Satan’s Whiskers Cocktail (Straight)
Of Italian Vermouth (1/2 oz Carpano Antica), French Vermouth (1/2 oz Dolin Blanc), Gin (1/2 oz Plymouth Navy Strength Gin) and Orange Juice (1/4 oz Valencia Orange Juice, 1/4 oz Sour Lemon Orange Juice), two parts each; of Grand Marnier one part (1/4 oz Grand Marnier); Orange Bitters (Regan’s Orange Bitters), a dash. Shake well and strain into cocktail glass.
Satan’s Whiskers Cocktail (Curled)
For the Grand Marnier in the foregoing Cocktail, substitute the same quantity of Orange Curacao (1/2 oz Bols Dry Orange Curacao). Shake well and strain into cocktail glass.
To be honest, I’ve never really been all that thrilled with the Satan’s Whiskers cocktail. It’s a great name, but all too often it isn’t a well balanced or interesting cocktail. Kind of like the Bronx, the quality of orange juice is almost a little too important.
The Saturday before, I headed down to the Farmers’ Market with the idle goal of finding some sort of interesting orange related fruit for the drink. Anything. Clementines, Satsumas, whatever. In my heart of hearts, I really hoped for some seville oranges, as one of the suppliers often carries them during their brief season. No seville oranges, but there was an odd box of small citrus marked, “Sour Lemon Oranges”. When I picked them up to look at them, the farmer woman said something like, good for salads and cooking! Give them a try!
The picture above shows them with a quarter of a navel orange behind. You can see they are quite small and quite seedy. The meat is off yellow and the inner fruit peel greenish. They are really sour. I think possibly even more sour than lemons. They made a pretty fantastic honey mustard marinade for a pork tenderloin.
Anyway, back to drinks.
The recipe is a bit odd, I can’t think of another in the book written in this “parts” style. I decided to base it on 1/4 oz “parts”, as that would get me near the usual 2 1/4 oz cocktails.
A fresh-ish bottle of Carpano gives this a nice spice to go along with the sweetness.
As far as the difference between 1/4 oz of Bols Orange Curacao and 1/4 oz of Grand Marnier, I’ll be darned if I could tell the difference with all the other ingredients in this cocktail. And since the gin is such a small proportion, I figured Navy Strength Plymouth wouldn’t be a bad idea. It definitely wasn’t.
Maybe Satan’s Whiskers aren’t so bad after all!
This post is one in a series documenting my ongoing effort to make all of the cocktails in the Savoy Cocktail Book, starting at the first, Abbey, and ending at the last, Zed.
Sand-Martin Cocktail
1 Teaspoonful Green Chartreuse. (1 Teaspoonful of Yellow Chartreuse)
1/2 Italian Vermouth. (1 oz Carpano Antica Italian Vermouth)
1/2 Dry Gin. (1 oz Beefeater Gin)
Shake (I stirred) well and strain into cocktail glass.
In his pre-prohibition book “Cocktails: How to Mix Them,” Robert Vermeire notes regarding the “San Martin Cocktail”, “This well known South American drink must be well shaken. It contains no Bitters of any description, but: ½ gill of Gin; ½ gill of Italian Vermouth; 1 teaspoonful of Yellow Chartreuse; A little lemon peel is squeezed on top.”
Odd that Vermeire specifies the “San Martin” must be “well shaken”.
San Martin or Sand-Martin, I guess since this doesn’t have bitters, it really isn’t really a Martinez variation. More of a “Lone Tree” variation, I suppose. Well, however you decide to classify it, it is quite tasty, whether you make it with yellow or green chartreuse. Though I kind of lean towards yellow.
This post is one in a series documenting my ongoing effort to make all of the cocktails in the Savoy Cocktail Book, starting at the first, Abbey, and ending at the last, Zed.
Rosington Cocktail.
1/3 Italian Vermouth, (3/4 oz Punt e Mes)
2/3 Dry Gin. (1 1/2 oz Ransom Old Tom Gin)
Shake well and strain into cocktail glass. Squeeze orange peel on top.
