Experimenting with monkey glands

Early in one’s drinking career one will encounter spirits lengthened with mixers—gin and tonic, rum and coke, perhaps whisky and ginger ale (or whisky and soda water, if you are of a different generation). It was when I was a student that I first encountered gin and orange juice. I was sceptical, as I was inclined to think of OJ as a wholesome breakfast beverage, not a louche partner-in-crime to the Demon Drink, the innocent-faced, outwardly respectable enabler that distracts you from the hard spirits you are guzzling. It didn’t not work, but it was clearly intended as a way to mask the flavour of the spirit.

It was later, when I had found a copy of Cocktails and How to Mix Them (1922) “by ‘Robert’ [Vermeire] of the American Bar, Casino Municipale, Nice, and late of the Embassy Club, London”, that I first encountered the Monkey Gland cocktail. The name comes from experiments conducted at the time by surgeon Serge Voronoff, who believed he could boost longevity/virility by surgically implanting monkey testicle tissue into men. The cocktail was created by Harry MacElhone, who opened Harry’s Bar in Paris (though Vermeire identifies him by his tenure at Ciro’s in London) and I assume the name was chosen to suggest that the effect it had on the drinker was invigorating, even rejuvenating—and not that it left you feeling like you’d just woken up from surgery (or, even worse, feeling the way the monkey did when, and if, he woke up).

It’s a mix of gin and orange juice, with grenadine and absinthe. Recipes vary, but it is roughly equal parts gin and OJ, with small quantities of the other two ingredients. I tried it at the time, using Pernod (this was the 1990s and absinthe hadn’t made its triumphant return by then) and commercial grenadine, and I don’t think I was terribly impressed.

I was reminded of this drink again when Mrs H. recently gave me a copy of An Anthology of Cocktails, put out by Booth’s gin in 1935.* It features a whole list of celebs of the time with a recommended cocktail for each one and a cheesy testimony from them on the glories of Booth’s. For example, man of the turf Lord Westmorland declares, so we are led to believe, “A cocktail without Booth’s is a cocktail under a handicap,” while actress Sybil Thorndike asserts that, “A cocktail in which Booth’s plays a leading part receives an enthusiastic reception from the most captious critics,” while racing driver Brian Lewis blurts, “A party without Booth’s is like a car without wheels.” Quite how the Great and the Good were persuaded to lend their names (and indeed their signatures, printed alongside) to these abortions of the copywriter’s art boggles the mind.

The volume also includes a list of London clubs and theatres that serve Booth’s and a list of top barmen from the city with their favourite Booth’s recipes. You can see a page-turning PDF of the whole book at https://euvs-vintage-cocktail-books.cld.bz/1955-An-Anthology-of-Cocktails.

The Monkey Gland as such does not appear—the cocktails recommended by Booth’s for the celebs do tend to have a name that is relevant (Brian Lewis gets the Self Starter, winter sportsman the Earl of Northesk gets the Snowball, Ivor Novello gets the Star, etc), so I doubt that any of them would have appreciated being paired with the Monkey Gland—but it does feature a number of cocktails that similarly feature fruit juice not as a mixer to lengthen but as an ingredient, in amounts less than that of the base spirit. The Star, for example, is half-and-half gin and Calvados, plus a dash each of French and Italian vermouth, and only a teaspoon of grapefruit juice. The Smiler cocktail, recommended by horse breeder Tom Walls (“Would that the pedigree of a horse were as reliable a guide as the name of Booth’s on a bottle of gin,” he creaks) is essentially a Martini made with a blend of French and Italian vermouth, Angostura bitters and just a dash of Orange juice.

As it happens I had an orange looking for a purpose in life, and I was inspired to give the Monkey Gland another go. The upshot was most uplifting but I had to do a lot of experimenting to get there.

