Pi Yi (Passion Fruit Syrup) – Recipe

Pi Yi

Pi Yi

5 from 1 vote Only logged in users can rate recipes
Course: DrinksCuisine: American
Servings

1

servings
Calories

181

kcal
ABV

17%

Total time

3

minutes

Learn how to make the Pi Yi.

Ingredients

  • 1/2 oz Lime Juice

  • 1 oz Pineapple Juice

  • 1/2 oz Passion Fruit Syrup

  • 1 tsp Honey Syrup

  • 2 dashes Angostura Bitters

  • 1 oz White Rum

  • 2/3 oz Gold Rum

Directions

  • Technique: Tiki Dirty Pour
  • Combine all ingredients into a shaker with crushed ice.
  • Vigorously shake for 10 seconds.
  • Dirty pour the whole shaker into a glass. Crushed ice and all.

Notes

Featured Video

What Does The PI YI Taste Like?

This is a fantastic spiced tropical juice-flavored cocktail. It’s one of my favorite tiki drinks and, in my opinion, is much better than many of the more popular tiki cocktails. The honey and juice perfectly match the strength of the rum and the spice of the bitters. Not much to say other than this is a must-try and one you will most likely make again.

Making A PI YI With A Fresh Pineapple.

The authentic way to prepare this was to scoop out a small pineapple and use the inside, blend it, and use its juice in the drink. Once the drink was shaken and done, it was poured back into the hollowed-out pineapple. To keep with tradition, I cut pineapple and used a small bit of blended fruit as the juice for this drink, which turned out good. I did not pour it back in since I wanted the drink to be visible in a glass. Also, I ate most of the pineapple on its own, and hollowing out a pineapple would give me way more than 1 oz of juice. My assumption is all the extra fruit and juice from the fresh pineapple was used in other drinks too, at Don The Beachcombers.

Recipe Resources

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Prairie Oyster – Classic Recipe & History

Prairie Oyster
Quick Step-By-Step Prairie Oyster Recipe Video

Prairie Oyster

5 from 1 vote Only logged in users can rate recipes
Course: DrinksCuisine: American
Servings

1

servings
Calories

78

kcal
ABV

0%

Total time

3

minutes

Learn how to make a prairie oyster.

Ingredients

  • 1 Egg Yolk

  • 1 tsp Malt Vinegar

  • 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

  • 1/2 tsp Horseradish

  • 1 Dash Salt

  • 1 Dash Black Pepper

Directions

  • Technique: Build In Glass
  • Crack and separate an egg yolk into a lowball glass.
  • Add malt vinegar, worcestershire sauce, horseradish.
  • Add a dash of salt and black pepper.
  • Consume the prairie oyster in a single gulp.

Recipe Video

Notes

Is The Prairie Oyster Good and What Does It Taste Like?

The prairie oyster doesn’t taste bad; it’s pretty good. You can barely taste the egg yolk. Mostly you taste the funky Worcestershire sauce and spices, which I think taste pretty good, and then the egg yolk pops and then goes down. I know that description is not very persuasive to trying it, but it’s surprisingly good. You will most likely like this if you like throwing back raw oysters, as it’s not too far off. The first prairie oyster you eat is for sure the hardest. You stare at it, and the drink stares back. Eventually, you realize you have no choice but to drink it.

Truth be told, I love this drink, and my family is disgusted by me eating them. Egg yolk is pretty mild, but the Worcestershire sauce and vinegar are what hit you. Optional toppings are either ketchup, hot sauce, or horseradish. I like the horseradish as it sends a good quick burn up the sinuses. So it’s a nice funk and burns.

The History Of The Prairie Oyster.

The prairie oyster starts to pop up in books around the end of the 19th century beginning of the 20th century. However, the prairie oyster appears to be a take on an authentic oyster dish. Like ordering a shrimp cocktail at the bar today, the oyster cocktail was an excellent go-to during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Many books had oyster cocktails among their recipes, and the small bar bite typically was 5 or 6 shucked oysters in a glass, mixed with vinegar, lemon juice, hot sauce or ketchup, and salt and pepper. Serve with a spoon and let the patron dig in. In the 1891 book Boothby’s American bar, I also found a cocktail called the pick me up. The cocktail is Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice, black coffee, and salt. The earliest example of the prairie oyster I could find is in the 1895 book “Drinks of All Kinds For All Seasons” by John Hogg of London. He presents the origin story that a few Texans were out camping when one fell ill and demanded oysters to heal him. They didn’t have oysters, but they had eggs. So they fixed up a drink of it similar to an oyster cocktail, handed it to their friend, and he suddenly got better. That story is not true (all the ones that fit together perfectly usually are not.), but it does offer a connection that the prairie oyster is based on a regular oyster cocktail. While there may be no definitive origin for the prairie oyster, it was probably invented around the 1890s.

