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.

Episode 41: Ward Eight

  • 2 ounces rye whiskey

  • 1/2 ounce lemon juice, freshly squeezed

  • 1/2 ounce orange juice, freshly squeezed

  • 1/2 ounce (real) grenadine *see note

  • Garnish: maraschino cherries and an orange slice

Add the rye whiskey, lemon and orange juices and grenadine to a shaker with ice and shake until well-chilled. Strain into a tall glass with ice and garnish with cherries and an orange slice

*note: Real pomegranate-based grenadine has a much nicer flavor than the bright red sugar syrup from the supermarket.

Ward Eight.jpg

The origin stories for many historic cocktails can be sometimes be difficult to trace or confirm, but the Ward Eight isn’t one of those cocktails.

The Ward Eight is one of, if not the, most popular cocktail ever created in Boston, Massachusetts. It was conceived in 1898 at the Locke-Ober Café to celebrate the election of Martin M. Lomasney to the state legislature. Lomasney was a politician who wielded considerable power in Boston for 40 years, serving as a state senator and representative, as well as a political “boss” in the city’s eighth ward (hence the name). Some stories point out that it’s odd that Lomasney was so sure of he’d win before election day that he had the bar create a new cocktail just for his victory party. Rumor has it he had fixed the election.

We’ll never know for sure, but we do know that the Ward Eight is essentially just a riff on a rye Whiskey Sour sans egg white. You substitute some of the lemon juice for orange juice and swap out the simple syrup for grenadine.

While we do know when and where this cocktail was invented, the recipe itself wasn’t actually written down at the time, so the exact recipe is disputed and there are some variations on it. The most popular recipe is a mix of rye whiskey, lemon and orange juices, and grenadine. Most recipes out there seem to be very similar but some omit the orange juice.

Many modern bartenders today will serve this straight up in a chilled coupe or cocktail glass, but when it was first invented it would have been served over ice in a tall Collins glass.

Episode 35: Whiskey Sling

  • 1 teaspoon of powdered or superfine sugar

  • 1 oz water

  • 2 oz rye whiskey

  • Ice (one big cube is more impressive if you have it. If not, any ice will do.)

Stir sugar into water to dissolve. Add rye whiskey & ice & stir to combine. A garnish wouldn’t have been traditional in the 1700s but we added a lemon twist for a little flair and color.

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Other than punch, we weren’t drinking many mixed drinks in the 1700s, but we were cutting a lot of our spirits with water as we drank them. Toddies, Grog, & Slings were all popular in this era, and they were are all forms of spirits mixed with water. The main difference between them was how much water was mixed in. Basically, a Sling is stronger because it has a bit less water than a Toddy, and unlike Toddies which were usually warm, Slings could be served either warm or cold. Both usually had sugar added, and often were topped with some grated nutmeg, especially if served warm.

Like Toddies, Slings were definitely one of the most popular drinks in America for a very long time and appeared in print many times over the years. In fact, when the word “cocktail” first appeared in print in a Hudson NY newspaper in 1806, it was described to the reader as a “bittered sling” meaning that along with the water, sugar, & spirits; bitters were added.

At that time in cocktail history, mixed drinks also weren’t usually spirit specific. You could substitute any spirit you wanted and it would still be considered the same mixed drink. Gin was probably the most popular liquor for a sling at that time, but whiskey was very popular as well.

Episode 20: The Whiskey Sour

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.

whiskeysour.jpg

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.

Episode 18: The Whiskey Highball

  • 2 oz Bourbon or Rye Whiskey

  • 4 to 6 oz Soda Water

  • Ice

  • Lemon garnish (optional)

Fill a highball glass (8-10oz tall narrow glass) with ice. Pour whiskey over ice and top off with soda water. Some recipes insist stirring can squelch the bubbles in the soda, so there’s no need.

Garnish with a lemon wheel, wedge, or curl if desired.

highball

This is probably the simplest and easiest cocktail we’ve ever made on the show, but that doesn’t mean this drink doesn’t have a rich and storied past.

Historian Jessica Norris says that “Most folks agree that the Highball started out as a sparkling brandy cocktail with the English gentry in the 1790s, when Johann Jacob Schweppe had just set up his first soda shop in London.”
Some say a bartender named Patrick Gavin Duffy was likely the one who brought the drink to the U.S. in 1895 in the form of a scotch and soda.

As for the name of this simple classic drink, one origin story claims it came from 19th century English golf club bars, where “ball” meant “whiskey” and “high” referred to the tall glass it was served in.
Other people say it may have come from nineteenth century railroad signals. On American railroads, if a globe or ball was raised up high on a signal post, it meant “clear track ahead” and showed the conductor that the train could pass through without stopping. As dining cars started serving cocktails in tall glasses, they adapted the “high ball” signal and attached it to this classic beverage.

Episode 11: The Vieux Carré

  • 1 ounce rye whiskey

  • 1 ounce cognac

  • 1 ounce sweet vermouth

  • 1 teaspoon Bénédictine

  • 2 Dashes of Angostura bitters

  • 2 Dashes of Peychaud’s bitters 

Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass and fill with ice; stir well for 20 seconds and strain into an ice-filled Old Fashioned glass. Garnish with a cherry.

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The Vieux Carré dates back to a famous hotel bar in the 1930s. It first appeared in print in 1937, in “Famous New Orleans Drinks and How to Mix 'Em”.

This cocktail is a New Orleans classic, and although the name is French, the pronunciation is pure Creole. Forget your French classes and how you think “vieux carré” should be pronounced. In New Orleans, it’s simply callled a “voo car-ray”.  In French the name means ‘Old Square’ or ‘Old Quarter’, which was the original name for the French Quarter in New Orleans.