We’ve got an inadvertent theme going this week — whiskey-based cocktails that are closely related to one another and yet very distinctly flavored.

We were back to Irish whiskey last night with this entry from Gary Regan’s The Joy of Mixology. Lovely drink, and a very close cousin (if not sibling) of my own St. Dominic’s Preview. The whiskey was once again Tullamore Dew, the bitters Regans’, and the vermouth Martini & Rossi.

The recipe specified a garnish of a green maraschino cherry, which visually is in keeping with the theme of this cocktail. Unfortunately green maraschino cherries are macerated in a mint syrup and taste absolutely vile, and fortunately we didn’t have any. A brandied one was substituted.

Dubliner

2 ounces Irish whiskey.
1/2 ounce sweet vermouth.
1/2 ounce Grand Marnier.
3 dashes orange bitters.

Stir with ice for no less than 30 seconds; strain into a cocktail glass.
Cherry garnish optional.

Up the Dubs! (Well, cocktail-wise, anyway. If I cared about such things I’d be a Galway man. Actually, on the rare opportunities I get to do so I love watching hurling; it’s really exciting.)

Hmm … do I need to invent a cocktail called “The Galwegian”?

This one, a very tasty Manhattan variation, came from The Old Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book. For best results, use a high-quality, spicy sweet vermouth like Carpano’s Punt E Mes or Antica Formula, and Regans’ Orange Bitters No. 6.

The Marconi Wireless Cocktail

2 ounces applejack (or straight apple brandy, preferably).
1 ounce sweet vermouth.
2 dashes orange bitters.

Stir with ice for no less than 30 seconds.
Strain into a cocktail glass, and garnish with a cherry.

Yum.

Lá Fhéile Pádraig Sona Duit! (Happy St. Patrick’s Day, and all that.) Ná cuir ceist orm … níl a fhois agam! (I do know, actually; I just like saying that.) Oh, and NO feckin’ green beer today, please. Black.

Okay, so it’s St. Patrick’s Day … there may be drinking involved. (No! I don’t believe it!)

If I were to offer a Cocktail of the Day today, it might be simply this:

Guinness Draught

One pint Guinness, poured properly. Sip through the head. Savor. Enjoy. Repeat.

There’s a caveat, though — make sure that the places you order Guinness from the tap actually do it well. A couple of weeks ago we went with some friends to The Knitting Factory in Hollywood to see The Sacred Cowboys, a country/Southern rock band whose lead singer is W. Earl Brown, whom you may know better as Dan Dority, Al Swearingen’s evil henchman on “Deadwood”. They were great, but I swear … the Guinness I was served there was without a doubt the most god-awful pint it has ever been my displeasure to have pass my lips. It tasted old, stale, heavily metallic and … well, Jaysis knows what other shite was in that line. It may have been the single most disagreeable pint of Guinness served to anyone since Arthur Guinness started his brewery in Dublin in 1759. Needless to say, do not ever order a Guinness at The Knitting Factory. (Andy said even the whiskey tasted “off”, so you’re probably better off with bottled beer.)

If there isn’t a decent pub in your neighborhood, apparently you can just order a pre-built pub and they’ll deliver it to you (which I find fascinating and bizarre).

Speaking of whiskey … it should be Irish this weekend, of course. We have a pretty decent collection at home, consisting of, if I recall correctly: John Powers Gold Label, John Powers 12 Year Old, Jameson, Jameson 12 Year Old, Tullamore Dew, Kilbeggan, Locke’s 8 Year Old Single Malt, Redbreast 12 Year Old, Paddy, Bushmills, Bushmills 10 Year Old Single Malt, Bushmills 21 Year Old, Midleton Very Rare 2003.

There will be sipping.

Then there’s the cocktail question. Well, sad to say, Ireland isn’t much of a cocktail-drinking country. I love the pints and the pure drop, but when were were last there I did miss the ould cocktail. (The Octagon Bar at the Clarence in Dublin filled the bill, although at an eye-popping €15.50 per drink for starters.)

There isn’t really a “typically Irish” cocktail, although you’ll see lots of things with Irish names, many green for the sake of being green, and that greenness coming from awful doses of green crème de menthe. (“What about Irish Coffee?” you ask. Follow the link for a bit on that.)

There’s one cocktail I’m quite fond of that’s becoming associated with this day, although I doubt that a single person in Ireland will drink one today (as opposed to the 150 pints of Guinness that are being pulled per second for each of the 24 hours of St. Paddy’s Day). It’s Irish whiskey-based and quite lovely, but calls for a bit of a tolerance for the intensely herbal liqueur Chartreuse (a tolerance very much worth acquiring). I believe the original recipe came from Hugo Ensslin in 1919, but this is the version appearing in the Savoy Cocktail Book:

The Tipperary Cocktail
(original version)

3/4 ounce Irish whiskey.
3/4 ounce green Chartreuse.
3/4 ounce sweet vermouth.

Stir with ice for no less than 30 seconds and strain into a cocktail glass.

