Continuing with the World’s Slowest and Most Procrastinatory Tales of the Cocktail recap … Jeff “Beachbum” Berry, Wayne Curtis, author of And A Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails, Martin Cate of Alameda’s fabulous Forbidden Island tiki bar, and Stephen Remsburg, rum expert and owner of what is probably the world’s most vast private collection of rums, took us on a tour of the Caribbean, and a tasty one it was.

As fun and informative as so many of the seminars at Tales were, I think this one has to win the award for Most Entertaining Seminar, certainly winning the Best and Funniest PowerPoint Presentation Ever. Jeff got our attention with the trumpeting of the conch, began his presentation and finally called for his “laser pointer” …

“It looks like a harpoon!” you say. Yes. Yes, it does.

Jeff went on to describe Caribbean punches, the general category of which dates back to at least the 1600s, and provided for us the basic rule-of-thumb people used when concocting them: “One of sour, Two of sweet, Three of strong, Four of weak.” A little spice thrown in for good measure, and that’s a pretty good general recipe for punch. You can see some of the examples on Jeff’s slide — arrack or rum were often the strong, the latter especially in the Caribbean. Lemon or any available citrus for the sour, sugar for the sweet (natch). Water generally stood in for the weak, as did tea, which also provided a spice component. A grating of nutmeg was a typical (and quite lovely) touch atop a punch back in the day.

We got things going with a little bit of punch for ourselves, too.

Meeting House Punch

112-1/2 ounces Rhum Clément VSOP (or any good dark rum).
75 ounces Cruzan Estate Light Rum.
400 ounces Red Stripe beer.
25 ounces fresh lemon juice.
25 ounces Muscovado sugar syrup.

Mix in a (very) large punch bowl. Add ice (preferably a huge block) and lemon wedges.

You might want to cut the recipe down a bit.

I had never had beer in a punch before. It was unusual but quite delicious, and not surprisingly it went really well with the citrus elements. I never was a fan of the lime wedge in the sodapop-light beer thing, but it all went together here.

Unfortunately my notes are sparse, hurried and scribbled, but there are some cryptic indications of some of the stories Jeff told, one of my favorites of which being about “sucking the monkey” — supposedly monkey carcasses being brought back to port for the taxidermist were stored in alcohol, and thirsty sailors would tap the barrels to drink it with straws, not particularly caring what was pickling inside. (Seems apocryphal; Brewer’s Dictionary of Fable and Phrase has another explanation featuring no actual monkey carcasses, as does another post about seafaring terms. I have heard, however, that bodies of officers killed in battle were preserved similarly in alcohol, and tapped by sailors dyin’ o’ da t’irst; hence, “sucking the Admiral.” Yeesh.)

Then I won a prize! Jeff called out a question, looking for a famous tiki drink containing sherry, and I got my answer out first — “The Fog Cutter!” Jeff then tossed me my Major Award — a vintage paperback copy of Thor Heyerdahl’s Aku-Aku. It was my favorite prize since I won the blackout at my high school’s Band Bingo in 8th grade. (Fifty bucks!)

We got a lot of fascinating history from Jeff about the development of Caribbean and tropical-style cocktails and bars in the States — Don the Beachcomber, primarily, in Los Angeles in the early 1930s — and then in Key West and Cuba. Hemingway entered into the story, both in his longtime exploits in Cuba as well as a ripoff bar a friend of his copied and opened in Key West. Then came one of Papa’s favorites as our next cocktail:

La Florida
(Adapted, as served at the Potions of the Caribbean seminar)

1 ounce Rhum Clément VSOP.
1/8 ounce Rhum Clément Créole Shrubb.
1 ounce fresh lime juice.
1/2 ounce sweet vermouth.
1/4 ounce white crème de cacao.
1/8 ounce grenadine.

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

Wayne Curtis rose to speak, taking us further on to Cuba and the many hotel and free-standing bars in and out of Havana. Some are obviously no longer there (Trader Vic having picked an unfortunate location for his Havana outlet, the Havana Hilton, which a fellow named Fidel ended up using as his HQ for La Revolución … oops). Wayne told the tale of going to the bar in what’s left of that hotel, ordering a Mai Tai and being served something red and nasty and hideously sweet. “This is not a good argument for socialism.” Hee.

