Do you think that most people who are consumed by craft mixology can clearly pinpoint the genesis of their obsession, that single come-to-Genever moment at which they realized that perhaps salvation could be found in bottles and shakers? For me, it is not so difficult to determine when I was infected with the spirit of spirits. One night a couple of years ago I came home to discover that Tipsy had found this book at the Half Price Books store by our house. It set off a period of soul searching the likes of which I had never experienced. Sure, I had been through phases before, but I had never seen the light. It was a cocktailian coming out, a voyage of discovery that satisfied so many basic needs: Suddenly I had an academic excuse to spend time and money in liqour stores and bars. "Booze hound? Thanks for your concern, Mom, but this is research..." This mixological mission also breathed new life into my thrift store scavenging. I was growing tired of the search for the same old kitchen wares, now I had an entirely new category of unnecessary items to pursue.

And by that I mean booze. We needed a few supplies, so we went shopping...

For readers who are familiar with the Julie/Julia project, this will sound like a familiar gimmick: Begin by selecting one of the most significant works in the canon of gastronomical writing, set out to prepare and consume each recipe in the volume within the course of one year, and blog the entire process for the world to see. (The next steps, of course, are: get press coverage from The New York Times, gain an international readership and score big book deals/ quit day job/ start new job of being famous foodie person.) Julie Powell set out to cook and eat every recipe in Julia Childs’ Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year, 524 recipes in all. She was, as far as I can tell, a possessed woman for attempting such a feat. I am no Julie Powell. Julie toiled through Pate de Canard en Croute and Rognons de Veau Flambes. I have chosen a different path: I would instead like to attempt to drink my way into the blogosphere's stratosphere. I have selected The Craft of the Cocktail and intend to mix and drink each of Dale DeGroff’s 500 recipes in the span of one year, and hope that my liver, my wallet, and I live to tell about it. This will be in many ways a crash course in the classic cocktail cuisine, as MtAoFC was a crash course in French cooking for Julie Powell. Dale actually offers a brick & mortar cocktail course that he teaches in New York City. Someday I hope to muster up the $3k+ that the cocktail camp costs, and go spend a week with the master. In the meantime I will be taking the distance-learning approach.

This is no Julie/Julia Project (I can probably produce a Knickerbocker cocktail faster than I could a Mousseline de Crustaces) although I thank Ms. Powell for giving me the inspiration for it.

Why Dale? Why David? Why now?

The first drink of the Dale/David Project will be the Sazerac. According to cocktail legend, the drink has its early origins in the apothecary of Antoine Amedee Peychaud, who created his now famous bitters in New Orleans in the 1830's. Bitters were used at the time for medicinal purposes. According to one variation of the story, Peychaud mixed his bitters with Cognac in a "coquetier" (egg cup), and the "cocktail" was born as stubborn/ignorant/hard-of-hearing Americans mispronounced the word. (The word "cocktail" appears in print several decades earlier)

As certain as we can be in the murky depths of cocktail history, we can be reasonably sure that in the 1850's there was a 'coffee shop' (euphemism for booze den) by the name of Sazerac, so named for the brandy produced by Sazerac de Forge et Fils. According to Dale, the bar was opened by John Schiller, who in 1859 applied the name Sazerac Cocktail to a drink based on Sazerac Cognac, and Peychaud's bitters. John Handy supposedly took over the bar at some point and changed the base spirit to Rye whiskey. With the decline in popularity of Rye, Bourbon became substituted in some quarters. (Although according to Chris McMillan, it is NEVER made with Bourbon.)

Robert Hess reports that the bar was owned by a Sewell Taylor, a friend of Peychaud's. The absinthe was a later addition to the drink, as was the switch from Cognac to Rye.

In honor of the cocktail's early heritage, Dale uses both Cognac and Rye in his Sazerac, in equal parts. To that he adds a small amount of simple syrup and equal parts of Peychaud's and Angostura bitters. He chills two cocktail glasses; one will be rinsed with Absinthe and have the cocktail strained into it and garnished with a lemon peel.

For this entry we decided to do a tasting of several Sazeracs with different ryes, from Jim Beam (when did we polish off the Old Overholt?) on the low end to Sazerac 18 on the high end. I know it is bad form to use this latter whiskey in a cocktail but I couldn't help myself. The Sazerac 6 or the Wild Turkey variation is a better traditional cocktail, though it is undeniable that the "Millionaire's Sazerac" made with Sazerac 18 and Hennessy VSOP is a pleasure to drink... . In Allen Katz's Rye Nation seminar, the distiller from Buffalo Trace said something to the effect that he cringed at the thought of the 18 being used in cocktails. But Chuck Taggart, in his definitive discussion of the Sazerac, claims that "Sazerac 18-Year-Old Straight Kentucky Rye Whiskey might just makethe best Sazerac in the world."

