I got hold of some Lillet the other day. I really like Dubonnet so had been looking forward to trying Lillet. Dubonnet and Lillet both belong to the ‘quinqina’ category of flavored wines, namely quinine flavored wine-based aperitifs. Dubonnet is red while Lillet is white, though Dubonnet also produces a less well known white version and Lillet also has a red version. The situation is a little like that with vermouth, where vermouth producers typically offer both sweet and dry versions.

Tasting Lillet on its own I found it sweeter than I had expected, and not that different to a fruity white wine. I had been hoping for something a little more assertive. I think Dubonnet remains my favorite of the two. Dubonnet has a discernable medicinal bitterness that is only faintly present in Lillet. Incidentally, while some people describe ‘quinquina’ as similar to vermouth, I don’t think this description is very helpful. To my mind Dubonnet and Lillet are far more gentle than vermouth, and thus those who fear vermouth could consider quinquina. To me, vermouth is so heavily flavored that the base wine becomes hardly noticeable, while with Dubonnet and Lillet the wine stands in the foreground and is accentuated with the flavorings. Dubonnet makes me think of spiced port, while Lillet resembles a desert wine with a touch of bitter complexity.

The formula of Lillet was changed significantly in the 1980s. Compared to the original the new version is said to be fruitier and less bitter (less quinine?). The Lillet website describes the new version as less ‘syrupy’, so possibly it also has a lower sugar content. The modern Lillet is still pretty sweet though. Perhaps when they say ‘syrupy’ they have something like cough syrup in mind? In that case they could really be saying the new version is less bitter. Anyway, compared to other aromatized aperitif wines (i.e. vermouths or Dubonnet) Lillet comes across as sweet and fruity rather than aromatic or herbal. It could almost pass for a desert wine. The bitterness and aromatics in Lillet sit in the background. Personally I reckon they should think about reworking the recipe again to restore the lost oomph.

Incidentally the formula for Dubonnet also appears to have changed recently. They redesigned the bottle to give it a more modern look and simultaneously shaved a percentage point or so off the alcohol content. I did a comparison between the remains of an old bottle and a freshly opened new one. I have to be honest and say I couldn’t taste any real difference, but I would still rather they had left it unchanged. If it ain’t broke, why fix it? However much you rework it, Dubonnet is never going to become Diet Coke – at least I hope not.

There are dozens of Lillet cocktails I want to try, but the obvious first thing was to do like James Bond and make a Vesper! So I did the following. . .

3 oz gin (Bond drank Gordons but I used Tanqueray since the only Gordons in New Zealand is nasty, low-proof stuff)

1 oz vodka (Stolichnaya, what else?)

½ oz Lillet Blanc

Shake over ice and garnish with a lemon twist.

I believe this marks the first appearance of vodka on this blog. I had to go out and buy the vodka specially, so rarely do I have a reason to use the stuff. Stolichnaya is a little sweet, particularly given the already sweetish Lillet. In its defense though it is cheap, genuinely Russian, not distilled from Icelandic glacier water and filtered through a Javanese volcano or some other bullshit, and has one of the coolest label designs out there. Whatever you may say about the contents of the bottle, the Stolichnaya label is a true piece of socialist art. Moscovskaya would have been my first choice if available given that it is a little drier. I guess Bond would have drunk Smirnoff. Still, lets not get too hung up on the finer points of a flavorless spirit.

The vesper is an extremely easy to drink yet high octane martini variation. The alcohol is not exactly disguised, but you don’t sense that you are drinking lots of alcohol in quite the same way that you do with a standard martini. Somebody used to low alcohol drinks will probably taste lots of alcohol when drinking this and exercise caution, but somebody used to the traditional gin and vermouth martini could end up putting these away rather fast. The fruitiness in the Lillet makes the drink eminently shippable and the vodka lightens the gin and gives an impression of the drink being less potent than it in fact is.

I probably wouldn’t drink these too often but they are a nice thing to have in the rotation.

I got hold of a bottle of Fernet Branca the other day. I’ve been meaning to do this for a while but it can be a little hard to track down. At Tara in Shanghai, when Marcus was still working there, I used to drink a simple Fernet Branca cocktail (gin, Fernet Branca and Italian Vermouth) pretty much every time I went in. The bitter taste of Fernet Branca is very much my kind of thing.