Our next cocktail! Jeff told us about the venerable Rum Pot, and offered us this adapted version:

Rum Pot

6 ounces El Dorado 12-year-old Demerara rum.
3 drops vanilla extract.
3/4 ounces passion fruit purée.
3 ounces orange juice.
3 ounces fresh lemon juice.

Shake well with ice and pour unstrained into glass. Serves 3.

For some reason I had the above recipe written down, but this one came on the recipe card:

Rum Pot
(Adapted)

1-1/2 ounces El Dorado 12-year-old Demerara rum.
1/4 ounce Fee Bros. French Vanilla Syrup.
1/2 ounce Funkin Passion Fruit Purée.
3/4 ounce orange juice.
3/4 ounce fresh lemon juice.

Shake, strain, etc.

Heck, try ’em both!

This drink, as well as the Java Punch I made for MxMo the other day, really makes me fond of vanilla in cocktails, especially in extract form so I get the flavor without the sweetness of syrup. I’ll be playing more with this as time goes on.

Martin did a hugely entertaining slide presentation about the old island technique of making a concoction with rum and fresh pimento (allspice) berries and burying it in his backyard for six months. Marleigh noted this in her “things I learned at Tales” post — “6. Find Martin Cate’s house and dig in the backyard, because he buries jugs of punch back there!” Unfortunately I didn’t get any kind of recipe for what he made, so if anyone’s got it I’d love to see it.

Woo, and time for another cocktail! Not only that, a cocktail served to us by the lovely Jeanne Vidrine, Tiki Queen of New Orleans.

Steve Remsburg began his portion of the talk, and spoke fondly of one Jasper LeFranc, who had been head bartender at the Bay Roc Hotel in Montego Bay, Jamaica for over 30 years. This one pretty much epitomizes the best flavors that the Caribbean has to offer, is simple to make and will wow your guests:

Jasper’s Jamaican Cocktail

1-1/4 ounces Cruzan Estate Dark Rum.
1/2 ounce St. Elizabeth’s Allspice Dram (or any other allspice liqueur including homemade).
1/2 ounce fresh lime juice.
1/2 teaspoon rich simple syrup.

Shake with ice until very cold and strain into a cocktail glass. Grate some nutmeg over the top.

Everything marries so beautifully here — the dark rum, the myriad spice flavors of the allspice, the tang of the lime plus that unique limey flavor … just gorgeous. If you can’t yet find St. Elizabeth’s where you live, you can use my pimento dram recipe.

Steve proceeded to give us some priceless recipes, including this one which quite possibly was worth the price of admission — Jasper’s own special rum mix, which he personally gave to Steve years ago and which he used as a base for several of his drinks.

Jasper’s Special Rum Mix

Take the freshly squeezed juice of 12-15 limes, depending on size. Pour this into a measuring cup and note the quantity.

To the fresh lime juice — you may have to transfer to a larger mixing vessel — add 1-1/2 to 2 equal measures of granulated sugar. Note the relative sweetness of the mix is entirely up to the user. In Jamaica, rum drinks are somewhat sweeter than what would be popular here. Jasper used two parts sugar.

Add 1-1/4 ounces of Angostura Bitters to the mixture. Then add 1/2 of a freshly grated nutmeg to the mixture.

Stir until the sugar is dissolved, then pour mixture into empty bottles and store in the refrigerator. Give the bottle a strong shake before each use.

Jasper used this mix in these drinks, among others:

Planter’s Punch

In a 10 ounce highball glass, pour:

1 ounce Jasper’s mix.
1-1/2 to 2 ounces dark Jamaican rum (Jasper used Appleton Dark, which is no longer sold in the U.S. — substitute Myers).

Fill the glass with ice and stir vigorously. The ice will settle, so add more cracked ice to fill the glass.

Garnish with fresh mint sprigs, a sliced orange and a cherry or sliced lime — garnish any way you want.

# # #

Rum Punch

Prepare exctly as you would the Planter’s Punch, but use Wray & Nephew White Overproof Rum and garnish as you like. (W&N Overproof is the most popular rum in Jamaica, by the way.)