In the first instance I would say that the proportions are probably the most important part. Get the gin/OJ balance wrong and things go awry. Exactly how much grenadine you use may depend on how sweet your tooth is; but it is very easy to throw the whole thing out by using too much absinthe—in one attempt I escalated the absinthe to a whole ½ tsp and it ruined the drink. It should be a playful suggestion of pungent herbal flavours lurking in the background. The simplest way to keep that under control is to start by rolling some absinthe around your mixing vessel, then pouring it all out back into the bottle. What is left clinging to the sides of the shaker is all you need.

I also found that squeezing the orange juice freshly makes a big difference. It doesn’t exactly fail with commercial OJ from a carton, but this will make a more watery drink. Juice squeezed from an orange is sweeter and more intensely flavoured, with sharp aromatic notes from the rind oils. I imagine that when all these early cocktails with small amounts of fruit juice were developed, cartons of ready-squeezed juice may not have been available, so if a recipe specified the juice of a citrus fruit it was assumed that you would produce this by squeezing an actual fruit.

Monkey Gland
50ml gin (Adnams Copper House)
37.5ml freshly squeezed OJ
Absinthe rinse (La Fée new formula)
½ tsp grenadine
Coat the shaker with a rinse of absinthe and drain. Add the other ingredients and shake with ice. Strain into a cocktail glass and squeeze a strip of orange peel over the top.

As mentioned, the gin/orange balance is important, so neither swamps the other, a balance of sweetness, fruitiness and spirit warmth. When it’s right, interesting chocolate flavours emerge. Maybe it’s the use of freshly squeezed OJ, but the spirit and juice seem to integrate in a way that suggests the rich orange character of curaçao. I also tried varying the gin brand, using Anno instead, and it still works, though I found that the approachable, fruity, floral character of Adnams Copper House sat more comfortably. I didn’t try varying the absinthe brand, but as long as it is real absinthe (avoid anything that is a bluish green, which is artificial; naturally coloured absinthe tends to be an olive green) I would imagine it’ll be OK in these proportions.**

Grenadine is traditionally a pomegranate syrup, and I have previously railed against modern commercial grenadines, which are actually based on “red berries”, and probably don’t even feature any real ones of those anyway. But it is easy to make a good one, not too sweet, with some of the tannic dryness of the fruit, by mixing equal parts by volume of 100% pomegranate juice (POM Wonderful is the brand I have used in the past) and granulated sugar, heated in a pan to dissolve, then cooled. I keep some in the fridge and it never seems to go off.

*Most of the recipes specify “Booth’s gin”, and more than once the text refers to the “mellow” or “matured” character—DBS tells me that Booth’s was actually rested in wood barrels (casks previously used for sherry or Burgundy, depending on the era) for 6–12 weeks to soften its rough edges. Some of the recipes, on the other hand, specify “Booth’s dry gin”; certainly by the mid-20th century Booth’s were selling their High and Dry Gin, claiming to be “the driest gin in the world”, though I’m not sure if, at the time this booklet was published, they were selling both versions. Sadly there is nothing actually about the product within its pages. Aged gin has become fashionable again (and in fairness Seagram’s have always rested their gin in wood for 3–4 weeks). In recent years a Booth’s Cask Mellowed Gin has been produced again.

** I see that the International Bartenders Association gives their prescribed recipe as even leaner: 50ml gin, 30ml OJ and just two drops each of grenadine and absinthe.

One small dinger for mankind

A Small Dinger

I have a troubled relationship with grenadine.

It’s an age-old cocktail ingredient, a syrup or cordial traditionally made from pomegranate (it’s name coming from grenade, French for pomegranate), sometimes slightly alcoholic. But modern grenadine is berry-based, mostly blackcurrant. Syrup merchants Monin acknowledge this shift by producing both a “grenadine” and a “pomegranate syrup”. I don’t know why this change happened—perhaps because traditional grenadine is both sweet and tart, and modern palates maybe hanker after something less edgy.

