Episode 70: Between the Sheets

• 1 ounce cognac

• 1 ounce light rum

• 1 ounce Cointreau or triple sec

• 1/2 ounce lemon juice

Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with plenty of ice. Shake until frosty and strain into a chilled coupe glass. Garnish with a lemon or orange twist if desired

Harry MacElhone from Harry’s New York Bar is often given credit for inventing a whole slew of classic cocktails, like the French 75, the White Lady, the Old Pal, the Monkey Gland, The Bloody Mary, and the Sidecar just to name a few. But dig any further than the surface and it’s much more realistic to say his bar just popularized recipes rather than actually creating them.

The modern version of the Between the Sheets is basically just a twist on a classic sidecar. If you eliminate the sugar rim and add some white rum, boom, you have a between the sheets. Many older recipes actually call for gin rather than brandy though. Some cocktail historians believe that the true origin story of this cocktail is that it was invented in the United States sometime during prohibition as a gin-based cocktail, but that when Harry’s Bar heard about the recipe, they switched the gin for cognac to make it smoother and more elegant.

Either way, the cognac and rum based version from Harry’s bar is the one that really took off and became the iconic and classic Between the sheets that people know today.

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Episode 69: French 75

• 1½ ounces gin

• ¾ ounce fresh lemon juice

• ¾ ounce simple syrup

• 3 to 4 ounces Champagne

• Lemon twist garnish         

Combine gin, lemon juice, and simple syrup in a cocktail shaker with plenty of ice and shake until frosty.
Strain into a large champagne flute or coupe. Top off glass with Champagne & garnish with lemon twist.

Like a lot of classic cocktails, the origins of the French 75 are a little murky, but we do know one thing for sure. This cocktail was named after a fast-firing 75-millimeter French field gun from WWI that was known for firing faster and more accurately than other guns.

While the classic recipe we know today calls for gin, lemon, simple syrup, and champagne, some older recipes call for cognac rather than gin. Some people believe that this cocktail actually grew out of an allied fighter pilot unit made up of both French and American soldiers during the first world war. They used to drink cognac and Champagne mixed together after successful air raids, and would toast to the 75-millimeter gun that kept them safe. 

One of the most popular and commonly cited origin stories is that the French 75 was invented by Harry MacElhone at Harry’s New York bar in Paris. Whether he actually invented it or just popularized it we can’t be sure, but we do know that his version called for cognac rather than gin. While gin is much more popular today, a lot of people say that the cognac version is definitely worth a try.

In 1927, the more contemporary gin-based recipe we know today appeared in print for the first time, in a cocktail book called Here's How. When this version was published again in 1930 in Harry Craddock’s “The Savoy Cocktail Book”, the French 75 recipe we know today was spread to bars around the world.

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Episode 65: Tom Collins

• 2 ounces London dry gin

• 1 ounce fresh lemon juice

• 1/2 ounce simple syrup (1:1 sugar:water)

• Soda water

• Optional garnish: lemon wheel & maraschino cherry

Add the gin, lemon juice and simple syrup to a Collins glass. Fill the glass with ice, top with soda water, and stir to combine. Garnish with a lemon wheel and maraschino cherry if desired.

While we don’t know for certain who came up with the Tom Collins, we do know that the first written Tom Collins recipe is from the second edition of Jerry Thomas’ “Bartender’s Guide”, published in 1876.

We also know that the name likely came from a strange prank that was popular in New York in the early 1870s. People would tell a stranger in a bar that a man named Tom Collins was walking around the city telling lies about them, and that they had better find him and stop him from slandering them even more. Whoever heard this story would go up to the bar asking for Tom Collins, and as the story goes, some bartenders decided to invent a drink they could serve to anyone at the bar asking for Tom Collins.

From New York the prank spread to other cities, and in 1874, the Gettysburg Compiler wrote, “Have you seen Tom Collins?”

“If you haven’t, perhaps you had better do so, and as quick as you can, for he is talking about you in a very rough manner–calling you hard names, and altogether saying things about you that are rather calculated to induce people to believe there is nothing you wouldn’t steal short of a red-hot stove.”

“This is about the cheerful substance of a very successful practical joke which has been going the rounds of the city in the past week. It is not to this manor born, but belongs to New York, where it was played with immense success to crowded houses until it played out.”

