Sylvester Graham would hate this article. For the purposes of this week’s cocktails, here’s what you need to know about Graham, who died in 1851:
• He didn’t invent the graham cracker — he encouraged people to grind their own flour (he said white bread was made from “tortured wheat”). Some mills started producing a rougher-ground, whole-grain flour that they called Graham flour. Graham crackers were made using this flour.
• He was horrified by alcohol.
• He was very impatient; he couldn’t understand why Americans didn’t just listen to him and change their lifestyles instantly (he basically thought pleasure and anything that gave you pleasure — alcohol, meat, sex — is bad for you).
So, here’s our first tie-in with Sylvester Graham: What’s with all the exotic ingredients, Cocktail Boy?
I’ve been looking back at the last several cocktails I’ve written about and I’m pretty sure some of you have been thinking to yourself, “OK, this drink sounds very interesting, but do I really need Nepalese orchid pollen to make it?” The most exotic ingredients in today’s drinks are cocoa nibs and grapefruit juice. (No, not together.)
The bad news is that Cocktail No. 1 will take you a week to make.
Cocktail No. 1 – The S’mores Martini
After making chocolate vodka last month, I decided to see if I could make graham cracker vodka (Sylvester Graham connection No. 2).
I’ll spare you the experimental methodology, but in short, it works.
Graham Cracker Vodka
1 sleeve (135 grams) graham crackers
3 cups 80 proof inexpensive vodka
Combine graham crackers and vodka in a blender. Blend at whatever speed pleases you for one minute. Feel free to chuckle evilly as the graham crackers meet their fate.
Pour into a wide-mouthed, airtight jar.
Store in a warm, dark place for a week, shaking twice daily.
(And this is really important) On Day 7, DO NOT SHAKE THE JAR.
Gently pour the clear liquid through a fine-meshed strainer, then through a coffee filter, into a labeled bottle.
Strain the remaining graham cracker glop overnight, then filter and add to your bottle.
S’mores Martini
2 oz. chocolate vodka
2 oz. graham cracker vodka
3-4 miniature marshmallows, for garnish.
In a mixing glass (see below), pour equal amounts of chocolate and graham cracker vodka over ice.
Stir gently but thoroughly.
Pour off, into a chilled martini glass.
Garnish with toasted miniature marshmallows, much like you would a conventional martini, with olives.
Some bartenders make standard, conventional martinis by pouring an ounce or so of vermouth over the ice in the mixing glass, stirring it around, then pouring it out. The vermouth-washed ice adds just enough vermouthiness to the gin to make a solid dry martini. I suspect that if one were to wash the ice in this drink with creme de cacao before mixing in the chocolate and graham cracker vodkas, it would deepen the flavor even more. That would stretch the boundaries of Sylvester Graham-like simplicity and humble ingredients, though.
Observation No. 1 – Is this idea a bit cutesy and Food Networky?
Yes, but if you find yourself with chocolate and graham cracker vodkas, the Universe sort of demands that you do it.
Observation No. 2 – Shaken versus Stirred
For years, I’ve heard martini snobs sneering at the whole James Bond, shaken-not-stirred concept. But for the sake of … um, I’m not actually sure what … I decided to make two different versions of this martini, one shaken brutally in a Boston shaker (the kind with two halves) and one stirred in a mixing glass.
Shockingly, there was a real difference, and not a small one. The shaken martini had a different look, a different mouth-feel and even a different taste than the silkier one made in the mixing glass. By comparison, it seemed like it was made in a frat house. The stirred one was delightful and civilized.
Does this mean that you’ll have to invest in a special mixing glass and long spirally bar spoon? I did, but I suspect you could do just as well with a glass measuring cup and the blunt end of a butter knife. But let’s say you suffer from a Sylvester Graham-like impatience. Try this instead:
Featured photo: S’mores martini. Photo by John Fladd.
Cocktails and mocktails created for flavor-seekers of all ages
The Dad: A new father does a fair bit of daydreaming in the early days, largely about the bonding experiences he hopes to have with his kid as they grow up — going to football games, field-dressing a deer, rebuilding a carburetor — that sort of thing.