In any case, I find all commercial grenadines have a bubblegum confectionary flavour that, even in small quantities, ruins most cocktails. (Monin’s pomegranate syrup is better, but still a bit synthetic.) So nowadays I make my own, very simply, by mixing equal parts POM Wonderful pomegranate juice (it comes in a dopey-looking segmented bottle but it is 100% pomegranate, apparently) with granulated sugar, heated in a pan until it all dissolves then allowed to cool. (Normal cocktail syrup I make with a ratio of two parts sugar by volume to one part water, but when I tried that with pomegranate juice I discovered that it set into a jelly at room temperature. Something like pectin in the juice? Who knows. But at 1:1 it stays liquid and, kept in the fridge, it seems to avoid going mouldy for a surprisingly long time.)

Anyway, I mention all this because I’d like to introduce you to a cocktail that, for my money, makes grenadine taste good. It’s called a Small Dinger* and I noticed it printed on the frontispiece of the 1935 reprint of Bar Florida Cocktails, in the 2008 facsimile edition produced by Ross Bolton. Its appeal lay in its simplicity and, at the same time, its oddness, mixing rum and gin, augmented only with the straightforward sweet-and-sour combo of grenadine and lemon juice.**

Small Dinger
1 shot gin
1 shot rum
½ shot grenadine
½ lemon juice
Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

But the really odd thing about the Small Dinger is that it really works. For me this is what cocktails are all about—you can pick out the contributions of all the ingredients, but the whole is somehow greater than the sum of its parts. On the nose you notice the fruitiness of the grenadine, then on the tongue you get a clear warmth from the rum, with the sugar spirit flavour coming through, plus the high juniper notes and dry spice complexity of the gin. And the sweet/tart of the grenadine fruit marries well: this is actually quite a high proportion of grenadine (many recipes call for just a dash) but it does not seem cloying as it both has a clear space for itself in the mix and is balanced by the sourness of the lemon juice. (You may need to juggle the exact proportions depending on the sweetness of the grenadine.)

The original recipe for the Small Dinger. Click to enlarge

I first tried this cocktail with Botran Reserva rum—I am, as you know, a fan of the whole Botran range. I’ve also tried it with Havana Club 7-year-old. But, as you can see, the original recipe specifies Bacardi rum (back in those days Bacardi was still made in Cuba, rather than Puerto Rico, Spain and other places, as it is now), a white rum, I assume; so I also tried it with Botran Reserva Blanca and Brugal Blanco. Frankly it works with all of them, though my personal preference would be the darker Botran Reserva, where the complex mid-range notes of dried fruit, vanilla an chocolate slot nicely in with the fresh fruit flavours and the high spice notes of the gin (I’ve been using Tanqueray as a typical, classic style for this experiment).

All I can really say is: try it. It needs no special ingredients (well, I would advise making your own grenadine, though it may work with commercial stuff) but represents that sort of mixological earth magic that we all have easy access to.

* You will find some suggestions online that the name is lewd, but so far as I can tell a dinger is just a contraction of 19th-century humdinger—a thing that is an excellent example of its kind.

** It’s not a common cocktail but some recipes you’ll find actually specify lime juice. It’s a bit of a controversy because some of these early Cuban books talk about limón verde, meaning lime, but which was sloppily translated just as “lemon”. Yet this recipe, as you can see, specifies simply jugo limon, so I assume we’re on fairly safe ground using lemon juice. It works nicely with lime too.

Halloween cocktails

I don’t normally go in for visually gimmicky cocktails (in fact I’m even fairly suspicious of garnishes unless, like, say, a lemon peel twist, they clearly add something to the smell and taste). But somehow Halloween seems a bit of an exception: so for the Candlelight Club Ball this weekend I have included a couple of drinks that use creepy layering effects.