The Great Tom Collins Hoax of 1874 was so internationally well known that two years later Jerry Thomas included his own Tom Collins recipe in his bartender’s guide. His initial recipe was a bit complicated though, so over the years bartenders simplified it into the Tom Collins recipe we recognize today.

While this seems to be the commonly accepted origin story, David Wondrich believes that it actually could have been named after a bartender at a popular London hotel in the 1870s. Many hotels in London at the time were famous for their gin punch recipes, but bartender John Collins decided to switch things up and make his gin punch into a cocktail instead. His hotel was trendy with young people, and the cocktail was a relatively new invention, so they loved it and it was an instant hit. Unfortunately for John Collins, his cocktail recipe called for Old Tom gin, and somehow people may have mixed up the names Tom and John and started calling the drink a Tom Collins. It is also possible that both stories are true and people started calling John Collins’ cocktail a Tom Collins because of the popularity of the Great Tom Collins Hoax of 1874.

One thing that isn’t up for debate is that by 1876 the recipe had found its way to Jerry Thomas. Along with lemon juice and soda water, Thomas’ recipe called for gum syrup as a sweetener, and likely would have been made with old world Dutch Genever gin. Instead, modern versions use London dry gin and simple syrup along with the lemon juice and soda.

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Episode 51: Clover Club

• 2 ounces gin

• 1/2 ounce lemon juice

• 1/2 ounce raspberry syrup * see note

• 1 large egg white

• Fresh raspberries, for garnish

In a cocktail shaker combine the gin, lemon juice, raspberry syrup, & egg white. Shake vigorously (without ice) for 10 seconds. Add ice and shake until frosty cold. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a skewer of 3 fresh raspberries. Serve and enjoy.

*Note: To make raspberry syrup combine 3/4 cup of water and 1 cup of sugar, 1 cup of raspberries (fresh or frozen) and mash the raspberries up into a pulp. Strain out the seeds before using.

According to "The Old Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book," the Clover Club was first created in the late 1800s at the bar of the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia. This popular hangout drew crowds of writers, lawyers, and titans of industry, who would meet and talk over cocktails, and the elegant Clover Club made with gin, lemon juice, raspberry syrup and egg white was a favorite among them.

The cocktail slowly grew in popularity, eventually becoming a nationwide sensation by the late 1910s and early 1920s. After prohibition though, it basically faded into obscurity, and by the 50s was largely forgotten. This is probably because A) nobody used raspberry syrup anymore and wanted to use grenadine instead, and B) there was another cocktail, the pink lady, that was taking the clover club’s place. A pink lady is essentially a clover club made with a mix of grenadine and applejack instead of the raspberry syrup. It sounds like the applejack adds something interesting to the drink that you would lose if you just used grenadine. According to "Gaz" Regan in "The Joy of Mixology," you have to use real raspberry syrup to make a Clover Club, because "without it, this drink isn't much to talk about."

Thankfully this delicious cocktail is popular again today, thanks largely to its inclusion in Gaz Regan’s 2003 book, “Joy of Mixology,” and the 2008 opening of a now-famous cocktail bar in Brooklyn named after the drink.

Episode 43: Long Island Iced Tea

• 3/4 ounce vodka

• 3/4 ounce white rum

• 3/4 ounce silver tequila

• 3/4 ounce gin

• 3/4 ounce triple sec

• 3/4 ounce simple syrup

• 3/4 ounce lemon juice, freshly squeezed

• Cola, to top

• Garnish: lemon wedge

Add the vodka, rum, tequila, gin, triple sec, simple syrup and lemon juice to a Collins glass filled with ice. Top off with a splash of cola and stir gently to combine. Garnish with a lemon wedge and serve with a straw.

The Long Island Iced Tea was created in 1972 by a bartender named Robert "Rosebud" Butt at the Oak Beach Inn in Long Island, New York.

Butt has said, "The world-famous Long Island Iced Tea was first invented in 1972 by me, Robert Butt, while I was tending bar at the infamous Oak Beach Inn. I participated in a cocktail creating contest. Triple Sec had to be included, and the bottles started flying. My concoction was an immediate hit and quickly became the house drink at the Oak Beach Inn. By the mid-1970s, every bar on Long Island was serving up this innocent-looking cocktail, and by the 1980s it was known the world over."

Obviously this drink is boozy AF – which could be why it took off as an almost instant classic. It’s sweet, and it’s strong, but doesn’t taste strong. It might also be because the recipe is so easy to remember and to make – with all the ingredients in the same amount.