Besides the simple Fernet Branca cocktail Marcus also used to make something called The Pharmacy. I think this drink was made from cognac, crème de menthe and Fernet Branca, though I’m not sure about the proportions. I’ll have to ask Marcus sometime. Anyway, the drink was rich, minty and bittersweet. It was the type of drink that could make a good introduction to Fernet Branca.

Searching through the Fernet Branca recipes on Cocktail DB I found two that stood out, mainly because they combined Fernet Branca with Dubonnet and gin. Dubonnet is another drink I have a lot of time for. I’d already been thinking that Dubonnet could be just the thing to smooth the edges off Fernet Branca, and of course both Dubonnet and Fernet mix well with gin.

The first of the two recipes was called Don’t Give up the Ship. This name must have meant something to somebody, but surely it would be a good idea to rename this drink? The second drink was called the Napoleon, which is a kind of an acceptable name I guess. The interesting thing is that each recipe uses identical ingredients (gin, Fernet, Dubonnet and orange curacao) but in different proportions.

I made Don’t Give up the Ship first. The recipe comprised 1 ½ oz gin (I used Tanqueray), ½ oz Dubonnet, ¼ oz Fernet Branaca, ¼ oz orange curacao (I had no straight curacao on hand so I used Cointreau, though I’m thinking Grand Marnier may be a better substitute). This turned out to be an exceptionally good drink. The flavors really blended together to produce something completely new and surprisingly smooth. Obviously there was lots of complexity, but the Dubonnet and Cointreau somehow smoothed things down to an amazing degree.

Next I made the Napoleon. The Cocktail DB gives two versions. I made the version with 1 ½ oz of gin and a dash each of Fernet Branca, Dubonnet, and Curacao (again I used Cointreau). I went slightly heavy handed and used a level teaspoon of each of the modifiers rather than a dash (which I guess strictly speaking would be more like ¼ teaspoon). The other version on Cocktail DB is much sweeter and less Fernet Branca oriented, with a full ounce of curacao, ¼ oz of Dubonnet and a dash of Fernet Branca. I guess I should try that version too some time. I finished the drink with a squeeze of lemon peel.

Though not my first choice, the Napoleon also turned out to be a good drink. Obviously it basically tasted of gin, and so I guess dry martini lovers would enjoy it. The combination of Fernet Branca and Dubonnet struck me as more interesting than vermouth though. With Fernet Branca a little certainly goes a long way. Meanwhile, the touch of curacao gave the drink an old school cocktail taste of raw spirit tamed with a little sugar.

The Blackthorn cocktail is one of my favorites, a gin base with a generous splash of both Dubonnet and kirsch. Dubonnet and gin appear together in all sorts of early 20^th Century drinks. In the Blackthorn the Kirsch adds an extra dimension to a well worn combination. The drink is intensely fruity, but the use of eau de vie rather than a liqueur keeps things at the dry and bracing end of the spectrum.

I am surprised this drink is not better known. Part of the reason may be confusion about recipes. CocktailDB (www.cocktaildb.com) lists six recipes for the Blackthorn and its variations. Only one recipe is for the gin, Dubonnet and kirsch drink that I am fan of. A further four of the recipes are mixtures of sloe gin, vermouth (usually sweet but sometimes dry) and bitters – in one case with a little straight gin added for some extra kick. While different, the above five recipes at least share in common the use of gin, berry flavored spirits/liqueurs, and herbal aperitif wines. The sixth and final recipe is a whiskey, vermouth, pastis and bitters drink that seems to have no connection with the others besides name.

I have no idea where the above recipes were sourced from or the dates of their first appearance in recipe books. However, given that there are four recipes for variations on the sloe gin Blackthorn and only one recipe for the Dubonnet and Kirsch Blackthorn, it seems likely that the sloe gin Blackthorn may be the original, or at least the version that enjoyed greatest popularity.

I first came across the Dubonnet and kirsch version, during a search for Dubonnet and gin drinks. However, having picked up a bottle of sloe gin the other day I thought I would give sloe gin version a try to compare it. I had actually made it before, but since I cheated by substituting a mixture of sloe vodka and standard gin for the sloe gin I guess my earlier attempt doesn’t count.

I chose the most basic looking Sloe Gin Blackthorn recipe from CocktailDB, as follows:

2 parts Sloe Gin (I used Gordons)

1 part Italian Vermouth (I used Martini)

1 dash orange bitters (Regans)

Stir over ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with squeeze of lemon peel.