A few other references and variations:

Tonight we decided to continue with the cocktails of New Orleans, both in celebration of our recent trip there, and as a way to make up for some of the deficiencies we encountered with "classics" we were served in their own home town. For example, we ordered the Ramos Gin Fizz at the Carousel bar and received a vanilla-y milkshakey drink served on ice. Likewise we had a number of Sazeracs served on ice, though it seems like the classic recipes call for an up drink. The worst drink we saw we didn't even stick around long enough to be served--at the Old Absinthe House, we wanted an Absinthe Frappe We sat for some minutes as a bartender stocked shelves and ignored us. Finally she asked what we wanted, and when I ordered an Absinthe Frappe she explained "That's not really Absinthe, absinthe is the one with the ice water." We had spent several nights at the Absinthe House over the course of the conference, and had seen a bartender (Will) lovingly fill the cup with a dome of shaved ice, then drizzle Lucid Absinthe, Herbsaint, and simple syrup over the flaky ice. This girl grabbed Herbsaint and DeKuyper Anisette and poured it over a skimpy portion of shaved ice, then blasted it with soda and gave it a stir. As another bartender began arguing with her about something, we took our leave. Absinthe abuse continued at Tujagues the next day as the bartender lit a sugar cube on fire and stirred it into the Absinthe.

The Ramos Gin Fizz was created in New Orleans in the 1880's and was popular until Prohibition. Consisting of London Dry Gin, lime juice, lemon juice, simple syrup, egg white and a few drops of orange flower water, the signature of the drink is that it requires a very vigorous shake to achieve the appropriate "ropy" texture.

Charles H. Baker Jr. describes the drink in the Gentleman's Companion:
THE ORIGINAL GIN FIZZ which Was Long a Secret of the Brothers Ramos, and which Was Given out by Them, in a Fit of Generous Aberration during Our Alleged & Ridiculous Drought of the Prohibition Era...the Ramos Fizz has long been synonymous with the finest in all the New Orleans art. Thinking that the formula, like any history dealing with the dead arts, should be engraved on the tablets of history, it was given to the world after the now rejuvenated Ramos bar closed for the "dry" era. The main secret of excellence was the platoon of 8 or 1 doz blackamoors who passed the shaker over shoulders to the next, after each had literally shaken his heart out chilling the drink...

Continuing with a wrap-up of New Orleans drinks following our visit there, I have decided on the milk punch for tonight, though perhaps I should have saved it for tomorrow morning. I don't know if this is a New Orleans drink per se, but it is a popular Southern drink that is certainly a fixture of brunch dining in New Orleans. Some Milk Punch recipes call for Bourbon but I prefer the Brandy variety and I suspect that is the older one, though I'd have to consult drinkboy or Dr. Cocktail to know for sure... . In Early American Beverages I found an 1860 recipe for a brandy or rum milk punch in which the spirits are steeped in oranges and lemons; and an 1884 recipe that is sherry-based and calls for milk "warm from the cow." This latter recipe calls for nutmeg to taste; the modern recipes likewise often call for a garnish of grated nutmeg.

Milk punch is often served from a punch bowl, preferably sterling silver (not at my house). The Dale recipe calls for 2 parts brandy, 1 part simple syrup, and 4 parts milk. I used half & half which resulted in a very frothy head. Though the recipe does not specify, I believe this drink is usually served without ice. At a famous New Orleans brunch restaurant that shall remain unnamed, I was served a milk punch over ice which I found to be rather disappointing.

(Unfortunately we are still suffering from some technological difficulties so my pictures will be posted later, for what they're worth.)

I have been trying to both follow Dale's book and feature the cocktails of New Orleans, because I am still in a post-Tales recovery period. Unfortunately Dale does not feature all of the famous New Orleans cocktails in his book. He does, however, have a DDG (Dale DeGroff) original called the New Orleans Cocktail which I made tonight. Consisting of Bourbon, a few dashes of Peychaud's bitters and a couple dashes of orange curacao, the drink tastes...Bourbony. Sort of like a dry Old Fashioned, served up in a chilled cocktail glass, with a DDG signature, the flamed lemon peel.

We also made the Cocktail a la Louisiane which is not in Dale's book, but which I felt like making tonight in our New Orleans cocktail roundup. The Louisane is is like a Vieux Carre (also not in the Dale) without the Cognac and was, according to Chuck Taggart, the signature cocktail at the Restaurant de la Louisiane in New Orleans.

Wrapping up our tour of the drinks of New Orleans we finish with the Hurricane, one of those maligned tourist trap drinks from Pat O'Brien's that you have probably had but not in the same thought process as "cocktail". The problem with this drink when you get it at Pat's is that it comes out neon red and tastes about as natural as it looks. This is not to say that you can't put down a few of them in the right mood, as long as you don't mind the FDC Red #666. What really turned me off last year when we went to Pat's is that they already had the Hurricane glasses par-filled with Hurricane, so that when you order it all they have to do is add ice. Where is the love in that?! It's like going to the cafeteria where they have the half-filled iced tea glasses lined up and ready to go.

Although you won't be seeing this picture until we resolve our technology malfunction, we served up our Hurricane in a Patty O's Hurricane glass, available at any thrift store in town for approx $.99.

With Dale's recipe, we get to experience this cocktail in its natural state. A blend of light and dark rums, with fresh orange, pineapple, and lime juices. The recipe also calls for passion fruit juice or syrup; for lack of fresh passion fruit, I used the syrup but I chose to use Philibert Routin 1883 which is a higher quality syrup than most (ie no artificial colors or flavors). The drink, I have to say, was delicious. I remember that we tried to make the Hurricane a few Mardi Gras ago, following the DDG recipe, but I must have taken some unwise shortcut because the result definitely did not taste like this. I think the secret is in using all fresh-pressed juices, which is labor intensive when referring to pineapple, but totally worth it.

