Episode 71: Brandy Cobbler

• 3 ounces brandy or cognac

• 1/2 ounce simple syrup

• 1 to 2 ounces club soda, to taste

• Orange slices and seasonal berries, for garnish

Line an old-fashioned glass with orange slices and fill with crushed ice, Then pour in brandy and simple syrup. Stir to combine, and top with soda. Add the fruit & berry garnishes (skewered or piled on top of the ice).
Serve with a straw and enjoy.

Cobblers became popular toward the end of the 1830s, around the same time that the ice trade in the US was expanding, making it easier to create cocktails with loads of ice. Much like a julep, cobblers call for crushed ice and plenty of it.
In fact, no one is exactly certain where the name cobbler comes from, but according to David Wondrich, it may have something to do with the “cobbles” of ice the cocktail is built on.

Originally cobblers were always made with wine or fortified wine. The sherry cobbler was definitely the most popular variety, but in Jerry Thomas’ 1862 bartenders guide he also includes recipes for a Catawba wine cobbler, a claret cobbler, a Hock cobbler (British term for German white wine) and a sauterne cobbler.

But sometimes cobblers were made with stronger spirits. Jerry Thomas also included a whiskey cobbler recipe in his book, and according to David Wondrich, Brandy cobblers were also super popular in the 1850s, especially in New York.

Once you have crushed ice and sliced citrus, building a cobbler is very easy to do. The one thing to keep in mind though is that Jerry Thomas insists that special attention needs to be paid to how it’s presented. 

“The cobbler does not require much skill in compounding, but to make it acceptable to the eye, as well as to the palate, it is necessary to display some taste in ornamenting the glass after the beverage is made.” He even includes an illustration of how a cobbler should look.

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Episode 60: Stinger

• 2 ounces cognac or brandy

• 1/2 ounce white crème de menthe*

Pour ingredients into a cocktail shaker and fill with ice; shake well and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.**
Garnish with a fresh mint leaf.

* To avoid an unappetizing color, be sure to use the white (clear), rather than the green crème de menthe
** You can also pour it over shaved ice in an old fashioned glass, for an extra refreshing treat.

The Stinger seems to have originated sometime around 1890 and may have been a twist on another popular cocktail at the time called the Judge, which was made with brandy, crème de menthe, and simple syrup. It was immediately popular in New York City, and quickly became known as an upper class "society" drink, reportedly a favorite of Reginald Vanderbilt in the 1920s.

Strong, sweet, and minty, it makes a perfect after dinner night cap, and many people in high society saw the Stinger not as a cocktail, but rather a digestif, only to be served after dinner. Over time though, that changed, and people started drinking Stingers as a cocktail.

The Stinger remained popular during Prohibition because crème de menthe helped mask the flavor of the inferior-quality brandies that were available. It remained popular all through the 1960s, but eventually it begin to lose favor in the late 70s. Today many people have never even heard of it.

Stinger recipes can vary quite a bit in proportion, with some drinkers preferring a drier version made with less crème de menthe, and others preferring it sweeter. Stinger recipes also typically call for the drink to be shaken, which is a bit strange for cocktails made from all spirits. They’re usually served up in a small cocktail glass, but for an extra refreshing treat they can also be served over crushed ice like a julep.

Episode 44: Prescription Julep

• 1 tablespoon (1/2 oz) white sugar

• 1/2 oz water

• 5-6 mint leaves (plus more for garnish)

• 2 ounces cognac

• 1/2 ounce rye

• Garnish: mint sprig and fresh seasonal berries

Add sugar and water to the bottom of a rocks glass or julep cup and stir to start dissolving. Add 5 to 6 mint leaves and gently press with a muddler to release their oils (don’t over-crush them or they can get bitter).

Fill the glass with finely crushed ice and add cognac & rye. Stir to combine and top with more crushed ice to mound over top. Garnish with a bright green sprig of mint leaves, and if desired, a few fresh raspberries or blackberries. Serve with a straw.

The Prescription Julep was created in 1857, and according to cocktail historian David Wondrich, it’s one of the tastiest mint julep recipes he knows.

Rather than using the traditional bourbon whiskey, this julep recipe calls for a mix of cognac and rye whiskey. Wondrich says this combination is “a marriage made in heaven, the cognac mellowing the rye and the rye adding spice to the cognac.” While the used of Cognac & Rye may seem unusual, back in the Julep’s heyday in the mid 1800s, there were several variations, some even using gin or fortified wines like sherry or madeira.

This recipe came from a tongue-in-cheek medical joke made in 1857 in Harper’s Monthly, in a serial called “A Winter in the South”. In it, one doctor “Quackenboss” writes out a prescription, in Latin medical abbreviations, for this julep recipe. When translated into English, the prescription calls for white sugar, spring water, strong cognac, spirits of rye, mint leaves, and powdered ice.

