The one bar where I have drunk a Charlie Chaplin was a little Japanese place in Shanghai. This time the bar in question was not Constellation, but rather the little bar inside the Garcon Chinois restaurant on Hengshan Rd. That bar is much smaller than Constellation, and does not have nearly the same range of spirits, but the cocktails used to be very carefully and expertly made by a Japanese woman who knew exactly what she was doing.

She looked nothing like a bartender. In my experience bartenders are almost never Japanese women with greying hair and the homely dress sense of a church goer. Walking into her bar was like visiting a Japanese aunt you had only recently discovered you had. Things would begin with a friendly but slightly distanced greeting – understandable given that the pair of you had only just found out about each other. Then she would get busy behind the tiny bar. Were it not for the bottles piling up around her hands you would assume her meticulous and busily leisured movements were eventually going to produce a small batch of dumplings, or perhaps a plate of cold tofu sprinkled with chives and sesame oil. Instead, after the type of interval that builds anticipation without seeing it collapse into distraction, you would be presented with an excellent and carefully measured cocktail. It was slightly incongruous, but the results were very competent. Unfortunately I heard she has since left.

When I asked for a Charlie Chaplin she warned me that they didn’t have Gordons sloe gin (for which they relied on customers carrying bottles from Japan). She offered to substitute Bols while complaining about its bad quality and saying the taste would be too artificial. Warming to her theme she was soon lamenting that even single malts were often artificially flavored these days. I am not so sure if that is true. Regardless of that though, it is not often a bar cares enough about getting their drinks perfect that they will warn their customers before using what they feel are inferior ingredients. I had the Charlie Chaplin anyway and even with the Bols it tasted OK.

I made my own Charlie Chaplin as follows:

2 oz apricot brandy (I used Marie Brizard)

1 oz sloe gin (I used Gordons)

1 oz lime juice

Shake over ice and strain into a highball glass. The drink isn’t going to fill the glass without something extra, so consider pouring onto a couple of large rocks.

You would think that a drink comprising three parts liqueur and one part citrus juice would be extremely sweet. It is sweet, but less so than you’d expect. The slight sourness in the sloe gin boosts the lime, pushing the drink more towards fruity acidity than complete sugar bomb territory. Something about the lime and sloe gin helps the apricot brandy come across more as a fresh apricot flavor than a cloying liqueur. There is an interesting hint of almond flavor in the background as well, almost like an amaretto sour. This may not be the most exciting drink in history but it makes a nice showcase for apricot brandy, and is refreshing and neither too strong not too sweet. This is a drink that deserves to be made a little more often. The sweet and sour flavor profile also fits well with modern tastes, while the sloe gin and apricot brandy introduce a couple of ingredients not often called for in modern bars. Obviously apricot brandy is going to dominate the taste so try to use the best you can find.

Looking at the recipe I couldn’t help wondering whether it dry apricot brandy hadn’t been intended. My natural inclination to use eau de vie at every opportunity was probably at work here – I just love the stuff. So I made up another drink with an apricot eau de vie. Coincidentally I was watching a Buster Keaton movie at the time, so naturally I dubbed the new drink (if indeed it is a new drink) the Buster Keaton.

Buster Keaton

2 oz apricot eau de vie (Barrak Palinka)

1 oz sloe gin (Gordons)

1 oz lime juice

Hmm. . . This really wasn’t particularly good. In fact it seems a shame to attach the venerable name Buster Keaton to such a bad drink. I find relatively few experiences involving alcohol to actually be unpleasant, but this one ventures into dubious territory. The dry apricot brandy and lime are amicable enough companions. The sloe gin is very out of place though, and there isn’t much sugar around to smooth the rough edges. The drink is thin bodied, sour, and arguably more alcoholic than necessary – not unlike myself. You can certainly gag it down but is unlikely to be an experience you’d want to repeat. Sorry Mr. Keaton.

Well that wasn’t very pleasant but at least I think I have learned something. The Charlie Chaplin is definitely supposed to be made with a sweet apricot brandy, so get the best one you can and give it a try.

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.