Life often takes a jagged left turn, though, and for men like me at least, those stereotypical father-child moments are more elusive than you’d think. Being the sort of man I am, and the excellent but offbeat teenager my child has grown into, most of these experiences are off the table.
We are vegetarians and ambivalent about the outdoors, so the deer are probably safe.
Someone reminded me the other day that cars don’t even have carburetors anymore, which is frankly a relief, because I’m not sure what a carburetor is, though it sounds vaguely threatening.
And the closest The Teen and I would ever get to the going-to-a-game experience would be if we could score tickets to an off-Broadway, all-drag reboot of The Music Man.
So I guess what I’m trying to say is that you take your bonding experiences where you can find them.
Which is why I was happily gob-smacked recently when The Teen asked if they could make me a cocktail. I suggested that they make a non-alcoholic one, so they could taste it as they went along and develop something that they liked too. This led to several actual back-and-forth conversations and a week-long project that involved a frankly stunning lack of eye-rolling and muttering under the breath on both our parts.
These are the results of that project: The Teen has developed a set of non-alcoholic beverages, which I have then adapted for more adult tastes.
The Teen: There’s this idea that non-alcoholic drinks shouldn’t be super-complicated or fancy and I don’t like that because I am both super-complicated and fancy. There’s so much culture built around bars and drinking that I don’t think other types of drinks should be ignored. Non-alcoholic drinks should have a certain sophistication, a certain je ne sais quoi to them. I have tried to make drinks that are delicious and have a sense of style to them.
The Drinks
Non-Alcoholic Cocktail No. 1: Whispers of Ogygia
Whispers of Ogygia. Photo Courtesy of John Fladd.
½ oz. fresh-squeezed lemon juice
½ oz. non-alcoholic blue curacao
½ oz. simple syrup
2 sprigs (~ 1.5 grams) fresh mint
5 ¼-inch slices (~ 25 grams) cucumber
6 ice cubes
3 oz. extremely bubbly sparkling water, like Topo Chico Mineral Water
1. Add the first six ingredients to a cocktail shaker. (I like the kind with the built-in strainer in the top.) Shake until very cold.
2. Strain into a rocks glass, over more ice.
3. Add the sparkling water and stir gently.
4. Garnish with a cucumber wheel.
The Teen: This drink has a very islandy/oceany feel to it. The color is sort of a bougie Mediterranean blue. In Greek myths Ogygia was the island where the nymph Calypso was exiled. It’s the island where Odysseus was shipwrecked. This drink tastes sweet and fresh and windy, in a way. The citrus of the lemon is a good bridge between the cucumber and the mint.
Dad’s Alcoholic Riff No. 1 – Calypso’s Icy Gaze
Calypso’s Icy Gaze. Photo Courtesy of John Fladd.
The Dad: Greek myths are really rough on women. Calypso was imprisoned on Ogygia because her father was the titan Atlas, who had opposed the gods. Calypso herself wasn’t involved; this is just the sort of thing that happened to female relatives of jerks in the myths. (If you really feel like shaking your fist at the gods, look up what they did to Pasiphaë.)
According to The Odyssey, Odysseus was shipwrecked on Ogygia and Calypso found him so beautiful that she kept him there for years, before he managed to “escape.” Clearly, we are relying on his version of events here.
Calypso is not here for your nonsense.
2-3 sprigs (1.5-2 grams) fresh mint
4 slices (~25 grams) cucumber
1 oz. lemon juice
1½ oz. very cold vodka
A “slip” of traditional, alcoholic blue curacao
~ 1 oz. dry ice (optional, but highly cool)
1. Muddle the cucumber and mint in the bottom of a cocktail shaker.
2. Add ice, lemon juice and vodka. Shake vigorously. (I like to shake it really hard, until I hear the ice splinter. A lot of bartenders will tell you that this is not a good idea, because the ice fragments will dilute your drink too much, but that’s actually the effect we’re going for here.)
3. Strain into a martini glass. (See below.)
4. Pour a “slip” of blue curacao down the side of the glass. It will puddle in the bottom and give this drink a blue/green layered look.
