritual rites by priests and medicinally for the elderly. Pulque is not an easily approachable drink having a relatively high viscosity and being characterized as tasting like vomit. Distilled it becomes what we know as tequila. Though it made an appearance in 1893 at the World's Fair in Chicago, tequila didn't become really known until it was popularized in Mexico by post-Mexican Revolution cinema, where it was recognized as the drink of choice for Mexican revolutionaries, so chosen because it was a distilled beverage that wouldn't spoil while traveling long distances, unlike pulque. And, of course, prohibition introduced tequila to more Americans in the southwest than ever before. So tequila doesn't make it into print in any cocktail recipe books until 1937 when the Cafe Royal Cocktail Book, curated by the UK Bartenders Guild, finally featured it in several drinks. The Margarita cocktail itself has so many unverifiable origin stories one has to change what origin means. Every single origin story we found has no proof to support it and one is literally as likely as any other given the timing and location. Who made the Margarita and where is completely lost to time.  However, what we can say with some confidence is that even though he definitely did not invent the Margarita, Victor Bergeron popularized the drink in the 60s and 70s and made it a cocktail that every Mexican food joint and cocktail bar had to know how to make. In that sense, I give Trade Vic the credit for turning the Margarita into a household name. What’s in it:

Today, I'd say that the Margarita is the classic cocktail that everybody has had before, in fact, as we sat down and discussed the cocktail, Rachel told me they all had Margaritas the previous weekend. It's the kind of cocktail people just whip up at home and enjoy. At the Brixton, Michael made us a couple of versions, one that you might see today and one that is a little more traditional. It was interesting to hear everybody's take on each version, one being just a delicious drink and the other seemingly taking on the mantle of a more complex, flavorful cocktail. We pretty much decided they were the best Margaritas we'd ever had, though since we're all familiar with them, not particularly surprising.  All in all, good drinks and happy to change it up with something south of the border for once. Because the show is "not just history of cocktails, but history through cocktails" we did spend some time giving a brief description of the who, what and why of the Mexican Revolution, something I personally knew nothing about until I looked into it because of its connection to tequila and how it grew to prominence as the national drink of Mexico. Since none of us are actual historians, I'd like to say that if anyone has better information they would like to provide in regard to the cocktails we research or the histories we talk about, please contact us. We'd be happy to share your insights and perspectives as well.

This episode was really great to create.  There is a ton of post WWI information that we learned and some surprising technological developments we learned of from that time.  But not only that, we had a lot of fun and tried a really great, truly classic cocktail. Jason nailed the origins of this drink pretty succinctly.  This drink is often attributed to Paris barman Harry McElhone, as he was essentially the "bartender of the Lost Generation."  This is an American GI post-WWI cocktail, and it is well known that many Lost Generation cocktails came out of Harry's New York Bar in Paris, but in this case, Harry himself, further attested to by Robert Vermeire of the Embassy Club, admits that the Sidecar was first created by Patrick McGarry of the Buck's Club.  Seems pretty certain to me who made the drink.  It is attributed to Mr. McElhone because it became a standard at his bar which also featured the French 75 and the Boulevardier, also American favorites. We were stumped when we tried to ascertain, however, why the drink was named as such.  Kevin knows motorcycles and he jumped in with an explanation of how a motorcycle with a sidecar is an entirely different experience than driving a motorcycle without one.  The addition of the sidecar changes the need for balance, which is actually pretty challenging to manage alone, but then if the sidecar ever lifts from the ground in a turn, the vehicle becomes two wheeled again and the balance shifts suddenly.  In other words, a sidecar can fuck you up (which is essentially the same reason as the name for the French 75). What’s in it:

This was a simple, solid, delicious cocktail.  We all liked it.  Nicole pointed out that the version we had Michael make us from the book was the French version.  Michael made us another version we all loved equally well if not more that had an ounce more brandy, and half as much Cointreau and lemon juice each and he put powdered sugar on the rim.  It was a lovely cocktail and added more of a boozy kick.  Some of us even considered that this drink might be something we will order with some regularity.  It has the qualities which have made the true classic cocktails: It's easy to make and it tastes good. Near the end of the show, Bethany became distracted by dogs riding in sidecars.  For those of you who want to see dogs riding in sidecars...wearing goggles no less...here is the documentary to which she was referring:  Sit, Stay, Ride

