Gin Based

Method: Shaker
Glass: Cocktail


"This lime-flavour cocktail was invented in the 1920s.

Originally it was served 'Straight up' without the sugar. It is also 

sometimes served in an old fashioned glass filled with broken ice.
Try the variations for yourself."

Ingredients:

    ice cubes
    2 measures gin
    2/3 measure lime juice
    1/3 measure sugar syrup
    1 dash bitters (Orange,Angostura)

Method:

    Half fill the shaker with ice cubes.
    Add the gin, lime juice,sugar syrup and bitters.
    Shake and strain into a cocktail galass.

Introduction

"The word ‘cocktail’ inevitably conjures up images of the ‘speakeasies’ of the Prohibition era, of sharp-suited gangsters and elegantly dressed molls, and of the Bright Young tings of the Jazz Age. While the golden age of the cocktail was undoubtedly the 1920s and 1930s, the practice of serving ‘mixed drinks’ is much older."

    Alcoholic mixed drinks called braggets made of ale and mead (fermented honey) are known to have been popular in the 14th century, while mint julep is believed to have been made first in 18th century Virginia and served as a morning eye-opener.
    Over the last 200 years many stories have emerged to explain the origin of the term cocktail. In his 1933 work, The cocktail Book- A sideboard manual for Gentlemen, John Mac Queen tells the legend of the cock’s tail and of the lovely young girl called Daisy who invented it. The Story goes that during the American War of Independence, the innkeeper of the Bunch of Grapes and a keen fan of the bloody sport of cock-fighting, discovered that Jupiter, his prize bird was missing. Sometime later, a young officer rode into town with Jupiter under his arm. Squire Allen was delighted to have his bird returned and ordered Daisy to serve the soldier the finest refreshment. A toast was drunk to ‘the cock’s tail’, since the mighty Jupiter had not lost a single feather during his absence.

Myths and legends

     Other stories say that the cocktail was derived from the French word coquetier (egg cup). Monsieur Antoine Peychaud, a chemist in New Orleans, is said to have served his guests mixed drinks in egg cups. A mixed drink called a ‘coquetel’ was taken to America by the Marquis de Lafayette in 1777 and French officers in George Washington’s army were said to enjoy the ‘concoction’ of wines. In 1779, Betsy Flanagan, the widow of a Revolutionary officer and barmaid at Hall’s Corner Tavern in New York, is said to have decorated a drink with the feathers of roosters stolen from a loyalist neighbor. A group of French soldiers were served the drink and toasted Betsy with ‘Vive le cock-tail’.
    Two further stories place the origins of the cocktail Mexico. One version has English sailors ashore at Campeche in Yucatan. A popular drink was a drac, a mixture of liquors stirred slowly with a wooden spoon. In one bar, the barman stirred the drinks not with a spoon, but with the root of a plant called cola de gallo – in English, a cock’s tail. Rather than ask for dracs the English sailors took to asking for ‘cock-tails’.
    The Second version was provided by Harry Craddock, the legendary bartender at the Savoy hotel in London from 1920 to 1939. Craddock was the first president of the United Kingdom Bartender’s Guild and was responsible for introducing the delights of the fashionable American cocktail to Europe. Americans touring Europe often referred to the bar at the Savoy as the ‘49th state’ since it was the finest place to enjoy an American cocktail. In 1930 Craddock published the now highly collectable Savoy Cocktail Book. In Craddock’s story, the cocktail was invented at the beginning of the 19th century when the American Army of the Southern States was fighting the forces of King Axolotl VIII of Mexico. When a truce was declared, the king offered the American general a drink. A single cup of liquor was brought in by the king’s daughter who, realizing that whoever drank first would offend the other; saved everyone’s embarrassment by drinking it herself. The king’s daughter just happened to be called Coctel and thus, her drink became ‘cocktail’.

