I found a recipe in a book by Gary Regan called The Martini Companion: A Connoisseur’s Guide which looked tasty, but needed a little work. I just can’t leave well enough alone.

The drink specifically called for Jose Cuervo Gold tequila (icky icky p’tang!), which boggles the mind when you consider the two high-quality ingredients with which it’s mixed. For this drink I’d use a very good quality sipping tequila, but not one of the super-expensive ones that you’d be reticent to add to a cocktail. I used one of my favorites, Cazadores Reposado, but Sauza Hornitos, Herradura, or any good, medium-priced 100% agave tequila would be fine. I also added one more ingredient to help add a little edge and balance to the sweetness of the liqueurs.

In the book the original drink was named the “Tequila Martini”, which didn’t make much sense either — this drink is as far removed from what a Martini really is than just about any cocktail I can think of. So with the help of Babelfish I came up with something else; Spanish speakers will probably roll their eyeballs and giggle, as this is probably as grammatically and idiomatically incorrect as just about everything else that comes out of Babelfish. Please feel free to make fun of me and/or suggest something better.

What matters is that the drink tastes really good.

Anaranjado Tequila

2 ounces good-quality 100% agave sipping tequila
1/2 ounce Cointreau
1/2 ounce Grand Marnier
1 healthy dash of orange bitters

Combine all ingredients with cracked ice in a cocktail shaker. Stir until very cold, then strain into a small brandy snifter and serve with a strip of orange peel — wider than a twist, about 1/2″.

I just watched “Off the Menu: The Last Days of Chasen’s” again yesterday. It’s a wonderful documentary about the demise of the hoary old Hollywood classic restaurant in Beverly Hills (“The dishes were hearty; the drinks were large.”) — its final week and its closing night. It was legendary and exclusive — movie stars, presidents and royalty dined there since 1936. But as the review in Daily Variety put it:

By the ’80s and ’90s, Chasen’s had become something of a relic, a bastion of blue-hairs and Reagan Republicans that was eclipsed by other trendy (and much lower-cholesterol) hot spots. By 1995, the end was in sight, but when the owners posted the closing notice, tout Hollywood decided that they just had to make the scene; as one patron observes, nobody comes to visit you when you’re sick, but everyone turns out for the funeral.

Among many other things (including its star-studded clientele), the restaurant was famous for its bartender Pepe Ruiz, and the drink he invented for Dean Martin — the Flame of Love Martini.

It takes some effort to make (although not 20 minutes, as the bitchy banquet captain complained), but it’s quite a drink, particularly if you like vodka martinis. This is my slight variation — I think Pepe served this on the rocks (at least he did with the one he made for Ed MacMahon in the film), but I don’t like Martinis on the rocks. I’d do this straight up. I don’t think Pepe garnished his, but I like garnishes in drinks — a long, thin twist of orange would be really pretty here.

Making this drink takes practice. I haven’t gotten the technique nailed just yet. Pepe makes it look a lot easier than it is (then again, he invented it and has made thousands of them).

Pepe’s Flame of Love Martini

3 ounces Stolichnaya vodka
1/2 teaspoon fino sherry (Pepe used Domecq La Ina Fino)
2 or 3 large slices orange peel
Twist of orange peel, about 3″, thin

Chill the glass thoroughly. Pepe used a wine glass, I like a martini glass. Add the sherry to the glass, swirl to coat completely, and pour out the excess.

Take one of the orange peels, light a match or lighter, and squeeze the orange peel several times over the match into the glass, so that the cascading orange oil will flambé as it falls onto the sherry-coated glass; you’ll probably need two peels to get enough oilB. Do this about 8 times.

Stir the vodka with ice in a cocktail shaker to chill, then strain into the coated glass. Squeeze the second orange peel over the drink, then fan it vigorously around the rim of the glass so that it’s coated with orange oil. I like to add a thin twist of orange to the glass for a garnish. Serve, and drink like Dean Martin.

After Chasen’s closed, all the equipment and fixtures were sold off. They kept the memorabilia, though, and Maud and Dave Chasen’s grandson opened another Chasen’s on Cañon Drive in Beverly Hills in 1997 (two doors down from the fabulous Spago Beverly Hills), featuring lots of the old photographs and such from the original restaurant. Unfortunately it closed permanently in April of last year, falling victim to the same thing that closed the original — people stopped going there.

Now that I’ll be picking up my new bottle of Calvados on the way home from work tonight, I’ve given some thought to makeing cocktails with it rather than simply drinking it neat. Don’t get me wrong — a snifter of Calvados after (or even during) dinner is absolutely superb. It seems to me, though, that the intense apple flavor and aroma of this magnificent brandy would lend itself wonderfully to a good cocktail recipe.