I am going to attempt three things with this post: First, I am trying to keep on schedule with the Dale/David project after yesterday's unfortunate lapse. Second, I found a couple more drinks (the French 75 and Cafe Brulot) that I think belong in this quick wrap-up of New Orleans cocktails that I have been working on in the context of Dale's book. Third, I discovered that this month's Mixology Monday theme is New Orleans cocktails--cocktails from New Orleans, cocktails inspired by New Orleans, or even cocktails that you quaffed in New Orleans. I will be touching on all of these facets in this post, which, for the record, and in typical form, is taking me so long that I hope I don't get denied participation privileges by the MxMo moderator. It is after midnight, I know, but it is also still Monday night in that I am still awake from Monday...does that count? Assuming for the moment that it does, here goes my first attempted participation in Mixology Monday, the world's foremost online monthly cocktail party!

The French 75: Conflict, Conundrum, Compromise
The French 75 does not necessarily originate in New Orleans but seems tied there because of the French 75 Bar at Arnaud's, which has a long association with this drink. Some legends tell that the drink was invented by Arnaud himself; regardless of who invented it, the drink was named after the French 75 cannon which was used extensively during WW I.

In The New Orleans Restaurant Cookbook (1967) Deirdre Stanforth specifies this recipe:
Arnaud's French 75
Dash lemon juice
1 oz gin
1/2 oz Cointreau
Champagne
Lemon peel
Shake lemon juice, gin, and cointreau with ice, strain into a champagne glass, and top with champagne and a twist of lemon peel

Anyone who has stopped by that bar in recent years may be surprised to see gin make an appearance. Just recently during Tales of the Cocktail my friend Paula was at the bar and ordered a French 75 "the traditional way", meaning with gin. She was admonished by the barman who told her something to the effect of "we cannot put English gin in our French Champagne." When we went there the next day, a different bartender told us that he didn't like to talk about drinks, he just liked to make them, and would make whatever the customer wanted. We had it the way they serve it, with Cognac and I believe some type of orange liqueur.

Gary Regan writes in Joy of Mixology that the French 75 invites controversy over not just the brandy/gin base but also whether to use lemon or lime juice. I have not found a recipe yet that suggests lime. His recipe calls for gin and lemon juice, over crushed ice, which begs another question--whether to serve the drink up or on ice.

Regan cites Harry Cradock's Savoy (1930) as the earliest printed reference to this drink. Cradock outlines a traditional version with gin and lemon juice, served over cracked ice, and notes that the drink, like its namesake, I suppose, "Hits with precision." Regan attributes the Cognac version to David Embry, whose Fine Art of Mixing Drinks is finally being reprinted by Mud Puddle Books.

According to Ted "Dr. Cocktail" Haigh, the French 75 is made with gin, served up in a Champagne flute. The Cognac version is called a French 125. I have read that a vodka version is the French 76, though I don't recall where. Chris McMillan, in his series on New Orleans cocktails, makes the French 75 with gin and strains it into a Champagne flute.

Since this is the Dale/David project, I should discuss DDG's version: Brandy, lemon juice, simple syrup, and Champagne; shaken and strained over ice. In the book Dale doesn't discuss this drink as he does others, so one can only speculate as to the reasoning behind his choosing brandy over gin. I made this version and then made several other of the more traditional variety (what else was I supposed to do with this open bottle of Champagne?) Dale's version is a tasty cocktail but he seems to be outnumbered by his colleagues who favor a gin-based drink.

Taking all of this into consideration, I decided that I would do my meager part to settle the score, and created this cocktail of compromise:
The French Détente
1 oz. Cognac
1 oz. Gin
1 oz. Lemon juice
3/4 oz. Simple syrup
Shake all with ice and strain into a chilled Champagne flute; top with Champagne.

Tonight is catch-up night. A week into the Dale/David Project and we are already scrambling to stay on schedule. This is amazingly similar to how college was for me, always trying to keep up with the reading. But playing catch-up with academic reading isn't nearly as fun as trying to catch up on one's drinking.

For our mixing pleasure this evening we made the Brandy Crusta, which is yet another drink from the Dale that belongs in the New Orleans cocktail wrap-up. We also shook up three more "French" drinks; and Tipsy randomly selected the "Stella's Rose", a DDG original.

The Brandy Crusta was, according to Dale, invented by Joseph Santina at a bar in New Orleans called the Jewel of the South. What makes this drink unique is the thick sugar "crust" on the rim of the glass, followed by a very wide lemon peel garnish. The rest of the cocktail is Sidecar-like--brandy, cointreau and lemon juice--with the addition of a small amount of maraschino.

In Vintage Cocktails Ted Haigh shows an early recipe (from Jerry Thomas's 1862 Guide) that calls for Cognac, lemon juice, orange Curacao, and a dash of Boker's bitters. Haigh explains that this drink is significant as an "ancestor" cocktail, having begat the Sidecar, which begat the Margarita, etc. Haigh's formulation led Gary Regan to codify the broader category of "New Orleans Sours" in his Joy of Mixology.

The French 95 is a riff on the French 75 but uses Bourbon instead of gin/brandy, and orange juice in addition to lemon juice. It is topped with Champagne and is quite tasty.