Does The Prairie Oyster Actually Cure Hangovers?

No, of course not, but what it does do is it forces you to focus and get it together. The drink isn’t that bad, but most people will have to psych themselves out before throwing it back. It’s that few seconds you spend staring down at that funk-covered egg yolk, building up the resolve to do it, that perks you up. It’s jumping into the abyss and discovering it’s a feather bed. Just try it. I bet you have all the ingredients for it right now.

Is It Safe To Drink Raw Eggs?

As a word of warning, use pasteurized eggs if you can. Pasteurized eggs are still raw like a regular egg but with all the germs killed off. The FDA guesstimates that 1 in every 40,000 eggs has salmonella, which is super rare. For reference, there is a 1 in 8000 chance of dying in a plane crash, 1 in 5000 die from choking, and around 1% of sushi test positive for salmonella. I got these numbers from the FDA and the Wall Street journal. Pasteurized eggs are hard to find, so you can pasteurize them yourself or roll the dice. If you have one of those fancy sous vide devices, it’s straightforward to pasteurize them yourself. As someone who has had Salmonella poisoning before, it is one of the most painful things I have ever experienced. It feels like your intestines are possessed by the devil and fed into a paper shredder. About a day or 2 in, you start to think that you will die, and you hope for death to come quickly to end it. Again 1 in every 40,000. So incredibly rare, and if you get Salmonella, you’re much more likely to get it the same way I did, by eating food somewhere with no running water, where people don’t wash their hands. I’ve eaten countless raw eggs and have never gotten sick from raw eggs once.

Why You Should Try The Weird Stuff.

Nature loves courage, and always remember that no matter how weird or gross something is to you (be it food, drinks, clothing, music, entertainment, or anything), it’s somebody’s favorite thing in the world. You have to find out why. During your life, you will be presented with something (and I’m talking about objects and experiences) that you either find gross or strange (like the Prairie Oyster), and your first reaction is typically to make a face and reject it but don’t. Whatever it is you’re making a repulsed face at is somebody’s favorite thing in the world, and it is that happiness you should try and channel when experiencing anything new. It doesn’t mean you have to end up liking it, but you should always approach new experiences looking to find their joys. So take the risk and try something strange. I learned this from Anthony Bourdain. I remember watching No Reservations in college and hearing him say before he eats anything new that he “remembers this is someone’s favorite dish in the whole world, and my job is to find out why.”

Recipe Resouces

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Mizuwari – Classic Recipe

Mizuwari

Mizuwari

0 from 0 votes Only logged in users can rate recipes
Course: DrinksCuisine: Japanese
Servings

1

servings
Calories

150

kcal
ABV

11%

Total time

3

minutes

Learn how to make a mizuwari

Ingredients

  • 2 oz Scotch

  • 5 oz Water

Directions

  • Technique: Build In Glass
  • Add Ice to a glass.
  • Pour whiskey in and stir to cool.
  • Add more water to dilute, but not too much. The result should be an easily drinkable cocktail with a gentle whiskey flavor.

Notes

Featured Video

What Does Mizuwari Mean?

The mizuwari is an iconic Japanese cocktail, and it means to cut with water. Cutting whiskey with water is nothing unique to this cocktail, as even in traditional Irish whiskey, drinking the whiskey is cut with a bit of water to open up the flavors. The difference here is how much the whiskey is thinned with water. Many whiskey drinkers will use just the water that melts off the ice, or some will add a single ounce of water, but the mizuwari is massive, a 1-2 or 1-2.5 ratio of whiskey to water.

Why Drink a Mizuwari?

The mizuwari and Japanese highball has a similar soul to them. They have a clean, unmistakable whiskey flavor but are not overpowering like a short, old-fashioned whiskey cocktail. They are refreshing like a collins or rickey, but without any extra flavors the collins or rickey bring. They are clean, easy-to-drink cocktails, with whiskey the only unobstructed flavor. The mizuwari is more accessible to drink than the highball as it does not even have carbonation. But do not be mistaken. This is not just water added to whiskey. If done right, this can be a great cocktail. If done wrong, this can be the flattest and saddest drink.

The Most Important Part To Making a Mizuwari.

The mizuwari is all about technique. It’s just two ingredients (3 including the ice), but those two ingredients can become something delicious if appropriately combined. So the essential part of making a mizuwari is the process of how it is made. It’s similar to making a Japanese highball but just a little bit simpler.