The Black Widow: I'm sure there was an ice lolly like this when I was a kid

I suspect people have been floating vodka for years but I admit it had never occurred to me. The Black Widow is adapted from something I found online, created, I assume, for Blavod, a vodka coloured a blueish black using catechu, a herb found in southern Asia and central and east Africa, which it is claimed also makes the vodka smoother; essentially it looks like squid ink but tastes like vodka. The Black Widow is basically a vodka and cranberry juice but I’ve added some Angostura to give it a bit more character (and these bitters have a gingery element that feels seasonal), plus some grenadine,* which you can also layer by dropping it in and letting it sink, like in a Tequila Sunrise. Mind you, against the cranberry juice the grenadine layer doesn’t really show up much. The Blavod layer is remarkably easy to achieve: even if you just pour it in from the bottle the layer forms, though if you use a speed pourer and pour over the back of a spoon you get a neater effect. When it comes actually to drinking the thing, I personally find it is better to mix it all up, though it then turns a pinky grey colour.

Black Widow
2 shots Blavod black vodka
½ shot grenadine*
Dash Angostura Bitters
Cranberry juice
Fill a highball with ice, add a dash of Angostura and fill with cranberry juice to within about an inch of the top. Add the grenadine, which will sink to the bottom. Then float the vodka on the top—it will form an eerie black layer.

The Vampire Kiss is also adapted from an idea I found online; there are several cocktails out there using the name, but this one was originally created by or for Finlandia vodka. However, I took it a step further by making a rose vodka, simply by adding a decent rose petal extract (about two tsp) to a bottle of vodka. (Be warned: some essences, such as the first one I tried, are actually oil-based, which would be fine for making cakes, etc. But the ABV of a typical vodka is not enough to dissolve oil, which requires about 70%.)

If you can keep your vodka cold then this cocktail does not require any shaking: just build in a glass and when you add the Chambord or other crème de framboise it will form a subtle and rather pretty layer. I would have liked to use a candy crucifix as a garnish, but no one seems to make them!

The Vampire Kiss

Vampire Kiss
1½ shots rose vodka
½ shot crème de framboise
Sparkling wine or Champagne top
Garnish: maraschino cherry
Keep the vodka in the freezer/fridge, or on ice, and add 1½ shots to a coupe glass. Top with wine, then add the crème de framboise, which will sink slightly forming a subtle layered effect. Garnish with a cherry.

The other cocktails we’ll be serving are a bit more conventional, but appropriate, I hope. The Apple Bob is a twist on the Dry Martini (and is in fact virtually identical to the Poteeni I came up with for St Patrick’s Day, but using gin instead of poteen), with an autumnal apple flavour. (I can’t explain why the elderflower is in there—somehow the blossomy taste gives the cocktail the extra layer it needs.)

Apple Bob
2 shots gin
1 shot dry vermouth
1 shot apple juice
½ shot Monin Green Apple Syrup
½ shot elderflower cordial
Garnish: apple slice or apple peel spiral
Shake everything together and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a bit of apple if so desired.

The Jack-o’-Lantern was born of a desire to have something that looked orange and tasted somehow like pumpkin. There are recipes out there that use spiced pumpkin purée (which you can even buy ready-made in a can), as you would find in pumpkin pie, but when I tried using this it produced something that looked like pond sludge. I actually quite liked the savoury note from the pumpkin itself, but in the end I plumped for using the spices (cinnamon, cloves, ginger and nutmeg) to flavour a syrup instead. The syrup is brownish, which, along with the rum, gives the colour, though if you use an orange curaçao (rather than a clear one) it helps; ginger ale also gives a better colour, though I think it tastes nicer with ginger beer.

Jack-o’-Lantern
2 shots golden or dark rum
½ shot curaçao or triple sec
½ shot pumpkin spice syrup
¼ shot lemon juice
Ginger beer top
Garnish: Orange wedge
Shake everything with ice and strain into a coupe glass. Garnish with a wedge of orange.

