Kocktails for Kettner's Kabaret

Left to right, Green Fairy, Herr Collins, Perfectly Marvellous and Wilkommen

Tomorrow sees a special event in London, a collaboration between myself and Kettner’s, a long-established restaurant in Soho. This establishment dates back to 1867 and in its time has been a favourite haunt of Oscar Wilde, Bing Crosby and Agatha Christie. It was also where Edward VII used to come for assignations with Lillie Langtry—allegedly there is still a secret tunnel from the Palace Theatre next door where she was performing!

In those days restaurants did a lot more private dining and Kettner’s has two floors of rather sumptuous rooms: for this occasion we are taking over the whole lot of them and putting on a 1920s-themed event, with different things going on in different rooms. Like the Candlelight Club there will be a live band and DJ playing period jazz, plus complimentary swing dance lessons, but in another room there will also be a bill of cabaret acts, plus a vintage photo studio in another room and an absinthe bar in yet another, dispensing samples from the house of Pernod. We also have Oli Hambling, a genius at close-up magic, drifting through the venue amazing and delighting all. And because Kettner’s is, of course, a restaurant, there is also a fine dining option, with a special Germanic five-course menu plus exclusive cabaret performances for diners.

Joel Grey in Bob Fosse's 1972 film version of Cabaret

In keeping with the cabaret element, we’re giving the whole thing a Weimar Berlin theme and calling it Herr Kettner’s Kabaret. Wilkommen, bienvenue, welcome…

Of course there will be cocktails too, devised by Brendan, Kettner’s bar manager. I’ve got hold of the recipes, so I thought I would try them out at home and see what we can expect tomorrow. (I only have a list of ingredients and proportions so in terms of the actual presentation, I’m just guessing!)

Wilkommen
15ml St Germain elderflower liqueur
5ml Funkin raspberry purée
110ml Prosecco

I didn’t have any of the Funkin purée to hand so I just puréed some raspberries (which is why it looks a bit bitty in the photo). This is a delicately balanced drink, with the elderflower and raspberry flavours clear but subtle, and they complement each other perfectly, lending the Prosecco backdrop both a floral layer and a tangy fruit layer, without adding a cloying sweetness. In fact, coming back to this drink from the others I was struck by the earthiness of the combination. If I had to choose a favourite from this collection it would probably be this one—and I believe that this is the welcome cocktail that everyone gets free on arrival, so that is just as well.

Come and unleash your inner Dietrich

Perfectly Marvellous
35ml Plymouth gin
15ml Crème de fraise de bois
50ml passion fruit juice
25ml grapefruit juice

Like the last one, this is named after a song in Cabaret. And it also presents another unexpected pairing, with the intense florality of the passion fruit juice cut through by the bitterness of the grapefruit, plus the buzz of strawberry fruit. In fact it’s striking how much passion fruit and strawberry have in common—once the idea is put into your head you can almost smell strawberries before you add any of the liqueur to the passion fruit juice. The gin itself takes a back seat, providing the engine rather than asserting its character. Again, it’s not heavily sweet like many fruity cocktails, but refreshingly dry, probably helped by the crispness of the grapefruit.

The Green Fairy

10ml Pernod absinthe
10ml Cartron crème de pêche
110ml Prosecco

Elsewhere I’ve seen a recipe that specifies an absinthe-soaked sugar cube. I’ve tried it both ways and to my palate the sugar isn’t necessary, but then I don’t have a terribly sweet tooth. But, as with a classic Champagne Cocktail, it is fun having the sugar cube fizzing away at the bottom of the glass. This is another interesting combo, partnering peach flavours (as in the Bellini cocktail—peach and Prosecco) with absinthe, with its strong anise flavour plus the earthy wormwood and herbaceous fennel. An interesting discovery that works very well.

Herr Collins
40ml Bourbon
25ml lemon juice
15ml gomme syrup
100ml soda water

A classic bourbon Collins (also known as a Colonel Collins), essentially a whiskey sour lengthened with soda water. The muscular woodiness* of the bourbon stands shoulder to shoulder with that classic cocktail building block of lemon and sugar combined, adding an appetising sweet-and-sour body.

After I took the photo, I heard that an extra cocktail had been added, known as the Green Beast.

The Green Beast
1 part Pernod absinthe
1 part simple syrup (here given as equal parts sugar and water)
1 part freshly squeezed lime juice
4 parts water
Build in a glass in order. Add ice and garnish with four thin slices of cucumber.

As the name suggests it is another absinthe-infused potion, this time showcasing the combination of Pernod absinthe, lime and cucumber. Absinthe itself can be a pretty complex drink—twice now I’ve been lucky enough to be a judge on the Spirits Business Absinthe Masters panel, and some examples unfold almost like a walk through the woods, with rooty notes followed by meadow flowers, then moss, then citrus.** So making cocktails from absinthe can enable you to pull out any of these different elements. Here the lime highlights fruit notes and adds body from the tartness combined with sweetness from the sugar, while the cucumber gives a juicy, rather floral emphasis. Not really very bestial, though—actually quite refreshing.

