Tag: lemon juice

Hot Whiskey Sling

Mixology Monday 11: Winter WarmersYou say “winter warmer,” I think “hot toddy.” I should probably think “hot whiskey sling,” if I’m not mistaken, since I favor them with lemon juice, but “toddy” is the term I’m accustomed to using and bedad if winter warmers aren’t about personal comfort. I’ll call it a sling this once, though, since other people are watching; I recommend executing it thusly:

Remove your shoes and don slippers. If it’s the right time of day, consider pajamas and a robe, too. Take your most favorite mug — chipped and coffee-stained though it may be, it’s the faithful friend that’s seen you through many a nerve-jangling morning — and fill it with water. Fill a measuring cup of similar capacity and microwave it, along with your mug, until the water boils. Empty your now-heated mug and pour a 2-ounceish slug of whiskey into the bottom. If it’s a bonded whiskey, so much the better. Swirl your trusty honey dipper around in its pot until you’ve worked up a nice, thick ball of honey, stick it in the mug, and pour in the scalding hot water, swizzling until the honey is dissolved. Finally squeeze the juice of half a lemon on top of it all, give a final stir or two, and breathe deeply.
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Terribly imprecise, I know, but this one’s a drink to feel your way around. Did I say microwave? I did, and unapologetically. Feel free to put the kettle on for a more satisfying auditory experience, but it’ll just take longer. How sweet should it be? Depends on how you like your coffee or tea. How much booze should it contain? Depends on whether you’re fighting off a cold or just the cold (less, if the former). What kind of booze should it contain? Whiskey, certainly, if you’re going to call it a hot whiskey sling, but you can use whatever base spirit you like. I wouldn’t do gin myself, but there are those who do. How much water? I’d hope you’re drinking out of a thick-walled large-capacity ceramic mug — the kind you can wrap both hands around — and not one of those wee 8 oz. affairs or a poncy glass job, but everyone has their own thing. Go with it, and fill it with as much water as seems right. Personally I like to leave a decent collar to allow easy insertion of a snoot to inhale the fumes. Properly speaking, there should be a dash or two of Angostura bitters on top of it all, but this is one drink that I leave ’em out of. You’ll do what seems right.

I could cite a few official recipes here, but what’s the point of that? You’d likely just adjust the ratios to suit your choice of vessel, alcohol, mood, whathaveyou. I don’t think it’s possible to make a bad hot whiskey sling, unless you make it weak and watery. Avoid that cardinal transgression and you’re home free. Ms. Thirsty complains that hers are never as satisfying as the ones I make her, but I suspect that’s less about execution and more down to the final instruction for a really good winter warmer: have someone else serve it to you. You’re too busy being cold and wanting warming to be shuffling about in the kitchen or bar.

Look for more precise, well-reasoned Winter Warmers from this Mixology Monday to be catalogued shortly at Imbibe Unfiltered, the electronic arm of our liver’s favorite organ.

Update: All told there were 22 entries this month. Read ’em and mix.

The Southside Fizz

MxM: MintThis one from Lucius Beebe’s Stork Club Bar Book of 1946. He includes it in the “Morning at the Stork Club” chapter, but there’s no reason to restrict its service to the hours before noon. The Southside Fizz is really just a pleasant, minty lemonade — unless you’re employing a particularly potent gin, it goes almost unnoticed — suitable whenever a refreshing long drink is indicated.

1 1/2 oz. Gin
Juice of 1/2 lemon
2 sprigs mint
1 tsp. sugar

Shake well, strain into a highball glass and fill with seltzer.
Decorate with a sprig of mint, and a cherry if you’re feeling saucy.
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The quantity of mint should be adjusted depending on the potency of your particular strain of leaf. Two may well be too little. Flakes of leaf will be broken off by the ice when shaking … for the clearest drink, and one which won’t leave unsightly vegetable matter clinging to your guests’ teeth, you may wish to strain through a mesh sieve.

The Pie Slinger

Here’s a random Sunday afternoon concoction. Not so different from an Applejack Sling, it turns out, but richer and more tannic. Almost tea-like.