Finally, I wanted to include at least one vintage cocktail, and fortunately its name allowed me to justify the Corpse Reviver No.2. If you look in the Savoy Cocktail Book (1930) it specifies Kina Lillet, a fortified wine with quinine in it which would have added bitterness. This was discontinued some time ago; there seems to be some debate about what it tasted like though there are a number of products that arguably go some way towards recreating it, such as Kina Martini and Cocchi Americano (Lillet themselves insist that their modern Lillet Blanc is virtually the same except that it is actually less sweet than Kina Lillet). Ted Haigh specifies Lillet Blanc and I have always used that, though in fact for me the resulting cocktail is too sweet and orangey (Lillet being a fortified and sweetened wine flavoured with oranges), so I have always increased the gin and reduced the Cointreau. However, I noticed recently that Simon Difford specifies dry vermouth instead. Having tried it this way I am completely converted, and I find it balances perfectly using the original blend of equal parts of all the main ingredients.

Corpse Reviver No.2
Dash/rinse of absinthe
1 shot gin
1 shot Cointreau
1 shot Noilly Prat
1 shot lemon juice
Garnish: maraschino cherry
Rinse the glass with a dash of absinthe. Shake remaining ingredients with ice and strain into a coupe glass. Garnish with a cherry.

* I always find commercial grenadines rather synthetic tasting, and even a small amount can ruin a cocktail. So I’ve recently taken to making a simple version just by blending equal parts by volume of granulated sugar and POM Wonderful pomegranate juice. Bung it all in a saucepan and heat gently until all the sugar dissolves then allow to cool.

On the use of Champagne in cocktails

A French '75. (The sugar cube quickly loses
its cubeness and becomes more of a heap)

I've largely given up ordering Champagne cocktails in bars, having come to the conclusion that the classic versions offered in many have far too much brandy (and often too much Angostura). I'm guessing this is because these components are a lot cheaper than the Champagne itself, though it may just be a sort of gleeful "more is more" ineptitude. (At 43 South Moulton I watched as the barman—who was full of cocky confidence in his mixological wisdom—placed a sugar cube on the bar top and literally saturated it with bitters, before slopping it into a glass which he filled a good third full with brandy.)

I feel that if you’re going to make a mixed drink with Champagne you should be able to taste that Champagne and the recipes should be subtle. For the record, I would take a sugar cube, splash three or four drops of bitters on to it then place it in a champagne flute. Over this I pour enough cognac just to cover it, then top up with Champagne. (This is based on glasses a good five inches tall.)

When I became interested in the French ’75, a mixture of champagne, gin, lemon juice and sugar, I tried applying the same principle. The drink takes its name from a French 75mm cannon from the First World War—and the naming is ascribed variously to the experience of drinking it being like the impact of a 75mm shell, or to the combination of typically British and French ingredients representing some sort of entente cordiale. Its invention is often attributed to Harry McElhone (of Harry’s American Bar in Paris), although Harry himself apparently attributed the drink to MacGarry of Buck's Club in London (home of the Buck's Fizz; it's also no accident that the barman at Woodhouse's Drones Club is also named McGarry*). Many are actually under the impression that the drink originated during Prohibition in the US (where it became popular at the Stork Club), though Simon Difford feels that it is unlikely the Americans would name a drink after a (metric unit) French WWI gun, especially given that the war would have been long over by the time Prohibition came along.**

The 1930 Savoy Cocktail Book has the ingredients as described above (apparently the first recipe to appear in print), though it's worth noting that David Embury in his classic The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks from 1948 seems to think the standard version uses cognac and that gin is a variation. More strangely, Larrousse Cocktails (UK edition 2005) by Fernando Castellon states that the original French '75 used calvados instead of the Champagne, and that it was McElhone who made the switch. I can't help thinking that if this were true it is scarcely the same drink, though if there was originally a drink called a French '75 containing gin, calvados, lemon juice and sugar, then you can't argue with that. (I must try it.) Castellon does not give his sources, however. In Robert Vermeire's Cocktails: How to Mix Them (1922, though I admit my copy is the twelfth edition) his recipe for a Champagne cocktail*** has you "squeeze the essence of two or three pieces of lemon peel into the glass" and add another piece to the drink, suggesting a pretty close relationship between the two cocktails. It's easier to see the French '75 as evolving from the Champagne cocktail than from the drink Castellon describes.

