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Summer is here. Time to cool off. Cocktail coolers have long been a fixture in the mixological world. This particular refresher comes from the classic Savoy Cocktail Book of 1930. Like their cousins, Tom Collins and the Fizzes, coolers are served in a tall glass with plenty of ice and topped with soda water.

Any number of drinks are named for schools of higher learning, and today we are off to Harvard, that venerable academy of tippling and lyceum of the well-shaken drink.

Juice of half a lemon or one lime

1/2 Tablespoon of fine sugar (rich simple syrup)

3 oz. Applejack or Calvados (apple brandy)

Shake well with ice until cold, strain into a tall, ice-filled tumbler and top with soda water. Garnish with a lemon and/or lime slice and serve with a straw. Adjust the sugar to taste.

Veritas.

Crème de Menthe might be one of those liqueurs that one either loves or hates. To be honest, I’m not a big fan. However, it’s still popular in a lot of overly sweet modern concoctions, and it was certainly a mainstay of the well-appointed liquor cabinet and bar when Harry Craddock published his book in 1930. “The Savoy Cocktail Book” has no less than eighteen libations that use it. Here’s one named for the famous street in London’s St James area.

Pall Mall Cocktail

1 dash Orange Bitters

1 tsp. White Creme de Menthe

1 oz. Sweet Vermouth

1 oz. Dry Vermouth

1 oz. London Dry Gin

Shake well and strain into a cocktail glass.

Before there were cocktails (as we know them), there were punches; lots and lots of punches. Big bowls of swirling booze and fruit juice ladled out by the cupful to an anxious party of imbibers. When Jerry Thomas, the great-granddaddy of modern mixology, came to publish his book, “The Bartenders Guide,” he had already thought of distilling the contents of the punch bowl down to a single serving glass. One such was the Mississippi Punch.

[as written in the 1887 edition of his book]

(Use a large bar-glass)

Take 1 wine-glass of brandy.

1/2 wine-glass of Jamaica rum.

1/2 wine-glass of Bourbon whiskey.

1 table-spoonful of powdered white sugar, dissolved in a little water.

The juice of half a small lemon.

Fill the glass with shaved ice, shake well, and ornament with fruit in season. Serve with a straw.

[modern translation]

2 oz. Brandy

1 oz Jamaica Rum

1 oz Bourbon

1/2 oz Simple syrup

1/2 oz Fresh lemon juice

Shake with ice and strain into a glass filled with shaved or crushed ice. Top with fresh fruit and serve with a straw.

This is a tall drink served over ice. It’s also very boozy. The lemon juice and sugar can easily be adjusted to suit individual tastes. The ornament of fruit is, of course, optional, but it makes a nice touch; a bit of old-fashioned flair seldom seen these days.

The venerable Mojito. We’ve all had one. Most are horrible; made with cheap ingredients and less than thoughtful preparation. It’s a deceptively simple concoction and thus, like the Martini, requires quality ingredients and a bit more work than just tossing bottom shelf rum and sour mix into an ice-filled glass.

With only four ingredients, use the best and freshest. That means squeezing your own limes (so simple, yet some still inexplicably rely on the stuff in the plastic bottles), and homemade rich simple syrup (it’s called simple for a reason). Simply simmer two parts sugar (demerara preferred) to one part water, stirring until the sugar dissolves. It takes maybe five minutes. Let it cool and store it in the frig. Now, how difficult was that? So, let’s make one.

2 1/2 oz Rum

3/4 oz Fresh lime juice

1/2 oz Rich simple syrup

Several whole mint leaves

Soda water

In your shaker, gently muddle the mint leaves with the simple syrup. Add the rum, lime juice, half the lime shell cut into quarters, and ice. Shake vigorously and strain into an ice-filled Collins or rocks glass. Top with a splash of soda and garnish with a fresh mint sprig. Serve with straws.

Very refreshing! Both light and dark rums work well with this recipe, so pick your favorite. If you like your Mojito sweeter, or are using regular (not rich) simple syrup, you can increase the sugar to 3/4 oz.

Bottoms Up!

I’ll never figure out where this cocktail’s name came from, so let’s just move on, shall we?

This boozy libation is found in Jacques Straub’s Manual of Mixed Drinks from 1913. The recipe is as follows:

3/4 oz Old Tom Gin

3/4 oz Apple Brandy

3/4 oz Italian (Sweet) Vermouth

1/2 oz Yellow Chartreuse

Stir with ice until cold and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. No garnish is called for, but a cherry would not go awry.

A note on the ingredients: get yourself a bottle of Old Tom Gin for this one. It will meld much better with the other ingredients and add a certain complexity that your typical London Dry will not. American apple brandy will work fine, but French Calvados will be better. Use your very best vermouth, and you can substitute Green for Yellow Chartreuse if you don’t have the latter. With everything but the vermouth at least 80 proof, this is a strong drink. Though boozy, it doesn’t taste like it. It’s quite a complicated taste profile, both herbal and sweet, with a slight bite from the gin and brandy. The complex ingredients meld well into a smooth, sipping cocktail.

Some cocktails have evocative, memorable names. The Waxen is not one of them. That’s a shame because this drink should be better known. Well, now you know it, so spread the word!

CHEERS!