Well, I was kind of thinking of the Lone Tree Cocktail and remembering how it was made with Old Tom instead of Dry Gin. Seemed like Old Tom would be a sensible substitution in the Rosington.
The Ransom Old Tom is an interesting choice here. Conceived as a sort of half way point between later style Old Tom Gin and earlier styles which may have used some portion of Malt Wine, this is an interesting product. It also packs quite a wallop at 88 Proof!
I also went with the Punt e Mes, since the cocktail had no bitters.
Woo! A two ingredient Cocktail. And a tasty one, at that.
This post is one in a series documenting my ongoing effort to make all of the cocktails in the Savoy Cocktail Book, starting at the first, Abbey, and ending at the last, Zed.
Rolls Royce Cocktail.
1 Dash Benedictine.
1/4 French Vermouth. (1/2 oz Dolin Dry Vermouth)
1/4 Italian Vermouth. (1/2 oz Carpano Antica Sweet Vermouth)
1/2 Dry Gin. (1 oz Beefeater Gin)
Shake (I stirred) well and strain into cocktail glass. (Orange Peel.)
Oh sweet, delicious Carpano, how happy I am to have you back! Ahem.
Another “perfect” Martini variation, and another delicious cocktail. An Orange Peel just seemed like an interesting idea, as a counterpoint to the herbal richness of the Benedictine.
Certainly a cocktail worth playing around with. Might even be good with Genever.
This post is one in a series documenting my ongoing effort to make all of the cocktails in the Savoy Cocktail Book, starting at the first, Abbey, and ending at the last, Zed.
Rob Roy Cocktail.
1 Dash Angostura Bitters.
1/2 Italian Vermouth. (3/4 oz Carpano Antica)
1/2 Scotch Whisky. (1 1/2 oz Pig’s Nose Scotch)
Shake well and strain into cocktail glass. (Lemon Peel.)
Particularly for Saint Andrew’s Day, to open the evening for the usual enormous annual gathering of the Clans at the Savoy.
First tried this with the well established Famous Grouse Scotch. Not sure if my bottle has gotten a bit tired, as it has been around a while, or what, but didn’t thrill me. Got a lot of high alcohol in the flavor and nose, and not much flavor.
Retried with the mini of Pig’s Nose sent to me by a firm promoting that brand, and found the cocktail much improved. Some nice pear-like flavor in that Scotch and better body. Not sure if it’s worth a third again the price of the Grouse, but if money were no object it would be a nice choice. Given I was mixing with Carpano Antica, I changed the Scotch to Vermouth ratio from fifty-fifty to two-one.
I guess by now you’ve figured out that I’m kind of a weirdo. I often order things just out of curiosity about how they taste, with nothing more than a rumor or a feeling.
Back when I was growing up in the Midwest, my family and people I knew didn’t really drink cocktails or go out to bars. I had one uncle who always ordered a Gimlet when we were out for dinner and one aunt who always ordered a screwdriver. Beyond that, I was in the dark.
When I got old enough to drink, we were talking about the TGIFridays and Chichis dark days of the cocktail. In the 1980s, Long Island Iced Teas and blended Margaritas full of saccharine sweet sour mix were the order of the day, and I partook gladly.
However, one night I was out at a childhood favorite Italian Restaurant, Lombardino’s. It was an awesome place, with a model of the Trevi Fountain in the front, a little paper mache dog who barked when you pulled it’s chain, a wishing well, plastic grapes hanging from the ceiling, and little balconies on the walls with dolls dressed as Italian characters. I loved it. And frankly, the food was pretty good. I always ordered the Manicotti. But back to the story. One night I was out with some High School friends and the Rob Roy caught my eye and I ordered it, likely getting a big glass of scotch and sweet vermouth on the rocks. I would like to say my life changed at that moment, but I don’t really remember. I remember the big, bulky, amber colored glass it came in more than the cocktail itself. Still, it was the first proper cocktail I ordered in my life, and I like to think it aligned me a bit with the vermouth happy path I am currently on.