# # #

Witch Doctor

In a mixing can or blender jar add:

1 ounce Jasper’s mix.
1/2 ounce triple sec (Cointreau).
1/2 ounce cherry brandy (Cherry Heering).
1-1/2 ounce golden Jamaica rum (Appleton Special).

Mix with crushed ice for a couple of seconds and pour drink into glass. Add ice to fill glass and garnish with an orange slice and cherry.

This was served at the Bay Roc as a cocktail over ice in an Old Fashioned glass. Steve says he prefers it as a punch in a 10 ounce highball glass, but the choice is yours.

# # #

Mule Shoe

Prepare exactly as you would the Witch Doctor, but substitute Wray & Nephew White Overproof Rum.

Steve adds, “Hope you enjoy them and that this experiment leads ot a greater appreciation that the rum really does make all the difference in the flavor of the drink. Pay attention to the rum you use, and take note of the differences they make in your drinks.”

And we’ll leave it at that, as my hands hurt from typing … I need an ergonomic keyboard!

Yeesh, talk about barely making it in under the wire (once again). I wasn’t supposed to be in town, actually, and was far too disorganized to do it in advance and have the post ready to go. Mainly that was because I was schvitzing about Hurricane Ike heading directly toward Houston, which is where I was supposed to be going to see my sister, brother-in-law, fabulous nephew Thomas and fabulous brand-new niece Molly, whom I haven’t even met yet. We were supposed to go last Friday, but on Thursday they bugged out … to New Orleans, of all places, not where you usually think of going to get away from a hurricane. All’s well for them, though — they had a tree go down in their front yard in Houston, but no damage to the house. (They were far luckier than all those poor folks in Galveston, good lord.)

And it’s not like we haven’t been drinking all weekend either — delicious yet deadly punches by Marcos Tello and Eric Alperin on Thursday, courtesy of the House of Chambord (I’ll see if I can pry the recipes out of them) and a big fat hangover on Sunday. It finally occured to me this morning that if I was going to get a post up today I needed to get my butt in gear. Fortunately I’d been doing some reading right along the lines of what we were going to be doing this month.

A wonderful company called Mud Puddle Books has been releasing several once-extremely difficult to find cocktail books from the 19th and early 20th Centuries, books which otherwise might have set you back hundreds of dollars. It’s wonderful — and essential — that these books are back in print, because for cocktailians they are a big part of our history. We want to know where all this stuff came from, and while there has been extensive research, and we have Jerry Thomas’ and others’ books, there were several key volumes of cocktail history that were only available to collectors who either had deep pockets or were just lucky enough to get them before there was a demand.

I’ve got everything they’ve put out so far, and I’ve been devouring them with glee. Besides being informative, they’re beautifully done — in the original typefaces, and with original illustrations and period advertisements — they’re damned entertaining too. There are also new introductions by the likes of David Wondrich, Ted “Dr. Cocktail” Haigh, Robert Hess and Dale DeGroff. The one I’ve been reading this week is Charlie Paul’s 1902 edition entitled Recipes of American and Other Iced Drinks.

Dale wrote the introduction to this one, and although it was published in 1902 it gives a pretty amazing look at the state of drinking at the end of the 19th Century. Such a terrific little book too; besides all the recipes (including some startling variations on drinks we now consider standards, like the Manhattan and Mint Julep) the illustrations alone are worth the price of the book. Dale says, “The illustrations of 19th Century bar tools were extraordinary; a few of which I’ve since seen reproduced in some modern texts. The illustration depicting the Imperial Shaker was enough to make me want to search the world for this wonderful drink-cranking device and build an entire bar around it.” That would be it to the right; click to enlarge.

Now, what to pick? There are so many I wanted to try, including ones with a pinch of cayenne pepper (with and without egg), a pousse-café topped with an egg yolk and then a “pyramid” of whipped egg white, topped with dashes of bitters (which I’m definitely going to try). I would have done that wonderful Mint Julep variation. which includes brandy, rum, yello Chartreuse and which is dashed with Claret on top of the ice, which Charlie describes as “a drink fit for a king.” Then there were a few like these, which I thought maybe I’d skip:

AMMONIA COCKTAIL
(Good Morning Tonic for Headache)

Draw 2 ounces of Orange Syrup into a 12-ounce glass and add 1/2 drachm of Aromatic Spirits of Ammonia; about half fill the glass with Soda Water, then add half teaspoonful of Bi-carbonate of Soda. Stir well and handle quickly. ( This Cocktail should be drunk at once.)