5. Smile and take a picture of the drink, because it looks extremely fancy.
6a. At this point you can drink this and have a perfectly civilized cocktail. It will start out a little acidic and bracing from the lemon juice, then get sweeter as you work your way down to the blue curacao. If you would like it a little sweeter, add a tiny bit more curacao. The term “slip” is extremely vague and bartenders tend to use it as a code for “Use your own judgment.”
6b. If you decide to add dramatic flair to this cocktail, add a nugget of dry ice to it. It will bubble and churn and mist will flow over the side of the glass, making it a very good drink for Halloween. The bubbling and churning will mix the drink, turning it a very assertive green. Like the will of Calypso. [Editor’s note: Dry ice in cocktails is a whole to-do that requires some dry ice education and safety steps so that it doesn’t cause injury. The Betty Crocker website (bettycrocker.com) offers a good explanation.]
A note on cocktail strainers: There are all sorts of devices designed to help a home drink-maker strain a cocktail. The traditional tool involves hooks and a spring and intimidates me. Some cocktail shakers have an internal strainer in them. I find it takes a long time to strain some drinks through one of these. Recently, I have started using an inexpensive strainer that is designed to fit over the drain in a kitchen sink. It is extremely inexpensive, it works well, it is easy to clean, and it fits exactly over the rim of a martini glass.
Non-Alcoholic Cocktail No. 2 – A Cascade of Roses
A Cascade of Roses. Photo courtesy of John Fladd.
The Teen: At first, I wanted to make a drink that was similar to a Cherry Airhead, one of those really sour candies. I really like a combination of sweet and sour. Getting this right was a long and arduous process of mixing and drinking and mixing and drinking and mixing and drinking. I used citric acid because it seemed like a good way of getting the sour flavor I was looking for without adding any liquid. It ended up a little intense, but the seltzer spread the flavor out a lot and gave it some sparkle.
When I was done making this, I wanted a name that referenced its rosy red color, so I decided to call it “A Cascade of Roses.” After thinking about it a while, I decided to add rose water to make the flavor more rosy. Rose water can be tricky to use, but six drops is just about enough. I think it adds a subtle, background flavor.
1 oz. cherry syrup – as artificial as possible
½ oz. maraschino cherry juice
¾ teaspoon citric acid (available in many grocery stores this time of year, because of canning, or online)
6 ice cubes
6 drops rose water
5 oz. plain seltzer
Maraschino cherries for garnish
1. Combine the first five ingredients in a shaker. Shake until mixed and cold – about a minute.
2. Pour into a wine glass.
3. Add seltzer and stir gently.
4. Garnish with maraschino cherries.
Dad’s Alcoholic Riff No. 2 – Les Cerises du Roi
Les Cerises du Roi. Photo courtesy of John Fladd.
The Dad: I love the idea of a deeply cherry-flavored cocktail. The trick is to try to avoid making it taste too much like candy. In the end, I had some good luck in making my own cherry syrup (see below), but the resulting drink was a little bit frou-frou. After thinking it over, I decided to reclassify it in my mind as “rococo” and really embrace the over-the-top effeteness of it.
1 oz. homemade cherry syrup
1 oz. fresh squeezed lime juice
1 oz. kirsch
3 oz. plain seltzer
Upscale cocktail cherries for garnish
1. Shake the first three ingredients in a cocktail shaker, with ice.
2. Pour into an extremely froofy glass – the froofiest you can find.
3. Add seltzer and stir gently.
4. Garnish with several upscale cocktail cherries. I like the Bada Bing brand.
Cherry Syrup:
1 part (by weight) frozen cherries (the ice crystals in the cherries will break up the cell walls and give you more juice)
1 part (by weight) sugar
(A pound of frozen cherries and ¾ cup sugar will give you ~1½ cups of syrup.)
1. Put the cherries and sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat. As the cherries start to thaw, they will start giving off juice. Stir to combine.
2. When the cherries are thoroughly warmed up, mash them with a potato masher. It won’t matter if they have pits in them. The masher is a democratic tool and will mash any fruit regardless of its pit status.