The French Kiss is a simple preparation of equal parts sweet and dry vermouths, with a lemon peel garnish. I used Vya dry vermouth and Martini sweet vermouth. This was a refreshing wine cocktail and the lemon made a big contribution.

The French Connection is a drink that surprised me when I saw it, because I had "invented" this drink last year without knowing it had already been invented. The difference between my Sun King and the French Kiss is that mine is served on the rocks with a flamed lemon peel, making it a deconstructed postmodern Sidecar, and the French Connection is served neat in a warm snifter.

We continue the Dale/David Project with another classic, the Singapore Sling. I chose this tonight because it uses pineapple juice and I happen to have a fresh pineapple in the fridge.

The Singapore Sling according to Dale DeGroff

The Singapore Sling is one of those drinks that I think has been maligned by history because of its tropical nature and the fact that it has been tasted in bastardized form at so many low budget holiday destinations or, godforbid, Red Lobster. It is the goal of the Dale/David project to dig beneath the pop culture misunderstandings of such classics--wait til we do the top shelf Long Island Iced Tea!

According to Dale the Singapore Sling was invented in 1915 at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore. His recipe calls for the following: Gin, Cointreau, Benedictine, Peter Heering Cherry Heering, Angostura bitters, lime juice, pineapple juice, grenadine and club soda (optional). We made two versions of this drink tonight. For the first we used pomegranate molasses instead of grenadine because I was trying to get at the original intent of grenadine, which was a pomegranate syrup. If you look at a bottle of Rose's Grenadine, which is what most people know as grenadine, it is all artificial flavor and high fructose corn syrup. The ingredients of Pomegranate molasses are simple: concentrated pomegranate juice.

The first drink tasted great but I was concerned by its slightly dirty brown appearance, and so I made a second drink, identical except for the substitution of Rose's grenadine for pomegranate molasses. The result was a slightly clearer drink that tasted much sweeter--still tasty, but less so by comparison. The first drink was more complex, whereas the second one was more cloying.

The drink on the left is less cloudy, and less flavorful. Thank you High Fructose Corn Syrup!

A 1968 recipe in Trader Vic's Pacific Island Cookbook calls for Old Tom Gin (an old style of sweetened gin that is not commercially available today), Cherry Heering, Benedictine, Angostura bitters, lime juice, and ginger ale. I absolutely love that there was a time when a cookbook could put Cherry Heering in a drink recipe and expect people to know what it was! Vic's drink was served over cracked ice, as were the two that I prepared tonight.

There is something about the electric green shock of green Creme de Menthe that is horrifying and at the same time alluring. It offers the cocktail mixologist an opportunity to mix a drink with a definitive color, as opposed to the ambiguousness of many of our creations (and meanwhile it is less startling than Blue Curacao or Creme de Noyeaux). For all of its aesthetic appeal, the flavor of green Creme de Menthe doesn't deliver on the promise of the color, and makes me wonder if there is such a thing as a top shelf green Creme de Menthe that tastes less...medicinal.

Absinthe Suissesse according to DDG

Dale's version of this drink consists of Absinthe, anisette, green creme de menthe, egg white and orange flower water. The tasting panel liked this drink somewhat more than I did. I think I was expecting a slightly sweeter drink. The version from Famous New Orleans Drinks and How to Mix 'Em (1937) has dry vermouth and a spoonful of sugar as well as charged water, but does not have orange flower water. As Stanley Clisby Arthur describes in his book, "Suissesse, a perfectly good French word meaning a Switzerland-born femail, lives up to the reputation earned by those hardy daughters dwelling among the rocks of their picturesque land."

During the recent Mixology Monday monthly online cocktail party, several bloggers chose to make the Absinthe Suissesse as their featured New Orleans cocktail. There seems to be a small debate over the propriety of Creme de Menthe in this cocktail, with Chuck Taggart leading the charge against it. Here is his recipe:

Absinthe Suissesse
1-1/2 to 2 ounces absinthe (to taste)
1/2 ounce orgeat
1 egg white
1 dash orange flower water (optional)
2 ounces heavy cream
1/2 cup crushed or cubed ice

Serve either shaken or blended; old traditional method is to shake vigorously for 15 seconds with crushed ice, or blend with cubed ice. Serve in an Old Fashioned glass.

The Coffee Cocktail does not include coffee, so I'm not sure where it gets its name--possibly from a coffee-like flavor? Perhaps a cappuccino-like appearance? According to Dale the drink comes from Jerry Thomas's The Bartender's Guide or How to Mix All Kinds of Plain and Fancy Drinks (1887). It consists of Cognac, ruby port, a little sugar and a small egg, shaken and strained, garnished with grated nutmeg.

The first Coffee Cocktail that we made did not seem to have the right color, so we made another one with a different port...

This one also didn't match the color of the Coffee Cocktail in Dale's book. Could it be that I used port labeled "aged" and "vintage" and not "ruby." The extent of what I know about port is that the latter type does not have a stated vintage, but that is about it. Would this make the difference?

This cocktail reminds me of the Coffee Cocktail. It is made with Cognac and Ruby Port, but instead of the egg it gets its frothiness from heavy cream. The "chocolate" comes from creme de cacao. The Chocolate Punch dates from approximately the same vintage as the Coffee Cocktail; DeGroff found the recipe in William Schmidt's The Flowing Bowl (1891).