“Handle quickly”? What, before it blows up? No, I took a pass on this one.

I really wanted to make something with Old Tom gin. I had gotten a chance to taste some of the batch Eric brought into town with his distributor (currently available at Hi Time Wine and Spirits in Costa Mesa, far enough that it might as well be in Kazakhstan, with more due soon at my local haunts, Beverage Warehouse and The Wine House) last Tuesday at Seven Grand. Just as tasty as I remembered it, and John made us a lovely 19th Century-style Martinez with it. But I didn’t have any on had, so nix that.

What I thought I’d do is a punch. Punch was the mixed drink of choice for a very long time, and was beginning to be displaced by all the cocktails, fixes, flips, fizzes, daisies, sangarees, slings and other mixed drinks that were invented by the scores in the 19th Century, but by this time punch was still holding on. There were some good-looking recipes in there, but I wasn’t particularly inclined to make a whole bowlful of it. (Not that I couldn’t get several friends over at a moment’s notice to help us drain the flowing bowl, but I was lazy.) I came across one by-the-glass punch recipe that looked simple and tasty, and filled the bill on both counts.

This fits in with the basic formula for punch, as David Wondrich described to us in his terrific seminar on punch at Tales (which I’ll recap one of these days). It’s essentially wine or booze, citrus, soda or water, sugar and some kind of wild card (berries, tea, spices, etc.). It’s easy to make, refreshing during these waning days of summer and was pretty damned tasty.

Java Punch

Fill tumbler with chipped ice; put in half a teaspoonful of powdered sugar, a teaspoonful of vanilla syrup; squeeze half a lemon in; add a liqueur-glassful of brandy and the same of rum; shake well and strain off, putting an orange slice on top.

Or, in slightly more modern measure:

1 ounce brandy.
1 ounce rum.
3/4 ounce fresh lemon juice.
1 teaspoon vanilla syrup.
1/2 teaspoon simple syrup.
Nutmeg.
Orange slice.

Combine liquors and syrups in a shaker with ice; shake until very cold and frothy. Strain over fresh ice into an Old Fashioned glass. Top with a grating of fresh nutmeg and garnish with an orange slice.

Charlie’s original recipe didn’t call for nutmeg, but as many 19th Century and earlier punches were finished that way, I added that to the top for a nice aroma and one more “wild card” dimension to the flavor. The recipe is easily adaptable to your own taste; if you like it tarter, up the lemon to 1 ounce, or if you like it sweeter maybe an extra half-teaspoon simple syrup. I think the vanilla flavor is in perfect balance with just the one teaspoon of vanilla syrup, though. The brandy I used was Hine VSOP Cognac, the rum a 12 year old Guatemalan called Zaya, which sadly is going away soon and will no longer be available. (I was feeling extravagant.)

Pass the punch!

P.S. — Okay, so as I’m about to post my MxMo entry at Bibulo.us, I see this little bit at the end of the post: “Bonus points to anyone who can bring us early William “Cocktail” Boothby recipes, especially pre-1900 versions of the Ruby Cocktail.”

Well, I had just gotten in a reproduction of the 1934 version of Boothby’s World Drinks and How To Mix Them. I really hadn’t gone through it that much yet, but I found myself shifting into the mode that caused one of my chef-teachers in the UCLA Culinary Arts program to dub me “The Overachiever.” (She may have been five feet tall in heels, but she kicked my ass every single class. She was amazing, actually. But I digress.)

I found The Ruby Cocktail with two additional variations, the second containing gin (which I thought would help dampen the sweetness of sloe gin, the primary ingredient) and the third containing egg. I’m out of eggs, so No. 2 it was.

The Ruby Cocktail No. 2

1/2 ounce sloe gin.
1/2 ounce gin.
1/4 ounce sweet vermouth.
1/4 ounce dry vermouth.
2 dashes Bénédictine.

Shake with ice and strain into a small cocktail glass.
 

This makes a nice li’l 2-ounce drink.