2 oz. Laird’s applejack
1 oz. Meyer lemon juice
3/4 oz. Tuaca
3/4 oz. pimento dram
2 dashes Fee’s Old Fashioned Bitters

Shake well with cracked ice, strain into highball glass of crushed ice, top with a few squirts of seltzer
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I’ve had some homemade pimento dram on hand for several months now, but haven’t really put it to much complicated use. It’s delicious just splashed into a rocks glass filled with ice and the brown spirit of your choice, which is how I’ve been been working my way through it to date. Do yourself a favor and make some, if you haven’t already… you can’t buy the stuff in the States these days, and it’s a unique addition anytime you’re in the mood for some tropical spice. There’s a boatload of sugar in it as well, which allows pimento dram to serve as a grenadine or simple syrup would, while delivering its allspice punch.

At any rate, a sunny(ish) April afternoon begged for a long(ish) drink of some sort. I was thinking of a Brandy Presbyterian — one of Dad’s favorites — when the unlabeled bottle of pimento dram caught my eye and begged to be included. As someone who’s baked more than his share of apple pies, this was a drink I couldn’t help but concoct. There are countless recipes said to approximate the flavor of hot apple pie — this one’s more like a nice slab of cold apple pie straight from the icebox: fruity, sour, tannic and spicy. It’s a very quaffable cooler.

The Jack Rose

In a discussion of Laird’s Applejack, Catherine asks if there’s a definitive recipe for the Jack Rose. I can do no better than to quote David Embury, writing in 1948:

… if you will examine a dozen books of cocktail recipes, you will find formulas varying all the way from applejack and lemon juice half and half with a few dashes of grenadine to applejack and grenadine half and half with a few drops of lemon juice.

I haven’t found quite the diversity of opinion that Embury cites — doubtless his reference library was broader than mine — but there’s nothing approaching unanimity. Embury himself favors a strong:sour:sweet ratio of 8:2:1, his standard for Sours, while Ted Haigh’s recipe in Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails calls for 1.5 oz applejack, 1 oz lemon juice, and “2 or more dashes” of grenadine, yielding a far more sour ratio of something like 12:8:1. The CocktailDB recipe, on the other hand, proposes a 3:1:1 ratio. David Wondrich’s Esquire Drinks opts for 4:2:1, Trader Vic would have the Jack Rose at a startling 2:2:1, and Regan’s Joy of Mixology instructs that we mix at 10:3:x, copping out with “grenadine to taste.”

Wondrich describes his version as “…smooth and sweetish and deeply deceptive. Sipping it, you can’t tell it contains liquor of any kind, let alone applejack.” Having made one à la Wondrich, I can confirm that assessment. Unfortunately, it’s not the drink I’m looking for, and neither is Haigh’s overly-tart version. De gustibus non disputandum est, but I cast my vote for Embury’s, in which the applejack is foremost. Thus, the Slakethirstian Jack Rose is comprised of:

2 oz. applejack
1/2 oz. lemon juice
1/4 oz. grenadine

Shaken and strained.
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The Ward Eight

An excellent embodiment of the Whiskey Sour, this is essentially Embury’s Ward Eight, though he preferred bourbon to rye. The ratios are a bit inconvenient — 1/4 ounce of orange juice is a vanishingly small portion of an orange — but it’s worth it. If you’re put off, consider the merits of a double, or even a pitcher’s worth if you have compatriots to assist with the disposition.

2 oz. Wild Turkey 101 rye
1/2 oz. lemon juice
1/4 oz. orange juice
1/4 oz. grenadine

shake with cracked ice and strain
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For some reason I had always imagined the titular Ward Eight to be a psychiatric unit housing a straightjacketed Harvey Wallbanger, but the traditional story has it being named by a Boston politician in honor of his district. The earliest recipe on my bookshelf is found in Craddock’s Savoy Cocktail Book of 1930, but HotWired’s venerable (and busted) Cocktail site dated its nominal creation to 1898, from the hands of Tom Hussion at Boston’s Locke-Ober Café.

Be aware that this is, perhaps, the booziest Ward Eight of all the recipes out there — some call for equal parts! — so your mileage when ordering from unknown bartenders will definitely vary.