Improved Gin Cocktail

The Improved Gin Cocktail is probably the best place to start appreciating the flavor of Genever in cocktails. The basic Gin Cocktail is gin, sugar and bitters. Garnish that with a citrus twist and you have a Fancy Gin Cocktail. Splash some liqueur into that and you have yourself an Improved Gin Cocktail. The Improved Gin Cocktail is the best of the bunch taste-wise, though very intense and heavy genevers (I am thinking Korenwijn style products) might be better appreciated in the more minimalist Fancy Gin Cocktail. Forget about the basic Gin Cocktail unless you find yourself with Genever on hand but no citrus.

Recipe:

2 oz Genever (Bols Oude – use an Oude if at all possible)

1 tsp gomme syrup (try and use real gomme syrup – instructions on making it here)

1-2 tsp liqueur (triple sec, curacao, maraschino or absinthe are all traditional choices)

a couple of dashes of bitters (Fees Whiskey Barrel Aged, Peychaud’s and Angostura are all worthy choices)

Build over ice in a rocks glass, or serve it up if you like. Garnish by squeezing the oils from a citrus twist over the drink, then drop the twist in.

There is huge potential for experimentation with the liqueurs and bitters. While not traditional, Drambuie is an interesting choice that brings out the malt character of the gin. Drambuie probably works best in partnership with another liqueur though, perhaps triple sec. Absinthe also works nicely, as do the anise notes of Peychaud’s. The version pictured above contains Drambuie, Peychaud’s Bitters and a little Absinthe Bitters (a sort of concentrated Absinthe made by the people who make Henri Bardouin pastis).

Martinez

The next drink is not strictly speaking a Genever drink. The Martinez was first mixed with Old Tom (a sort of hybrid gin sitting somewhere between Genever and London Dry). However, in the absence of Old Tom, Genever probably makes a more authentic substitute than London dry. The drink is said to be the ancestor of the modern Martini, and the design is something like a sweetened and reversed Martini – with sweet vermouth rather than dry, and more vermouth than spirit.

Recipe:

2 oz Italian vermouth

1 oz Genever (either Oude or Jonge should do)

1 tsp maraschino

1-2 dashes aromatic bitters (the cinnamon accented Fees Brothers Whiskey Barrel Aged is a good choice)

Stir over ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.

The recipe looks a bit odd, but the result is a meditative drink, suitable for winter evenings. Nineteenth Century drinkers obviously were not afraid of vermouth.

Gin Daisy

These days a Tom Collins is made with London Dry Gin. However, in the 19^th Century the drink was made with Old Tom or Genever. Making a Genever-based Tom Collins is a simple matter that hardly requires any advice – just change the base spirit and you’re done. However, the Nineteenth Century also saw Genever used in other highball type drinks. The Gin Daisy is an interesting example. There is something almost Tiki-esque about the old fashioned flavorings.

Recipe:

2 oz Genever

2 tsp orgeat (Monin)

2 tsp Maraschino (Maraska)

½ oz lemon juice (juice of ½ a lemon)

Shake over ice, strain into a glass (I used a small old fashioned glass), and top up with soda water. For some reason I went very easy on the soda in this one, not wanting to dilute drink too much.

This is vaguely reminiscent of a Singapore Sling. The maraschino obviously supplies the cherry, while the soft and malty Genever boosts the fruity feel, and the orgeat adds a hint of Tiki. Tasty and very different. I like orgeat in cocktails.

Gin Fix

Drinkers in the UK will no doubt know the Bramble. In fact the Bramble is simply an updated Gin Fix. The original Gin Fix was concocted with Genever as described below.

2 oz Genever (Bols Oude)

¼ oz lemon juice (juice of ¼ lemon)

1 tsp simple syrup (or gomme syrup if available)

1 tsp raspberry syrup

Fill a glass with shaved ice – I substituted crushed ice. Build the drink over ice and stir thoroughly. Top up with more ice and garnish with seasonal berries – raspberries being the obvious choice. Raspberries being out of season meant I had to slum it with strawberries.

The raspberry syrup and Genever combination is most pleasant. The malty notes of the Genever add complexity and depth to a simple drink. It is worth a look if you want a summery take on Genever. The use of crushed ice means you should end up with a pleasantly frosted glass, adding to the summery feel. Obviously there is lots of potential for playing with different syrups, or substituting a berry liqueur as is done in the modern Bramble. You could even muddle some fruit into the drink, which would pretty much give you a Genever Bramble.