The Chocolate Punch, a delicious dessert drink

The Allegheny is an attractive drink that Dale found in The Ultimate A-to-Z Bar Guide by Ron and Sharon Tyler Herbst. I looked through several of my own books old and new and did not find it so I am guessing that it is their own original creation, consisting of Bourbon, dry vermouth, blackberry brandy, and lemon juice.

The Allegheny is a mild-flavored drink that according to Dale can be enhanced by muddling in a piece of lemon

This drink was quite good and a hit with the tasting panel. Dry gin, dry vermouth, yellow Chartreuse, and orange bitters are stirred with ice and garnished with a flamed orange peel. Dale reports that this recipe is from Barkeeper's Golden Book (1935) by O. Bulnier. There is very little information online about this book or its author, but the cocktail is a tasty one!

While reading Doug Winship's Pegu Blog tonight I realized that I couldn't even remember the last time I had a Pegu, and couldn't remember ever trying one using Dale's recipe. The cocktail was the house specialty of the Pegu Club, a British officer's club in Burma during the time of British imperialism.

The Pegu Cocktail

Dale's recipe is different from others that I have in that DDG specifies that you begin by muddling lime wedges, orange curacao, and bitters in the bottom of the mixing glass. To that you add gin and ice and shake. Most of the recipes I have call for fresh squeezed lime juice instead of muddled lime pieces. The difference of course is that by muddling you get not just the expressed lime juice but also the essential oil from the zest, and some of the bitterness of the pith. The cocktail tasted fine, I am just curious about Dale's reasoning--is it just a matter of personal preference, or is he referencing a historically accurate technique in some way?

The first recipe in print that I have is from Barflies and Cocktails (1927--recently and deliciously reprinted by Mud Puddle Books) and it consists of gin, orange curacao, Rose's lime juice (at least they had the pre-high fructose corn syrup version), and a dash each of Angostura and orange bitters. The recipes for this cocktail are amazingly similar, in that recipes printed 80 years apart from each other don't differ all that much. Simon Difford prints a recipe with a small amount of sweetness to offset the "tartness of this gin based Margarita-like concoction." At the Pegu Blog, Doug posts a recipe for the One True Pegu, which I made tonight so that I would have something to drink as I finished this post.

Is this what the One True Pegu looks like at Pegu Manor? (Sorry, Doug, no Saphire--had to use Plymouth)

The One True Pegu
3 oz. Bombay Saphire Gin
1 oz. Cointreau
1 oz. Real Lime Juice
2-4 Dashes Angostura Bitters
1 tsp. Fresh Egg White

Prepare as before, only shake the Hell out of it, then get serious and shake the Hell out of it some more! Strain and serve with aforementioned lime piece.

I am with Doug here, this is a tasty formula. But I have to ask, what is the precedent for the egg white?

I have not had the pleasure of tasting a Pegu at the New York's Pegu Club, but I am curious to know what their take on it is.

We begin today's installment of the Dale/David Project with a confession: this dessert drink, which is the approximate color of the filling on an Andes mint, and tastes about like said mint taken whole... I like it. If this drink was served up at some douche hole downtown, with a name like ChocoMinTini, I would give it the proper scorn it deserves. But instead I'm just going to confess to enjoying this frothy green delight.

The Grasshopper--green creme de menthe, white creme de cacao, heavy cream, and memories of childhood. Read on...

During the Molecular Mixology seminar at Tales of the Cocktail, Eben Freeman described 'sense memory' . He explained that people hold on to memories of different tastes and aromas in ways unique to them; this is particularly important as the world globalizes. (According to Freeman, the "Locavore" phenomenon is a reaction this, as people seek reminders of things that are personal, and find ways to express themselves in flavors.) He uses the example of a cedar plank. He had once made a cedar plank bourbon, and when he sampled it to people he found out that cedar brings up a range of associations, from grandma’s underwear drawer that you knew you weren't supposed to be looking in, to the shavings in the bottom of a hamster cage, to a sauna.

I think this must be one of the great misunderstood classic cocktails. It was invented in 1944 by "Trader Vic" Bergeron. It is a relatively simple drink consisting of aged rum, orange curacao, lime juice and orgeat (pronounced or-ZHAT, it is an almond syrup that is commercially available from brands such as Torani or Monin, though you can also make it at home)

The Mai Tai is a delicious and simple drink that is often misinterpreted as a tropical travesty of grenadine, pineapple juice and orange juice.

According to the Trader Vic's Web site, Victor Bergeron "set the record straight" in his own words in 1970:
In 1944, after success with several exotic rum drinks, I felt a new drink was needed. I thought about all the really successful drinks; martinis, manhattans, daiquiris .... All basically simple drinks.

In fairness to myself and to a truly great drink, I hope you will agree when I say, "Let's get the record straight on the Mai Tai".
(Thanks to Gary Regan's Joy of Mixology for this lead)

A friend called while I was preparing the drink and said, "Ugh...that's such an 80's drink. I hate pineapple juice and grenadine." I explained that pineapple juice and grenadine didn't belong in the drink, that it was not too different from a rum margarita with a splash of orgeat. He was not moved.