Hmm. . . It’s not bad compared to some other liqueur and vermouth heavy concoctions from older cocktail recipes. The sloe gin and vermouth both have a little bitterness, saving the drink from tasting overly sweet despite being a bit of a sugar bomb. The orange bitters don’t make an obvious appearance, though perhaps their absence would be noticeable.

I plan to try one of the more gin heavy or dry vermouth oriented sloe gin Blackthorn variations to see if I prefer it, but I wouldn’t go too far out of my way to this particular drink again.

Then I tried the Dubonnet and kirsch Blackthorn again for comparison. You do owe it to yourself to try one, as follows:

1.5 oz gin (I used Tanqueray)

0.5 oz Dubonnet

0.5 oz kirsch (I used Arthur Metz)

Stir over ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

This was much better than the first drink, but not quite as brilliant as I remembered. While nice the parts somehow seemed not to be working together as well as they could. I put this down to the brand of kirsh, and perhaps the gin. Previously I’d always made it with Dolfi kirsh and a higher proof gin.

All criticism aside though this drink is a great example of what eau de vie can do in a cocktail. I don’t know why you don’t see eau de vie used more often in mixed drinks. Cherry, apricot and pear are all very handy eau de vie for cocktail making. In fact, if you happen to have apricot or mirabele on hand, but no kirsch, you will find they make a nice substitute for the kirsch in a Blackthorn. No harm experimenting to see if other fruits also work.

Returning to the drink though, I decided a dash of bitters could held bring things together. I thus tried some variations of the Blackthorn over the next few days, adding Fees Brothers Aromatic, Peychauds, and Regans Orange bitters – two dashes in each case. This probably sounds silly, but each time I found the bitters surprisingly assertive. I should really have gone lighter and added just a dash. The Fees Brothers worked nicely in a spicy kind of way, though it took attention away from the eau de vie and focused it more on the aromatics in the Dubonnet. It was nice but perhaps seemed too much of a departure from the spirit of the original. The Peychaud’s version was very interesting but the anise flavors distracted from the fruitiness in the drink. Still, this may work with a smaller dose of bitters. The orange bitters probably turned out to be the best option in that they helped integrate the drink a little while leaving the flavors intact. I tried again with the less intense Fees Brothers orange bitters (three drops) and found that turned out perhaps the best among all my attempts. Regans might be equally good in a smaller quantity – two dashes may have been too much. Whatever bitters you use it is important to go light.

My excellent friend Nathan brought be three bottles of rye whiskey from the US yesterday – Wild Turkey, Old Overholt and Rittenhouse. I haven’t had too much of a chance to play around with them yet, but the Wild Turkey is excellent stuff, and while the Old Overholt and Rittenhouse are a little lacking in aftertaste they are still nice mixers that are distinctly different to bourbon.

The Wild Turkey makes an excellent Manhattan – dry and spicy with good depth of flavor. It really does taste totally different to a Manhattan made with a quality bourbon, though I must admit a Woodford Reserve Manhattan is also very good. The Old Overholt and Rittenhouse are nice enough in a Manhattan but they don’t have the backbone of the Wild Turkey. Old Overholt and Rittenhouse don’t taste too bad in an Old Fashioned, but would probably be best in drinks with juices and other ingredients – i.e. drinks where the whiskey isn’t doing all the work. Comparing them with Blantons Bourbon, Blantons still makes a far superior Old Fashioned and I’m not a big Blanton’s fan.

Right now I’m trying the Rittenhouse in a Capetown Cocktail (1 1/2 oz rye, 1 oz Dubonnet, 2 dashes Orange Curacao, 1 dash Angostura Bitters, stirred over ice and garnished with a lemon twist). The Rittenhouse works nicely in a drink like this. It is drier than bourbon would be, just a little spicy, and the bitter and herbal flavors of the Dubonnet help make up for its lack of finish.

I need to hurry up and make some more drinks with these rye whiskeys while my bar here in Shanghai is still intact. I’m planning to leave China soon which will mean saying good bye to my bar.

One interesting thing to note though is this. . . I remember seeing a recommendation to use Jameson Irish whiskey as a substitute for rye in a Manhattan. Since tasting some real rye I can see some logic behind this suggestion. I think I’d recommend Jameson over the usual Canadian whiskey substitution. Jameson is more astringent than sweet, but it does have a little of the spiciness of a true rye. It certainly has more character than the Canadian Club that bartenders tend to use for Manhattans.