3. Bring to a simmer and cook until the sugar is completely dissolved – three to four minutes.
4. Strain into a jar, label and store in your refrigerator.
Non-Alcoholic Cocktail No. 3 – Reverse Hot Chocolate
Reverse Hot Chocolate. Photo courtesy of John Fladd.
The Teen: This was not my idea. I want no part of this.
The Dad: I am a passionate ice cream maker. One of my favorite flavors of ice cream from when I was a kid is peppermint stick. It’s really hard to find anymore, so once a year or so I make my own. As I cook the base for the ice cream, dissolving peppermint candies in milk and cream, I always think how much I would like to drink a cup of it on a rainy fall day —never mind the ice cream.
This is a spin on that.
2 cups whole milk
1 cup half and half
75 g. crushed starlight mint candies (about 15 candies, once you’ve unwrapped them)
1. Unwrap and crush the candies. I use a hand-held vegetable chopper – the type with the plunger on top that you pound with your fist, often with a wild look in your eyes. If you decide to use your food processor to chop these up, you might want to freeze the candies first, so the dust doesn’t heat up too much in your food processor and get gummy and inconvenient.
2. Add all three ingredients to a small saucepan and heat until the candy fragments have dissolved, but before the mixture boils (about 200 degrees). It will turn a delicate shade of shell-pink.
3. Pour into mugs and serve.
Makes two to three servings.
Dad’s Alcoholic Riff On His Own Drink – Pink Cocoa
Pink Cocoa. Photo courtesy of John Fladd.
The Dad: The classic sitting-around-in-a-ski-lodge-with-your-leg-in-a-cast drink is hot cocoa, with a generous slug of peppermint schnapps in it. I’ve taken that and turned it on its head. This is a mug of hot peppermint, with a generous slug of chocolate in it.
10 oz. Reverse Hot Chocolate (see above)
1 oz. chocolate vodka (see below)
½ oz. crème de cacao
1. Add all three ingredients to a mug.
2. Stir.
3. Drink and pretend to be classy.
Chocolate Vodka
750 ml 80-proof bottom-shelf vodka (The chocolate flavors of the finished infusion will cover any subtle flavors you might get from an up-market vodka. You will be filtering this, which will largely remove any rough flavors from your discount vodka. Save your money for all the frou-frou, exotic ingredients The Teen and I have asked you to buy for our other recipes.)
½ cup (about 2 oz.) roasted cocoa nibs
1. Combine in a large jar with an airtight lid. If you worry about such things, place a small piece of wax paper between the mouth of the jar and the lid.
2. Shake vigorously.
3. Store somewhere cool and dark for four days. I put it on top of the freezer in our basement laundry room. That way, I remember to shake the jar every time I go downstairs to switch the laundry over or get something from the freezer.
4. Oh, yeah — shake two or three times per day.
5. After four days, filter into a bottle, through a coffee filter in a funnel. This will take longer than you think, so just walk away and let the filter do its job. It knows what it’s doing. If you stand there, watching it, you will be tempted to play around with it. You’ll probably want to do this in stages. Just walk away and watch a round of The Great British Baking Show or something, then come back and pour a little more into your filter, until you’ve filtered the whole jar.
6. Make sure to label your bottle.
Non-Alcoholic Cocktail No. 4 – Unnamed Passion Fruit Beverage
Unnamed Passion Fruit Beverage. Photo courtesy of John Fladd.
The Teen: I really like the flavor of passion fruit. I like how sour it is but still mouth-wateringly fruity. That is my favorite combination of flavors in the whole world. Passion fruit has a juicy quality that just exactly suits me. I’ve tried to make this drink passion fruit-forward, but not soda-like.
5 oz. passion fruit green tea, iced (I like Lipton’s Orange Passionfruit Jasmine Green Tea, made with four tea bags per pitcher.)
1 oz. fresh-squeezed lime juice
½ oz. simple syrup
5 ice cubes
1 oz. commercial passion fruit cocktail (This is something you have walked past a zillion times in the supermarket, but you’ve probably never noticed. It comes in a cardboard container. It’s in the fruit juice aisle at the store, probably on the top shelf, with pear nectar and stuff.)
1. Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker and shake until extremely cold. This may dilute the drink a little, but that is what you’re going for here — subtlety, Dad!
2. Pour into a Collins glass, perhaps with extra ice.
3. Drink this on the porch, with tasty snacks.
Dad’s Alcoholic Riff No. 4 – “What Are They Going To Do? Fire Me?”
“What Are They Going To Do? Fire Me?” Photo courtesy of John Fladd.
The Dad: The Teen has opted for subtlety in their final drink. That’s marvelous. There is a time for gentle and subtle. Like a delicate butterfly lighting on your finger.
Other times call for a brute confrontation with Reality. Like an angry buzzard crashing into you from a great height.
This is one of those drinks. It should be drunk in the largest, most garish glass you have. That shrunken-head tiki glass you thought was so cool on vacation that time, that you’ve never used? Break that baby out. It’s game time.
4 oz. passion fruit cocktail
2 oz. dark rum. I like Myers’ for this.
1 oz. crème de banana (Because bananas and passion fruit get along very well, like friends who often make questionable decisions together.)
3 oz. plain seltzer
lime wedge for garnish
1. Add passion fruit cocktail, rum, crème de banana, and ice to a cocktail shaker. It doesn’t really matter how you are shaking this particular drink, but if you’ve chosen this one, you’ll probably be in the mood to be pretty brutal about it.
2. Pour into your large, garish glass.
3.Add the seltzer and stir gently, if you can.
4. Garnish with a lime wedge and maybe a paper umbrella, if your trembling fingers allow.
Argument – There comes a time when a rational adult needs to set aside emotion and accept Reality.
Counter-Argument – What has Reality ever done for me?
OK, it’s October.
October, in a year that has been circling the flush-line since March and promises to circle even faster around the bowl before we give up on 2020 entirely and hope for something better next year. Summer is gone and we have to brace ourselves for a grim fall and a winter of — I don’t know — discontent?
That’s one way to look at it.
Another is to adopt, as P.G. Wodehouse put it, a campaign of stout denial. You know what I’m talking about — grown men wearing shorts, sandals and Santa hats in December. Women who wear white after Labor Day and meet your gaze with steely determination.
Whichever camp you fall into, you could probably use a drink.
Case No. 1 – “I Grudgingly Accept That Summer Is Over and Will Adopt a Serious, Adult Demeanor”
The cocktail for you:
Black Tie Cocktail 2 oz. dark rum, such as Myers ½ oz. triple sec ¼ oz. orgeat ½ teaspoon blackstrap molasses ½ oz. fresh squeezed lime juice 1 teaspoon simple syrup
Put all ingredients into a cocktail shaker with five or six ice cubes. Shake until you can feel the ice splintering (see below). Pour without straining into a rocks glass.
The Black Tie is a deceptive cocktail. On its surface it is dignified, sober (in an emotional sense) and entirely appropriate for the season.
On tasting it, though, you will be surprised. It has complex, playful flavors that come in stages — the molasses and lime play off each other unexpectedly well. It is a bit subversive.
Case No. 2 – “Fall Foliage Is Just Another Way of Describing Tiki Trees”
The cocktail for you :
Rum Runner 1½ oz. navy rum like Lamb’s or Pussers, or dark rum like Myers ½ oz. crème de mûre, or blackberry liqueur, or blackberry brandy (the kind you find sometimes in little single-portion bottles in the sale bin at the liquor store) 1 oz. crème de banana 1 oz. fresh squeezed lime juice 2 oz. pineapple juice ½ oz. grenadine (pomegranate syrup)
Again, put everything in a cocktail shaker with five or six ice cubes, then shake brutally, until you feel the ice shatter. Pour into a tall glass. Garnish – Several weeks ago I described the Jungle Bird as too serious a drink to garnish with frou-frou paper umbrellas or fruit. This drink is a defiant rebellion against the changing of the seasons. It calls for a minimum of two cocktail umbrellas, and as much fruit as you want to cram into it.
