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 49: the Scorpion Bowl

Serves 4 to 6 people

• 3/4 bottle (19 oz) Puerto Rican Rum

• 1 oz gin

• 1 oz brandy

• 8 oz lemon juice

• 4 oz orange juice

• 4 oz orgeat syrup

• 2 sprigs mint

• 1/4 bottle (13 oz) dry white wine

Combine all ingredients in a a large pitcher or bowl. Mix thoroughly and pour into a wide bowl filled with cracked ice. It’s best to let the ice melt a bit and replenish with more ice just before serving. Garnish with gardenias if possible. Otherwise garnish with fresh mint, edible flowers, and/or citrus wheels. Serve with long straws.

The Scorpion Bowl was invented by Vic Bergeron, one of the two men most famous for popularizing tiki culture, at his restaurant Trader Vic’s in Oakland California. According to Bergeron’s 1946 book “Trader Vic’s Book of Food and Drink”, he was inspired to come up with the Scorpion Bowl after he took a trip to Honolulu in the late 30s and was served a cup of a traditional Hawaiian punch called Scorpion at a Luau. He said it was made with a Hawaiian moonshine called Okolehao, along with handful of other ingredients including orgeat, mint, and a combination of fruit juices. He especially loved the presentation of the drink served in a large communal bowl. Inspired, he returned to his restaurant in Oakland and created his own variation using rum, since he couldn’t get Okolehao in the states.

The only problem with this story is that there was no traditional Hawaiian punch called scorpion and there never was. One historian trying to authenticate Trader Vic’s story dug back through all kinds of bar menus, recipe books, diaries, letters, and travel memoires, and couldn’t find a single mention of it. But just when he was like, oh okay Trader Vic is full of shit, he found a gossip column from 1938 that actually did mention the Scorpion. Not only that, but the column even gave a recipe. However, far from being a traditional Hawaiian drink, it turned out the Scorpion was actually something created by Hawaiian surfers who made their money showing tourists around Honolulu. Much like the famous tiki cocktail it inspired, the Scorpion Vic Bergeron was served in 1938 was a fake made to look Hawaiian specifically with the goal of separating tourists from their money. Whether he was really fooled, or he knew it wasn’t authentic and didn’t care, we’ll never know. What we do know is that he took the idea back to Oakland, tweaked it a bit, and created a tiki classic that’s still served in tiki bars around the globe.

This recipe was published in Oakland in 1946, just as GIs were returning from the South Pacific after WWII, and the whole West Coast was whipped up into a Tiki frenzy fueled by fruity, boozy, tropical cocktails like the Scorpion Bowl. Over the years, Bergeron continued to tweak, simplify, and perfect his recipe. If you order a Scorpion bowl at a bar today, you’ll likely be served a much simpler recipe, published in 1972, with fewer ingredients. This 1946 version originally served 12 people. I scaled it back for to serve 4.

This older version predated the invention of the tiki punch bowls we see in most tiki bars today, and instead would have been served in a large but simple punch bowl with 20” long straws. If you have a modern tiki bowl though, this scaled back version should fit well in it.

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Episode 45: Early Colonial Rum Punch

Makes about Four 5oz servings

• 1 cup green tea (hot)

• ¼ cup jaggery or other dark raw sugar (demerara or muscovado)

• ¼ cup fresh squeezed lime juice

• 1 cup aged Jamaican or Caribbean rum

• Fresh grated nutmeg

In a bowl or pitcher, pour tea over sugar and stir to dissolve. If using jaggery, you may need to break it up with a muddler in the liquid to help it dissolve faster. Stir in the lime juice and rum and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Ladle or pour into punch glasses and grate a bit of fresh nutmeg over the top before serving.

Alcoholic Punch was still in its infancy in the 1670s, so recipes from that era are hard to come by. This recipe is not exactly an “authentic” Colonial American punch recipe, but rather a twist on a 1668 recipe shared in David Wondrich’s book, “Punch”. The oldest recipe included, it predates the popularity of oleo saccharum. Instead, it simply calls for lime juice but no zest.

This recipe was written down in England and contains several Indian & Indonesian ingredients that would have been hard to come by in early colonial America, so to try to approximate a punch similar to what might have been consumed in America in the 1670s, some substitutions and tweaks to this recipe were necessary.  