Modern Masters

     While all these stories offer an explanation of the origin of the word ‘cocktail’ few, if any, offer hints of what went into these remarkable drinks. The earliest mention of the ingredients of cocktails can be found in The Balance and Columbian Repository, a newspaper published in Hudson, New York, on 13 May 1806, which described the cocktail as ‘ a stimulating liquor composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water; and bitters’.
    The American barman ‘Professor’. Jerry Thomas was the first to produce a book of cocktail recipes in the 1860s. The Bon Vivant’s Guide, or How to Mix Drinks. The ‘Professor’ became famous when he was the bartender at the metropolitan Hotel in New York. Touring Europe, he travelled with a set of silver mixing cups from which he would trail a flame of liquid when he mixed his famous blue blazer cocktail.
    The Professor’s recipe book was soon followed by many others. But outstanding was Harry Johnson’s Illustrated Bartender’s Manual. Published in 1882, Johnson’s book featured an illustration of an ice-filled bar glass with a metal cone-what was to become the modern cocktail shaker. Today there are thousands of recipes for cocktails and mixed drinks. Some are simple, some elaborate. Some use only a few ingredients, others have so many ingredients that it’s amazing they all fit into one glass! Everyone can make a good cocktail: there are no jealously guarded secrets, nor does it require years of toil. In this book you will find a good number of drinks that you can make straight away at home. You won’t need to splash out an exotic liqueurs – not yet anyway!
    All of the recipes in this book are based on gin, vodka, tequila rum, brandy , whisky, vermouth, wine (including some champagne and fortified wines like sherry and  port) with a few additions such as angostura bitters., grenadine, fruit juices and sparkling minerals. With a few ingredients, you should be able to make a fair proportion of the drinks on offer. A few, however, do use triple sec or a ‘branded’ ingredient such as Campari or Galliano and it is worthwhile investing in a bottle of each if you enjoy the flavor they impart. You will find more detailed information on each of the spirits in the section on ingredients and at the beginning of each chapter.

    The recipes offered in this book are for you to try out for yourself. Choose a cocktail, a highball, a Rickey, a Collins, or a punch – or even a ‘mocktail’ – that catches your eye and try it. If it’s too sweet for your taste, cut down on the sugar or liqueur content. If it’s too sour, reduce the lemon or lime juice. Play around with the proportions until you find the ‘perfect mix’ and have fun!

Cocktail essentials
 
"Many of the stock items you will need may be already in your kitchen cupboards or drinks cabinet. The job of making drinks is much easier – and more pleasurable – when everything is to hand. Consequently, whether the drinks are for an intimate ‘diner a deux’, entertaining a few friends, a family get- together at Christmas or Thanksgiving, a summer barbecue or garden party or a more formal celebration, the most important thing is preparation. Lay everything out neatly and keep your utensils and glasses clean. Squeeze enough juice in advance, cut lemons, limes, oranges and other fruit for garnishes and twists and make sure that mixers and fruit juices are well chilled. Ask one or two friends to come around early – that way you can gossip and cut lemon slices at the same time."
 
Bar Stock
 
The drinks in this book are for the most part based on a single base spirit (such as gin, vodka or rum) to which is added a second spirit, liqueur (either Cointreau or Galliano), bitters, juices or minerals. This way, you can choose your favourite spirit and create drinks around it. The exotically named, beautifully bottled and sometime obscure liqueurs and spirits have been avoided. I leave these for you to discover and enjoy for yourself!

Ice
 
You’ll need ice – broken, crushed and cubes and probably lots of it. Never use the same ice twice. Clean, clear ice cubes are hard to make, especially if you live in a hard water area. Even bottled waters can make cloudy cubes. If your cubes are cloudy, you could use purified drinking water, available at your chemist, although it is more expensive than bottled. Alternatively, check out the ice on sale at your off license or liquor store. The cubes should be clear. If they’re cloudy, you might as well save your money and make your own from tap water.
    Keep ice cubes in an ice bucket and use tongs to pick them up. If they get stuck together, a quick squirt of soda water will separate them.
    To make broken ice, place some cubes into a plastic bag and hit them with a rolling pin! The aim is to make each piece about one third the original ice – cube size.
    To make crushed ice, you could either carry on hitting the bag or else put the broken ice into a blender. Unless you have a heavy duty blender, or one that the maker says will crush ice, don’t put whole cubes in it. Your blades will never forgive you! There are several ice crushers available on the market, both electric and manual. Remember, too, that broken and crushed ice will melt quickly, so make it just before you need it and use well – chilled glasses.

Base Spirits 
 
Choose the brand you enjoy most, Quality spirits may be a little more expensive, but a cocktail is no better than its poorest ingredient! The main base spirits are gin, vodka, rum (whit and dark, see the section on rum, page index), tequila, brandy and whiskey.
    For the sake of simplicity, when referring to whisky in this book, we have adopted the accepted British spelling of the word unless specifically referring to Irish or American whiskey, such as bourbon, rye, corn or Kentucky, Avoid using high quality Scotch malt unless a recipe demands it. A good blend will be perfect.

Liqueurs

 
These are sweetish drinks made from a base spirit which is infused, macerated or redistilled with roots, barks, flowers, fruits or seeds. (In the United States, liqueurs are called cordials. In other English speaking countries, however, a cordial is a non-alcoholic, concentrated fruit juice.) Some of the drinks in this book require Galliano, triple sec, such as Cointreau, and Campari.
    Galliano is a sweetish, gold coloured liqueur from Lombardy in Italy and has a spicy, herbal taste tinged with vanilla. It comes in a very tall bottle and was named after Major Guiseppe Galliano, an Italian war hero from the Abyssinian Wars of 1895. The recipe, containing more than 80 herbs, roots, flowers and berries from Alpine regions, is a closely guarded secret and the method of production has remained unchanged since it was first made by the distiller Arturo Vaccari.