Lombardino’s has recently been reinvented by a Madison couple, who decided the time was past for the Italian American food of the 1940s and 1950s. They’ve made an attempt to bring some authentic Italian food into the still very cool looking restaurant. Well, OK, they took down a lot of the really cool and really kitschy decorations, for which I may one day forgive them, but the fountain and the wishing well are still there, and the food, I suppose, is technically better. Still, I kind of missed the Manicotti the last time I was in.
This post is one in a series documenting my ongoing effort to make all of the cocktails in the Savoy Cocktail Book, starting at the first, Abbey, and ending at the last, Zed.
Raymond Hitch Cocktail.
The Juice of 1/2 Orange.
1 Dash Orange Bitters. (Angostura Orange Bitters)
1 Slice Pineapple.
1 Glass Italian Vermouth. (2 oz Carpano Antica Vermouth)
(Muddle Pineapple in orange juice and…) Shake well and strain into cocktail glass.
A tasty, light and slightly exotic Low Alcohol Cocktail, the Savoy Raymond Hitch would be a pleasant before dinner diversion.
In his 1917 book, “Recipes for Mixed Drinks,” Hugo Ensslin gives this the clever name, “Raymond Hitchcocktail”.
From Answers.com:
“Hitchcock, Raymond (1865–1929), comic actor and producer. Described by Stanley Green as “a lanky, raspy?voiced comic with sharp features and straw?colored hair that he brushed across his forehead,” he was born in Auburn, New York, and came to the theatre after some unhappy years in other trades. From 1890 on he began to call attention to himself in musicals such as The Brigands and The Golden Wedding. His performance in King Dodo (1901) made him a star…”
Interestingly, his last great theater role may have been as Clem Hawley in the stage version of Don Marquis’ The Old Soak.
This post is one in a series documenting my ongoing effort to make all of the cocktails in the Savoy Cocktail Book, starting at the first, Abbey, and ending at the last, Zed.
Ray Long Cocktail.
1 Dash Angostura Bitters. (1 dash Angostura Bitters)
4 Dashes Absinthe. (3 dashes Verte de Fougerolles Absinthe)
1/3 glass Italian Vermouth. (3/4 oz Carpano Antica Vermouth)
2/3 Glass Brandy. (1 1/2 oz Junipero Gin)
Shake (I stirred) well and strain into cocktail glass.
Uh, oops! How did that happen? Somehow I got it into my head this was a Gin cocktail! Well, it’s really tasty, if you like Fourth Degree type things. Ahem. However, I guess I need to make it over!
Ray Long Cocktail.
1 Dash Angostura Bitters. (1 dash Angostura Bitters)
4 Dashes Absinthe. (3 dashes Verte de Fougerolles Absinthe)
1/3 glass Italian Vermouth. (3/4 oz Carpano Antica Vermouth)
2/3 Glass Brandy. (1 1/2 oz Chateau de Pellehaut Armagnac Reserve)
Shake (I stirred) well and strain into cocktail glass.
Ok, that’s better, an Absinthe spiked Brandy Manhattan!
From a Time Magazine article from 1935:
Of all the careers which reached their tragic peak in the fateful year 1929, none had been more exciting than Ray Long’s. A poor boy from a small town in Indiana, he had quickly made his mark in the newspaper business as “boy editor” of the Cincinnati Post and Cleveland Press. Then he splashed brilliantly into the fiction magazine field, running through the spectrum of Red Book, Bine Book, Green Book. On Armistice Day 1918, William Randolph Hearst succeeded, after several years’ dickering, in hiring Editor Long for his Cosmopolitan. In the eleven years that followed. Editor Long made a great success. Explaining “All I know is what I like,” he nevertheless showed an uncanny eye for the weather of public preference. When the public wanted Westerns, he gave it Curwood & Kyne. When it wanted Knowledge, he gave it Will Durant. When it wanted Russians, he gave it Russians. Prodigally sowing Big Names and New Names with talent in his slick and shiny monthly, Editor Long reaped a 1,700,000 circulation harvest in 1929. That was the year he printed perhaps his greatest coup: The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge.