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Episode 40: Fish House Punch

Lemon simple syrup

• ½ cup sugar

• ½ cup hot water

• Peels from 2 lemons (try to avoid white pith)  

Combine ingredients together in a heat safe jar. Cover and let sit for at least several hours before using.

Fish House Punch

• 2 oz brewed black tea, cooled

• 2 oz amber rum

• 1 oz cognac

• ¼ oz peach brandy

• ¾ oz lemon simple syrup

• ¾ oz lemon juice

• Garnish: Freshly grated nutmeg & a lemon wheel

Combine everything in a cocktail shaker with plenty of ice. Shake just enough to combine, strain into a glass over ice. Garnish with freshly grated nutmeg and a wheel of lemon.

Punch was almost always served at any festive occasions in Colonial America, and they were often made with rum and usually flavored with some kind of citrus. They were also often diluted with brewed tea to add more flavor that water.

 The Fish House Punch is probably one of the most famous punches in American History. According to David Wondrich, the Philadelphia Fish House Punch “deserves to be protected by law, taught in the schools, and made a mandatory part of every Fourth of July celebration.” It was invented at a private fishing and social club in Philadelphia called the State in Schuylkill Fishing Corporation, popularly known as the Fish House.

We don’t know exactly when it was created, but it was legendary for its flavor and potency. Rumor has it that George Washington even drank some in 1787. He wrote in his diary that he was going to dine at the Fish House Club as an honored guest, and after that his diary remained uncharacteristically blank for the next three days.

This would have been a very fancy drink at the time, because so many of the ingredients were imported. Jamaican rum, French cognac, peach brandy from the south, British black tea, and lemon and nutmeg which were also both quite expensive at the time.

Traditionally a large batch of this punch would be flavored with Oleo-saccharum, an infusion of lemon zest and sugar, but to scale this recipe down to a single serving, we went with a simple syrup infused with lemon peels.

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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 27: The Sidecar

• 2 ounces Cognac

• 1 ounce Cointreau or similar orange liqueur

• 1 ounce lemon juice

• orange twist or wedge (optional garnish)

Combine the cognac, cointreau, & lemon juice in a cocktail mixing glass or shaker. Add plenty of ice and stir until frosty cold. Strain into a chilled coupe or cocktail glass with a sugared rim (if desired) * see note.
Garnish with an orange twist or wedge.

*note: To rim the glass with sugar, dip the rim into a plate with a small amount of water, and then dip the wet rim into another plate with sugar. If you want to do half the rim, you can wipe the other half dry before dipping into the sugar. This allows the drinker to decided if and how much sugar they’d like.

The sidecar was wildly popular in the 1960s, but the recipe had been around for a good long time. In fact, the recipe actually evolved from a 19th century classic called the Brandy Crusta.

The Crusta was a huge deal when it came on the scene because it actually changed the entire idea of what people thought a cocktail could be. The original formula for a cocktail dictated that it should include strong spirits, water, sugar, & bitters. The Crusta however, used lemon juice instead of water, which was practically ground breaking at the time. It was also served in a sugar rimmed glass, which was also seen as an innovation.

When Jerry Thomas included the recipe for the Crusta in his cocktail book, their popularity skyrocketed. Over the years, the recipe evolved. Generations of bartenders put their own spins on it to make it their own, playing with the balance, ingredients, and presentation. Before you knew it, the recipe looked more like today’s Sidecar than yesterday’s Brandy Crusta.

The origins of the name of the sidecar are disputed, but it was likely invented around the end of World War II, either in Paris or London. The common belief is that it was named after an army captain who liked to ride to the bar in the sidecar of his motorcycle.

However, in The Essential Cocktail Dale DeGroff  wrote, “The word sidecar means something totally different in the world of the cocktail: if the bartender misses his mark on ingredient quantities so when he strains the drink into the serving glass there’s a bit left over in the shaker, he pours out that little extra into a shot glass on the side – that little glass is called a sidecar.”

As the Sidecar morphed from the Crusta, it was originally still made with brandy, but brandy can vary a lot in flavor depending on where and how it was made. Just like wine, Brandy can be sweet, fruity, dry, earthy, etc.
So, depending on the brandy used, bartenders would need to adjust the amounts of the other ingredients to ensure a balanced cocktail that wouldn’t be too sweet or too tart.
While Cognac is a type of brandy, the flavor from brand to brand tends to be much more steady, so eventually the brandy was swapped with cognac to ensure a more reliable, balanced final product.

