SC Demerara Syrup

A staple in many of the Smuggler’s Cove drinks:

• 2 cups water
• 1 cup demerara sugar
• 3 cups granulated sugar

Bring the water to a boil in a saucepan over high heat. Add the demerara sugar and stir vigorously with a whisk (or use an immersion blender) until the sugar is dissolved, about 1 minute (the water should become clear). Add the granulated sugar and stir vigorously until dissolved, about 1 minute. Remove from heat and let cool.

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Chaos Calmer

From the world of tech comes the Chaos Calmer:

• 1.50 ounces gin
• 0.75 ounce lime juice
• 0.25 ounce triple sec
• 1.50 ounce orange juice
• 1 tsp Grenadine syrup

Short shake with broken ice and pure unstrained into a double rocks glass. Garnish with an orange wheel or lime wedge.

In my other life I work with open source software, and I tend to use open source solutions for almost all of my technology needs. I recently needed to replace my wireless router and I decided to choose one that was supported by the OpenWRT project.

Perfect Amaretto Sour

Jeffrey Morganthaler claims this is the Perfect Amaretto Sour:

• 1.50 ounces Amaretto
• 0.75 ounce cask-proof bourbon
• 1.00 ounce lemon juice
• 0.50 ounce egg white, beaten
• 1 tsp of 2:1 simple syrup

Dry shake ingredients to combine, then shake well with cracked ice. Strain over fresh ice in an old fashioned glass. Garnish with lemon peel and brandied cherries.

Spoiler, he would be right.

I’ve made well over 100 cocktails at this point and not a single one of them called for Amaretto, an almond-flavored liquor from Italy. I do have a bottle (I think I’ve used it in baking) and I do remember drinking a few Amaretto Sours in my misspent youth. Mainly I associate them with a sweeter, less powerful margarita, and I hadn’t thought of them much until this weekend.

Champagne Cocktail

Saved for last, it’s the Champagne Cocktail:

• 1 sugar cube
• 4 dashes Angostura Bitters
• champagne

In either a tall (pretty) champagne flute or a saucer (traditional) champagne glass, add the sugar and bitters. Fill with champagne. Garnish with a lemon twist.

No, this is not my last cocktail but it is the last of the 110 recipes (including the appendix) in Ted Haigh’s seminal Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails book. It took me a little over two years to make them all, so that averages out to about one a week. I wonder how many other people have managed to “make them all”?

Straits Sling

The Dead Rabbit version of the Straits Sling:

• 0.50 ounce Lemon Sherbet
• 1.50 ounces Bols Genever gin
• 0.50 ounce Cherry Herring
• 0.50 ounce Benedictine
• 0.50 ounce kirsch eau de vie
• 0.75 ounce fresh lemon juice
• 3 dashes Dead Rabbit Orinoco Bitters or Angostura Aromatic Bitters
• 1.50 ounces rhubarb soda
• Fresh nutmeg, grated, for garnish Add all the ingredients, except the soda and garnish, to a shaker. Fill with ice and shake. Strain into an ice filled tall glass. Add the soda and garnish with freshly grated nutmeg.

This is my second recipe from the Dead Rabbit Drinks Manual, which is more a book of alchemy than recipes.

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Lemon Sherbet

No, it’s not ice cream, but it is called Lemon Sherbet:

• 4.0 lemons
• 1.5 cups granulated sugar
• 12 ounces lemon juice Prepare an oleo-saccharum with the lemon peels and sugar. In a small saucepan, combine the oleo-saccharum and lemon juice over medium heat, but do not boil. Slowly stir to dissolve the sugar. When the syrup has thickened, remove from the heat. Strain through a chinois into bottles. The sherbet will keep for 2 to 3 weeks in the refrigerator.

Okay, this ingredient is used in cocktails from the Dead Rabbit book, but don’t be thrown by fancy words like “oleo-saccharum”. It’s just Latin for “smush up a bunch of citrus peels in sugar”.

The Bloody Mary

Nothin’ says “day drinkin’” like The Bloody Mary:

• 2 ounces vodka
• 6 ounces tomato juice or V8
• 2 dashes Worcestershire Sauce
• 1 dash Tabasco Pepper Sauce
• Celery salt Stir alll together in an iced highball glass. Sprinkle celery salt on top. Garnish with a celery stick.

I’ve read that in the early days of cocktails they were consumed in the morning, providing an almost medicinal lift to the rest of the day. Now, at least in Western society, the consumption of alcoholic beverages before noon is frowned upon, and most are expected to wait until after the work day has ended.