In place of Batavia Arrack, dark Caribbean rum is used instead. A raw sugar called jaggery is used to try to recreate the dark, raw, funky flavor of colonial era loaf sugar. Raw sugars such as demerara, muscovado, or “Sugar in the Raw” could be used in its place.

 For authenticity’s sake, the recipe is not served with ice, but keeping it cold in the refrigerator is fine. The recipe has also been scaled down for a smaller serving size but could easily be scaled back up. For more information, please listen to Minisode 40 on the history of punch.

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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 39: Colonial Stone Fence

• 2 ounces of dark rum

• Hard cider (tart, dry, funky cider is best) *see note

• Garnish options: lemon, sliced apple, or fresh herbs

Pour rum over ice in a tall bar or collins glass. Top off with cider and garnish with a lemon twist, a slice of apple, or a sprig of mint if desired.

*Note: This will produce a Stone Fence similar to the one Colonial Americans might have enjoyed. If you prefer, feel free to substitute a sweeter, fruitier cider for a more modern flavor.

In the 1770s, The Catamount Tavern, in what is now Vermont, was Ethan Allen’s home bar and also served as the headquarters for the Green Mountain Boys militia group that he commanded.

Legend has it that the night before their pre-dawn capture of Fort Ticonderoga from the British in 1775, Ethan Allen, Benedict Arnold and the Green Mountain Boys were drinking round after round of Stone Fence cocktails. This colonial new England classic gave them the liquid courage needed to take the fort by surprise.

The Stone Fence is probably named after the primitive stacked stone fences surrounding farmland all over New England. In the days of Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys, it was made with tart hard cider and dark molasses-y New England rum.  Over the years though, the drink evolved. About a century later, when Jerry Thomas published a recipe, his Stone Fence was made with sweet nonalcoholic pressed cider and bourbon whiskey. While the Jerry Thomas version is undeniably delicious, this recipe is closer to the original 18th century version.

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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 29: The Knickerbocker

• 2 ½ oz gold rum

• 1 teaspoon orange curacao liqueur

• ½ oz raspberry syrup (see below for recipe)

• ½ oz fresh lime juice (save lime “shell” for garnish)

• Fresh raspberries for garnish

Combine rum, curacao, raspberry syrup, & lime juice in a cocktail shaker with ice and shake until frosty. Strain into a rocks glass filled with crushed ice.

To garnish, flatten a squeezed-out half lime shell into a “cap” and place on top of the drink, then top with a few fresh raspberries before serving.  

Raspberry Syrup

• 2 cups of demerara sugar

• Pinch of salt

• 1 cup of water

• 12 oz raspberries (fresh or frozen)

Stir sugar and water over low heat until sugar has dissolved. Turn off heat, add raspberries, and stir and crush the raspberries until they’re broken up into a pulp. Strain into a jar and refrigerate for up to a week.
Any syrup not used within a week can be frozen for later use.

In 1809, Washington Irving published “A History of New York, from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty”, under the name "Diedrich Knickerbocker".

The name Knickerbocker originally came from a style of pants that Dutch settlers wore, but thanks to this book, the word came to signify an upper-crusty New Yorker who could trace their ancestry to the original Dutch settlers. Before long though, people just started using the word to mean anything and everything New York-y.

City leaders started naming streets and landmarks “knickerbocker”. Businesses across the city started naming themselves things like Knickerbocker Magazine or Knickerbocker beer, there’s a Knickerbocker hotel, and even the name of the New York Knicks is short for knickerbocker.

It’s not surprising that the name also attached itself to a cocktail. The new drink started being mentioned in newspapers in the 1850s, and then Jerry Thomas published the first written recipe for the drink in 1862. It’s made with golden rum, orange curacao (triple sec), lime juice, and raspberry syrup, which was basically the grenadine of the 19th century.

There are a bunch of variations on this cocktail now with a ton of added ingredients, but this version is almost identical to the original Jerry Thomas recipe.  

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Episode 21: Mai Tais Two Ways

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The Original 1944 Mai Tai

• 1 1/2 oz White rum

• 3/4 oz Orange curaçao

• 3/4 oz Fresh lime juice

• 1/4 - 1/2 oz Orgeat Syrup

• 1/2 oz Dark rum

• Garnish: Lime wheel, Mint sprig

Add the white rum, curaçao, lime juice and orgeat syrup into a cocktail shaker with plenty of ice and shake to combine.
Strain into a double Old Fashioned glass filled with finely crushed ice (if available). Gently pour the dark rum over the top trying to float it on top.
Garnish with a lime wheel and mint sprig.