After my parents came back from their first trip to France several years ago they were raving about Calvados, the superb apple brandy made in Normandy. Dad told me about what became his favorite cocktail while on this trip, a simple mixture of Calvados and apple juice on the rocks. He wasn’t sure of the proportions, and this seems to be perhaps the best way to drink this brandy if you’re going to mix it. Also recommended is 1/3 Calvados and 2/3 tonic water, but I haven’t tried that yet.

Oddly enough, I haven’t been able to find any reference to the supposedly classic Calvados/apple juice cocktail on the web, although many Calvados makers produce a product called Pommeau de Normandie, which is a mixture of Calvados and apple juice that’s aged anywhere from 1-3 years in oaken casks (and which sounds fabulous). I’ll experiment more with the proportions in my on-the-spot mixture thereof, and let y’all know.

In the meantime, have a look at his recipe, which I found on the website of a Calvados distillery. This looks potentially tasty, but use a good product like Apry rather than a cheap apricot brandy (don’t use Hiram Walker!)

Le Normandie

1-1/2 ounces of Calvados
1 ounce apricot brandy (Apry is a good brand)
1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice
1 thin slice of apple (brushed with lemon juice to prevent discoloration)
1 long thin piece of lemon peel

Pour the liquors and lemon juice into a cocktail shaker over cracked ice, shake until chilled, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with the slice of apple and lemon peel.

A tip from Wes and a little dig into a heretofore unnoticed DrinkBoy link revealed a “new” (to me, but undoubtedly old) cocktail that has been a favorite of mine for the last couple of weeks …

The Fancy-Free

2 ounces Bourbon whisky
1/2 ounce Maraschino liqueur (I use Luxardo)
1 – 2 dashes Angostura bitters
1 – 2 dashes orange bitters

Shake with cracked ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a Maraschino cherry. Yum.

Wes came across another old cocktail recipe recently, gave it a shake, and now he’s quite fond of it. Since neither of us like vermouth, we’ve reduced the amount the original recipe calls for (and at half of that, it gives the drink just enough tang without having a too-assertive vermouth flavor), but vermouth lovers may feel free to follow the original recipe. This drink was named after the Algonquin Hotel in New York.

Algonquin

2 ounces rye whiskey
1 ounce dry vermouth
1 ounce unsweetened pineapple juice

Same drill as above … shake, strain, chilled, cherry. Sip. Aaaah.

(Okay … after two drinks, now I’m ready for all this election crap to follow.)

This is my longtime favorite cocktail, and my dad’s favorite too — it’s the one he first taught me to make. When I was a kid, if I was lucky and if he was in a generous mood, I’d get to make this for him when he got home from work. Ah, a quality New Orleans upbringing — you teach the kids the important stuff early.

The popular myth in New Orleans is that the Sazerac was the first cocktail, but if any case or argument can be made for anything being “the first cocktail,” it’s the Old Fashioned.

As you may be aware, the first published definition of what a cocktail (“cock-tail” or “cock tail”) was appeared in a Hudson, New York newspaper called The Balance and Columbian Repository, in a reply to a letter to the editor on May 13, 1806. After a local Democratic candidate lost his bid for office, the paper published a humorous account of his Loss and Gain; in the gains column was “NOTHING,” and in the losses column there were “720 rum-grogs, 17 brandy do., 32 gin slings, 411 glasses of bitters, 25 do. cock-tail and My Election.” A reader wrote in to inquire as to what this “cock-tail” actually was, as he’d never heard of it. The editor replied,

As I make it a point, never to publish anything (under my editorial head) but which I can explain, I shall not hesitate to gratify the curiosity of my inquisitive correspondent: Cock tail, then is a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water and bitters; it is vulgarly called a bittered sling, and is supposed to be an excellent electioneering potion inasmuch as it renders the heart stout and bold, at the same time that it fuddles the head. It is said also, to be of great use to a democratic candidate: because, a person having swallowed a glass of it, is ready to swallow any thing else. — Edit. Bal.

See, political snarkiness in the press is far from a modern phenomenon. But there it was.

Spirits, water, sugar and bitters. If you combine the sugar and water into simple syrup, for convenience and to keep any sugar grit out of your drink (because who wants that?), then you’re down to spirit, simple syrup and bitters.

If your spirit is whiskey, then this drink was called a Whiskey Cocktail.