The Tom Collins got me. The Tom Collins is another one of the old classics that is still around today and because it has been around so long...the history has become muddled and essentially lost.  Jason found the earliest recorded instance of the recipe was a version in Australia called the John Collins.  Now, traditionally there is a difference between the John Collins, made with Holland gin, and the Tom Collins, made with Old Tom gin, but that distinction gets lost over time. The combination of gin, lemon juice and sugar, though, has been around a long time and the simplicity of the drink compounds the confusion of its origin story. There is one story involving the Tom Collins hoax, an American phenomenon wherein some poor rube is sent on a wild goose chase from bar to bar looking for a fictional slanderer.  This seemed to be a popular entertainment in 1874...I don't get the appeal, but I guess you had to be there.  Given the timeline, it seems that the cocktail predates the hoax, but I don't think were ready to write that detail in ink yet. The actual Tom Collins does seem to appear via Jerry Thomas in the 1870s and it immediately takes hold, so much so that bartenders across the country riff on it by making brandy collins, whiskey collins, etc.  This is where the Tom Collins got me.  For the tasting I suggested we do a series of collins drinks.  Michael, our bartender at the Brixton where we try the drinks, looked at me sideways, kind of rolled his eyes, and proceeded to tell me that all of the drinks I was asking for as collins drinks, were already drinks with other names.  I didn't see it coming.  It makes a lot of sense; the recipe is extremely easy and had to have been a go to mixture for many bartenders back in the day.  Of course, people had already mixed brandy with lemon juice, or whiskey with lemon juice...and they already had names and origin stories of their own.  So...I expect we'll be revisiting some of these with other names. On to the recipe:

These drinks were extremely simple with a lot of opportunity to have no style and be absolutely terrible. The Brixton doesn't make anything without style and Michael doesn't make anything terrible unless we ask him to.  I think in some regards his hesitation with this episode was more or less his understanding of how uninteresting this classic is. That being said...these drinks were the best of their ilk. We tried four collins drinks...the standard Tom Collins, brandy collins, vodka collins, and whiskey collins.  They were all well balanced and refreshing, even with the heavier brown liquors as the base, and by and large we all liked all of them.  They were well made classics.

I think this episode is a great example of what we mean when we say “…history through cocktails”.  It would be easy to think that every cocktail origin story is precise and worthy of storytime.  As it turns out, we’re pretty excited when we discover a cocktail that is directly and causally correlated to a particular event.  Most cocktails might be created in honor of a person or thing, but just as often cocktails get their names from common expressions, icons or ideas.  When there isn’t a story to go with the drink, we instead look at the people, places and things related to the name or even the time and place the cocktail was first mixed.  If there isn’t a great story as to how it came about, we instead look the environment in which it was born.

The French 75 is one of those cocktails that doesn’t have a great origin story.  Given the circumstances of where it was created and who were its biggest fans, it’s easy to imagine how the name came about.  This drink was first popular at Harry’s New York Bar in Paris with former US World War I soldiers named for the French field artillery cannon they became so familiar with during the war.  There’s nothing about the cocktail specifically that aligns it with a gun yet we can understand how former soldiers might name a drink after anything from their wartime experience.  So we get it; it makes sense.  There just isn’t a whole lot to say about the drink in this regard.

What we do instead is talk about the French 75MM cannon itself to understand why it made such an impact in the lives of those who thought it deserved a cocktail named after it…and we learn a little about our cultural heritage in the process.  Simply put the French 75 cannon was the first field gun with a recoiling mechanism that allowed the gun to remain stationary after firing.  This improved both the speed and accuracy of artillery weapons in the field of battle and was another piece of the story how warfare changed in the First World War.  The patrons of Harry’s Bar had an intimate relationship with the weapon and by naming one of their favorite drinks after it, they took ownership of the story.

These are the ingredients that go into the classic French 75.

