The Mexican Blackbird

During lockdown the New Sheridan Club started entertaining the troops with a weekly virtual pub quiz, delivered via Zoom. This has continued post-Covid as a monthly treat, and a couple of months back one of the questions was actually a task—to create a cocktail in ten minutes using whatever ingredients were to hand, which the quizmistress then judged conceptually rather than by actually tasting it, obviously. One contestant let himself down by putting lighter fluid in his concoction (or so he claimed), whereas my invention was more conventional.

I had some crème de cassis which I’d bought for some other project, and I was reminded of the El Diablo cocktail from the 1940s, which combines this with tequila. I think I’d also recently restocked with Cocchi Americano, which I use as a substitute for Kina Lillet in vintage recipes. It’s bitter-sweet and I always feel it has an element of ginger to it, and I also think that tequila goes well with that flavour too (in fact the El Diablo is lengthened with ginger ale). So my cocktail was slightly inspired by the classic Corpse Reviver No. 2, which is equal parts gin, lemon juice, Kina Lillet (or Cocchi Americano) and triple sec, with a dash of absinthe. In this case I actually used two parts tequila to one part each of lemon juice, Cocchi Americano and crème de cassis. To make it more visually fun, I added the cassis last, pouring it through a funnel that I put into the drink, against the bottom of the glass, so that the liqueur formed a lower layer.

When it comes actually to drinking the cocktail, I would recommend mixing it all together: even if you have a sweet tooth and fancy the neat cassis, the rest of the drink is a bit tart without it. For me, I found I actually preferred it with only half a measure of cassis, as the Cocchi adds some sweetness too.

Mexican Blackbird*
2 shots tequila

1 shot Cocchi Americano
1 shot lemon juice
½ shot crème de cassis

I heartily recommend this cocktail. As you raise the glass you are first hit by the petrolly herbaceous note of the tequila. Then on the tongue is the unmistakeable blackcurrant unctuousness of the cassis, but any possibility of cloying sweetness is immediately scooped out by the tartness of the lemon juice and the bitterness of the Cocchi—making for a distinctly grown-up cocktail. You can taste all the elements and they riff off each other in a way that encourages contemplation.

*A song by the immortal ZZ Top

The Jack Calloway cocktail

Not many of us get to have cocktails named after us—it tends to be film stars (Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin) or statesmen (Roosevelt, Colonel Rickey, who allegedly invented the Rickey). So I was intrigued when a chap named Jack Calloway recently joined the New Sheridan Club and, on the application form where we ask a number of vapid questions, gave his favourite cocktail as “The Jack Calloway”.*

Jack’s the leader of a 1930s-style dance orchestra. “The cocktail was created in Bristol three or four years ago when the dance orchestra was first starting out,” he explains. “We used to rehearse in a bar called the Bootlegger on Gloucester Road. I was fond of Charlie Chaplins [sloe gin, apricot brandy and lime juice] but asked the barman, Drew Pratley, if he could make me something that better suited my sweet tooth. He asked me various alcoholic questions and came up with the Jack Calloway. He wanted something sweet and cheeky but with a ‘debaucherous’ party vibe— much like myself, apparently.”

Naturally I had to try this cocktail out. Here is the recipe Jack gives:

Jack Calloway
Blackberries and blueberries
1–2 shots vodka
1 shot crème de cassis
1 shot elderflower liqueur or cordial
Juice of half a lime.
Fill a shaker with blackberries and blueberries and crush thoroughly. Add the other ingredients. Shake well with ice, pour dirty in a fancy tumbler, or in my case a fine champagne coupe. To finish, squeeze a final wedge of lime over the mixture and let it float in the glass. Garnish with a sprig of mint.

I found that 6 blackberries and 12 blueberries seemed an appropriate amount. It’s an interesting drink, obviously dominated by the berries; the elderflower presence is subtle (though in fairness the St Germain liqueur I used was quite old, so possible not as puissant as it used to be). Overall it’s a bit sweet for me, although adding more lime juice didn’t quite seem to work, so perhaps it is what it is. Obviously the vodka isn’t really contributing to the flavour—I tried it with gin, but it didn’t work for some reason. I also tried it with white rum, which I thought was OK, though Mrs H. thought otherwise, feeling that the sugariness of the rum made it seem too sweet.

If you have a sweetish tooth and like berries, give this one a try, though it needs a bit of patience to do all the muddling, and it takes a long time to pour through all the pulp! It strikes me also that if you’re doing “Dry January” (shudder) and you are bewitched by the berry/elderflower combo, you could make a virgin version of this using elderflower cordial.

* In truth that is a stage name and not entirely his real name. The surname was chosen in homage to Cab Calloway.

Fine-strained for fancy folk