1). Start with a chilled glass. Stemware matters too. A highball, collins, or zombie glass will work too (they are all pretty similar anyway). The drink needs a heavy broad base to hold extra coldness, and the straight sides make stirring easier. Pint glasses are fine, but they taper to a smaller base, meaning less cold surface area to whiskey ratio. Next, add your ice, and since the glass is already chilled, there is no need to use the ice to chill it. Suppose the glass is not chilled. Stir the ice to cool the glass and dump the water that has melted off. Also, the ice is vital. This is the ice served with the drink, so it should be challenging, clear, and freezing ice. This is done to dilute the whiskey as little as possible before adding the water. If you are adding water, you are diluting it. Still, it is preferable to cut it as little as possible before adding water because it helps maintain the whiskey to water ratio you serve it at length. If you combine the whiskey and water at a 1-2.5 ratio and then add ice, the ice will melt and change the ratio to something like 1-3 or more. If you do it the preferable way, you can see how much water was added by chilling the whiskey and adding more or less water as needed and not have melting ice change that ratio.

2). Next, add your whiskey and stir for maybe 10 seconds. This is to cool the whiskey down to near freezing so that once you add the water, the ratio is not changed while the ice melts and cools the drink to near freezing. When preparing a Japanese highball, you are concerned about preserving the carbonation with cooler temperatures that you do not need to worry about here. This part is just to protect the water to whiskey ratio.

3). Next, add the refrigerated water. The typical ratio is 1 part whiskey to 2 – 2.5 parts chilled water. You’ll want to vary this based on how strongly flavored the whiskey is and how much the melting ice already lengthened it. You aim to balance and open up the flavors, so a more intensely flavored whiskey may want 5oz water to 2oz whiskey, and a more subtle whiskey would work better with 4oz soda water to 2oz whiskey. Know the whiskey and add what you think will make it taste better. Also, use good-tasting filtered water. You’re not adding juice or syrups, so there is nothing to mask lousy water or ice.

4). Finally, give it a few last stirs to mix. Although don’t just turn the spoon in a circle but bring it to the bottom and pull the whiskey up into the water. Do this just a couple of times to evenly mix the drink. A lot of work for a simple two-ingredient drink, right?

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Chrysanthemum – Classic Recipe & History

Chrysanthemum

Chrysanthemum

0 from 0 votes Only logged in users can rate recipes
Course: DrinksCuisine: British
Servings

1

servings
Calories

155

kcal
ABV

26%

Total time

3

minutes

Learn how to make a Chrysanthemum.

Ingredients

  • 3 dashes Absinthe

  • 1 oz Benedictine

  • 2 oz Dry Vermouth

Directions

  • Technique: Simple Stir
  • Combine all ingredients in the mixing glass.
  • Add ice to the mixing glass.
  • Stir the ingredients for 10 – 15 seconds. Try to avoid over-diluting the drink.
  • Strain into a glass.

Notes

Featured Video

What Does The Chrysanthemum Taste Like?

From The 1934 Savoy Cocktail Book, The Chrysanthemum is a beautiful example of the kind of cocktails invented in Europe during American Prohibition. With heavier use of European liqueurs and favoring more complex herbal flavors over the more American spirit-forward cocktails, the Chrysanthemum is a beautiful, herbal, bright, and both lightly sweet and dry cocktail. If you are looking for something new that will become one of your favorites, try the Chrysanthemum. This is not an exaggeration. The taste of this cocktail blew my mind. It’s that good.

A Short History Of The American Bar at the Savoy Hotel In London.

In 1893, The American Bar at the Savoy hotel started serving American-style cocktails in London to the British upper class. The American Bar has always been a high-end bar but what set it on the map was when Harry Craddock became its head bartender in the 1920s. Harry Craddock was a British-born bartender who immigrated to the United States, eventually becoming a US citizen and head bartender of several high-end hotel bars. Still, Harry found himself out of work with the start of prohibition in 1920. He then immigrated back to England and became head bartender of the Savoy Hotel’s Bar. Harry transformed The American Bar from a high-end bar to one of the seminal cocktail bars of the 20th century. As the American prohibition ended, the hotel realized it should record all of its most famous recipes and the innovations Harry brought to the bar. A year later, they published the Savoy Cocktail Book. Printed in 1934, the Savoy Cocktail Book documents the bar’s best recipes from the 1890s to the 1930s and stands as the pillar of prohibition-era European cocktail innovation. If Jerry Thomas’s Bartenders Guide is the best cocktail book the 1800s gave us, then The Savoy Cocktail Book is the best cocktail book of the first half of the 1900s. I don’t think I will ever be able to drink there, though. A cocktail cost around $250 there, and they have one that’s almost $1000, and I’m not the Amazon guy, so good thing we have their recipe book.