Triple sec
 
One of the most refined forms of Curacao, triple sec a colourless liqueur made from the peel of small, green oranges native to the island of Curacao in the Caribbean. Triple sec means ‘triple dry’, but the liqueur is not as dry as it sounds, and is a major ingredient in many of the most famous cocktails and mixed drinks. The world’s best known brand of triple sec is Cointreau, first made in 1849 at Angers, France, by brothers Edouard and Adolphe Cointreau. Curacao can also come in different colours – blue, green, yellow and red – and is used mainly to produce many of the more vividly coloured modern cocktails and mixed drinks.
    Campari really comes somewhere in between a bitters and a liqueur. It is a patent Italian aperitif (from the Latin aperire, ‘to open’, and thus an alcoholic drink taken before a meal to stimulate and sharpen the appetite). It is red and very dry, with a pronounced quinine taste, and can either be drunk ‘on the rocks’ with soda or used as the ingredient in a cocktail. Campari is the basis of two of the most famous cocktails, the Americano and the Negroni.

Wines, aromatized wines and fortified wines
 
Vermouths are properly aromatized wines. The best known French vermouth is Noilly prat, Made in Marseilles. It is very dry and is made with two white wines and 40 hers which are steeped for 18 months. Turin, Italy, is the biggest vermouth producing city and is the home of both Martini and Cinzano which produce excellent dry, extra dry and sweet vermouths, which can be either red or white.
    Despite its red (Italian: rosso) colour, sweet vermouth is also made with white wine, albeit with sweeter grapes to which sweeteners, quinine and caramel are added.

Sherry and port
 
These two wonderful fortified wines are so often ignored or simply offered either ‘straight’ as an aperitif (in the case of sherry) or as a digestif (in the case of port). There are a number of delicious cocktails and mixed drinks which use these as their base and which offer an opportunity to be a little different. A good sherry choice for cocktails would be a fino, while for port, select a tawny. For more on these two wines,

Wines
 
Entire books have been written on the relative merits of individual wines. It really comes down to a simple matter of taste. The choice of wine or champagne is entirely up to you.

Beer
 
No matter what you have lovingly created, there will always be one person at the party who will want a beer – and nothing else. Take as much trouble with beer as you would with any spirit. Each has its won unique colour and flavor. Check out ‘real ales’ and those available from micro – brew – eries. Beer and ale are also the basis of some interesting cocktails and punches. Stout is a very dark – almost black – ale and is used in a black velvet. Bitter amber ale is used in the punch called brown Betty.

Angostura bitters
 
In the recipes in this book you will frequently see in the ingredients ‘1 or 2 dashes bitters’. Bitters are an essential ingredient of a large number of cocktails. Oddly enough, bitters are bitter if you taste them straight, but their effect in a cocktail is almost the exact opposite. Bitters essences are alcoholic drinks made from roots, flowers, fruits and peels macerated in neutral spirit. The most famous patent bitters are angostura bitters
    Originally made in the town of Angostura, (now Cuidad Bolivar), Venezuela, it is now produced in Trinidad. Angostura has over 40 ingredients, including gentian root and the bark from the cusparia tree. In this book, when you see bitters specified, use angostura bitters. 

Grenadine
 
Grenadine is a sweet syrup flavoured with pomegranate juice, which gives it its rich, rosy – pink colur. Prolonged exposure to the air once the bottle has been opened will make the syrup ferment and mould, so keep an eye on it. To stop the fermentation, you could add about 10 per cent vodka – but remember, your grenadine should not then be used in mocktails! You could perhaps decant some grenadine into another bottle, and vodka to 10 percent of the volume, label it and keep the remainder as ‘unadulterated’. Keep the grenadine in a cool place, but don’t’ refrigerate it as this can cause the sugar to crystallise, or at least harden, which prevents it from mixing easily with other drinks.

Minerals and juices 
 
If you’ve purchased a good quality spirit. Why spoil it with poor quality minerals and juices? Squeeze your own citrus juices or buy the best you can find and serve chilled. A comprehensive selection includes: soda water, cola, tonic water, ginger ale, lemonade, lemon – lime soda, tomato juice, orange juice, cranberry juice, grape juice, pineapple juice, apple juice, grapefruit juice, lemon juice, lime juice and Rose’s Lime Juice, it is also worth trying some of the more ‘exotic’ juices, such as passion fruit, mango, peach and tangerine.