He would have been riding high in 1930, still 5 years from being found, “in his Beverly Hills bedroom…dead in his pajamas, a hole in the roof of his mouth, a small-bore rifle nearby.”
This post is one in a series documenting my ongoing effort to make all of the cocktails in the Savoy Cocktail Book, starting at the first, Abbey, and ending at the last, Zed.
R.A.C. Special Cocktail.
2 Dashes Orange Bitters. (Angostura Orange Bitters)
1/4 French Vermouth. (1/2 oz Dolin French Vermouth)
1/4 Italian Vermouth. (1/2 oz Punt e Mes)
1/2 Dry Gin. (1 oz Plymouth Gin)
Shake well and strain into cocktail glass. Squeeze orange peel on top.
Robert Vermeire has the following additional information in his book, Cocktails: How to Mix Them, “R.A.C. means Royal Automobile Club. This is the largest club in London, with over 16,000 members. (Recipe by Fred Faecks, 1914.)”
Unfortunately, I can find no trace of the honorable Fred Faecks on the Internet, so where he might have been bartending remains a mystery.
The Royal Automobile Club, on the other hand, is a bit less of a mystery.
If you know me, you know I enjoyed this cocktail. It is, after all, just a perfect Martini with an orange twist.
This post is one in a series documenting my ongoing effort to make all of the cocktails in the Savoy Cocktail Book, starting at the first, Abbey, and ending at the last, Zed.
Queen Elizabeth Cocktail.
1 Dash Curacao (1/3 teaspoon Brizard Orange Curacao)
1/2 Italian Vermouth. (1 oz Punt e Mes)
1/2 Brandy. (1 oz Osocalis Brandy)
Stir well and strain into cocktail glass. Add 1 cherry. (Orange Peel.)
As the cocktail doesn’t call for any bittters, I cheated a bit and went with the Punt e Mes for this Queen Elizabeth Cocktail.
Nothing complicated or particularly deep, but quite tasty!
Definitely preferable to the previous Queen Elizabeth with Gin, Cointreau, Lemon, and Absinthe.
From the wikipedia, regarding the Queen:
Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (Elizabeth Angela Marguerite; 4 August 1900 – 30 March 2002) was Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions from 1936 until 1952 as the wife of King George VI. After her husband’s death, she was known as Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, to avoid confusion with her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II. She was the last Queen of Ireland and Empress of India.
Assuming that that is the Queen Elizabeth we are talking about here, I’m a bit surprised. It is my understanding her favorite drink was Gin and Dubonet Rouge, rocks, with a slice of lemon.
This post is one in a series documenting my ongoing effort to make all of the cocktails in the Savoy Cocktail Book, starting at the first, Abbey, and ending at the last, Zed.
Queen’s Cocktail.
1/2 Slice of Crushed Pineapple.
1/4 French Vermouth. (3/4 oz Dolin French Vermouth)
1/4 Italian Vermouth. (3/4 oz Martini and Rossi Sweet Vermouth)
1/2 Gin. (1 1/2 oz Sarticious Gin)
(Muddle pineapple in shaker. Add ingredients and ice…) Shake well and strain into cocktail glass.
According to Robert Vermeire, this recipe was, “by Harry Craddock, New York.” Nice to get an actual verified Craddock cocktail. But wait, isn’t The Queen’s Cocktail just a slightly dried out version of The Plaza Cocktail?
In the case of the Queen’s I actually splurged and bought a fresh pineapple and muddled half a slice in the drink. Can’t say that the substitution made that much difference between them. I think possibly the fresh pineapple was slightly more flavorful and gave a bit better foam. Both the Plaza and The Queen’s are fairly tasty, in a vaguely tropical, punch-like way. Amazing how a couple pieces of fruit can take a cocktail a long way from being a perfect Martini!
This post is one in a series documenting my ongoing effort to make all of the cocktails in the Savoy Cocktail Book, starting at the first, Abbey, and ending at the last, Zed.