I was a little less than impressed at first, but as I sipped it continued to grow on me. The gin and dry vermouth help dilute the sweetness of the sloe gin, and you get just a touch of herbs from the dashes of the liqueur. Not usually the balance I’m looking for in a drink, but not bad. I kinda want to try the egg white version now.

Okay, enough with the overachieving …

Going out to a bar and closing it down on a school night. You’re a bad boy, Taggart.

This is an occasional occupational hazard of having friends who are bartenders, of course. Late nights are no problem for those guys, but for me and another friend who had to get up early today, the getting-up part was a bit dicey. By the time I got on the road this morning I was pretty much over it. Could be famous last words, though — let’s hope I don’t just conk out a little later on.

Last night was a long overdue visit to Seven Grand, occasioned by our friend Eric‘s visit to start getting Old Tom Gin into the L.A. market (yay!). More on that a bit later.

Order of the day was Bartender’s Choice, which I love doing there — it’s one of the few places I’ll let someone just make me anything and trust that it’ll be wonderful. (It gladdens my heart that the number of such places is slowly but steadily growing.) Our friend John took marvelous care of us, and when I asked to be surprised he asked what I was in the mood far — “Something on the tart and fizzy side, maybe something more on the bitter side?” Bitter always works for me, and John presented me with a wonderful Audrey Saunders variation on the Manhattan, with Cynar, the artichoke flavored bitter aperitivo, sitting in for the aromatic bitters.

This is Audrey’s original recipe below; John varied it slightly by cutting the sweet vermouth back to 1/2 ounce but using the powerfully spicy and flavorful Carpano Antica Formula, and garnishing with a lemon peel instead of two cherries on a pick.

Little Italy Cocktail
(by Audrey Saunders, Pegu Club, New York)

2 ounces rye whiskey.
3/4 ounce sweet vermouth.
1/2 ounce Cynar.
2 good-quality cocktail cherries.

Combine with ice and stir for 30 seconds. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with the cherries, speared on a cocktail pick. (Variation: cut vermouth back to 1/2 ounce but use Carpano Antica or Vya, and garnish with lemon peel.)

The rye and the Cynar played very well together, with their alchemy creating chocolatey notes in this drink that I really loved. I’m very curious to try augmenting that with a dash of Bittermens Xocolatl Mole Bitters.

Damien ordered a Negroni variation that was really tasty too — substitute Partida Blanco tequila for the gin, add a barspoon of absinthe and serve on the rocks with an orange twist.

We tried a ton of other things too — a Martinez Cocktail using the Old Tom gin, the way it was originally made (although with a slight variation in proportion — 1:1 with the gin and vermouth). As we had several of Eric’s products on hand (as well as the guy who makes them, visiting from Austria!) we tried a few of those in cocktails as well. Mr. Purkhart himself asked for something using his Crème de Violette, and was given a variation on the Ramos Gin Fizz, sort of a violette fizz: Swap out Old Tom gin for the London Dry, substitute 2 barspoons of the violette instead of the orange flower water, and add several drops of Regans’ Orange Bitters No. 6 to the frothy head and swirl around with a toothpick. Holy crap, that was good.

Then they were kind enough to make two of mine. Eric brought out the St. Elizabeth’s Allspice Dram and asked for a Réveillon, so we had a bit of Christmas in September. Then John asked about the Hoskins recipe — he had had one at Zig Zag but hadn’t made one himself — so we got one and shared it with him and everyone else. So nice to be able to get one of those in a bar. Speaking of the good ol’ Hoskins, I hear tell that Torani have reformulated their Amer, removing the vegetal characteristic that so many people found off-putting and making it taste much more like Amer Picon did. If so, I can’t wait to taste that!

All that, plus a visit to Leo’s Tacos at 2:30am. Great night.

The first reference to this cocktail that I know of is from Harry McElhone’s Harry’s ABC of Mixing Cocktails, reprinted by Mud Puddle Books as its later incarnation, Barflies and Cocktails (and more on that next week, if you don’t know about these fantastic reprints just yet). The original called for equal parts of each of the main ingredients, but this version is, I think, a bit more well-balanced.

The recipe is credited to one Harry Johnson of the city of New Orleans. It’s an old favorite.

