Cocktail Hacker

When I drink scotch I drink it neat, maybe a tiny piece of ice if I’d like a bit of mellowing to the flavor. With that, I came in to this week thinking that the Rusty Nail could improve upon straight scotch. That turned out to not be the case at all, at least not for scotch that’s tasty on its own. My scotch collection certainly isn’t as extensive as I’d like it to be, but it spans a fair range none-the-less. So, I had visions of trying a lot of them in this drink. My direction changed as I got started.

Thinking that this drink was likely most often mixed with a blended scotch I decided to expand my collection with a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label. Using the Joy of Mixology recipe I got started. With this scotch the Rusty Nail is very lightly peaty and lightly smoky. There is a nice, yet subtle, sweetness from the Drambuie. No single flavor shines above the others which I would attribute to the skill of both the Johnnie Walker and Drambuie blenders. Overall this is a good cocktail, but even after only one a thought that ran through my mind was that I think I’d simply prefer the scotch alone.

From there I decided I’d change things up and try some single malts. First in the mixing glass was Ardmore, one of my favorite medium smoky scotches. Makes a great deal of sense then that the resulting Rusty Nail is noticeably smokier which does a good job of offsetting the sweetness of the Drambuie. While I prefer this mix over the Johnnie Walked, I’m still torn as to whether I’d simply prefer the scotch on its own.

Next up I pulled down my bottle of Macallan 12. Subtler smoke here. Still feeling like this is a waste of good single malt though. The Drambuie if very nice and certainly doesn’t hurt the overall flavor profile but it does mask some of the subtler notes of the scotch. After this mix I decided I wasn’t going to do any more experiments with single malt for this drink. Simply wasn’t worth it.

Finally, I decided to wrap things up with another blend. Specifically one I’ve used here before, The Famous Grouse. This mix was very smooth. Truly nothing took over the flavor profile. After these experiments my inclination is to think that this drink is really intended to be made with a blended scotch. While the drink with any scotch is no doubt good you lose what’s really special about a single malt, the subtle complexity of flavor.

As for the recipe itself I really like this ratio. I tried dropping the scotch to 2 oz, thereby bumping up the Drambuie ratio. The resulting drink was a bit too sweet for my tastes. As with all cocktail recipes though I suggest you tweak it to your liking.

Life changing might be a bit of an overstatement, but this cocktail definitely changed the way I look at Benedictine and dry vermouth. As I began sipping my first Chrysanthemum and taking notes, as I always do, I wrote this down. “Four sips in and this drink is already one of my favorites.” At the end of the week, having increased that number of sips quite dramatically, my sentiment remains. This drink is good, really good in fact.

As you bring the drink to your mouth you’re first going to notice the fresh citrus aroma that the orange twist offers. On that note, the twist is absolutely essential. Without it you’ll lose a layer of complexity that I think this drink deserves. I say that because the other two main ingredients are deeply complex unto themselves. I offered some thoughts on benedictine earlier in the week and I discussed dry vermouth a while back. Although, having said that, I don’t think I really appreciated either of them until I took my first, and subsequent, sips of this drink. Their complexity is deep and hugely pleasing.

While on it’s own I find Benedictine to be a little too sweet, when tempered with the vermouth the sweetness is perfect. Similarly, I wouldn’t usually drink a glass of dry vermouth on its own. Though, mixed in this cocktail the vermouth offers its complexity and funkiness in a way that I find very pleasing. While I doubt I need to mention this to anyone reading this blog, I will anyway. Please go with a good dry vermouth. No sense in ruining good Benedictine with crappy vermouth. Finally, on top of these base flavors you’re adding a hint of citrus from the orange zest. Which, again, is very much essential to the final flavor profile. Same goes for absinthe. While you’re only adding a small amount the flavor melds well with the others to increase the complexity even further. Keep the amount of absinthe small, too. Somewhere between 3 dashes and 1/8 oz depending on your preference. I go with 1/8 oz.

This drink is definitely one to mix up for yourself. And, to compound that, I’d ask that if you’ve never much like dry vermouth that you give this mix a try. I think you’ll find yourself pleasantly surprised with your new found respect.

The Blackthorn is good. Nothing that I’m going to be adding to my top cocktails list though by any means. This drink, as Regan wisely points out, is, at its base, a twist on the Manhattan. Therein, you see, lay my main problem. The Manhattan was one of the first cocktails that I experimented with here on Cocktail Hacker and one of my first introductions to the loveliness of bourbon. I truly love a well mixed Manhattan and therefore had the bar set quite high going in. To use a bad sports metaphor, this drink placed but definitely didn’t win.