At the bottom of the prescription, he adds a recommendation for dosage,
“Repeat dose three or four times a day until cold weather.”
“Quackenboss, M.D.”

Wondrich recommends using good, old cognac, since it’s the main base spirit, but says there’s no reason to splurge on the rye which is really just there to spice up the cognac. The original recipe doesn’t call for it, but he also recommends topping the prescription julep with some aged Jamaican rum and garnishing with a few fresh raspberries or blackberries.

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Episode 32: General Burnside's Favorite

• Juice of half a lemon (1/2 oz)

• 2 oz Brandy (preferably VSOP)

• 1 oz Jamaican Rum

• 3/4 oz orgeat syrup (use one made with real almonds and cane syrup)

• Garnish: Fresh grated nutmeg, and lemon slice if desired

Rinse out a glass mug or punch cup with boiling water to warm it up. Pour the water out and add lemon juice, brandy, rum, and orgeat. Top the mug off with more hot water. The larger the mug you use, the more watered down the drink will be, but this is a strong drink so that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Grate some fresh nutmeg over the top, and serve with a lemon slice if desired.

During the civil war, soldiers were drinking so much whiskey that over the years the supply ran out and couldn’t be replenished fast enough. Fortunately for the wealthy officers and generals, they could get their hands on fancy imported brandy and rum when the whiskey supply ran low.

One such general was General Ambrose Burnside from Indiana. He was a terrible general famous for 3 things, an army career that included some devastating and embarrassing defeats, facial hair so wild and distinctive that sideburns are literally named after him, and a fancy pants punch recipe he liked sharing so much that in 1863 Jerry Thomas published it with the tagline, “This superb drink was forwarded to me by special messenger from the General.”

This punch recipe is served hot, which may seem odd to us today, but was fairly common at a time before refrigeration and cheap, plentiful ice. In fact, instead of hot water, a lot of punches would have been cut with black or green tea to add flavor.

The recipe includes lemon juice, French brandy, Jamaican rum, orgeat syrup, hot water, & nutmeg, and the flavor is reminiscent of a hot toddy.  This was some fancy shit back then. French brandy and Jamaican rum were expensive and hard to get during the war. Quite a flex. Instead of everyday sugar, he used fancy ass French almond flavored orgeat syrup instead. Nutmeg was also very fancy and showed that you could afford fancy ingredients.

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Episode 22: National Guard Seventh Regiment Punch

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• 1 to 2 teaspoons sugar *see notes

• ½ oz lemon juice  

• 2 oz Brandy (preferably Cognac)

• 2 oz Catawba wine OR dry rosé wine **see notes

• 1 teaspoon raspberry syrup (recipe below)

• ¼ oz Jamaican rum (optional)

• Garnish: orange, pineapple, fresh berries 

Stir sugar and lemon juice together in a bar glass or rocks glass. 
Add brandy, wine, and raspberry syrup and fill the glass with ice (shaved or crushed preferable) 
Shake well and pour back into glass. 

Top with dark rum and garnish with fruit. Serve with a straw. 

NOTES:
* The original recipe calls for 2 teaspoons, but we found the cocktail far too sweet and much preferred it with only 1 teaspoon after some testing
** The original recipe called for a very sweet wine made from Catawba grapes. If you can’t find Catawba wine, Niagara or Concord grape wine will be very similar, or you could use any sweet white or rosé wine you like. However, we found this punch was far too sweet and much preferred it made with a dry rosé instead.

Raspberry Syrup

• 2 cups of demerara sugar

• 1 cup of water

• 1 cup raspberries (fresh or frozen)

Stir sugar and water over low heat until sugar has dissolved. Add raspberries stirring until the berries form a pulp. Strain into a jar and refrigerate. Over time, the pectin will rise to the surface and can be skimmed off.

The “National Guard Seventh Regiment Punch”  was probably around before the 1860s but we don’t know the actual origins. We just know that the recipe was published by Jerry Thomas in 1862.

This drink is named after NYC’s seventh regiment, which used to be the only regiment that made up the national guard at one point in history. They were known as a “silk stocking” regiment, meaning they were mostly made up of fancy fifth avenue blue blood types. 

During the civil war they were on their way to go fight at Gettysburg, but NYC’s draft riots broke out and they were called back. Fighting draft rioters in NYC was actually the only combat they ever saw during the entire civil war. 

This is one of the more unique cocktails we’ve ever had. The original recipe called for a very sweet wine made from Catawba grapes. If you can’t find Catawba wine, Niagara or Concord grape wine will have a very similar flavor, but you could use any sweet white or rosé wine that you like. However, we found this punch to be far too sweet for modern tastes, and much preferred it when we tried a version made with a dry rosé instead. A later reprint of Thomas’ book called for Sherry. 