Fresh fruit
 
Freshly squeezed citrus fruits will produce the best juice, Citrus fruits other than lemons turn soft and show spots as they age, while lemons turn hard. While the flesh inside might be OK, it may have an peculiar taste. Choose fruits with bright skins and remember to wash them before using the skin for twists. Once squeezed, fruit juices will slowly start to ferment. Refrigeration will slow the process, but my advice is ‘buy ‘ em fresh, squeeze’ em fresh and use ‘em frsh’.
    Strain lemon and lime juice before use to ensure no pips get in the drink. Likewise, you might want to strain other citrus juices. Strain through a fine nylon sieve to ensure that clear drinks remain unclouded by the juice. If you don’t have the energy or time to hand squeeze your fruit and don’t have one of those fancy electric juicers, try using a miser/blender. Peel the fruit (reserving the peel), pulp it at high speed and strain. Peaches and mangos can be ‘squeezed’ in a blender and yes, you can even do a pineapple this way, but don’t forget to remove the peel, take out the eyes and core and cut it into slices (reserving some slices for garnish) before juicing. If you want to buy your fresh juices ‘ready squeezed’ from a supermarket, check the sell by date to ensure freshness.
    Although there are many famous and delicious cocktails which use cream or milk, none are included in this book. Yoghurt, however, is a wonderful ingredient in mocktails, and you will find a few ‘healthy options’ to try in that section.
    The famous pina colada, possibly the most popular cocktail in the world, does use coconut cream as one of its ingredients. This is very simple to make and the instructions are given alongside the recipe.
    Some bartenders also use a teaspoon of raw egg white or egg yolk to give a cocktail a ‘silver’ and ‘frothy’ or ‘golden’ finish. Although the egg cannot be tasted, many people don’t like the idea of raw egg in their drink. Furthermore, some people may be advised on medical grounds to avoid raw eggs altogether. In this book, drinks that include egg are omitted.

Condiments
 
Drinks with tomato juice, such as the bloody Mary can be ‘spiced up’ according to taste with Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco sauce, ground black pepper and perhaps a few celery seeds.

You will also need
 
Salt 

Preferably coarsely ground, if you want to make the tequila based Margarita or the vodka based salty dog.

Sugar 
in cube form; granulated sugar and castor sugar (sometimes called ‘superfine’ in recipe books). Gomme syrup is simply a sugar syrup and is easy to make. The object is to make the sugar syrup as heavy as possible without crystallization. Gomme syrup is used in place of castor sugar and most bartenders prefer it since there is less risk of there being a sediment at the bottom of the glass and it also saves time.

Spices 
these are used particularly in punches and hot drinks. Nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon and cloves are probably already in your kitchen cupboard.

Garnishes
  green cocktail olives, cocktail onions, springs of fresh mint. Mint is an easy plant to grow in a garden or on a window sill. There are many varieties, including pineapple mint, apple mint and variegated (with yellow and green leaves) varieties. Grow mint in a pot even in the garden that is unless you want your garden full of it as it will spread and overwhelm other plants.
Wedges, slices and twists of orange, lemon slices and lime slices; pineapple and grapefruit slices, maraschino cherries are also useful. Seasonal fruit it always an attractive and delicious garnish for mocktails and party punches: try cool cucumber or apple wedges.

Mocktails
Method : Build
Glass : Highball
Garnish : Lime Wedge

"A great colour  and a lovely, dry taste."

  
Ingredients:

    Ice cubes
    4 measures cranberry juice
    2 measures red grape juice
    2 measures lemon – lime soda
    1 lime wedge


Method:

    Put some ice cubes in a highball glass and pour on the cranberry juice and red grape juice.
    Top with the lemon- lime soda and stir well.
    Garnish with the lime wedge and serve with a stirrer.

 

Brandy Based 
Method : Build
Glass : Old fashioned
Garnish : Sprig of Mint

"Smashes are drinks flavoured with crushed mint- a short version of the mint julep (see page 117). Smashes first appeared in America in the 1850s, and it is believed they took their name from the fine smashed ice used to make them. Smashes can be made in the same way with any spirit: replace the brandy with two measures of either vodka, gin, rum, Scotch,rye or bourbon."

  
Ingredients:

    crushed ice
    2 measures brandy
    ½ measure gomme syrup
    2 sprigs mint
    1 mint sprig for garnish



Method:

    Drop the two-sprigs of mint into the old – fashioned glass.
    Pour in the gomme syrup and gently crush the mint with a muddler.
    Add the brandy and then fill the glass with the crushed ice.
    Garnish with the sprig of mint and serve with a muddler and straws.