P.S. I also tried a Wright Brothers Cocktail (1 oz rye, 1 oz port, 1/2 oz lemon juice, sugar syrup to taste, an egg white – shaken over ice). The rye taste didn’t really come through but it was not a bad refreshing drink.

There is a club in Phnom Penh called the Heart of Darkness where I spent a couple of memorable evenings back in August. I drank Guinness and Tequila Slammers. The environment was a confused medley of Cambodian elites and their gun toting body guards (the doormen were very selective when searching customer for weapons), local foreign residents, higher class working girls (since the working girls apparently had to pay a fee to get in), and bemused looking tourists. It was lots of fun, but not really a sit-back-and-savor-your-drink type of environment. I have no idea if Heart of Darkness served Martinique rum. I discovered the dry and complex tasting Martinique rums at some other bars in Cambodia, most notably Riverside in Battambang, which gives huge pours of the excellent St. James Ambre for just US$1.

I met an interesting girl in the Heart of Darkness. She was easily the best looking girl in the place and for some reason ended up hanging around me for most of the evening. She spent most of the evening gyrating around me in a manner that I am sure would have made the Bunnyhug, however lewd it may have been, look very tame indeed. Since I don’t dance I settled for sipping my Guinness with rhythm. I think it worked better than it sounds, certainly better than me actually dancing. In any case, she was attracting plenty of attention all by herself. The Tequila Slammers were her idea and she even paid for them, adding to the surreal nature of the situation. A elderly Scandinavian couple looked gratifyingly shocked as she writhed around me and theatrically knocked back tequila. Meanwhile, I kept an eye on the door waiting for an irate boyfriend, pimp or husband to burst in and gun us both down. Learning that each of her numerous pieces of jewelry had come from a different guy, each representing a different country, did nothing to reassure me.

Cambodia is a small country, and while drinking St. James rum at Riverside in Battambang I met an Italian girl who knew the Heart of Darkness girl. My concerns had not been totally unfounded. The Heart of Darkness girl had recently married a French guy living in Vietnam. His friends had all warned him to have nothing to do with her, but she had promised to give up her life as a working girl and he had believed her. He spent a lot of time in Vietnam for business, and whenever he was away she would be out in the bars again picking up customers. It was definitely the same girl. The Italian told me that her long her long fake blonde hair was in fact a wig, and sure enough when I was back in Phnom Penh I saw the Heart of Darkness Girl in another bar without her wig. I was probably lucky that the French guy wasn’t the gun-toting type.

While in Cambodia I decided that the Heart of Darkness would make an excellent name for a cocktail, and that the drink should include St. James Ambre rum. Planning the drink in my mind I decided it should include St. James Ambre and Marie Brizzard Crème de Vanille (something else I picked up on my holiday there). In reality though I found the taste of the Crème de Vanille was not nearly strong enough to work well in a drink using a strong tasting rum. The Marie Brizzard Crème de Vanille is really just a vanilla perfumed syrup. I also found Martinique rum quite hard to mix with because of its strong taste. I considered another couple of other possibilities but basically forgot about the idea for a while.

Recently however, I picked up a bottle of Poire William and started thinking about what I could do with it. I decided to try and make something rich, spicy, and a little exotic. Poire William has a very strong taste and I decided it would pair well with a strong, dry rum like St. James. I used Dolfi crème de cacao to add some sweetness. For further complexity and to bring everything together I tried Italian vermouth and then Dubonnet. The slightly bitter Dubonnet works very well.

The Heart of Darkness

2 parts St. James Ambre

1 part Dolfi Poire William

1 part Dolfi dark crème de cacao

1 part Dubonnet

2 dashes Angostura bitters

Stir over ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

The result is dry, fruity and spicy. It tastes a little like a cake made with rum and fruit. My original recipe had equal parts of the four main ingredients which makes for a fruitier drink, but I think a drier version with more rum is better. I may play around with the recipe some more, but this seems good enough for now.

I tried it out on a couple of friends. The first friend liked it and the second friend suggested cutting back the bitters. Obviously I no longer speak to the second friend. Still, if you were to change the recipe you could try reducing the bitters for starters.