Catawba grapes are a hybrid of wild grapes native to the East Coast crossed with European wine grapes. Catawba wine can be a bit hard to find today, but 200 years ago it was everywhere in the US. In fact, Jerry Thomas’ book actually has several recipes that feature it. The flavor of Catawba wine is sweet and distinctly grape-y, tasting more like Concord grape juice than wine. Posh wine snobs refer to this flavor as “foxy” and say that it also has a wild, musky, animal smell, but we just tasted juice box.

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Episode 19: The Brandy Smash

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• 1 teaspoon superfine sugar

• 2 teaspoons water

• 2 small sprigs of mint

• 2 oz brandy

• Mint, orange, & berries for garnish (optional) 

Swirl sugar and water together in the bottom of a cocktail shaker.
Add mint, brandy, and ice, & shake vigorously until frosty.
Fill a rocks glass to the top with finely crushed ice and strain cocktail into the glass. Garnish with a sprig of mint, an orange slice, and fresh berries if in season.

The Brandy Smash is a classic cocktail that is so classic that it saw its heyday before the Civil War. Though it was likely created sometime in the 1830s, the 'smash' was at its peak in the 1850s, eclipsing even the Sherry Cobbler in popularity.

Made from mint, sugar, and strong spirits, the smash is often compared to the julep because they were both created around the same time, and while the methods are different, the flavor is really similar. Today they’re most often made with bourbon or rye whiskey, but in the mid 19th century they were usually made with brandy. Gin was also used sometimes.

The use of the cocktail shaker rather than a muddler is what sets the Julep and the Smash apart from one another. The cocktail shaker was a relatively new invention and it didn’t take long for bartenders to realize they could skip muddling and just shake the mint into the drink. Vigorous shaking smashes up the mint leaves, which is probably how the drink got its name. The Smash was also sometimes called a Smasher or a Smash-up.

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Episode 14: Benjamin Franklin's Milk Punch

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• 3 cups (1.5 pints) of brandy

• 6 lemons

• 1 cup lemon juice

• 2 cups (1 pint) of spring water

• ½ of a whole nutmeg, freshly grated 

• 1/2 cup (1/4 lb) of sugar

• 1.5 cups of whole milk

Zest lemons.
Squeeze 1 cup of lemon juice.
Steep the lemon zest in the brandy for 24 hours.
Strain out the lemon zest.
Add water, freshly grated nutmeg, lemon juice, and sugar to the brandy, and stir until the sugar dissolves.
Slowly bring milk to a boil. As soon as the milk boils, add it hot to the brandy mix and stir.
The heat, lemon juice, and alcohol will begin to curdle the milk.
Let the punch stand for 2 hours.
Strain the punch through a jelly bag or a cheesecloth lined strainer (or a clean pillow case!) until clear. Serve cold.

*Note: The straining process is slow, but resist the urge to change out the jelly bag or cheesecloth. The liquid needs to strain through the curd to clarify properly. I rushed it, which is why mine looks so cloudy in the photo below.

The idea drinking a punch made from curdled milk may sound kinda weird or gross, but in Colonial America, there were multiple drinks made this way. Along with milk punch, possets and syllabubs were also popular back then.
Possets combined hot milk with ale, wine, or brandy, sugar, and spices. The combination of heat and alcohol curdled the milk, and they were consumed from the spout of a posset cup, which let you drink the whey from the bottom and save the curd to eat later.
Syllabubs combine milk with wine and lemon juice (or other acids); the acid from the wine and the juice curdled the milk, and when served in a glass, the foamy curd of the syllabub was eaten with a spoon first before you drank the punch below.
So don’t let milk punch scare you. It’s tasty we promise!

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Episode 10: The Jack Rose

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• 2 ounces Applejack

• 3/4 ounce grenadine, (be sure the ingredients contain pomegranate)

• 1/2 ounces fresh lemon juice

• 1 dash aromatic bitters

• Lemon twist (optional)

Combine applejack, grenadine, lemon juice, and bitters in a cocktail shaker with plenty of ice. Shake vigorously until frosted. Strain into a chilled coupe or martini glass. Squeeze lemon twist over surface of drink, skin-side-out to release fragrant oils. Garnish with twist and enjoy!

Applejack is considered America’s first spirit. It was originally made by freeze distilling hard apple cider in Colonial America.

The Jack Rose is made with applejack, grenadine, and lemon or lime juice. It was referenced in print as far back as 1905, but was popular in the 1920s and 1930s, notably appearing in Ernest Hemingway's 1926 classic, The Sun Also Rises. It was also a favorite drink of John Steinbeck.

One quick note on grenadine… Don’t use the neon red grenadine you buy at the grocery store for Shirley temples in this recipe. Real grenadine is made from pomegranate juice and tastes totally different. It’s really easy to make it yourself, but these days it’s also easy to find good quality cocktail grenadine online.

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