#287 Cocktails: Tremblement de Terre

   A drink mentioned in Absinthe: History in a Bottle, by Barnaby Conrad III, but without measurements. This was apparently a cocktail favored by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, a French artist who died in 1901, at the age of thirty-six.
    Daaaaaaaaaaaaamn!!!!! It's a strong cocktail! Consider yourself fore-warned.

2 1/2 ounce cognac

1/4 ounce absinthe substitute

#280 Cocktail: The Third Degree

  The cocktail can be found in the Savoy Cocktail book as a drier alternative to another cocktail called, The Forth Degree. The first one consists in equal parts of gin, vermouth and a dash of absinthe, an the latter one diminishes the amount of vermouth
   

2 1/2 ounces vodka or gin

1/2 ounce dry vermouth

Absinthe or absinthe substitute to taste

#255 Cocktail: Sazerac

    Back after a long pause while I moved from Germany to Estonia, fond a new job and settled down.
     So I wanted to start this year with a classic and a very tasty cocktail.....the Sazerac
     Around 1850, Sewell T. Taylor sold his New Orleans bar, The Merchants Exchange Coffee House, to become an importer of spirits, and he began to import a brand of cognac named Sazerac-de-Forge et Fils. Meanwhile, Aaron Bird assumed proprietorship of the Merchants Exchange and changed its name to Sazerac Coffee House.
     Legend has it that Bird began serving the "Sazerac Cocktail", made with Sazerac cognac imported by Taylor, and allegedly with bitters being made by the local apothecary, Antoine Amedie Peychaud. The Sazerac Coffee House subsequently changed hands several times, when around 1870, Thomas Handy became its proprietor. It is around this time that the primary ingredient changed from cognac to rye whiskey, due to the phylloxera epidemic in Europe that devastated the vineyards of France
      At some point before his death in 1889, Handy recorded the recipe for the cocktail, which made its first printed appearance in William T. "Cocktail Bill" Boothby's The World's Drinks and How to Mix Them (1908),although his recipe calls for Selner Bitters, not Peychaud's. After absinthe was banned in the US in 1912, it was replaced by various anise-flavored liqueurs, most notably the locally produced Herbsaint, which first appeared in 1934

3 ounces straight rye whiskey

3/4 ounce simple syrup

Peychaud's bitters to taste

Hersaint to rinse the glass

#251 Cocktail: Remember the Maine

    A classic cocktail adapted from a recipe but Charles H Baker Jr., which insisted that, when making the drink, you should only stir clockwise.
    Charles H Baker Jr, an American journalist who counted Ernest Hemingway and Errol Flynn among his many friends, wrote for magazines such as Gourmet, Esquire and Town and Country, and was described by Margaria Fichtner, a columnist for the Miami Herald, as having an ‘unquenchable enthusiasm for what he called “the gentle art of imbibation”’.
    Baker writes in his 1939 book, The Gentleman's Companion: An Exotic Drinking Book.

(scotchwhisky.com)

2 ounces bourbon

3/4 ounce sweet vermouth

1/4 ounce cherry liqueur

absinthe to taste

Angostura bitters to taste

#225 Cocktail: Phoebe Snow

    Well, for this cocktail, I will let master Gaz Regan do the explanations: " A curveball in the French-Italian family, since it calls for Dubonnet rather than sweet vermouth, but a great drink nevertheless. You'll be tempted to think that this one was named for the singer, probably best known for her 1974 hit "Poetry Man", but actually both the drink and the singer borrowed their names from a fiction character, first seen circa 1900, who always dressed in a white spotless dress and gloves to promote the Lackawanna railroad trains' use of anthracite."
     All I can say is that the cocktail has a beautiful color and be careful with the absinthe, cause the drink is already strong from the brandy and the dubonnet.

2 ounces brandy

1 ounces Dubonnet 

Absinthe to taste

#224 Cocktail: Pierce Brosnan

   The original cocktail was created by Salvatore Calabrese for the actor Pierce Brosnan ( so by this we explained the name too) at the Lanesborough Hotel in London.
    I can say that this is not one of my favorite cocktails taste wise. It is very strong, for it has only alcohol and only strong alcohol. And I was never fond of the combination between champagne and vodka, but some of you might like it.....