Just as the Black Tie is deceptively playful, this drink is deceptively sophisticated. The key ingredient here is the blackberry brandy, which insists on shining through all the other goofy ingredients.
A word on cocktail shakers When you first start making serious, grown-up cocktails you will probably buy a cocktail shaker with a strainer built into its spout. “This looks easier,” you will say to yourself. You might even congratulate yourself on keeping your common touch and not buying into cocktail snobbery. Eventually, you’ll start getting impatient with how long it takes to pour your entire drink into your glass through the built-in strainer. You will probably have to re-shake and re-strain your drink several times to get all of it out of the shaker. The solution is what is called a Boston Shaker. It consists of one large steel canister, and a smaller one. It is what most professional bartenders use. You put your ingredients into the larger canister, turn the little one upside-down, wedge it firmly over the ingredients in the larger one, then shake. It seems like it should leak. It doesn’t. It seems like it would be hard to strain drinks with. It isn’t. The drinks end up colder, somehow. As you shake, you can feel the ice cracking and splintering — which is profoundly satisfying — and you can pour your drink quickly and efficiently into your waiting glass, and shortly thereafter, into you.
At the risk of oversharing, it seems like when it comes to decision-making I have two settings: overthinking or not thinking at all.
Throughout my life, a series of exasperated parents, bemused drill sergeants and my long-suffering wife have asked me, in varying degrees of anxiety, “What were you THINKING!?” To which, I only have one answer: “Uhhh… what?”
And then, there’s the other extreme.
Sometimes, without warning, I will fall down a rabbit hole of obsession, hyper-focusing on some objectively trivial matter. Last week, after watching a movie where one of the characters had to go on the run and retrieved a “go bag,” I spent hours thinking about what would go in my go bag, how much of what currency should go in it, and how I could inconspicuously buy everything I needed with untraceable cash. Never mind that I would probably never need to flee anywhere, or that I’m too fundamentally lazy and timid to do it if I had to; the fact remains that I spent hours working out an elaborate escape plan. (The secret is to include a Flowbee in the bag, so I can shave my head in a convenience store bathroom, then grow a beard, to blend in with all the other aging hipsters.)
And then, there’s the orgeat. Orgeat (supposedly pronounced “Oor-Jot”) is an almond syrup that is used a lot in tropical drinks to add depth and a sweet fruitiness to the background flavor. I’m mostly alone in this, but I think it tastes a bit like maraschino cherries. People with a more sophisticated palate than mine get very particular about their orgeat, saying that the cheap stuff tastes “artificial.” (I kind of like “artificial”, but they do have a point. The more chi-chi stuff definitely tastes more sophisticated.)
Some people will even go so far as to make their own orgeat.
[There… Right there… Did you hear it? The ominous music in the soundtrack as I start to overthink things?]
I was reading recipes for homemade orgeat — some simple, others much more complex and involved — when I started to wonder about making it from pistachios, rather than almonds. This led to more research than I can really justify, and several trips to the store, for ever-larger amounts of raw pistachios.
In the end, here’s what I came up with:
Pistachio Orgeat Equal parts, by volume: • sugar • water • raw, shelled pistachios
1. Chop the pistachios in a blender 2. Boil the sugar and water together to make a simple syrup 3. Steep the pistachio crumbs in the syrup for several hours 4. Strain the pistachio solids out, then squeeze
The Paisley Jane • 2 slices of cucumber • ½ oz. unsweetened pomegranate or cranberry juice • 1½ oz. vodka • 1½ oz. pistachio orgeat • ½ oz. full fat plain yogurt • Exactly 3 drops rose water (seriously – no more, no less. Trust me on this.) • A pinch of sumac powder for garnish (Not optional. See below.)
1. Place the cucumber slices at the bottom of a cocktail shaker, then top them with ice. If you do it this way, you don’t have to muddle or bruise the cucumber. The ice will do it for you. 2. Add all the other ingredients except the sumac. 3. Shake vigorously for longer than you think you actually need to. Remember that you are throwing down a beating on the cucumbers. 4. Strain over ice into a rocks glass or an Old Fashioned glass. 5. Top with a generous pinch of sumac.