This is a damned good drink.  We all liked this.  Now, it is a sweet drink without a boozy presence, but don’t let that fool you; there is a lot of alcohol in this and it comes on strong. Listen to the episode to hear us all get a little tipsy on this one (it doesn’t usually happen) as well as our views on mustard gas and meat paste.

We're kicking off the series with the cocktail that I think of as THE cocktail of cocktails...the Manhattan. At the front of the show, Mr. Jason Kruse, our researcher, and I sat and discussed what he discovered while tracking down the origins of the Manhattan. First of all, the Manhattan's claim to fame as the longest unchanged cocktail stands up to the available information. The first version we found is, in fact, the same version served today. Though it has been played with and changed by various bartenders over the years, particularly in its heyday in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (and there are A LOT of variations on this drink), none of those versions stuck as the standard. The most popular year of origin is 1874.  This does not align with what we discovered as the first written recipe for the Manhattan which occurs in 1884.  1874 is not definitively wrong, but there is no evidence for its existence at that time, though, like any trade at the time, the culture and tradition was often passed down through word of mouth, so the Manhattan could have traveled unverified for some time.  The problem with the 1874 date, however, is that it is often attributed with a specific event that launched Samuel J. Tilden's political career which was supposedly attended by Lady Randolph Churchill, Winston Churchill's mother, where she so christened the drink Manhattan. Reliable sources, however, place her in England at the time preparing to give birth to Winston.  So it is decidedly not 1874 for that reason, though possibly 1874 for other reasons. We think it is also noteworthy that the Manhattan does not appear in Jerry Thomas' book in 1864.  His cocktail recipe book was the very first of its kind and featured the growing collection of drinks to be had in American bars at the time.  It is not definitive evidence that the Manhattan wasn't first made before that time, but rather a good indicator and with good evidence otherwise we would certainly accept it. So, we think the cocktail originated around the 1870s and 1880s with the first recorded instance in 1884, previously passed by word of mouth and culture. In this time frame we see better evidence that it was created at the Manhattan Club, a New York gentlemens' club frequented by the political elite. The claim was made by the Manhattan Club's founder, journalist, and chronicler Colonel Henry Watterson. We can accept this explanation if this fact wasn't suspiciously absent from his published history of the Manhattan Club in 1915...seems like a noteworthy item to omit, though, he could have been exercising some degree of political prudence by casually leaving it out in the five years of escalating temperance toward Prohibition. Finally, Jay told us about discovering another origin story published in the Baltimore Sun in 1908 claiming the Manhattan was born of the need for refreshment after a duel in the 1840s. For any others who stumble upon this story...we're pretty sure that it is a complete fabrication. None of the names match up, including a state senator, for which there would definitely be a record. It seems like we came across a 19th century version of the Onion. As a side note for those interested in Manhattan itself -- the word Manhattan is derived from the Native American Lenape words manna-hata which means "island of many hills." Manhattan was sold by its indigenous people for the equivalent of $1,050. The details and personalities are discusses specifically in the show as well as Jay's encounter with a false origin story that began with a duel. The ingredients in the Manhattan are as follows:

Our usual hang-out for tasting the cocktails we discuss is The Brixton in Andersonville in Chicago where Michael Donnelly mixes the cocktails and brings his own perspective to the drinks.  I was joined by Rachel, Kevin, Nicole and Bethany, the usual suspects, on this tasting adventure...and we tasted everything. Us newbies to the Manhattan initially thought the drink quite boozy, but then Nicole suggested we try some straight rye whiskey and we all recanted that perspective.  I have to admit, it tasted like what I expected of a classic cocktail with such a long pedigree, basic with no attempt to hide the alcohol, but rather enhance it. Michael was good enough to create two other versions, the Vieux Carre (which we will review in more depth at a later time) and a perfect Manhattan, at Nicole's request, whereupon she learned that she has the taste sensibilities of a 70 year old man.  A perfect Manhattan is one that includes equal parts of both sweet and dry vermouth.  Listen to the show to gather all of our impressions of the three drinks. Transition music: Cephalopod by Kevin MacLeod Closing Music: Manhattan Madness by Irving Berlin