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Just prior to prohibition, a great little booklet was put out by The Wine and Spirit Bulletin called Beverages De Luxe. It is a collection of articles, and recipes, written by owners of distilleries and others in the business. Some of the contributors include George Brown (Brown & Foreman) and A.M. Hanauer (Hamburger Distillery, Pittsburgh, PA) among many others. Hanauer wrote a piece on rye whisky and quotes Bismarek as saying “Beer is for women, wine is for men and rye is for heroes.”  There is some great info on vermouth, New England Rum and Gin. Plus some really interesting recipes from many of the hotels across America. Wanna see?

In 1935, the United Kingdom Bartenders’ Guild opened a club at Old Compton Street, Soho. For this merry occasion they held a cocktail contest, which wasn’t unusual, since they seemed to hold one every year. However, the winner of this cocktail competition would have their cocktail named the Donegall, in honour of Edward Chichester, 6th Marquess of Donegall, who would be attending the ribbon cutting at the new club.

After a day of working in the hot sun, a cool, refreshing drink is usually in order. What happens when you find out you have no lemons or limes? Beer is always and option, yes, but there are other choices. If you look back a couple hundred years, one of the common refreshers was Switchel. If you go back even further you'll come across its precursor Oxymel. What do these two drinks have in common? They both contain vinegar as the acidulant. If you read on, you'll see it's not as bad as it sounds.

Walk into any bar in Canada and order a "rye and ginger" and the bartender, without even blinking, will have one on the bar lickity-split. Sounds like heaven for the cocktaphiles in the crowd; a country where rye is recognized. However, most will know that the term "rye", in Canada, simply means any Canadian Whisky, more on the confusion later. The familiarity with the "rye and ginger" order even flows into many of the US states. If you put the politics aside for a moment, we should realize that whisky and ginger ale is a great combination, possibly even better than the, dare I say, a Dark 'n Stormy.

One of the crown jewels in the cocktail world is the Margarita. Like some of the classic French and Italian recipes every chef should know, the Margarita is something that every bartender knows. Since it's such a well known, and simple cocktail, you'd think getting a decent Margarita would be easy. Well, that assumption would be wrong. The problems stem from judicious recipe modifications and the increased use of sugar in food and drink. What was once a well balanced cocktail, is now a giant, fluorescent green, sugar laced, culinary nightmare. It's not beyond repair, and hardcore Slurpee lovers may be surprised to find that the original Margarita is still a great drink.

The Margarita is most likely the number one requested summer cocktail. The problem is that very few people actually enjoy a genuine Margarita. Early in its history it was a simple drink--related to the Daisy class of alcoholic drinks--which consisted of tequila, triple sec, lime and salt. Sadly, over the last 30 years, this poor cocktail has been maimed and beaten into a drink that tastes similar to a 7-Eleven Lime Blast Slurpee, through no fault of its own. The fact is the Margarita is a simple drink, with a simple recipe. The problems happen when people teach from a bad foundation. The Skinny Girl Margarita recipe is a perfect example.

As the revitalization of the cocktail continues, it is often helpful to ascertain why certain cocktail recipes are popular. What makes the Margarita, Cosmopolitan and Strawberry Daiquiri the Queen's of the cocktail world. This information can then be translated, by new order bartenders, into a method that will help the neophytes and phobic's, indulge in something new and take them out of their "safe zone". Once they've escaped the default cocktails, they may never go back.

Here is another old cocktail (fancy drink), circa 1873, that is named after Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich of Russia. The drink comes from an article published in the New Orleans Daily Picayune (1873 and was created by Mr. E.F. Barry, a bartender at the Everett House hotel in uptown New York. You may remember Mr. Barry as the one of the compounders of the Moral Suassion. He created the drink for the Grand Duke, when he toured the United States and Canada in 1871.

Bullets and grenades was what I was thinking when I whipped up this cocktail. As samples arrive on my desk, they sometimes gather into little groups. The Bulleit Bourbon and Zwack bitters were hanging out, which looked like they were plotting a coup or something. For those in the dark, Zwack is a Hungarian company that makes a range of bitters and sells them in bottles that resemble an M67 handgrenade. The Bulleit, should speak for itself. So what do you get when you combine bullets and bombs?

How do you get a cocktail virgin to cast away their chastity belt and jump into the realm of great cocktails? That's the question this edition of Mixology Monday is trying to answer. There isn't one single answer, but I'm of the opinion that you sometimes need to throw people into the breach. A well made cocktail can be appreciated by those that have little, or no, experience with cocktails. If you go really easy on them, they may just stop at the basic level and never move forward. Take the opportunity, when they are open to suggestion, and give them something challenging. The trick is to make sure the cocktail is good enough to pleased, but not so over-the-top that it offends.