The Garnish Is Absolutely Important

The most essential ingredient in the Chrysanthemum is the expressed orange peel garnish. There is only one Benedictine so that easy and good dry vermouth is also necessary, but the subtle flavor the orange oil adds makes this a fantastic drink. The garnish is rarely what makes a drink, but with the Chrysanthemum’s case, it’s essential. If you do not have an orange for the peel, orange bitters work well. I think it tastes better with a dash of orange bitters instead, but an expressed orange peel is traditional.

Recipe Resources

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Pearl Diver – Best Recipe

Pearl Diver
Quick Step-By-Step Pearl Diver Recipe Video

Pearl Diver

5 from 1 vote Only logged in users can rate recipes
Course: DrinksCuisine: American
Servings

1

servings
Calories

456

kcal
ABV

19%

Total time

3

minutes

Learn how to make the Pearl Diver.

Ingredients

  • 1/2 oz Lime Juice

  • 1 oz Orange Juice

  • 1/2 oz Simple Syrup

  • 1 oz Gardenia Mix

  • 1/3 oz Falernum

  • 1.5 oz Gold Rum

  • 1 oz Anejo Rum

Directions

  • Technique: Blended
  • Combine all ingredients into a blender with a single scoop of ice cubes.
  • Blend on low for 10 seconds or till the ice is mostly pulverized. Now blend on high for 5-10 seconds to completely crush the ice and turn the drink into a slushy texture.
  • Pour into a glass.

Recipe Video

Notes

What Does The Pearl Diver Taste Like?

The Pearl Diver is a unique cocktail. Even in the tiki world, its inclusion of Creamed spiced honey butter is unusual. The Gardenia mix adds a creamy texture and hot buttered rum flavor to a tropical drink. I have consistently found that people who don’t like hot buttered rum also don’t like this. I have also noticed that people who want hot buttered rum also like this. It tastes like a citrusy cold buttered rum, and I love it.

Don the Beachcomber’s Forgotten Recipes.

Immediately after the 21st amendment had repealed prohibition, Donn Beach opened Don the Beachcomber in Hollywood, California. Donn single-handedly created the first Tiki bar and, with it, tiki culture. But like most innovators, Donn was worried about others copying his Hollywood-style Polynesian-themed bar and profiting off his ideas. Donn would show up a few hours before the bar opened, mix large batches of his spice mixes and mixers, and give them nondescriptive labels like Donn’s spice mix #1, #2, #3, or Donn’s Zombie Mix, Grog Mix, Gardenia mix. This was all done to hide the recipes. Donn never told the other bartenders or published a recipe, and while he did open other bars, his recipes never got out. Thus Donn’s original recipes died with him in 1989. So keep that in mind anytime you see a Don the Beachcomber cocktail; it is never an original recipe, just the best guess. And some guesses are better than others. Tiki was a lawless free for all for a little over a decade with no continuity between drinks of the same name. There is still a lot of that today. How many Mai Tai recipes have you seen even though we know the original canon recipe for it?

In the late 90s, a Tiki cocktail enthusiast named Jeff Berry came along with the intent of preserving the old recipes and Tiki culture and helping revitalize the public interest in it. Jeff interviewed old bartenders of Donn the Beachcombers and set out to recreate Donn’s secret recipes to the best of their knowledge. Gathering whatever information he could and testing recipes against people who remembered what the old drinks tasted like, he is credited with having saved recipes that would otherwise be lost to time. Remember that these are not Donn’s original recipe but Jeff’s best attempts at recreating them and that Jeff Beachbum Berry is probably the closest one to get it right.

What is Gardenia Mix and How to Make It.

The secret Gardenia mix recipe Jeff Berry eventually settled on was:

  • 1 oz Honey
  • 1 oz unsalted butter
  • 1/2 tsp Vanilla Syrup
  • 1 tsp Cinnamon Syrup
  • 1/2 tsp Allspice Dram.

The stuff taste and smells fantastic. Although not everyone has vanilla or cinnamon syrup around, I wrote a recipe that is a bit more accessible. Here is my specific article on gardenia mix and how to make it.

The Most Important Part Of This Cocktail.

The most important part of the pearl diver is how you mix it. Butter is mostly milk fat and protein, and it does not stay emulsified in water. So you have two options. 1). Use a blender and turn it into a slushy. 2). Use an emulsifier like gum syrup or something to mix the gardenia mix while making it evenly and it is still warm. If you don’t blend it or use an emulsifier, the butter oddly sits at the top and looks pretty gross.