The Bijou Cocktail

1-1/2 ounces gin.
1/2 ounce green Chartreuse.
1/2 ounce sweet vermouth.
1 dash orange bitters.

Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Optionally garnish with a cocktail cherry.

Lovely. (No photo, sorry … that’s both my laziness and my lack of decent lighting for cocktail photos, which I’m actually working on. Within the next month I hope to have pics of every cocktail I write about here.)

My friend Erik posted a brief tweet in his Twitter feed the other day that said this:

GeorgeTStagg’06 + JerryThomas’ManhattanRecipe = Holy Crap!

An exclamation point suddenly appeared over my head, encased in a thought balloon. Sometimes ya gotta love Twitter.

The Manhattan Cocktail was invented sometime in the 1860s, with conflicting stories as to its origin, as is the usual case with classic cocktails of its age. One reliable source, quoted by Dave Wondrich in his superb tome Imbibe!, was William F. Mulhall, who was a bartender at New York’s Hoffman House from 1882 until 1915. He said that “[t]he Manhattan Cocktail was invented by a man named Black, who kept a place ten doors down below Houston Street on Broadway in the [eighteen-]sixties.” There’s also evidence to think it was created at New York’s Manhattan Club as well, although the stories of it being created for a banquet thrown by Winston Churchill’s mother, enduring as they are, were disproven by a little simple math with the dates. Professor Jerry Thomas included it in one of the later editions of his pioneering bar guide, and his version is quite a bit different from what we’re used to today.

The main difference is that the proportions are reversed — this old version calls for twice as much vermouth as whiskey. There are a few reasons for this: Dave talks in his book about the Vermouth Cocktail being fine and dandy, at least you’ve got a drink in your hand, but it lacks a certain kick the many members of The Sporting Life demanded. However, a pure whiskey cocktail, consisting primarily of spirit, didn’t allow the consumption of too many before you were likely to be whacking your chin on the end of the bar as you were on your way down to the floor. Ah, but the mixture of whiskey or other spirit with the wildly popular new vermouth that was coming in from Europe … now there’s a drink where you can knock back a few, know you’re doing it and last a bit longer on your feet! On top of that, the interplay between the flavors of the spirit and the spiced wine created a whole new universe of flavor.

Also, back in the day, a lot of whiskey tended to be stronger than what we typically get today; Old Potrero’s 18th Century Style Whiskey is a modern example of what many of those old whiskies were like. I’ve never tried making a Jerry Thomas Manhattan using an 86-proof whiskey, but I don’t think it would be all that well balanced; I probably should try it, actually, just to see.

Old Potrero would be a good idea for this cocktail, as would the lovely Thomas Handy Sazerac Rye, which is fantastic stuff and comes in at 132 proof. But the stuff Erik suggested was really exciting — the 2006 release of George T. Stagg Bourbon, aged for 16 years and bottled at barrel strength, came in at a whopping 144 proof. That’s 72% alcohol for the math-impaired, and what the Buffalo Trace distillery calls one of their “Haz-Mat” releases. It’s actually illegal to transport this stuff on a plane yourself; you can bring up to 5 bottles of booze in your checked luggage, but only if it’s below 140 proof.

After seeing Erik’s tweet, I made two as soon as I got home.

The key to this drink, besides Erik’s excellent suggestion of a super-powerful and flavorful whiskey, is to use a really spicy, flavorful vermouth as well. Top choice would be the incredible Carpano Antica Formula, followed by Punt E Mes or Vya. If you have one of the other releases of Stagg that should work well too, as will the Thomas Handy rye or Old Potrero 18th Century.

“Reverse” Manhattan Cocktail
(Professor Jerry Thomas’ 1887 version of the Manhattan
modern variation by Erik Ellestad)

2 ounces sweet vermouth (Carpano or the like).
1 ounce George T. Stagg Bourbon ’06.
3 dashes bitters (Fee’s Whiskey Barrel Aged Bitters, Angostura or Abbott’s if you’ve got ’em).
2 dashes maraschino liqueur.

Stir with ice and strain into a claret glass, then garnish with a quarter lemon slice if you’re doing Jerry’s presentation. I used a standard cocktail glass and a Luxardo cherry.

Our reaction … HOLY CRAP!

Thanks for the suggestion, Erik!