Savoy Recipe: I’ll start my discussion with the classic recipe. There are two main twists to note. First, and most obviously, the Savoy recipe is made with dry vermouth. Second, and quite related, the vermouth is a full half the recipe. Of the two recipes this was my least favorite. It wasn’t bad by any means, but not something I really enjoyed. The Irish whiskey (Jameson in my case), being a bit lighter than some other whiskies, was a tad overpowered by the vermouth. In an effort to correct this issue I tried dropping the vermouth to 1 oz and upping the whiskey to 2 oz. Not a good call. I ended up dumping that variant out.

Regan’s Recipe: Now we can really start making some Manhattan comparisons. The ratios are exactly the same, the bitters are the same, the only changes are the whiskey and the addition of a touch of absinthe. My thoughts on the whiskey are the same as with the Savoy recipe. The absinthe, however, adds a nice twist. First, a warning, go easy. Like bitters, you should think of the absinthe in this recipe as a cocktail spice. What I ended up doing was to add my three dashes of Angostura to the shaker tin first, eyeball the amount, then add the same amount of absinthe. This let me get the amounts as close to even as I could and if I messed up, which I did, I could dump some out and not waste the spirits.

Now for a bit about the drink itself. The ratios are good in this one, so I didn’t feel the need to play with that at all. The flavor is a bit like a muted Manhattan with an extra layer of anise absinthe flavor. In fact, I really like the flavor the absinthe brings a lot. Next time I mix up a Manhattan I think I’ll give that twist a try. As for the Blackthorn, I think I’ll be leaving this one to the recipe books.

The title really says a lot. As I mentioned in the intro this week, this is a combination of ingredients that I never would have thought of. However, this most assuredly doesn’t mean it’s not a good one. Quite the contrary in fact. My first note for this week reads “Oh wow. Different even than I had imagined.” Different though it is, I really enjoy enjoyed The Blinker and I honestly think anyone else who loves rye whiskey will like it as well.

As I sipped my first mix of this drink, I felt the recipe from Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails was pretty solid as-is. So, rather than try a host of recipes, I decided to experiment a bit with the ingredients themselves to find the combo that best suites me.

Let’s start with the grapefruit juice. I picked up a bottle of white grapefruit juice since fresh fruits aren’t available for me this time of year. Bottled juice ended up working okay for this drink and I would definitely recommend you go with white grapefruit as well instead of the pink varieties. The reason being, white grapefruit juice is quite a bit less sweet than the pink variety. Any additional sweetness and I think the drink would become a bit off balance.

Which brings us nicely to the other source of sweetness, the syrup. When I first read the recipe, I doubted that 1 tsp of syrup would be enough so I compensated and added about 2 tsp to my first mix. This adjustment was definitely not necessary, at least for those who like a drier cocktail. If you’re offering this drink to a friend who isn’t a die hard rye lover you might up the syrup a bit as it mellows the flavor profile a bit. For me, though, 1 tsp is perfect. Ted Haigh notes that the original recipe for this drink calls for grenadine but it’s a bit “unremarkable” using that. I gave both variations a test and liked them both. For the raspberry version I used my homemade raspberry syrup and found the drink to be quite nice. On the same note, a Blinker mixed with my homemade grenadine was also very tasty. For me the grenadine version had a bit more fruity flavor, but I think that was primarily due to the fact that my grenadine is fresher. I think either option is perfectly tasty if you have one or the other of the syrups on hand.

Finally, the rye. I started where I always do with rye cocktails with Rittenhouse 100. The drink was very good but a bit tilted toward the rye flavor. In search of something more balanced without changing the recipe I tried Sazerac rye next. At 90 proof, this spirit is a bit lighter. Overall I found that this one worked a lot better in this particular application. If you only have Rittenhouse on hand then simply bump up the grapefruit juice a bit, perhaps to about 1 1/4 oz, and you’ll be all set.

As a rye fanatic it’s always great to find a new cocktail to mix up. This one will definitely be added to the list of tasty libations. While it’s certainly not world changing in terms of cocktail experiences, tasty is certainly is.

The week here in Colorado was cold with our first day above 30F being Friday (It hovered around 10F the rest of the week). As I mentioned in the intro post it seemed a perfectly fitting time to celebrate the awesomeness of Tiki drinks and so it was. I mixed up four cocktails this week and while they all had their differences the one thing they most certainly shared was deliciousness. All of them truly were great and I’d mix them up again in a heart beat.

I hope this week has provided a bit of motivation for you to explore some Tiki drinks of your own. If you’d like some more online reference materials here are a handful of sites either loosely or directly related to the awesomeness of good Tiki drinks. Enjoy!

• A Mountain of Crushed Ice
• Beachbum Berry’s Grog Blog
• Colonel Tiki’s Drinks
• Dr. Bamboo
• RumDood.com
• Trader Tiki