A note on sumac: Sumac is a Middle Eastern spice that has a distinct, sour, astringent note to it. It is one of the garnishes called for in the original Hazy Jane recipe. Without it, this pistachio version is missing something. You can buy sumac at any Middle Eastern grocery store or online. You have to be somewhat obsessive to try this, but the good news is that you won’t have to drastically change your appearance.
Featured photo: Paisley Jane. Photo by John Fladd.
He stumbled in off the street, leaving the dust and noise behind.
“Afternoon, Mr. Peterson. The usual?”
“Hi, Charlie. I think I need The Bird today.”
Charlie mixed the drink and slid it to Peterson without a word. He knew from long experience that on days like this, words were like razors to the older man.
Peterson stared at the pink depths of his drink for a minute, then for a minute longer, then closed his eyes and took a long pull. For a moment — just the fraction of a breath — he was back in Kuala Lumpur. He didn’t even remember her name anymore.
All he had … was this.
The Jungle Bird was first created at a luxury hotel in Kuala Lumpur* in the 1970s as a welcome drink for arriving guests. It is often referred to as a tiki drink, but I think that is a bit misleading. Yes, this cocktail is built around rum and fruit — in this case, the classic combination of pineapple and lime — but it isn’t at all kitschy; it has an elegance about it. It dances on the edge of being almost too sweet, but is pulled back from the brink at the last moment by the addition of Campari, which adds bitterness and emphasizes the alcoholic taste of the rum. It announces to the world, in a quiet way, that you have hidden depths.
(* The capital of Malaysia. I had to look it up.)
A brief rant about pineapple juice:
In theory, you could juice your own pineapple, and if you were to find yourself somewhere with a ready supply of great, fresh pineapples, that would be an excellent idea. But for most of us the most consistent and convenient source of pineapple juice is from a can. That’s fine. There’s no shame in canned pineapple juice — except perhaps from a historical colonial perspective, but let’s set that aside for the moment — but there is a problem with it. Most cans of pineapple juice are enormous — generally 46 ounces. Even if you think ahead enough to buy a six-pack of tiny six-ounce cans of it, six ounces of pineapple juice is enough for four Jungle Birds, which means that either you are blessed with friends or you’ve settled in for the evening.
I get around this by using a silicone baby food freezer tray — basically an ice cube tray designed to allow parents to freeze neat one-ounce pucks of baby food for future use. Mine came with a snap-on lid, which means that I don’t spill the juice on my way to the freezer. Because it’s made of silicone, I can easily pop each pre-measured pineapple puck into a zip-close bag for future use without it sticking to the mold like it might in a traditional, metal ice cube tray. Just make sure to thaw your juice before adding it to your cocktail; frozen juice won’t melt any faster than the ice in your shaker and might throw your drink proportions off (30 seconds in the microwave is just about perfect to melt two ounces).
The Jungle Bird Ingredients: • 1½ ounces dark rum – preferably Myers’s or Pusser’s • ¾ ounce Campari • ½ ounce simple syrup • 1½ ounces pineapple juice • ½ ounce fresh lime juice Pour all ingredients over ice in a cocktail shaker, including the spent half of a lime that is left over from juicing it. (Why? I feel like it adds depth to the fruit flavor in the background of the drink. Can I prove it? Not even remotely.)
Shake the cocktail until it is very cold. You will know that it is cold enough when the outside of your shaker isn’t just wet with condensation but visibly frosts and your hands start to burn with the cold. Pain is the price you pay for excellence.
Pour into a rocks glass, discarding the lime rind, which at this point has given everything it has to this operation.
Historical purists will tell you to garnish a Jungle Bird with pineapple fronds carved into the shape of a bird. I feel like that was appropriate in the lobby of the Kuala Lumpur Hilton, but is a bit too precious for anywhere less exotic. Drink it ungarnished. Peterson would not tolerate a paper umbrella.
Featured photo: The Jungle Bird. Photo by John Fladd.