A lot of sidecar recipes call for a sugared rim just like a Brandy Crusta, but some bartenders prefer to leave the sugar off. We’re not exactly certain if the sugar would have been popular in the 60s, so we decided to only coat half of the rim in sugar to give the drinker the option of choosing whether they want the sugar or not.

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Episode 26: The Aviation

• 2 ounces gin

• 1/2 ounce maraschino liqueur (preferably Luxardo)

• 1/2 ounce lemon juice

• 1/4 ounce crème de violette *see note

• Luxardo Maraschio cherries (optional garnish)

Add the gin, maraschino liqueur, lemon juice, & crème de violette to a cocktail shaker with plenty of ice. Shake until frosty and strain into a chilled coupe or cocktail glass. Garnish with a maraschino cherry.

*note: We recommend Rothman & Winter brand crème de violette because it’s made the traditonal way with natural ingredients. We tried this cocktail with another brand that used artificial flavors and colors, and it was, frankly, terrible.
If you can’t find crème de violette, you can also use another violet flavored liqueur called crème Yvette.

The recipe for the Aviation was first published by Hugo Ensslin in his 1916 book “Recipes for Mixed Drinks” but it was likely invented a bit before that. It contains gin, lemon juice, maraschino liqueur and a violet flavored liqueur called crème de violette, which gives the cocktail it’s purple color.

This cocktail was popular in New York in the 20s but when the recipe was included in the famous “Savoy Cocktail Book” in 1930, it’s popularity spread. Unfortunately, the recipe in that book left of the crème de violette.  By the 1940s the Savoy recipe without the crème de violette was probably the most popular version of this cocktail, but we think the original recipe is much more fun & interesting.

Crème de violette was discontinued in the 1960s, but a spirits company called Rothman & Winter found the original recipe and brought it back in 2007.

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Episode 20: The Whiskey Sour

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Makes 2 cocktails

• 4 oz. Whiskey (I prefer Rye Whiskey)*

• 2 oz. Lemon Juice**

• 1 oz. Simple Syrup**

• 2-3 dashes Aromatic Bitters

• 1 Large Egg White  (1 oz if using pasteurized egg whites)

• Maraschino Cherries for garnish

Combine ingredients in a cocktail shaker without ice, adding the egg white last. Shake vigorously without ice for about 20 seconds. This is called dry shaking, and it helps to incorporate the egg white without watering down the drink too much.
Add plenty of ice and shake again for 15-20 seconds more. Strain well into coupe glasses. Even if your shaker has a built in strainer, I like to double strain through a fine mesh strainer to remove any shards of ice or egg white.
Garnish each with a cocktail cherry.

*Bourbon is popular for whiskey sours, but I much prefer Rye Whiskey because it’s a bit less sweet and has a slight spiciness that compliments the lemon juice.
** To make simple syrup heat equal parts sugar and water until sugar is completely dissolved. Can be done in the microwave. Cool before use.
You can adjust the ratio of simple syrup and lemon juice in the cocktail to taste if desired.

The whiskey sour has a long history. It was probably developed as a scaled-down, individual version of a traditional citrus and whiskey punch.

Jerry Thomas included a recipe in his book in 1862, but even then the sour was probably a century old or more. His version didn’t include an egg white, but to me, it feels a little too simple without it. At some point people started adding soda to the recipe, but they stopped when they realized shaking the drink flattens the fizz.

The egg white was eventually added because it adds a frothy, creamy mouthfeel that really transforms the cocktail into something special. It goes down smoother and looks nicer in the glass too. We know that adding a raw egg white to a cocktail can make some people nervous, but as long as you’re using fresh, good quality eggs it really is safe for most people. You can also use pasteurized egg whites if you’d feel more comfortable.

After prohibition the whiskey sour waned in popularity for a few decades, but it came back in a big way in the 1950s and 60s. Unfortunately, this was also the era of convenience foods and food-product innovations, and the pre-prohibition era recipe that included fresh lemon juice, sugar, and egg white was replaced with sour mix.

Fortunately, in the late 1990s the craft cocktail movement began, and a vast number of classic cocktail recipes were resurrected. Since then, many bars ditched the sour mix for a recipe much like the one above.

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