* OK, so something can't logically be muscular and woody at the same time but you know what I mean.
** All right, I don’t know where this wood is that combines all these things…

Cocktails with Jameson Irish Whiskey

Me looking proprietorial at the Jameson Apartment—just before the real barman
came and threw a bar towel at me

If you fancy a drink in London’s Soho area any time between now and 27th October, why not slide by No. 39 Greek Street. Jameson have conjured a pop-up “cinematic speakeasy”* out of the largest of the private dining rooms on the first floor of ancient restaurant Kettner’s, with its own door into the street. As well as an agreeably quirky room, with lush oak panelling and a moulded plaster ceiling, you get to enjoy a menu of cocktails made with Jameson.

Not only that, but I will be there in a sort of “host” capacity every night except tonight, Sunday 16th. (We’re also having Candlelight Club parties on the Saturdays, but those are ticketed events and I’m afraid they have sold out.) So do swing by and say hello.

I must say that Celtic style whisk(e)y—as opposed to American style—is not something that obviously springs to my mind as a cocktail ingredient, and specifically Irish whiskey less so. But now that I am spending my evenings as a professional barfly I have had the chance to find out how well the stuff works in cocktails.

There aren’t so many classic cocktails featuring Scotch, apart from things like the Rob Roy (essentially a Manhattan made with Scotch)—and, if I’m honest, the Rob Roy is a pretty good example of why.** There is something pungent about Scotch which seems to quarrel with so many other ingredients. Ed McAvoy, now a Jameson ambassador, who designed the drinks at the Apartment, says it is the smokiness in Scotch that causes this problem. I have certainly found that trying to use a really smoky, iodine-flavoured Islay malt to make a Godfather cocktail failed dismally because the whisky worked so badly with the Amaretto.

But Jameson don’t smoke any of their grain. And they also triple distil their whiskey, whereas most blended Scotch is apparently only twice distilled. Given that, with each distillation, the “heads and tails”—the very first and very last vapours to emerge, which contain undesirable parts of the alcohol spectrum—are discarded, the more times you repeat the process, in theory, the more “pure” a spirit you’ll end with. This purity may or may not be what you are after (and at the Boutique Bar Show recently I tasted the single-distilled Polish Vestal Vodka which is hair-raisingly full of characterful congeners), but apparently the smooth approachability of Jameson can be attributed to the triple distillation.

Ed’s cocktails contain some bold flavours, but the other ingredients aren’t there to mask the flavour of the Jameson. Rather, he has spotlighted some unexpected combinations that work really well with the woody, caramel flavours of the whiskey. Combinations such as whiskey and kiwi fruit in his Jameson Emerald Presse or Jameson and raspberry in the Jameson Macree. Elsewhere he plays up the caramel character, such as in the Irish Martini that uses butterscotch schnapps and textural pear juice (which manages to be silky and slightly grainy at the same time)—and despite the name contains none of the ingredients of a Martini—and the Jameson Caramel Manhattan, one of my favourites:

Jameson Caramel Manhattan
35ml Jameson
15ml caramel liqueur
12.5ml red vermouth
25ml pineapple juice
2 dashes of Peychaud’s bitters

Shake all ingredients with ice and fine strain into a chilled glass. Squeeze a lemon twist over the top (and discard) and garnish with a pineapple wedge on the rim.

What hits you first is the caramel, backed up by the whiskey. The pineapple juice, by comparison, creeps up on you. In fact if you didn’t know what was in it you might struggle to work out what was giving that balancing character, the rather spiky flavour of the juice evening out the sweet burnt sugar of the caramel. The only problem with this cocktail is that it is so moreish you are tempted to finish it too quickly!

Another of my favourites is this one:

Jameson Apricot Sour
35ml Jameson
12.5ml apricot brandy
20ml apricot purée
20ml pressed cloudy apple juice
10ml freshly squeezed lemon juice

Shake and strain. Again the caramel warmth of the whiskey marries delightfully with the apricot, and the lemon juice and rind oil give it a wake-up zest. I tried this using apricot jam and it works well, though I personally think that the cocktail tastes better with 50ml of whiskey. Even Mrs H. agreed and she admits she doesn’t really like whiskey—but really likes this cocktail. Job done, Ed.

* The cinematic connection is that Jameson sponsor the BFI London Film Festival, which runs for precisely the period that the Apartment is there, and other film festivals around the world too. I gather the film link is all about storytelling, and an idea of a specific Irish love of storytelling as part of any convivial—and therefore whiskey-fuelled—evening.
** Though if you want to try probably the nicest Rob Roy you are likely to come across, try the ready-mixed, bottled version from Master of Malt.