1953 Royal Hawaiian Mai Tai:

• ½ oz Curaçao Liqueur (Triple Sec)

• 1½ oz Gold/ Amber Rum

• 1 oz Dark Rum

• ¼ oz Lime juice

• 1½ oz Pineapple juice

• 1½ oz Orange juice

• ¼ oz Orgeat syrup

• 1 teaspoon maraschino cherry juice (red) or grenadine for color

• Garnish: Orange slice, pineapple, red maraschino cherry

Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with plenty of ice and shake to combine.
Strain into a large whiskey glass filled with finely crushed ice (if available).
Garnish with a wedge of pineapple, an orange wheel, and a maraschino cherry. 

Tiki culture and it’s quintessential cocktails all started in 1933 when Ernest Beaumont-Gantt opened a Polynesian-themed bar and restaurant in Hollywood called Don the Beachcomber. The restaurant featured Cantonese food with a decor of flaming torches, rattan furniture, floral leis, and carved tiki masks and wooden sculptures of Polynesian gods.

This was also the first restaurant to ever focus an entire drink menu on mixing rum with flavored syrups and fresh fruit juices, which they originally called "Rhum Rhapsodies", but were later called Tiki cocktails. These drinks were usually served in fancy glasses, hollowed out pineapples, or drilled coconuts, and sometimes even giant fish bowl sized communal glasses with long straws for sharing.

Perhaps the best known and most popular Tiki cocktail ever is the Mai Tai.

It was originally invented by another restauranteur namedTrader Vic in Oakland California in 1944. Don Beach later accused Trader Vic of stealing the recipe from him, saying that his punch, the Q.B. Cooler, which he invented in 1933, was suspiciously similar. But even if it was inspired by the Q.B. Cooler, they’re very different drinks and the Cooler has almost twice as many ingredients. Vic Bergeron later wrote in his book, "anyone who says I didn’t create this drink is a dirty stinker."

The Mai Tai became so popular that within a few years of its invention, the world ran out of the aged rum called for in the original recipe, so most recipes today call for a mix of light and dark rum.

In the beginning, the Mai Tai was a simple and rum forward drink, but In 1953, a cruise company hired Vic Bergeron to oversee their cocktail menus at their hotels in Hawaii. He reworked the drink adding orange juice and pineapple juice to make it feel more Hawaiian and to sweeten the recipe, so it’d be more tourist friendly.

The Hawaiian version became even more popular than the original and now most people think that’s what a Mai Tai is supposed to taste like. Both versions are absolutely delicious, although they’re so different that they probably shouldn’t both have the same name.

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Episode 16: The Piña Colada

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• 2 ½ oz white rum

• 1 ½ oz pineapple juice

• 1 ½ oz sweetened coconut cream (We used Coco Lopez)

• ½ oz lime juice

• 2 cups ice

• ½ oz dark rum (optional)

• Pineapple wedge & cocktail parasol (optional)

Combine white rum, pineapple juice, coconut cream, lime juice, and ice in a high powered blender. Pulse to break up ice and then blend until smooth, creamy, and free of ice chunks.
Pour into a hurricane glass and top with remaining dark rum if desired. Garnish with a wedge of pineapple and a cocktail parasol for the full gaudy 70s effect.

Makes 1 cocktail

Note: Like a lot of cocktails, it’s hard to nail down the exact origin story.

One story claims that a 19th century Puerto Rican pirate gave his crew a mixed drink with coconut, pineapple and white rum to boost morale on the ship, but historians say this is dubious.

The New York Times noted a similar drink in an article about Cuba in the 1950s.

The most accepted story is that a bartender at the Caribe Hilton Hotel in San Juan created the drink in 1954. He said the Piña Colada, “captured the true nature and essence of Puerto Rico”.

Another story places the origins at a restaurant in Puerto Rico in 1963.

Either way, by the 70s, Piña Coladas were blowing up, and In 1978 Puerto Rico proclaimed the cocktail its official drink.

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