This one came to my attention in one of Gary Regan’s columns, where the Professor and Doc sample a 1930 classic. It was named after a 1920s Rudolph Valentino movie, based on a novel of the same title by Vincente Blasco Ibáñez. It has since become one of my favorite Scotch-based cocktails (and that’s not all …).

Blood and Sand

3/4 ounce blended Scotch.
3/4 ounce sweet vermouth.
3/4 ounce Cherry Heering.
3/4 ounce fresh orange juice.

Shake with cracked ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass.

The smokiness of the Scotch works well in harmony with the other ingredients here, as unlikely as that may sound. If you want to take it to another level, swap out the Scotch for a good smoky mezcal, such as one of the Del Maguey offerings, or perhaps Sombra if you want to crank the smoke level up even more. With this substitution, though, you should call it an Arena y Sangre.

[UPDATE] The above photo was taken at the 2007 Spirited Dinner at Commander’s Palace at Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans, in which Chef Tory McPhail’s dishes were paired with cocktails by Audrey Saunders and Dale DeGroff. The Blood and Sand is a classic cocktail, and the only straight-ahead classic that was served at the meal. Usually it calls for a blended Scotch, and though I’m not sure what Scotch they used in this one, it did have a bit of smoke it it, which made it so perfect to go along with what was to come. Let’s talk cocktail pairings with food … here’s the dish that this drink accompanied.

Our entrée was Sugarcane and Bourbon Smoked Duck, smoked over smoldering whiskey barrels with local figs, a sweet potato pone, BBQ’ed onions, vanilla bourbon syrup and foie gras ganache.

Jesus Gawd.

Let’s just go through this again, shall we? Duck with Bourbon and sugarcane rub, smoked over smoldering wood from whiskey barrels. This is one reason why Tory McPhail is one of my favorite people on the planet. This dish was just fantastic; I think Wes and I had our eyes rolled up in our heads more than once while eating this dish. And the really fascinating thing is that the booze in the dish wasn’t paired with the booze in the drink this time … the smoke in the booze in the drink was paired with the smoke in the duck in the dish.

THAT, my friends, is how you pair a cocktail with a dish.

I wanted thirds and fourths of this, and I’m going to cry next time I go to Commander’s because this dish won’t be on the menu. Maybe I’ll luck out and it will, though. Fingers crossed.

This is a truly amazing cocktail, one of the great examples of cocktail alchemy that creates completely new flavors from its component ingredients and produces a drink that makes you want to shout for joy.

Our good friend Dr. Cocktail sings its praises; in fact, it’s the very drink that started him on his world-class journey to cocktailian archaeological expertise. That’s good enough for me, and so it should be for us all.

The name comes from the days when people drank cocktails in the morning (and why not indeed?), and was in a category of “pick-me-ups” meant to be served the morning after the night before. Various drinks called “corpse revivers” dated back to the 19th Century, but cocktail guides appeared to settle on three or four numbered version — some of the other numbered Corpse Revivers involve port, or vermouth and brandy, but I think this one is the best. London’s Savoy Hotel’s legendary head barman Harry Craddock, in his indispensible 1930 tome The Savoy Cocktail Book, notes that “[f]our of these in taken in swift succession will unrevive the corpse again.”

There’s so much going on in this drink, which is sophisticated and complex to the point that my first sips of one had me tasting things that weren’t even there (my first guess was that this drink might have had rum in it!), but once you know what’s in it you can taste every ingredient. This is a perfect drink to serve guests who might fear gin, or who might not have experience with classic cocktails of old. In keeping with its name, it’s a concoction that might just help you out a bit … the morning after the night before. Or any other time, really.

A Corpse Reviver No. 2, as served by Chris Hannah at Arnaud's French 75 Bar, New Orleans

Corpse Reviver No. 2

3/4 ounce gin.
3/4 ounce Cointreau.
3/4 ounce Lillet blanc.
3/4 ounce fresh lemon juice.
1 dash absinthe or Herbsaint.

Combine in a shaker with cracked ice; shake and strain.
Garnish with a stemless cherry.

As I write this, the night before the morning after, my corpse is already feeling rather revived indeed, and I’m not even dead yet.

We also like to use this as a “gateway drink,” especially when converting unsuspecting vodka drinkers to the joys of gin. I know, vodka drinkers, way back in the Olden Days I used to be afraid of gin too. Not anymore. Gin is wonderful. Trust me on this.

As Erik advises, this is also a superb example of a drink in which to swap out Lillet for Cocchi Americano, if you can find it — it’s a chinato, a quinine-bearing, fortified aperitif wine. It’ll be a fair bit more like the original concept of the drink, which used the more bitter and now-unavailable Kina Lillet, which was replaced by the non-bitter and more citrusy Lillet Blanc in 1986.

If you’d like to tinker with proportions, my friend Rick has done a great deal of experimentation with this drink.

If you really want to serve this drink with a flourish, when presenting them to your guests on a silver tray, do your best impression of Gene Wilder as Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (“That’s FRONK-en-steen.”) and shriek, “LIFE! GIVE MY CREATION … LIIIIIFE!”

Or not.