Such misperceptions are common. This is from a cocktail menu at the Belmont in Austin:
Mai Tai
Tommy Bahama White Sands and Myer's Dark rums, mixed with a splash of amaretto, orange and pineapple juices. $9

That's nine dollars for a drink that they didn't even care enough about to look up the recipe before they put it on their menu. One can only guess how much care will go into the preparation...

The Clover Club is named after a turn-of-the-century social club that met at the Bellvue-Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia.

The Clover Club has a nice fizzy texture with a subtle taste of raspberry

The Dale Degroff recipe consists of Gin, lemon juice, raspberry syrup and egg white.
Some recipes (including that in the 1946 Old Mr. Boston) call for grenadine in place of raspberry syrup. According to Gary Regan in The Joy of Mixology, the early recipes specified raspberry syrup but over time grenadine became the norm; Regan says "use raspberry syrup if you have it at hand--without it this drink isn't much to talk about."

DDG offers another variation which involves shaking a sprig of mint with the other ingredients--we liked this version better.

This drink does not have pepper or salt (except on the rim) in it but is one of our early favorites from the Dale.

The Salt and Pepper Martini consists of grapefruit juice, gin, simple syrup and bitters. It is a bright, fresh, delicious and balanced drink. I haven't found any information yet on its origin, though it appears again in the Dale in the form of a long drink with the same ingredients but more grapefruit juice.

The earliest version of this cocktail that I have found is in the Savoy Cocktail Book (1930). The recipe in Dale's book seems faithful to this version: Gin, Dry Vermouth, with a couple dashes of Benedictine and Bitters, in a chilled glass rinsed with Absinthe.

The 1946 Old Mr. Boston has 3 cocktails bearing this name: one following the traditional recipe; the Merry Widow #2 which consists of equal parts Maraschino and Old Mr. Boston Wild Cherry Flavored Brandy; and the Merry Widow Fizz, which consists of orange and lemon juices shaken with egg white, powdered sugar, and sloe gin.

I have a curiosity about the use of "powdered sugar" in old cocktail recipes--are they referring to the same thing that we know today as powdered sugar, which I believe has corn starch in it, which seems like it would be gross? Or is it a reference to another fine granulated sugar like caster sugar?

Like Mr. DeGroff, I too cannot resist a cocktail named after a racetrack, though with my Kentucky roots I just might like the drink even more if it were named the Churchill Downs.

Since first encountering The Craft of the Cocktail I've had a fond memory in my head about this cocktail. It is balanced, depending upon the limes, and makes me want to answer yes when asked, "Would you care for another, sir?" and I find that to be one of the greatest complements one might give to a well crafted cocktail.

Posted by Tipsy

The Dale/David Project reaches an inspiring landmark tonight with drink number twenty five, which means that we are 1/20th of the way through the book. I hope that all mixologists around Austin and the world can take a look at this accomplishment and realize that they, too, can reach for the stars. Drink up, friends! The heavens await you!

The Jacana, a Dale DeGroff original that would fit in on any Texas bar's tequila drink menu.

When I first flipped by this entry in the Dale it caught my attention because it looked at a casual glance like one of those unfortunate Kitchen Sink Margaritas that you get at many bars in Austin that think they know more about cocktail mixology than they actually do. Last Friday night we met some of Tipsy's coworkers at 219 West, a bar known more for douchebaggery and never-ending happy hour than for cocktail quality. Usually at places like this I order a beer, but liquor lust and the generous happy hour pricing tempted me to order a margarita. The good news is that I now know that I don't ever have to try that again; the bad news is that the margarita tasted like Gatorade.

A little while later, seeking redemption, I walked across the street and described to the bartender the Margarita del Muerte that I'd just had at 219. He scrunched up his nose at all of the right times and judged the 219 rita with the proper "Ewwww!" that it deserved, and I asked him if he could make me a real one, with good tequila, fresh lime, and Paula's Texas Orange. He said of course, and set about building the drink. It looked good at first. Herradura silver went into the shaker, then the Paula's, then he squeezed some fresh limes. He had me and then he lost me. He didn't just lose me, he bitch slapped me and knocked me off of my stool!; by that I mean he went to the soda gun and put sour mix and soda gun oj in the tin, and topped it off with a dollop of olive juice from the garnish tray! Mmmmm... Nothing like high fructose corn syrup and finger juice of unwashed 4th St. bartender hand! I learned my lesson and stuck with beer the rest of the night.

Now for the Jacana, a DDG original that he reportedly created for Sharen Butrum on board the yacht Jacana, on the occasion of her birthday (the woman, not the yacht). This drink is margarita-like, involving Tequila, Grand Marnier, Cointreau, and fresh lime and grapefruit juices. Pretty good, pretty Texas-y.

The Big Apple Marrr...gotcha! The Big Apple Martini is dead. Don't you read? This is the Big Apple Margarita

The Dale/David Project will move forward with the theme of my previous post, the Margarita. I feel like I should get an automatic credit for this one since I made a whole video of it, just like how in High School we got P.E. credit for marching band. (Speaking of P.E. credits I am going to need some of those after this project...)

However, I didn't follow Dale's recipe exactly so I figured I better do it so as to maintain the integrity of the D/DP.