In yesterday’s edition of The Cocktailian, Gary Regan’s fortnightly column in the San Francisco Chronicle, The Professor, our cocktailian bartender, offers a different version; same ingredients, different proportions — “More whiskey, less vermouth, less Chartreuse.” This is the way to go for me.

The Tipperary Cocktail
(The Professor’s modern variation)

2 ounces Irish whiskey.
1 ounce sweet vermouth.
1/4 ounce green Chartreuse.

Pour the Chartreuse into a chilled cocktail glass, and by tilting the glass and rotating it at the same time, coat the entire interior of the glass. Discard the excess Chartreuse. Fill a mixing glass two-thirds full of ice and add the whiskey and the vermouth. Stir for approximately 30 seconds and strain into the prepared cocktail glass.

Plus there’s the Dubliner, and its sibling, my own St. Dominic’s Preview. I think you’ll have plenty to drink to celebrate the day. If you do follow all of the above suggestions … well, try to space them out a bit.

P.S. — Here’s a version of the Tipperary from Larousse des Cocktails by Fernando Castellon in which he uses rye instead of Irish. It’s a good variation, but you’re not allowed to make it on St. Patrick’s Day. Use a nice, big, spicy rye and the best sweet vermouth you’ve got (Carpano Punt E Mes or Antica Formula).

Tipperary Cocktail No. 2

2 ounces rye whiskey.
1 ounce sweet vermouth.
1/2 ounce green Chartreuse.

Stir with ice; strain into a cocktail glass.

 

Version française, Larousse des Cocktails

4 cl de rye whiskey
2 cl de vermouth rosso
1 cl de liqueur Chartreuse verte
5 ou 6 glaçons

Mettez les glaçons et les ingrédients dans le verre à mélange.
Remuez à l’aide d’une cuillère à mélange pendant 8 à 10 secondes.
Filtrez au-dessus du verre martini à l’aide d’une passoire à glaçons.
Servez aussitôt.

[UPDATED] My turn to mix last night, and we paid a long-overdue visit to a true classic. I like Martinis, but we shouldn’t forget the Martinez, a great drink in its own right, and a nearly-forgotten cocktail that deserves a lot more recognition.

This cocktail goes as far back as the first-ever bartender’s guide/cocktail recipe book, Professor Jerry Thomas’ The Bon-Vivant’s Companion, or How to Mix Drinks, first published in 1862. It’s been called the drink that gave birth to the modern Martini, although it bears little resemblance these days; perhaps an ancestor would be a better description. Thing is, nobody after Thomas seemed to agree on a recipe.

Thomas called for twice the amount of sweet vermouth as gin, others called for twice the amount of gin. Patrick Gavin Duffy, in his seminal bar guide, called for dry vermouth instead of sweet, and whoever made that initial substitution in a Martinez pushed the drink on its way to being a Martini. I opted for a cross between two versions I found at CocktailDB.com, balancing the gin and the vermouth, which I wobbled by using a powerful vermouth — Carpano Antica Formula, my favorite sweet vermouth (full of herbs, spices and bitter notes).

Here’s the recipe from that 2006 version, the version we like now, and Professor Jerry Thomas’ original (it’s arguable that he created this cocktail, but there’s no solid evidence).

The Martinez Cocktail
(CocktailDB mélange)

1-1/4 ounces gin.
1-1/4 ounces sweet vermouth.
2 dashes maraschino liqueur.
1 dash Angostura bitters.

Stir with ice for no less than 30 seconds; strain into a cocktail glass.
Garnish with a lemon twist.

Here’s the version we like to make in 2010. We like 2 dashes of Angostura Orange Bitters, but Seattle bartender Jamie Boudreau recommends 1 dash each of Regans’ Orange Bitters No. 6 for the spice, and Fee’s West Indian Orange Bitters for the citrus.

The Martinez Cocktail
(modern version)

2 ounces Hayman’s Old Tom gin. (Or Plymouth if you can’t get Old Tom.)
1 ounce sweet vermouth.
1/4 ounce maraschino liqueur.
2 dashes orange bitters.

Stir with ice for no less than 30 seconds; strain into a cocktail glass.
Twist a lemon peel over the drink and garnish with the twist.

Now, the original version from 1862. A “pony” is one ounce, and we’re interpreting the amount “a wineglass” to be two ounces.

The Martinez Cocktail
(Professor Jerry Thomas’ version, and the first published one)

(Use small bar-glass.)
Take 1 dash of Boker’s bitters.
2 dashes of Maraschino.
1 pony of Old Tom gin.
1 wine-glass of sweet Vermouth.
2 small lumps of ice.

Shake up thoroughly, and strain into a large cocktail glass.
Put a quarter of a slice of lemon in the glass, and serve.
If the guest prefers it very sweet, add two dashes of gum syrup.