A good drink can often be considered "moral suasion". A good one keeps you in your seat, but not by force, and a really good one can persuade you to happily open your wallet and order a second. When I came across this cocktail, in the 1873 Daily Picayune (New Orleans), it piqued my curiosity, partially because this was the very early years of the cocktail art, and it actually looked like a legitimate flavour combination. But like all vintage cocktails, some things are not so easy, like finding real Peach Brandy.

"Oh yay, another post on the Monkey Gland", is what a lot of people might be saying. Sure, it's been a topic of interest among bloggers and the Cocktail Brain Trust™ for the past few years. Most reviews are glowing, kind of like Canadians over President Obama. Personally, I suspect a lot of people like the cocktail because it makes people giggle like little school girls when they hear where the name came from. Yes, as many of you know, it was a xenotransplantation of monkey testicles into humans, to improve sexual drive. Lovely, just the perfect thing to name a drink after. OK, aside from the rehash of the Monkey Gland, a scan of the original 1923 newspaper article, detailing the drink, is included.

The shrub comes in various forms, sometimes brandy, many times rum, sometimes it’s a fruit preserve made with vinegar, and of course it can be a small woody plant. But the Rum Shrub was at one point the most popular of the shrubs, save for a period during the mid 1970’s when Monty Python took ownership of the word. If the Rum Shrub ever becomes popular again, it may very well represent the unholiest combination of drunken people ordering the shrub, in the vein of a medieval Knight, and a bartender who suddenly develops a series of ticks and anger management issues. Anyone who orders a shrub in the dialect of Monty Python, to said bartender, may be risking life and limb. Here’s hoping the Rum Shrub remains in the shadows, because yelling “bring me a shrubbery!” to the bartender is only funny to those who are drunk.

The term "hoar frost" is usually describes as a cold weather phenomenon where ice crystals form on objects that are below the dew point. The result is that the objects are covered in a sparkling white coat of ice crystals that can be spectacularly beautiful, on a a bright blue winter morning. The appearance of hoar frost is often duplicated on cocktail glassware, using sugar crystals to "rim the glass." In 1934 a Hoar Frost cocktail was created by Adolphe Krieger, and subsequently won the International Bar Mixers' Union cocktail competition in Frankfurt Germany. The rimming isn't a new technique, but I'm going to try "something new" to qualify for Mixology Monday being hosted by A Mixed Dram.

Ahhh, another Mixology Monday. I was a delinquent last time, so Paul "Dad" Clarke gave me detention and told me I better straighten up and not miss the December edition, otherwise there would be hell to pay. From all accounts, Paul is a nasty task master, so I'm not going challenge his authority. The theme for this edition is "Spice", since Craig (Tiki Drinks & Indigo Firmaments) is a huge fan of the Spice Girls. So in honour of them, and Craig, I give to you an original cocktail creation called Sailors Fire.

Cocktail competitions are an interesting way to test one's skills. Most competitions revolve around a single ingredient, as was the case with the Hiram Walker Gingerbread Liqueur event. Now, gingerbread isn't something you generally think of as a cocktail ingredient, but then again, there are a lot of things going into cocktails these days. I guess that's why a competition was in-order.

At one point in time Claret Punch was an immensely popular concoction. It was the punch of choice for parties and the drink most enjoyed by the British in the 1800's. Today, if you sauntered into a North American bar and asked for a claret cup, you'd be hard pressed to find a bartender that could make it, let alone one that knows what claret is. It's too bad because claret cup has a lot of potential and is one of those drinks, like the Caesar (Bloody Mary) that has a basic recipe structure, but beyond that can be modified in so many ways.

When you think Tiki, you think tropical drinks from exotic locations like Polynesia, and people such as Donn the Beachcomber. You may also know that the tiki fad didn't begin until 1934. So, if Don the Beachcomber started the tiki fad, what were his influences? Obviously, the Caribbean and south pacific were big influences, but what exactly were these people drinking, in those countries, that made an impression on Donn Beach? Well, it is quite possible that the following common drink from the Philippines did.

Everything that is old will eventually become new again. This seems to be prove true in the cocktail world right now. For a period of time, old cocktail book would sell for pennies, now they can reach stratospheric prices on places like eBay. Locked within these books are many of the original cocktail creations from the 1800's which provide a wealth recipes and ideas for creative bartenders. One of these lost recipes is the Bengal Cocktail.

Digging up old cocktail, or in this case, fizz recipes, has led me to this interestingly named drink, the Peach Blow. The article is from the May 2^nd, 1909 edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer. A reader asked for the recipe of the Peach Blow and the Lilac Fizz. The newspaper was happy to oblige. Now, almost 100 years later, and right in the middle of peach season, I'm happy to bring it to you. I'd do the Lilac Fizz to, but I don't have any Creme de Yvette.