I am continually curious over the origins of cocktail names. Some are fairly obvious: “The Algonquin” was named for the famous round table of writers and wits at the hotel in Manhattan of the same name. Some are named for popular slang or colloquialisms such as “The Hoop La!” Other names are just aggravatingly obscure for those of us who feel they must know. I can think of no real rationale for “The Green Room Cocktail” name. I stumbled across it while perusing Harry Craddock’s The Savoy Cocktail Book. Was the barroom at the Savoy green in the 1920s? Or perhaps it’s meant to be a tipple for a nervous actor before going onstage. Who knows? With so many hundreds of cocktails, I suppose you have to call it something.

2 oz French (dry) Vermouth

1 oz Brandy

1/4 oz Curacao or Grand Marnier

Stir with ice until cold and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

This is obviously a vermouth-forward cocktail, so use your very best bottle. Sorry, but Martini and Rossi is not really going to cut it with this one. The use of Grand Marnier, which is brandy-based, over plain Curacao will also help this cocktail. No garnish is called for, but an orange twist would certainly not be out of place here.

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Drink today, and drown all sorrow; 
You shall perhaps not do it tomorrow;
Best, while you have it, use your breath;
There is no drinking after death.

I would never advocate using alcohol to chase the blues away, but let’s face it, everyone does. From time immemorial, people have been drowning their sorrows in bottles of booze. So, if you’re going to contemplate shuffling off that mortal coil, put the rot-gut aside and at least fix yourself a creative cocktail. By the time you’re done, you’ll probably find that life is worth living after all.

2 oz. Whiskey (Rye or Bourbon of choice)

1/2 oz. Curacao or Grand Marnier

1 teaspoon prune juice (yes, prune juice; that’s not a typo)

Dash of rich simple syrup (optional)

Shake with ice until very cold and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

You’re not going to easily find this drink online. There are far too many blue-colored cocktails out there for this one to make it to the first results page. Also, the prune juice is going to put a lot of people off, but I strongly suggest you give it a try. Actually, you can go a little heavy on the prune juice, but if that scares you, add an additional dash of simple syrup with the teaspoon of juice. I prefer bourbon in this one for the added sweet richness. The Blues Cocktail shows up in a number of old cocktail manuals including “The Merry Mixer” (1933), and the ever-present “The Savoy Cocktail Book” (1930). According to Harry Craddock (Savoy Cocktail Book): “This cocktail removes the Blues if you have them and gives you the Blue Devils if you haven’t.”

CHEERS!

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The Imperial Cocktail was intended to attract that better class of patron to your establishment, thus elevating your reputation from a slinger of booze to a mixologist of the highest order with the cache to serve the crowned heads of Europe.

The cocktail is simplicity itself, being for all intents and purposes, a Fancy Martini. This recipe is found in “Daly’s Bartender’s Encyclopedia,” published in 1903. It is about this time that one finds the martini-style drinks (gin and vermouth) slowly shifting from the sweet Italian libation to the drier versions utilizing French vermouth. The recipe calls specifically for Plymouth Gin, but if you do not have it (you should for it is delicious), any good London dry gin should suffice. The vermouth should be the best you can get as it makes up half the drink.

1.5 oz Plymouth Gin

1.5 oz French (Dry) Vermouth

2 dashes of Aromatic Bitters such as Angostura

1 dash of Maraschino liqueur

Stir well with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with an olive.

According to Daly, this drink was “very popular with Europeans of the better class, particularly the French, who are extremely fond of cordials of all descriptions.”

Cheers!

This cocktail seems to be a relative latecomer to the classic cocktail cannon which seems unusual. The recipe is quite old-fashioned in a way being, for all intents and purposes, a perfect fancy martini. Perfect in that it uses equal parts of sweet and dry vermouth, and fancy being the addition of small additives (in this case a few dashes of triple sec and lemon). This particular drink was found in “Cocktails” by ‘Jimmy,’ Late of Ciro’s, London” published in 1930. It is also found in the inimitable Harry Craddock’s “The Savoy Cocktail Book” (1930) and Harry McElhone’s “Barflies and Cocktails” of 1927. At the time of writing, I could not find it in any earlier work.

The recipe is simplicity itself.

The Journalist Cocktail

1 ½ oz Dry Gin

¾ oz Sweet Vermouth

¾ oz Dry Vermouth

2 dashes Triple Sec (or Cointreau)

2 dashes Lemon Juice (fresh)

1 dash Angostura Bitters

Shake with ice and strain into a chilled Cocktail glass. No garnish was called for, but a lemon and/or orange twist would not be out of place.

CHEERS!

There are few cocktails with a name as evocative and enigmatic as the Widow’s Kiss. One wonders why the author of this drink should ascribe so many tastes to the osculation of some gentleman’s relict, or who was the widow whose kiss was thus commemorated. I imagine we shall never know.

The earliest reference I can find for this libation is George Kappeler’s “Modern American Drinks” from 1895 and that is the recipe I present here. Over the next two decades, at least three different drinks emerged with the same sobriquet. None are as interesting and two would be so sweet as to be nearly undrinkable. Therefore, we will stick with Kappeler’s original, though it, too, will tend toward the sweet side.

The Widow’s Kiss cocktail

• 1 1/2 oz Calvados or Apple Brandy
• 3/4 oz Yellow Chartreuse
• 3/4 oz Benedictine
• 2 dashes Angostura Bitters

Stir ingredients with ice then strain into a fancy cocktail glass.

Kappeler says to shake the drink, but I would definitely stir this one. Also, no garnish is called for, but a cherry and/or a thin sliver of tart apple would not be out of place here in what is a very herbaceous and boozy drink. Both the Chartreuse and the Benedictine have a high alcohol content, so this will be one widow’s kiss that is more like a smack.