Gin and Milk

I posted on this one earlier – link here.  However, back in those days I did not have Genever.  Gin and Milk is MUCH better with an Oude Genever than with London Dry.  The character changes completely.  Rather than an oddball combination it becomes an intuitive one, with the maltiness of the Genever giving something of a ‘malted milk’ effect. There is no doubt that Gin and Milk was first made with Genever, so make the effort and try it the way it was intended to be.

In my original post on this drink I suggested a dash of orgeat.  When using Genever (especially an Oude) I am not so sure this is a good idea.  There is plenty of flavor happening already and little need to round things out with extras.  Of course if you like the orgeat then go ahead.  The bitters are still a nice touch.

Today I came across a crème de violette from Briottet. The Briottet version seems fuller flavored then how I remember the Benoit Serres. The Benoit Serres had a subtle (i.e. diluted) cognac base with a violet overlay, and may have been relatively high proof (25%?). The Briottet seems more like intense violet on a base of lowish proof (18%) neutral alcohol. It has a strong aroma, happily more reminiscent of a flower shop (or maybe potpourri) than a soap factory. On tasting you get a rich, smooth, fairly deep violet taste that lingers on the tongue. The finish is really quite long, and somehow never turns to soap. While I cannot taste anything besides violet, I still would not call the taste one dimensional.

I am hardly a crème de violette expert. I have only ever tasted two brands, and those several years apart. I may completely wrong about this comparison. Both Briottet and Benoit Serres seem to be good products. However, I think Briottet may pack a little more power and be more suited to mixed drinks. Most drinks using creme de violette require only small quantities, so you want to use a reasonably intense product.

After tasting some of the liqueur straight the obvious thing to do was to make an original recipe Aviation.

The Aviation is simply a gin sour sweetened with maraschino and crème de violette. The modern Aviation excludes the crème de violette, partly because it can be hard to obtain and partly because even back in the 1930s the recipe was sometimes printed without this ingredient. Most notably the influential Savoy Cocktail Book printed the recipe sans crème de violette. The Savoy contains many other misprinted recipes so this omission is as likely to have been a mistake as anything else.

Aviation Cocktail

2 oz gin (Plymouth)

½ oz lemon juice (strained – you want this drink as clear as possible)

1/3 oz maraschino liqueur (Maraska)

1/6 oz crème de violette (Briottet)

Shake over ice and double strain into a cocktail glass. If you don’t have crème de violette just use ½ oz maraschino.

You should end up with a potent, refreshing, and aromatic gin drink, colored the faint purple-grey of an overcast sky. Yep, it harks back to the early days of aviation, when planes flew through clouds as often as they flew above them. If it is not sweet enough try slightly increasing the liqueurs. Be careful not to overdo it though; both liqueurs are powerful tastes in their own right and can easily dominate the drink.

The crème de violette version is a definite improvement on the straight maraschino version. There is simply more going on as the violet adds an extra layer of aroma and complements the dry cherry flavors. The subtle purple tinge is also attractive.

The next thing I need to do is find some more drinks that use crème de violette. . .

Update: I also tried the Attention Cocktail from Jamie Boudreau’s site. I did not have a true absinthe handy, so I used Henri Bardoin pastis supplemented with a few drops of L’Extreme d’Absente Bitters. Those bitters are powerful, and using them like this gave a very different taste to using straight pastis. The really interesting thing in this drink is how the creme de violette stands up to the pastis/absinthe. Well worth a try anyway.

* Creme de Violette is hard enough to find that I should probably give the address of the shop, just in case someone else in Auckland reads this and wants to pick some up. The shop is Maison Vauron, located at 5 McColl St., Newmarket. They have a website at www.mvauron.co.nz, and you can phone them on 09 529 0157. Although they are mainly a wine merchant they sell quite a few interesting French aperitif type things – well worth checking out if you are interested in cocktails.

The Avenue

1 oz passion fruit juice*

1 oz calvados

1 oz bourbon

1 dash orange flower water (about ¼ tsp of a fairly mild Middle Eastern one – but could have added a lot less)

1 dash grenadine (about 1/4 tsp but could have added more)

Shake over ice and strain into a cocktail glass

‘Perfumey’ seems the best word to describe this delightful drink. There are amazing smells from the passion fruit and the orange flower water. I find the bourbon and calvados blend into an interesting base, with the bourbon giving some simple sweetness in the background and the calvados a spirituous fruitiness that provides a nice foundation for the passion fruit. The taste is still fairly challenging though. It smells like heaven, but the taste gives you a jolt – a pleasant one of course.