At this point in my life I’ve more or less made peace with my physical appearance, which can best be summed up as “rumpled.” I’m mostly OK with the fact that very few people will ever describe me as dapper. I will probably not be invited to sophisticated cocktail parties in the Hamptons, where I will casually lean against a doorframe, dressed in a crisp linen suit, making small talk with elegant women and men with monocles. And yet… There are days in late summer, when the heat and humidity collaborate to suck a person’s will to live right out through their pores, when the idea of drinking something civilized becomes extremely appealing.
That’s where Pimm’s comes in.
Pimm’s is a quintessentially British drink. Although brownish in color, it’s a gin-based liqueur that the Brits have sipped in a reserved sort of way for the past 150 years or so, while watching cricket or orphan-taunting, or whatever the Victorians were into. The traditional cocktail made with Pimm’s is called, reasonably enough, a Pimm’s Cup.
Here’s the thing about the Pimm’s Cup: It requires what English people call “sparkling lemonade” and a shocking amount of garnish. In the past I’ve always drunk a pared-back, minimalist version of the Pimm’s Cup — basically a Pimm’s and soda, with a single, important garnish. It has always struck me as being cold, crisp, and perhaps a little bit classy.
But, if I’m going to recommend a Pimm’s Cup, it only seems like due diligence to compare the two versions. And in the spirit of “in for a penny; in for a pound” it makes sense to go even a step further and compare both of them against an over-the-top premium version. So I did.
Sleek, Minimalist Pimm’s Cup 2 oz. Pimm’s 7 oz. plain seltzer 3” section of cucumber, cut in half lengthwise and bruised
1) In a tall glass, add ice, Pimm’s and seltzer. 2) Cut a three-inch section from a cucumber. Cut in half lengthwise, then lay it facedown on your table or counter. Spank it vigorously with the back of a spoon. 3) Yes, I know what I said. Just do it. 4) Add it as garnish to the drink, stir and enjoy.
Truth be told, this was the version of the cocktail that I was rooting for. It is crisp and classic.
Official Pimm’s Cup 2 oz. Pimm’s 5 oz. lemon soda (I used SanPellegrino) 2 orange wheels 2 slices cucumber 1 fresh strawberry, sliced sprig of fresh mint
1) To a tall glass, add two slices each of orange, cucumber (unbruised) and strawberry slices. Feel free to cram them roughly into the bottom of the glass.
2) Add ice. 3) Add the Pimm’s and lemon soda. 4) Stir and top with a sprig of fresh mint.
I didn’t want to admit it, but this was a step up. Each garnish shone through and this was — OK, not superior to Version No. 1, but definitely more nuanced. Things become classics for a reason.
Trying Too Hard Pimm’s Cup 2 oz. Pimm’s 2 oz. homemade lemon syrup 5 oz. plain seltzer 2 orange wheels 2 slices cucumber 1 frozen strawberry sprig of fresh mint
1) Make lemon syrup. Bring equal parts lemon juice and sugar to a boil with a pinch of salt. (Four lemons gave me about 1¼ cups of juice) Take it off the heat as soon as the sugar has dissolved, then steep the zest of one lemon in the syrup for about half an hour. Let it cool, then strain out the zest, which might make it bitter if you left it in. 2) Arrange orange and cucumber slices around the inside of a tall glass, so they look impressive from the outside. 3) Add ice. 4) Add Pimm’s, lemon syrup and seltzer. Stir gently. 5) Top with a sprig of fresh mint and a frozen strawberry. (The reason for using a frozen strawberry here is that when you freeze fruit, sharp ice crystals form that puncture the cell walls inside the berry. When you add the frozen berry to this drink, it looks like a proper, self-respecting strawberry, but it oozes strawberry juice into your cocktail, while still putting up a good front.)
The extra work and fiddly details were actually worth it. This version was definitely the sweetest of the three and if you are looking for that clean, pared-down taste, this is probably not the version for you. But the freshness of the mint and the flavors of the fruit really set off the taste of the Pimm’s itself.
After drinking three Pimm’s Cups, I feel as rumpled as I look.
Featured photo: Pimm’s Cup. Photo by John Fladd. John Fladd is a veteran Hippo writer, a father, writer and cocktail enthusiast, living in New Hampshire.
