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 47: the Hot Locomotive

Make 2 cocktails

• 16 oz (2 cups) dry red wine

• 2 egg yolks

• 1 oz honey

• ¼ tsp Ground cloves

• 1.5 oz dry curaçao (or triple sec) 

To a large mixing glass, add egg yolk, honey, cloves, & curaçao. Mix well with a small whisk or fork.  Heat up red wine until steaming hot but not boiling (don’t burn off alcohol). Whisk wine into yolk & curacao mixture. Serve in heat safe glasses.

The Locomotive is a surprisingly delicious recipe from Jerry Thomas’ 1862 bartenders guide. Essentially, it’s a bit like mulled wine, but it’s sweetened with honey, fortified with curacoa, and enriched and thickened slightly with egg yolks.

The instructions for this 160 year old recipe are as follows: “Put two yolks of eggs into a goblet with an ounce of honey, a little essence of cloves, and a liqueur glass of curacoa; add a pint of high burgundy made hot, whisk well together, and serve hot in glasses.” 

For anyone trying to make this recipe today, this description may seem a bit vague, so we’ve done our best to interpret it to create the recipe we posted above. High Burgundy essentially just meant dry red wine, as many English and American reds at the time tended to be sweet. You can use whatever dry red wine you like. 

Essence of cloves was likely an alcohol based tincture Thomas would have used in his bar, but he doesn’t provide a recipe. Home bartenders would only need a small amount anyway, so we opted to just use a bit of ground clove instead. This isn’t exactly authentic, but we think it tastes delicious.

As for how much a “liqueur glass” of curacoa measures out to, thankfully David Wondrich has done the math for us and determined that a liqueur glass is equal to 1.5 ounces.

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 17: The Martinez

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• 2 oz Old Tom Gin

• 1 oz Sweet Vermouth

• ¼ oz Maraschino Liqueur (we used Luxardo)

• 2 dashes aromatic bitters

• Orange or lemon twist for garnish

Combine all ingredients (other than garnish) in a mixing glass. Add plenty of ice and stir well to chill. Strain into a chilled coupe or cocktail glass and garnish.

The Martinez cocktail is considered to be the precursor to the modern Martini. It was originally created as a gin-based spin on the Manhattan, and it tastes much more like a Manhattan than a Martini.

Old Tom gin is best to use because it has a sweeter and richer flavor than London dry gin and pairs better with the sweet vermouth and luxardo liqueur.

There is some debate about the cocktail’s origins, but most people agree it was invented in the 1880s in Northern California.
Some say Jerry Thomas invented the drink in San Francisco for a customer who was traveling to Martinez California. His recipe wasn’t officially published until 1887 though, so the cocktail is often credited to another famous barman named O. H. Byron. His recipe for the Martinez was published in 1884 with the simple instructions, "Same as Manhattan, only you substitute gin for whisky."
The city of Martinez however, claims that another local bartender invented the drink there.

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