Most people seem to use 1½ or 2 measures of gin, about ½–1 measure of lemon juice and about a teaspoon of sugar syrup or fine sugar. These are stirred or shaken and added to a glass to which the Champagne is then added. Some recipes add triple sec, calvados or grenadine. Some serve the drink on the rocks and some with a maraschino cherry.

This version came as the result of my tinkering along the lines of the classic Champagne cocktail described above.

1 sugar lump
3–4 drops of orange bitters
Juice of ¼ of a lemon
About a measure of gin
Champagne

Splash the bitters on to the sugar cube and place this at the bottom of a flute. Add enough gin just to cover the cube. Add the lemon juice then top up with champagne, stirring gently if necessary, but not with the intention of dissolving the sugar cube—it should sit there at the bottom, bubbling away and gradually breaking down. Although the classic version is supposed to derive its firepower from the quantity of gin, making it this way means you can still taste the Champagne’s character as well as the gin coming through, plus hints of rind oil from the bitters, all freshened by the lemon. Of course it becomes sweeter as the sugar dissolves and as you get closer to its source at the bottom, but, hey, life is about change.

*Oddly, no one seems to agree on MacGarry's Christian name—I've heard Pat, or Malachy—or even whether it was McGarry, MacGarry or Macgarry
**Of course the basic principle of adultering Champagne was much older—the Champagne cocktail is mentioned by Jerry Thomas in 1862. The Seelbach, a combination of bourbon, triple sec, Angostura bitters and Peychaud's bitters with Champagne, was invented in 1917 at the Seelbach hotel in Louisville, Kentucky, though apparently lost until rediscovered by the hotel in 1995. I've not tried it but it sounds interesting.
***In fairness Vermeire does also have you "soak" the sugar cube in bitters, but I still think this is OTT.

My Gripe with Grenadine

My Gripe with Grenadine

(Trying to find that sweet, sweet pomegranate flavour)

I am a fan of classic cocktails and there are quite a few of these that call for the use of Grenadine. A well known example is The Clover Club, and a lesser known one is The New Sheridan Club. So it was with sadness that I recently finished up the first and only bottle of Grenadine that I have ever purchased (I have not yet finished a bottle of Angostura though).

After my immediate melancholy had passed, I regained my composure and went to the local hypermarket to pick up a replacement and, costing just three British Pounds, I thought it a steal. Getting back and fixing my good lady wife a Clover Club, I was taken aback when she thought it tasted like berries. A closer inspection of my new bottle revealed all.

Grenadine is a red, pomegranate-flavoured sugar syrup, but the impostor in my pantry contained "Red Berries", not the seeded apple of choice. At the very next opportunity, I hunted for a version with a pomegranate flavour, but everywhere I turned, I found the flavour of red berries; even the very respectable Monin has succumbed to this main-streaming.

Main-streaming is right; I think it's because the flavour of red berries is more palatable to the average consumer than pomegranate that these companies have steered away from tradition, but in doing so they are leaving a void on the back bar and a jammy Roy Rogers in the glass.

But my story has a happy ending, as I decided to make my own Grenadine and it turns out that the recipe is very simple:

Grenadine Recipe

One part sugar

One part pomegranate juice

Add together in a jar and shake vigorously until all of the sugar is dissolved

(keeping the juice at room temperature before doing this will help).

Add more sugar (about one fifth of the sugar you already added)

Shake again.

Your Grenadine is ready to use.

Keep it in the refrigerator and it should last for at least a month.