There are origin stories of the Old Fashioned that claim it was invented at the Pendennis Club in Louisville, Kentucky in the 1880s. This is highly doubtful, given that the drink with the exact same ingredients had been swilled for at least 74 years before that, and probably a lot longer. A more believable origin story is that when bartenders like Professor Jerry Thomas started introducing far more cocktails and mixed drinks of all kinds into the American drinking repertoire, especially those involving exotic-at-the-time ingredients like vermouth, those who wanted a good ol’ whiskey cocktail took to asking for it old-fashioned style, an Old Fashioned Whiskey Cocktail.

It was around 1936, if I recall correctly, that the Old Fashioned began its downfall — not because it was a bad drink, but because it started to be made in variations that I just consider to be unworthy.

If you have some time, read Robert Hess’ marvelous article tracing the development of the Old Fashioned, “Renewing an Old Fashion.” For years Robert had the same problem I did — he had a very hard time ordering a decent Old Fashioned at a bar.

They kill it with soda, they leave out the bitters, the grind an orange slice into a disgusting paste, they muddle the fake cherry, for God’s sake. Robert’s essay traces the drink’s history and development, and the proper way to make it (as well as how not to), including recipes from over two dozen sources, some going back over a century.

I’m going to print a few of these out and stick them in the trunk of my car. Next time some bartender tries to insist that the crappy watered-down Bourbon spritzer with a shredded cherry and a mess of finely ground fruit paste he’s just served me is a “traditional Old Fashioned”, I’m going to politely excuse myself, go to my car, fetch the papers, go back to the bar and present them to the bartender with my compliments.

It’s fascinating reading, but if you don’t have the time to go through the whole 36 printed pages’ worth, learn from this:

For myself, the key concepts I think are important to the Old Fashioned are as follows:

Water is only intended to aid in the dissolving of the sugar, and should be kept to a bare minimum. In fact, it can be omitted entirely if you use simple syrup.

A fresh slice of orange, when muddled in the drink at the beginning, adds some interesting and useful flavor notes that play nicely against the bourbon or rye.

A cherry adds a nice visual touch when used as a garnish at the very end, but is nothing but an ugly mess when its crushed carcass lies at the bottom of your glass.

Soda water has no place in this drink. Ever.

Yeah you rite. However, I have to say that I am a purist and I do not care for the muddled orange slice. Yes, I know this puts me at odds with Gaz Regan and Dale DeGroff, but that’s the way my dad taught me to make it, as a true old-fashioned whiskey cocktail: whiskey, sugar, water, bitters. I do like a large swath of orange peel in it, though, either gently muddled or (preferably) with the oil expressed over the top.

I will drink an Old Fashioned in which an orange slice has been GENTLY muddled, removed and replaced with a fresh slice for garnish, but I have never actually seen anyone do this outside of a top professional like Dale or Gaz doing it at a demonstration. 999 times out of 1000 the orange slice is ground into a purée, and gives the drink, for me, a disgusting consistency.

I make Old Fashioneds in myriad ways — different combinations of bitters, different whiskies, different spirits even (I adore Rum Old Fashioneds, Añejo Tequila Old Fashioneds and Mezcal Old Fashioneds). Here’s my “standard,” though, which is a winner.

The Old Fashioned Cocktail
(Chuck’s standard version)

2-1/2 ounces rye or Bourbon whiskey.
1 teaspoon rich simple syrup.
2 dashes Angostura bitters.
1 dash Peychaud’s bitters.

Build in and Old Fashioned glass, add ice to fill and stir for 20 seconds. Garnish with a Bourbon-soaked or brandied cherry, and/or a piece of orange or lemon peel.

Let’s watch master New Orleans bartender Chris McMillian make one.

Chris is The Man here … no club soda (the ruination of any Old Fashioned) and no muddled fruit (I want a strong whiskey cocktail, not a puréed fruit salad). I do like the orange peel in it, though, and I often like Peychaud’s bitters in addition to or instead of the Angostura (I got that from my dad; Peychaud’s was always his favorite).

Most if not all whiskey-based Old Fashioneds you order now (if you can even order one and get it made properly) are going to be made with Bourbon, but if you really want to make this drink great make it with rye.

I occasionally like to make what I call a “Houlihan Old Fashioned” or a “Hot Lips Old Fashioned.” I was watching an episode of “M*A*S*H” once, one of the episodes later in the series when Margaret Houlihan stopped being a one-dimensional ninny and foil to Frank Burns, and started to be developed into a more complex and human character (whom I liked very much). She was in the officers’ club, went up to the bar, and ordered her favorite drink — firmly but politely, and with a tiny grin and a twinkle in her eye…

“Old Fashioned. Straight up. No fruit.”

Margaret was awesome.

[The first version of this article was published on September 8, 2000 and was revised on April 13, 2002; August 24, 2007; and February 4, 2010.]