We’ll probably try this with the good old standby, Martini & Rossi. Boker’s Bitters was a stomachic bitters which didn’t survive the 19th Century, and seemed to be Professor Thomas’ favorite. Here’s a scan of an old advertisement for Boker’s Bitters from the New York Weekly Tribune, April 30, 1879.

Old Tom gin was a sweetened gin, and if you can’t find any and wish to approximate that add a couple dashes of simple syrup (“gum syrup” was simple syrup with gum arabic added).

Obviously you can’t get the original item anymore, but you can make a quite reasonable facsimile with this recipe, a modern interpretation by Dr. Cocktail. But let’s digress for a moment about Boker’s Bitters … what did it taste like? As this 2007 article tells us, for a long time no one really knew.

Until about a year ago there wasn’t a person alive who knew what Boker’s bitters truly tasted like. But then a man turned up at the London Bar Show with a finger of the old stuff to share. Made using cassia, cardamom, and bitter orange peel, Boker’s was once swirled with brandy, orgeat syrup, and lemon peel in a cocktail known as the Japanese. The company disappeared a century ago in the wake of legal changes that outlawed many bitters, and it’s impossible to find anything but empty bottles today. “It was a tiny amount of original Boker’s—no one knew it existed,” says Charlotte Voisey, a champion British bartender who has created cocktail lists for The Dorchester in London and New York’s Gramercy Park Hotel. In the end she declined to join the tasting line. “I didn’t know who he was,” she says, “and I didn’t see it as my place to ask for some. It was that sacred.”

At Tales of the Cocktail in 2008, I got to taste some, one tiny drop on the back of my hand. It was extraordinary.

After much research Dr. Adam Elmegirab has come up with his own commercially produced version of Boker’s Bitters, which may help take your Martinezes and other classic cockails back to the 19th Century.

Danger, Will Robinson! It’s an obscure ingredient!

Actually, it’s not that obscure. You can get the currently available brand at Beverage Warehouse if you’re in the L.A. area, or anywhere you’ve got a nicely-stocked spirits store, I’d imagine.

I found mine in a rather unlikely place …

Kümmel is a spirit from Germany that’s complex and herbal, with its primary flavoring agent being caraway. Nowadays the brand you’ll tend to find is Gilka, from Berlin, but that stuff’s $28 a bottle and it was a little low on my liquor-purchasing list.

Then I spotted an ancient-looking bottle just like this in the liquor cabinet at our friends’ Gregg and Mike’s house, as we were invited to just dig in and mix.

“Where’d you get this?!” I asked.

“At the little liquor store up on Colorado, across the street from Fatty’s, believe it or not.” Right in our neighborhood. “There was another bottle left, too!”

I sped to the little liquor store the next day, and there it was, very bottom shelf behind the counter, marked $9.99. The ladies behind the counter seemed befuddled that I wanted it, and even more so because that bottle had probably been sitting on their bottom shelf since long before they bought that store. They argued briefly as to whether or not to give me some kind of discount — “Who would want that?” I heard the younger one say. However, Big Mama won out, and said to charge me as it was marked. I didn’t care … if I was going to experiment with a new liqueur (and caraway is one of those tastes I’ve always disliked but have barely begun to acquire), $10 was better than $28. And a vintage bottle, no less! I was feeling very Dr. Cocktail, realizing, of course, that an old bottle of Hiram Walker anything is pretty much worthless.

The contents were far better than worthless, though. I still haven’t tasted the good stuff from Gilka, but this stuff wasn’t bad at all — the caraway predominated, but it was pretty complex, and wasn’t all that sweet (which, for me, is good).

This led us to finally be able to try one of the cocktails in Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails that we hadn’t gotten to yet — The Vowel Cocktail.

The Vowel Cocktail

1 ounce blended Scotch.
1 ounce sweet vermouth.
1/2 ounce kümmel.
1/2 ounce orange juice.
2 dashes Angostura Bitters.

Shake and strain. No garnish.

It looks a little brown and murky, but the flavor of this drink is like nothing you’ve tasted before.

Wes and I took a sip and our eyebrows shot up. It was very caraway-y, and I probably shouldn’t have liked it. But there was a lot going in in there … My first impression was to say, “This is weird,” as in, “This is really different, which it was.

Second sip. “What do you think?”

“I think it’s really good.”

“I think it’s really good, me too!”

Lots and lots going on in this drink, from rye bread to a hint of smoke to spice and a little citrusy tang. We immediately wanted pastrami sandwiches after this drink but alas, had to wait until the next day for that.

There was just one thing … Apparently the recipe for the Vowel Cocktail is the ONE publisher’s misprint in [the first edition of] Doc’s book! The text reads as 1-1/2 ounces kümmel, which seemed strange to me but I went ahead and made it anyway, and ended up liking the result. When we tried it again with the proper amount of 1/2 ounce kümmel, there was much less assertiveness and more subtlety from the kümmel, which was a good thing. The basic flavor combinations still worked really well.

The good news is that this is another step towards my acquisition of the flavor of caraway, which I had never liked in the past. Next stop, aquavit!