We’ve all been there.
You might be sitting and having coffee or cocktails with a friend. You start talking about something safe and ordinary but 20 minutes later realize the conversation has drifted drastically. You might start with, “Oh, I like that T-shirt. Is it new?” and before you know it you are arguing about what song Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu sang as he and his wife were led to the firing squad. (“The Internationale,” as it turns out.)
Sometimes you or your friend are curious enough to try to track the conversation:
“OK, you asked how my mother-in-law was, and I said something like, ‘Still mean as a snake.’”
“Right. Then that reminded me of the snake I saw in my backyard last week, and how it took me half an hour to get up my courage and try to herd it into a garbage can, but when I got close it turned out to be a hose that I forgot to roll back up.”
“Yes, and that reminded me that your son usually does that for you, but he’s in college in Omaha.”
“And then you started telling me about that girl you dated 30 years ago who used to be a fire-eater with a carnival — which I still don’t believe, by the way — and that got us talking about what kind of alcohol fire-eaters spit out to shoot flames, which led to us drinking gin.”
“I knew there was a reason.”
Drink recipes are a bit like that sort of conversation. Someone will develop a perfectly nice cocktail. Friends or customers like it, and the recipe gets passed around. At some point someone makes a reasonable substitution for one of the ingredients; then someone adapts that recipe, and eventually the drink evolves into something unrecognizable.
If you take a look through the cocktail classic The 1930 Home Bartender’s Guide and Songbook — a Prohibition-era book that warms even my cold, jaded heart — you will find a recipe for a Gin Sour, one of my favorite drinks. This is what used to be called a “Daisy.” I call it a “Utility Cocktail.” It consists of a spirit, a sweet syrup or liqueur, and something acidic, usually fresh lemon or lime juice. A margarita is a good example of this; so is a classic Daiquiri.
A riff on a riff on a riff of a margarita is a Gold Rush — bourbon, lemon juice and honey. This week’s drink is a further riff on that: rye instead of bourbon and maple syrup instead of honey. Instead of calling this a Gold Rush, we’ll call it a:
Brass-Plated Shuffle
2 ounces rye whiskey – I’ve been working my way through a bottle of Knob Creek, and I’m very pleased with it
1 ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice
¾ ounce dark maple syrup
Combine all ingredients over ice in a cocktail shaker.
Shake until your hands become uncomfortably cold. You want this drink to be as cold as possible.
Strain over fresh ice in a rocks glass.
Ask your digital assistant to play “Once in a Lifetime” by the Talking Heads. Sip your cocktail. The refrain of “How did I get here?” will resonate with you.
Whiskey and lemon are a natural partnership. Because it’s a little sour and spicy on its own, rye might be even a better match for lemon than other whiskeys. That sourness needs to be balanced out, however. In a whiskey sour, this would be done with sugar syrup. In this third cousin of a whiskey sour, the sweetness comes from maple syrup. The maple back-note adds a fortitude — you might even say “brass” — to the project.
Some cocktails go down quickly and often too easily. The Shuffle is a sipping drink; it commands a certain amount of attention and respect. As it chills, it becomes increasingly more sippable.
As it gets more sippable, you will become more convivial. Regardless of how you got there.
Featured photo: Brass-Plated Shuffle. Photo by John Fladd.