The first option of using a blender is the more common one. There will still be tiny butter particles, but the blender’s speed helps to mix them evenly, and the slushy ice prevents them from forming together. If slushies are not your style, then try option #2.

The second option is to use an emulsifier while making the gardenia mix while it is still warm. You’re not fighting the fat when the cocktail is cold. I’m not the most versed in that method but guides online talk about how to do it that way.

Recipe Resources

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Jack Rose – Classic Recipe & History

Jack Rose
Quick Step-By-Step Jack Rose Recipe Video

Jack Rose

0 from 0 votes Only logged in users can rate recipes
Course: DrinksCuisine: American
Servings

1

servings
Calories

181

kcal
ABV

25%

Total time

3

minutes

Learn how to make the a Jack Rose.

Ingredients

  • 1 oz Lime Juice

  • 1 oz Grenadine

  • 2 oz Apple Brandy

Directions

  • Technique: Saxe Soda Shake
  • Combine all ingredients into a cocktail shaker.
  • Add one medium or two small ice cubes to the cocktail shaker and shake until the ice fully melts.
  • Without a strainer, pour the chilled and aerated drink into a glass.

Recipe Video

Notes

The Many Recipes Of The Jack Rose

There seem to be as many recipes for the Jack Rose as there are cocktail books. The Ensslin recipe is equal parts lime juice, grenadine, and apple brandy. The McElhone recipe includes dry and sweet vemouth with orange juice. Another book uses grapefruit juice, and others have gin. Long story short no two recipes are the same except for the Waldorf-Astoria’s recipe and Savoy’s recipe. While not exactly the same they use the same ingredients and almost the same proportions. Waldorf-Astoria’s recipe has maybe 1/3 oz more grenadine but thats the only difference. Both of those bars recipes were top notch and their similarity is why I am going with their recipes. Also their recipes are the ones later cocktail books will continue to use too.

out of all the jack rose recipes i have tied the Waldorf-Astroia and Savoy recipes are my favorite. The Waldorf-Astoria recipe reminds me of daiquiri. It has the same proportions and sweet to sour ratio as a daiquiri. The Savoy one reminds me of a normal whiskey sour. It is a bit more sour than sweet and fresher and lighter in flavor than the Waldorf-Astoria recipe. The attached recipe is the Waldorf-Astoria but for reference the Savoy recipe is 1/2 oz grenadine, 1 oz lime juice, 2 oz apple brandy, while the Waldorf-Astoria recipe is 1 oz grenadine, 1 oz lime juice, and 2 oz apple brandy. Both are fantastic.

The Most Important Ingredient In A Jack Rose.

The most important ingredient in a jack rose is the grenadine. A good grenadine will make all the difference in this cocktail. unfortuantly most store bought Grenadines are not that great. They tend to be more sweet than flavorful; Just sugar water with red color. Luckly its easy to make your own amazing grenadine for not much more than the cost of a budget store bought one. A liter of finest call grenadine is around $6, A 2 liter bottle of pure pomegranate juice is maybe $10, a 4 pound bag of sugar is $7 and orange blossom wate is $3. So for $10 a liter, and 10 minutes of cook time, you can have amazing grenadine. Some top shelf store bought Grenadines can go for $15 for 8 oz. To put that in perspective thats $60 a liter. Grenadine is very easy to make, check out my article on how to make it, and it will make all the difference in a great jack rose.

What Is Grenadine?

Grenadine is a simple pomegranate syrup, and it originated in Persia (modern-day Iran), where it is called Rob-e-anar and is a traditional ingredient in some Persian dishes. In Persian cooking, it is boiled down to a molasses-like thickness, but when used in cocktails, the thinner syrup viscosity mixes easier. The word grenadine comes from the French word for pomegranate, grenade. During the 19th century, pomegranate syrup was mainly unknown in the United States, yet syrups made from raspberries and strawberries were much more common in drinks. Grenadine starts to get popular as a cocktail ingredient in the US around the 20th century. Some of the first grenadine cocktails appear in George Kappeler’s (Of the New York’s Holland House Hotel) 1895 Modern American Drinks and Louis Fouquet’s 1896 Bariana. Grenadine most likely started as a European syrup that quickly made its way to the United States and by the 1910s became a much more common syrup in mixed drinks. It’s around this time that cocktails like the Jack rose and ward 8 come about. Regional variations of some drinks still exist, though; these result from Americans having a long history of using raspberry or strawberry syrups. For example, the rose cocktail in American cocktail books often used raspberry syrup, and English cocktail books used grenadine. Another example is the clover club cocktail, wherein the United States is made with raspberry syrup, but in English books like the savoy, it’s made with grenadine.

