![\"Ward](\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3374\/3435108296_d6f3629c30.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nI would guess this stems from two things.\u00c2\u00a0 First rye was the American whiskey of choice pre-prohibition and as such most classic recipes are going to reference this spirit.\u00c2\u00a0 There was, however, a sad time after prohibition all the way up to only a few years ago when rye wasn’t widely available, if you could find a bottle at all.\u00c2\u00a0 This led to a number of classic cocktails being rewritten to included bourbon instead.\u00c2\u00a0 While this is certainly not a bad change you lose the spiciness that rye brings to the cocktail.<\/p>\n
This week I tried both rye and bourbon to get a feel for the difference and found that, for my palate, rye was a much better match for this drink.\u00c2\u00a0 The spiciness of the spirit played very well with the sweet and sour flavors of the citrus juices.\u00c2\u00a0 If you don’t have a bottle of rye on hand and want to mix this one up, give a bourbon with a higher rye content a try.\u00c2\u00a0 Bulleit springs to mind as one of my favorite rye heavy bourbons.\u00c2\u00a0 However, I’d urge you to grab a bottle of rye next time you’re shopping.\u00c2\u00a0 My mixing rye of choice is Rittenhouse 100 proof.\u00c2\u00a0 It can be found for relatively cheap and has a nice spicy flavor that works great in cocktails.<\/p>\n
I started my week of imbibing with the Joy of Mixology<\/span> recipe and was very pleased.\u00c2\u00a0 This cocktail is nicely citrusy with the rye shining through on the back end.\u00c2\u00a0 The grenadine doesn’t add a huge amount of flavor, but does add a nice color and some possibly needed sweetness.\u00c2\u00a0 In my case my oranges weren’t overly sweet and as such I had to go with 1\/4 oz of grenadine to get the balance that I was looking for.\u00c2\u00a0 I would have stuck with this recipe and called it a week were I not spurred on the by the deliciousness of rye to try a recipe that placed more emphasis on the spirit.<\/p>\n The recipe I found on Esquire’s website was a logical next step.\u00c2\u00a0 It keeps the rye steady at 2 oz, but drops the orange and lemon juice to 3\/4 oz rather than the full 1 oz called for in the Joy of Mixology<\/span>.\u00c2\u00a0 The result is a drier cocktail that focuses more on the rye.\u00c2\u00a0 Exactly what I was looking for.\u00c2\u00a0 The fruit juice and grenadine flavors are still present and the sourness is dialed down a bit.\u00c2\u00a0 Esquire (David Wondrich) calls for 1 tsp of grenadine, but from my previous experiments I opted for 1\/4 oz (1 1\/2 tsp) and found that worked better in my case.<\/p>\n Certainly this progression could continue by next trying the cocktail with 1\/2 oz each of the juices, but I think at that point you start to get away from what a Ward 8 was intended to be.\u00c2\u00a0 That hasn’t stopped people in the past (I’m looking at you Martini), but it wasn’t what I was after so I stopped my experimentation with a slightly modified version of the Esquire recipe.\u00c2\u00a0 As always I’m open to hearing suggestions on possible modifications.<\/p>\n My friends, I have fantastic news!\u00c2\u00a0 I’m back on the bourbon horse and loving it.\u00c2\u00a0 I started the week with a bit of trepidation, but that soon faded as I was reunited with my delicious old friend, tasty American whiskey.\u00c2\u00a0 The Ward 8 was a perfect reintroduction to this fine spirit although, in the future […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[10,90,203],"class_list":["post-940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wrap-up","tag-recipe","tag-ward-8","tag-wrap-up"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cocktailhacker.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cocktailhacker.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cocktailhacker.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cocktailhacker.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cocktailhacker.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=940"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cocktailhacker.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":943,"href":"https:\/\/cocktailhacker.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940\/revisions\/943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cocktailhacker.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cocktailhacker.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cocktailhacker.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Ward 8 (Cocktail Hacker)<\/strong><\/pre>\n
2 oz Rye\r\n3\/4 oz Orange Juice\r\n3\/4 oz Lemon Juice\r\n1\/4 oz Grenadine<\/strong><\/pre>\n
1) Combine ingredients in a shaker with ice\r\n2) Shake until thoroughly chilled\r\n3) Strain into a cocktail glass<\/strong><\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"