1 1/2 ounce vodka from the freezer

1/2 ounce chilled champagne

1 sugar cube

1/4 ounce absinthe 

#199 Cocktail: Monkey Gland No.1 and 2

     I chose to put both cocktails in the same post, because they have the same name, it's the same colour and the only difference is the taste and the liqueurs used.. In the first one its Benedictine and in the second one it's the Absinth.
      The Monkey Gland is a cocktail of gin, orange juice, grenadine and absinthe named after a surgical technique of grafting monkey testicle tissue into humans. The practice was started by Dr Serge Voronoff, and was intended to produce longevity.
      The Monkey Gland was created in the 1920s by Harry MacElhone, owner of Harry's New York Bar in Paris, France. (Wikipedia)

Monkey Gland No.1

2 ounces Gin

1 ounce fresh orange juice

Benedictine to taste

Grenadine to taste

Monkey Gland No.2

2 1/2 ounces Gin

3/4 ounce fresh orange juice

Absinth to taste

Grenadine to taste

#196 Cocktail: Modernista

     The cocktail is adapted from a recipe by Ted Haigh (Dr. Cocktail), who in turn adapted it from the formula for the Modern Cocktail in Craddock's "Savoy Cocktail Book" .
      In it's recipe, Ted Haigh uses a teaspoon  of absinth, but Gaz Regan prefers only two drops. Is better to experiment with the quantity of absinth, because it can overpower the taste of the cocktail. But if you are an absinth fan, then a teaspoon might be on your taste.
      Just as a note, it is not one of my favorite cocktails. I find the combination of scotch, rum and lemon juice not that pleasant. But it's just my taste.

2 ounces scotch

1/2 ounce Jamaican  rum

1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice

orange bitters to taste

absinth to taste

#195 Cocktail: Maurice

    The cocktail was adapted from a recipe in Harry Craddock's "Savoy Cocktail Book. This is almost the same recipe as the one for the Bronx cocktail, the only new part added here is the 2 dashes of Absinthe, that really makes a difference in the taste of the cocktail. Careful not to use more than 2 dashes, because the taste of absinthe will really overpower the entire taste of the cocktail

2 ounces gin

1/4 ounce dry vermouth

1/4 ounce sweet vermouth

1 ounce fresh orange juice

1-2 dashes absinthe

#193 Cocktail: Mauresque

     One of the most simple cocktails to make and in the same time very tasty, even for the people who do not enjoy the absinth that much.
      Mauresque is French for "moorish". Pronounced 'Mor-Esk', this classic drink is very popular in the South of France. This cocktail is a classic French apéritif very common all over France. Pastis is probably one of the most popular beverage in the country. It was originally created by French soldiers serving in the Bataillon d’Afrique during the Algerian campaign of 1830s – 40s. The Mauresque is often drunk by women instead of pure Pastis.And orgeat is a syrup made from almonds. In the past, it was made from orge (bailey), hence its name. ( www.socialandcocktail.co.uk )

2 ounces Absinthe

1 ounce orgeat syrup

chilled water

#104 Cocktail: Dreamy Dorini Smoking Martini

   The cocktail was adapted from a recipe by Audrey Saunders, New Your City's Liberation Goddess.
    Audrey Saunders got into mixology in one decisive night. While bartending at Brooklyn Heights’ Waterfront Ale House in 1996, she took a seminar with the legendary Dale DeGroff at New York University. Saunders was so enthralled that she approached DeGroff and offered to work for free in exchange for training. By 1997, she was partnering with DeGroff for special events for The Rainbow Room, and in 1999 she was working with him at Blackbird.

      The drink displays the height of the cocktilian craft. I you know the Laphroaig single-malt scotch at all, you'll be aware that the ten-year-old bottling is unforgiving in terms of peat and smoke, but Audrey thought it all out: one thing that Pernod can't easily quell is  Laphroaig an adding the vodka, brings both the Pernod and the scotch to their knees.

       The whole drink comes together harmony and a masterpiece is born

Gaz Regan

2 ounces vodka

1/2 ounce Laphroaig ten-year-old single-malt scotch

1 or 2 drops Pernod

#79 Cocktail: Corpse Reviver No.2

    The Corpse Reviver family of cocktails are intended as 'hair of the dog' hangover cures, hence the name. Most of the corpse reviver cocktails have been lost to time, but the cognac- and gin-based Corpse Reviver and Corpse Reviver #2 cocktails that were first listed in the Savoy Cocktail Handbook by Harry Craddock in 1930 have survived to this day.
      The Corpse Reviver #2 is the more popular of the corpse revivers, and consists of equal parts gin, lemon juice, triple sec (commonly Cointreau), Kina Lillet, and a dash ofabsinthe. The dash of absinthe can either be added to the mix before shaking, or added to the cocktail glass and moved around until the glass has been coated with a layer of absinthe. It can also be used to coat the edge of the glass to give a subtle absinthe aroma and flavor to the drink.

3/4 ounce Gin

3/4 ounce triple sec

3/4 ounce Lillet Blanc

3/4 ounce fresh lemon juice

absinthe to taste (go easy)

#53 Cocktail: Blackthorn

   There is no romantic or exciting story behind this cocktail even if it's a old classic one. Adapted from a recipe in Harry Craddock's "The Savoy Cocktail Book" (1930), this variation of the Manhattan is delightful, if it's made with caution.
     The trick is to be very careful when using the absinthe, because it tends to ooverpower the other flavors. Because, the Manhattan is one of my favorite cocktails, of course that any variation wold be on my list of really good cocktails.

2 ounces Irish whiskey

1 ounce sweet vermouth

Angostura bitters to taste

Absinthe to taste