Recipe Resources

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Jean Collins – Recipe

Jean Collins

Jean Collins

0 from 0 votes Only logged in users can rate recipes
Course: DrinksCuisine: American
Servings

1

servings
Calories

243

kcal
ABV

11%

Total time

3

minutes

Learn how to make the a Jean Collins.

Ingredients

  • 1 oz Lemon Juice

  • 1 oz Orange Liqueur

  • 2 oz Brandy

  • 5 oz Soda Water

Directions

  • Technique: Build In Glass
  • Combine all ingredients except for the soda water in a glass.
  • Fill the glass with ice.
  • Stir to combine and chill the ingredients.
  • Gently add the soda water and give the drink a couple of last stirs to mix it fully.

Notes

Featured Video

The History Of The Collins Cocktail.

While probably not invented by Harry Johnson, his 1882 Bartenders Manual is the oldest printed book I could find to mention the Collins cocktail. The oldest concrete evidence of this cocktail is the Harry Johnson one. It seems both the John Collins and Tom Collins are invented around the same time, and the Bartenders Manual gives a pretty definitive recipe for both the John and Tom Collins. His John Collins recipe calls for genever (dry gin doesn’t start to get mixed into cocktails till the end of the 1800s/early 1900s), and his recipe for the Tom Collins calls for Old Tom gin. Harry Johnson’s collins recipes and names are clearly defined, but unlike Harry Johnson, Jerry Thomas’s 1887 Bartenders Guide does not follow his recipes. The Bartender’s Guide doesn’t even mention the John Collins but instead uses the name Tom Collins for every variation of the collins. It has three different recipes for Tom Collins. A Tom Collins whiskey, a Tom Collins brandy, and a Tom Collins genever. It doesn’t mention the Tom Collins with Old Tom gin and calls the one made with genever a Tom Collins.

To further complicate this, in 1885, a British cocktail book called “The New guide for the hotel, bar, restaurant, butler, and chef” by Bacchus and Cordon Bleu has a recipe for what they call a Fred Collins. Their Fred Collins Recipe is a Whiskey Collins with orange liqueur instead of simple syrup. Their Collins section states, “I should be glad if our caterers would agree what it is to be perpetually named. One Barkeeper calls it a John Collins – another Tom Collins. Harry and Fred are all members of the same family.” They then say they prefer the Fred Collins name, thus credence to Jerry Thomas’s version of the Collins in that the name is more a style than a specific drink. Hell, there was a Harry Collins we have never seen. The Savoy Cocktail Book does the same thing and has both a Dry Gin and Whiskey Tom Collins. Although The Savoy does say that a Tom Collins made with genever is instead called a John Collins.

While Harry Johnson uses the names as specific cocktails, the Bartenders guide and others seemed to use the collins as a cocktail structure more than a particular recipe. Like the Rickey, Daisy, or Fizz, the collins describe a structure of 2 parts base spirit, 1 part citrus, 1 part sweetener, and 4 or 5 parts carbonated beverage. Harry Johnson’s influence has been permanent, and the collins is ultimately both. It is a specific cocktail that Harry Johnson pushed and a cocktail archetype like others believed. Looking at its influence as an archetype, many popular cocktails are structurally collins that you would not think of as a Collins. The Adios Motherfucker, Mojito, French 75, Paloma, etc., are just fun variations on the Collins form.

What Does the Jean Collins Taste Like?

The Jean Collins is a brandy variation of the John Collins and good. The mellow-aged sweetness of the brandy perfectly blends with the orange liqueur and lemon juice into a bubbly, refreshing cocktail. Imagine this as a lengthened and more refreshing Side Car.

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Vieux Carré – Original Recipe & History

Vieux Carre
Quick Step-By-Step Vieux Carre Recipe Video

Vieux Carre

0 from 0 votes Only logged in users can rate recipes
Course: DrinksCuisine: American
Servings

1

servings
Calories

144

kcal
ABV

32%

Total time

3

minutes

Learn how to make the a classic Vieux Carre.

Ingredients

  • 2 dashes Angostura Bitters

  • 2 dashes Peychauds Bitters

  • 1 tsp Benedictine

  • 2/3 oz Sweet Vermouth

  • 2/3 oz Brandy

  • 2/3 oz Rye Whiskey

Directions

  • Technique: Simple Stir
  • Combine all ingredients in the mixing glass.
  • dd ice to the mixing glass. Stir the ingredients for 10 – 15 seconds. Try to avoid over-diluting the drink.
  • Strain into a glass.

Recipe Video

Notes

The History Of The Vieux Carré.

