The Widow’s Kiss

An odd name for a Valentine’s Day drink, it’s The Widow’s Kiss:

• 1.50 ounces Calvados
• 0.75 ounce Chartreuse (Green was meant, but yellow mellows the drink a bit)
• 0.75 ounce Benedictine
• 2 dashes Angostura bitters

Shake in an iced cocktail shaker, and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a cherry.

There is a little story behind my choosing the make this drink just now. My friend Justin is the cocktail chef at the Oakleaf restaurant. He’s started this new theme night called “Throwback Thursdays” which features $8 vintage cocktails. He tends to have five recipes that have some sort of theme, be it “gin” or “election year”, etc.

The Coffee Cocktail

No coffee, but you will find port in The Coffee Cocktail:

• 1 ounce brandy (Martell works well)
• 1 egg
• 2 to 3 ounces ruby port
• 1 teaspoon sugar

Pour brandy into an iced cocktail shaker. Add the egg. Pour in the port and sugar. Shake and strain into a small goblet. Grate or shake some nutmeg on top.

This is the second cocktail in the book to feature port (the other being the Chatham Hotel Special). I was kind of dreading this one, as it doesn’t contain the things I look for in a cocktail, which tend to be gin or bourbon, fruit juice and bitters. But I did have the perfect glass for it.

The Brandy Crusta

A precursor to the Margarita is The Brandy Crusta:

• 1 lemon
• 0.5 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
• Bar or table sugar
• 2.0 ounces cognac (Hennessy specified)
• 1 teaspoon orange curaçao (Marie Brizard specified)
• 1 dash Boker’s Bitters (or substitute Angostura

Cut the lemon in half. Pare the full peel off half, and squeeze the juice from the lemon. Moisten the glass rim with the lemon juice, and dip it in bar or table sugar. Insert a lemon peel into the glass, Mix the liquors in a cocktail shaker of crushed ice. Shake, and strain into the prepared glass. Add 1 small lump of ice, and serve.

Continue reading

Chatham Hotel Special

Another cocktail featuring dairy, it’s the Chatham Hotel Special:

• 1.5 ounces brandy
• 0.5 ounce ruby port
• 0.5 cream
• 1 dash dark creme de cacao

Shake in an iced cocktail shaker, and strain into a small cocktail glass.

I like the name of this cocktail because I live in Chatham County, North Carolina, and you don’t see the word “Chatham” all that often (I always have to add it to my spell checkers). It was named after a now gone hotel in New York City.

Milk Punch

Milk in a cocktail? It’s key in Milk Punch:

• 1.0 ounce brandy
• 0.5 ounce dark rum
• 2 teaspoons simple syrup
• 2 dashes vanilla extract
• 4.0 ounces whole milk

Shake the ingredients all together in a cocktail shaker with cracked ice. Strain into a tumbler half full of shaved ice (Shaved ice was more like snow than crushed ice, but if you pound your ice to smithereens, it’ll be similar enough). Grate or shake some nutmeg on top.

Continue reading

Barbara West Cocktail

Want a sherry-based martini? Try the Barbara West Cocktail:

• 2.0 ounces gin
• 1.0 ounce sherry
• 0.5 ounce lemon juice
• 1 small dash Angostura bitters

Shake in an iced cocktail shaker, and strain into a cocktail glass.

I have no idea why this drink is named what it is. There was a famous Titanic survivor named Barbara West as well as a TV news anchor, but I think the latter Babs would be too young to have inspired a vintage cocktail.

The Alamagoozlum Cocktail

The first cocktail recipe in the book is the Alamagoozlum Cocktail:

• 0.5 egg white
• 2.0 ounces genever gin
• 2.0 ounces water
• 1.5 ounces Jamaican rum
• 1.5 ounces yellow or green Chartreuse
• 1.5 ounces gomme syrup
• 0.5 ounce orange curaçao
• 0.5 ounce Angostura bitters

Shake very, very hard and long in a large iced cocktail shaker and serve tremulously into several previously chilled cocktail glasses.

This is an odd one, and I find it ironic that this cocktail managed to come first in the book, as it perfectly illustrates what a vintage and forgotten cocktail should be. It contains a number of obscure ingredients, which took me some time to assemble. Then I had to wait until I had two other friends around who wanted to try it, ’cause the recipe makes enough for three glasses.