First, a question: Dale's recipe for the Margarita does not mention the salted rim as an optional feature. Nor do many other books and videos. Dale is from the northeast--does anybody know if the salted rim varies in frequency by region? Where I come from, only the stupidest server wouldn't ask whether or not you wanted salt (I don't, thank you). It's like a small town BBQ joint where they ask you if you want "Sweet or Un-sweet" Iced Tea--when there's a choice, it's rude to assume.

Moving along, I made the classic Margarita according to Dale DeGroff: 1 1/2 oz Tequila, 1 ounce Cointreau, 3/4 ounce fresh lime juice. He shakes it and strains it into a chilled cocktail glass (Seems like in Texas we serve it on the rocks...) rimmed, as I said, with salt. I don't do salty margaritas and so I didn't here.

Next up I decided to try the Big Apple Margarita. I was a bit scared of this because on quick glance it looked like a relative of the Big Apple Martini, known colloquially as the Appletini, which suffered an untimely and unfortunate death last month in New Orleans. Upon closer inspection I realized that this concoction involved neither of the two loathsome ingredients in the late Appletini: Vodka, Sour Apple Pucker. Instead it is a stout Margarita that substitutes Berentzen's Apple Liqueur for the Cointreau. And I like it. It tasted much drier than I thought it would, since the last "Big Apple" drink I tasted was, alas, the nefarious Appletini of the early 2000's.

This brings up two sticky subjects:

Okay, cats, Tex has been the predominant voice on the Dale/David Project, and what an awesome voice it is. His passion is evident in every post and every returned comment. I can’t let the day job hold me back, so I’ll try to find a voice, as well. The tiny Aqueduct post was my first late-night attempt – sad – so I’m starting off again with the Presidente.

Created for this guy . . .,

Carmen Menocal, the president of Cuba, from 1913 to 1921. There is often reference to the Vista Alegre in Havana when speaking of the cocktail’s origin. I’d have thought this was a bar, but after a little research it appears to be an area of Havana.

Most books I referenced for recipe comparison seem to all match closely with The Craft of the Cocktail. Harry Craddock’s The Savoy Cocktail Book lists a President cocktail that is quite similar, however it leaves out dry vermouth altogether and subs orange juice for curacao – so not incredibly similar. The President lacks the mystery that the Presidente provides.

At any rate, this is a sexy cocktail and a nuanced one at that. It’s one that I would order again. Cheers – Enjoy.

Margarita Week of the Dale/David Project continues with the Cadillac Margarita and the Frozen Margarita.

This Cadillac might not be luxurious enough for some Texans

Dale's Cadillac Margarita consists of 100% Blue Agave Tequila, Grand Marnier, and Fresh Lime Juice, shaken and strained into a chilled cocktail glass that has been rimmed with salt. I went ahead and gave this one a half-rim job for the picture, though I usually don't take salt with my Margaritas.

I think this concept of the "Cadillac" margarita is an interesting one. I can't speak for any place else, but in Austin you will often see some variation of this "super-premium" margarita. Whereas Dale's just calls for "100% Blue Agave Tequila", that is considered the standard for a lot of higher-end places these days. Therefore the "Cadillac" would include some extra-añejo high dollar tequila, and maybe even one of the Centenaire products from Grand Marnier, in the case of a "Millionaire's Margarita". For the prices they get for some of these "Millionaire's" margaritas, I'd come to the millionaire's house and shake drinks all night.

The Frozen Margarita, in its ubiquitous blue glass. Bowling trophy optional.

The Frozen Margarita is something that would generally not cross my lips except for during an academic endeavor such as this one. I followed Dale's recipe, which calls for 2 ounces of Tequila to 1 ounce of triple sec, and 2 ounces of simple syrup to one ounce of lime. Notice that the ingredients are much longer than in the shaken margarita; this is to accommodate for the melting water of the blended ice. The ingredients are also skewed towards the sweeter--are we to assume that this is because the Frozen Margarita drinker favors a sweeter beverage? Perhaps.

The important thing to remember is that you cannot achieve the proper frozen-ness if you put ice from your freezer into the blender. The ice from the waffle-bottom tray will be too big to properly break down; the ice from your ice maker most likely will have absorbed a bunch of funky freezer flavors. It is recommended that you pick up a bag of ice at the grocery store, the cubes are smaller and it will likely be fresher-tasting. I opted to smack some homemade ice cubes wrapped up in a towel; this worked pretty well though I still had some larger ice pieces left after blending the drink.

I chose to present this drink in the traditional blue glass that every middle age white Texan I know seems to have. I bought a bunch of these for a Tex-Mex feast that Tipsy and I prepared for my mother's 60th birthday this year. I don't know what the reasoning behind these glasses is. They're very cumbersome and I would like to know who the hell came up with such a thing.

If you want to waste 2 oz. 100% Agave Tequila, forget to put the blades on the blender cup before pouring in ingredients

This was a busy weekend at Tipsy Manor. On Saturday we had the Elvis Presley Yahrzeit Memorial Coffee Stand in the morning in honor of the King's death; in the evening we were serving cocktails at the Dai Due Supper Club's fundraiser dinner for the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance. But in between that we hosted a Bitters Practicum with local mixologists Moxy Castro and Bill Norris demonstrating the production of homemade bitters. And since we had so many great mixological minds gathered together, we thought it would be a good idea to knock out some drinks for the Dale/David Project, and so Bill became our first Guest Mixologist.