The Vieux Carré was invented sometime in the 1930s by Walter Bergeron, the head bartender at the Hotel Monteleone’s cocktail lounge In New Orleans. It was first published in the 1937 book “Famous New Orleans Drinks and how to mix ‘em” by Stanley Clisby Arthur. The Vieux Carré is a beautiful cocktail that is both strong and herbal. It’s similar but much more complex than the famed New Orleans Sazerac. It’s hard to describe this cocktail without trying, but if herbaceous solid drinks are your thing, this is a must-try.

What Does Vieux Carré Mean?

Vieux Carre translates to “The Old Square,” referring to the New Orleans French Quarter. New Orleans is one of my absolute favorite places. Its history is both fantastic and terrifying. Many iron-laced balconies date back to the 1700s and predate the United States. You can drink at the same bars generals planned battles at and experience some of the oldest American histories. Not as museum pieces behind glass just to be seen, but by actually walking the halls, eating at the same tables, ordering at the same bars, and living in the same spaces, many historical events happened.

Recipe Resources

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Violet Fizz – Lavender Cocktail Recipe

Violet Fizz

Violet Fizz

5 from 1 vote Only logged in users can rate recipes
Course: DrinksCuisine: American
Servings

1

servings
Calories

416

kcal
ABV

13%

Total time

3

minutes

Learn how to make the a classic Violet Fizz.

Ingredients

  • 1 Whole Egg White

  • 2/3 oz Lemon Juice

  • 2/3 oz Simple Syrup

  • 1/3 oz Half and Half

  • 2/3 oz Creme de Violette

  • 2 oz Old Tom Gin

  • 1.5 oz Soda Water

Directions

  • Saxe Shake Method
  • Combine all ingredients except for the soda water in a cocktail shaker.
  • Add one medium or two small ice cubes to the cocktail shaker and shake till the ice has fully melted.
  • Without a strainer, pour the chilled and aerated drink into a collins glass.
  • Slowly pour the soda water in, and the bubbles from the water will expand all bubbles in the drink to form a large foam head.

Featured Video

The History Of The Fizz.

The oldest reference to the Violet Fizz is from the 1895 Book Modern American Drinks by George Kappeler. His original version calls for raspberry syrup instead of creme de Violette. Although most later versions call for creme de Violette instead, it makes for a better drink. Fizz cocktails didn’t appear until the 1880s when they were first printed in Jerry Thomas’s 1887 edition of the Bartenders guide, and sadly they never really caught on as a style or left the United States. They have anywhere from 5 to 8 different ingredients, they take time to make, and they are difficult to make right. These are qualities bartenders don’t want to deal with, especially on a busy night. They have their place but typically only in high-end bars that can afford bartenders skilled enough and tend to run slower. The last detail to date in this cocktail is the creme, de Violette. Creme de Violette stopped being imported into the United States at the start of prohibition and never returned till 2007.

What Does A Violet Fizz Taste Like?

The violet fizz is one of the most amazing cocktails I have ever tasted. It tastes like aviation in fizz form, with the creme de Violette even more subtle. The old Tom (which also dates the drink) provides a nice sweet gin flavor to the cocktail that dry gin wouldn’t. Imagine drinking a gentle violet meringue gin dessert.

How To Get Great Foam On Cocktails With Egg Whites.

Egg Whites are challenging to get right in cocktails. Everyone struggles with them at some point, and bartenders search for any way to make whipping them into a fluffy meringue easier. Henry Ramos hired “shaker boys” to shake for him. Some use the dry shake or reverse dry shake, others swear by only using one large ice cube, and some say you have to shake till your arms fall off. The method I like is called the Saxe Shake, and De Forest Saxe invented it in the 1880s.

The Saxe Shake is largely unknown in the cocktail world because De Forest Saxe was a soda fountain operator in Chicago, Illinois. His 1890 book “Saxe’s New Guide Hints to Soda Water Dispensers” details his shaking technique for egg drinks that produces the best foam and can be accomplished with minimal effort. Saxe states to shake drinks with eggs with only one chestnut-sized ice cube. An Ice cube from a standard ice tray is about chestnut-sized, so one or two small cubes will work. Then shake until the ice fully melts, and pour into the serving glass without straining. The small amount of ice is just enough to cool and dilute the drink, and since there are no remaining bits of ice left in the shaker, there is nothing to strain. Passing the mixture through a strainer destroys most of the bubbles you worked so hard to make. As you add soda water, the escaping carbon dioxide fills the tiny bubbles in the drink, forcing them to expand and form a large fluffy foam. Give it a try. Using the Saxe Shake, I have turned out Ramos Gin Fizzes as fast and efficiently as any other shaken cocktail with excellent results.

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Sazerac – Original Recipe & History

Sazerac
Quick Step-By-Step Sazerac Recipe Video

Sazerac

0 from 0 votes Only logged in users can rate recipes
Course: DrinksCuisine: American
Servings

1

servings
Calories

226

kcal
ABV

34%

Total time

3

minutes

Learn how to make the a classic Sazerac.

Ingredients

  • 1/3 oz Simple Syrup

  • 1 dash Peychaud’s Bitters

  • 2 dashes Angostura Bitters

  • 3 oz Rye Whiskey

  • 2 dash Absinthe

Directions

  • Add Ice To Mixing Glass and combine all ingredients in the mixing glass.
  • Stir the ingredients for 20 – 30 seconds to properly chill and dilute the drink.
  • Strain into glass. Garnish with an expressed lemon peel

Recipe Video

Notes

The Origins And History Of The Sazerac Cocktail.

The most complete history of the Sazerac cocktail comes from Stanley Clisby Arthur in his 1938 book “Famous New Orleans Drinks and how to mix ’em.” It is not the oldest written recipe, though. That goes to the 1908 book “The World’s Drinks and how to Mix Them” by Boothby. However, the latter Arthur’s history and recipe are considered canon today.

John B. Schiller was a New Orleans agent and distributor for “Sazerac-de-Forge et fils,” who operated out of a location on Canal and Royal Street. Schiller acquired the site in 1859 and opened a bar in the rear of the building facing Exchange Alley/Place, where he made all kinds of drinks and cocktails elusively with Sazerac-de-Forge Brandy. The location was named Sazerac Coffee House, and a large tiled mosaic of the word Sazerac was placed at the bar’s entrance. While writing this history in 1938, Arthur says the mosaic was still there, but the location was currently a barbershop.

The bar’s namesake cocktail, The Sazerac, was probably more like the recipe in the 1908 Boothby book. Schiller’s original Sazerac is described by Arthur (Who got this history from Leon Dupont, who worked as a bartender there a few years later) as a simple Brandy, Peychaud’s bitters, and sugar cocktail. It’s debated when Absinthe was first added. In 1870 the bar was bought by Schiller’s bookkeeper Thomas H. Handy. The large tile mosaic was just too nice, and Handy kept the mosaic and changed the name to “Sazerac House” since Handy was not an exclusive distributor with Sazerac, he no longer felt obligated only to use Sazerac Brandy in the bar’s cocktails. The Sazerac recipe changed, and the brandy was replaced with rye whiskey, and Dupont says this was when absinthe was added too. The recipe provided here is from the 1938 book “Famous New Orleans Drinks and how to mix ’em” by Leon Dupont. Dupont was a bartender at the Sazerac House under Thomas Handy and claimed this is how they made the Sazerac while he worked there. I did double the volumes since it made a very short drink.

What is Selner Bitters?

In the 1908 Boothby Book, he states that one of the ingredients is Selner bitters. From all the research I could do, I can not find anything on what Selner Bitters were, and no one else ever references them. Boothby’s book is the only book in which these bitters are ever mentioned. But they did exist. On page 5 of the New Orleans Daily Crescent from May 14, 1859, an import distributor named S. Wolff has “Selner’s German Bitters” for sale in his newspaper ad. This verifies that those specific bitters were present in New Orleans when John B. Schiller opened the Sazerac Coffee house. For context, this ad is from there is a slave auction ad above it. What did these imported german bitters taste like? Who knows.
I cannot find any reference to them in other cocktails books from the 1800s, and they are used in only two recipes in Boothby’s book. They were not common. People reading Boothby’s book in 1908 had probably never heard even then, and p. I tried to look in the german newspaper and historical literature websites, but since I do not understand German, I did not get very far. Selner wasn’t the only bitter tonic advertised as a “German Bitter.” There were a few others, the most popular being Dr. Hooflands German Bitters. This makes me wonder if German bitters have a consistent style and taste. Based on the benefits Hooflands German Bitters provided, I would guess they were a juniper, camomile, ginger bitter with cocaine and cannabis. Perhaps it’s a fashion similar to Underberg. We may never know.

Should The Sazerac Be Made With Brandy Or Rye?

Neither way is wrong. It just depends on which recipe you are making and what you like. I don’t doubt the authenticity of Boothby’s 1908 recipe, but the use of Selner’s German Bitters makes this version impossible to recreate. The later 1938 Arthur recipe is the most well know, but even the author says it was first made with Brandy. So it’s up to you. Try both and see which you prefer. I prefer it made with rye whiskey, but both are good.

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