Bill's first choice was the Whiskey Peach Smash, a DDG original drink that involves muddled peach, lemon, and mint, shaken with whiskey and served on the rocks. This was a good refreshing summer whiskey drink.

The Wild Turkey Rye was Bill's choice; the recipe calls for Canadian whiskey, which we don't stock

Bill's second choice was the Honeymoon Cocktail, which was a real crowd pleaser. Consisting of Applejack, Benedictine, orange curacao, and lemon juice, this reminded me of a Sidecar. The Difford's Guide recipe calls for half of an egg white. The 1946 Old Mr. Boston does not.

The Honeymoon Cocktail originates from the Brown Derby in 1930's Hollywood

While Moxy and Tipsy were peeling citrus for the bitters project, Bill and I were shaking drinks. I happened to buy a bottle of Old Potrero the day before and was excited to find that DDG created a cocktail specifically for use with this whiskey. Old Potrero is distilled at Anchor Brewing in San Francisco, and they produce a small handful of boutique whiskeys and gins that are hard to get in Texas. Their whiskeys are unique in that they are made in a style that attempts to replicate the earliest American whiskeys, and so are not aged as long and are bottled at a considerably higher proof than most modern whiskeys.

According to Dale, drinks like this served over shaved ice are called "Mists."

The Rye Club consists of Old Potrero shaken with orange curacao (I used Grandma) and a dash of orange bitters, served over shaved ice. I didn't have the necessary hardware to create shaved ice, so I put it in a cloth sack and beat it with a heavy muddler, to good effect

I am not sure whether this drink is meant to heal a suffering bastard, or put him in that state, but I could see both possibilities. A big rummy drink that Dale describes as "A Mai Tai with orange juice." None of the books I have give any information as to the origin of this cocktail though it does appear (without other attribution) in the 1968 Trader Vic's Pacific Island Cookbook, without the orange juice specified in Dale's recipe. Anybody have an earlier citation for this cocktail?

Medium rum, Wray & Nephew overproof rum, orange curacao, orgeat, and fresh lime and orange juices.

Pousse Cafes are a category of drinks that consist of layering liqueurs of varying densities carefully on top of each other; the process is, in my opinion, tedious, though the results are visually appealing (if a bit odd flavorwise). The ABC consists of equal parts Amaretto, Bailey's Irish Cream, and Cointreau. These were relatively easy to layer--I guess this is a beginner's pousse cafe.

I attempted the much more complicated Pousse Cafe that Dale uses to introduce the category, and it has 7 layers. It started out as a beautiful drink but then one of the layers tricked another layer to switch places with it (the result, I guess, of the green Creme de Menthe I used being of a different density than the one Dale uses) Ultimately the drink began to look like a disaster and I scrapped the project for another day.

The ABC Pousse Cafe, with three layers, proved to be much easier than the7-layered Pousse Cafe that is found elsewhere in the book. If I had hit the top layer just right, it would be clear, but my hands proved not to be as steady as I thought they were!

Note: The reason why we decided to do Pousse Cafes last night is because we were out of ice. No ice = no cocktails, an important thing to remember if you plan on embarking on a journey such as this one.

Last night was a cram session at Tipsy Manor: cramming in a handful of drinks from the Dale so that we could stay on schedule for the Dale/David Project, and me cramming a bunch of buffalo wings into my mouth because I was so hungry that my stomach was digesting itself, since the meal took so long to prepare (next time--Pluckers).

Don't worry, there were more wings on the grill. I had to get the table set so that we could take a damn picture and start eating.

I decided for no apparent reason (no big game, no abundance of time) that I was going to cook Buffalo Wings from scratch--make the pepper sauce, then the Buffalo sauce; trim celery, make bleu cheese dressing; cut up chicken wings into drums, flappers, and freaky nub that nobody eats (I added these and some veggie scraps to make a quick stock), then smoke over charcoal and toss in wing sauce; cut and fry potatoes. And drink a bunch of cold Leinenkugel's, which Jenna and Tipsy thought tasted like "Grandpa beer."

While I grunted and bitched in the kitchen, Tipsy mixed cocktails with our esteemed guest Jenna Noel, associate publisher of Edible Austin magazine.

Jenna chose for her first drink the Mark Twain Cocktail. This cocktail follows a rather simple formula: Scotch + Lemon juice + sugar + bitters = yummy. It was supposedly described by Twain himself to his wife in a letter he wrote from London in 1874.

The Mark Twain was well balanced, simple, and delicious

Tipsy flipped through the Dale and found the Paris Cocktail. Consisting of gin, dry vermouth, and creme de cassis, shaken and strained, and garnished with a flamed lemon peel. It was reportedly created by Colin Field at the Hemingway Bar, Ritz Hotel, Paris.

Tipsy was getting artistic (and tipsy) with this photo. The Paris Cocktail is much sweeter than we expected.

For dessert we had a lemon cheesecake pie that a friend brought us from his aunty Marie (Calendar's). To wash it down I made two frothy creamy drinks. The first was the Parisian Blonde. According to Dale, "This is a vintage cocktail in the tradition of the classic Alexander... The name remains a mystery to me." She consists of rum, orange curacao, and heavy cream, with a few drops of vanilla as a garnish on top of the frothy head.