Freshly squeezed passion fruit juice, while full of amazing flavors and scents, is slightly astringent. Therefore you can afford to be generous with the grenadine. The grenadine will also give a little body to counteract the slightly thin and grainy quality of the passion fruit juice. Be careful not to add so much that you lose the passion fruit color though!

The Jinx

1 oz passion fruit juice (recipe specifically said sweetened so I added a dash of Monin passion fruit syrup to the juice)

1 oz gin

1 oz calvados

1 dash Angostura bitters

Shake over ice and strain into a cocktail glass

This drink resembles The Avenue above, with the substitution of gin for the bourbon and bitters for the orange flower water. The gin is a tasty swap. It is not necessarily better, but it is definitely good. I am not sure on the bitters though. I wonder if orange bitters would work better, or even peach. Angostura seems to distract a little from the delicate passion fruit. But maybe I just added too much.

Comparing different drinks made with common products is a very interesting exercise. My first impression of this drink was that some of the taste that I had mistaken for orange flower water in the previous drink was actually the passion fruit. Passion fruit really is that aromatic. No wonder the Chinese word for passion fruit literally means “hundred fragrance fruit” (???).

I think I may prefer this drink to the above. It may be less aromatic, but it seems a touch more robust.

The Melody

1 ½ oz gin

¾ oz passion fruit juice

¾ oz Lillet

1 tsp Cointreau

1 tsp calvados

Here the calvados becomes a mere accent and the Lillet softens the drink up and helps everything blend together. The passion fruit juice might need a touch of sweetening, but this is a smooth drink, smooth to a fault if anything. The passion fruit takes center stage, with the other flavors just providing little touches of color.

The above three drinks were all decent. The Melody was nice but perhaps a touch one dimensional. I rather liked the Jinx.

The last drink I tried was a bit of an oddball and I am including it more for the sake of completeness than as a recommendation.

Sardi’s Delight

1 ½ oz gin

¼ oz lemon juice

¼ oz passion fruit juice (in fact I just added about a ½ oz of pulp)

¼ oz grenadine

¼ oz pastis

1 dash Angostura Bitters

Shake over ice and double strain into a cocktail glass.

Like a lot of drinks with a decent dose of pastis this tasted of. . . pastis. There was something interesting in the passion fruit and pastis combination, but for the sake of balance the pastis needed to be toned way down. I think passion fruit and pastis would be better companions in a Tiki drink style concoction that contains a decent slug of passion fruit juice and a dash or two of pastis. Maybe something like a Monkey Gland, made with passion fruit instead of or as well as orange could also be interesting?

* I extracted juice from the fruit by cutting them open, then putting the pulp in a tea strainer resting over a container and pressing with a muddler. You will need to give the juice a few minutes to drip through the strainer, and it is difficult to get a good extraction (the pulp tends to slide away from the muddler rather than give up its juice), but each fruit should comfortably yield up to 1/2 oz of juice. With a better method of extracting the juice you could probably get a little more.

This is my first time participating in Raiders of the Lost Cocktail, hosted this month at Cocktail Chronicles. Resurrecting undeservedly forgotten things appeals to me, so Raiders of the Lost Cocktail seems like a great idea. Unfortunately I do not have much of a library of old cocktail books to scour for recipes. My only older book would be the Savoy Cocktail Book. Does Ted Haigh’s Cocktail Database website count as a source for the purposes of this event?

Anyway, the theme for this month’s Raiders of the Lost Cocktail is apricot Brandy. I have taken my research extremely seriously and my bottle of Marie Brizzard Apry has the scars to prove it. It feels like I must have tried a dozen or so apricot brandy cocktails, mostly from www.cocktaildb.com. In the end the drink I settled on for my entry turned out to also be in the Savoy.

The theme for this month really interested me since apricot brandy is so common in older cocktail recipes. I remember being very excited the first time I got hold of some decent apricot brandy because I figured I’d be able to make all these amazing old recipes. Looking back though, none of the drinks I made with that bottle of apricot brandy were especially memorable. In fact, off the top of my head I can hardly think of a single apricot brandy drink other than the Charlie Chaplin (for more on the Charlie Chaplin, and it’s dubious cousin the Buster Keaton, see here). This situation seems odd. Apricot brandy is great stuff and used to be widespread in cocktails, but it doesn’t seem to have many really popular drinks associated with it. Of course perhaps I am just ignorant on this one.

To narrow the field down a little I decided to look for a drink that combined apricot brandy and Lillet. Just before Christmas I got hold of a bottle of Lillet for the first time and I figured the two would be a good match. I was also sure I would find plenty of older recipes using the combination, since both used to be popular cocktail ingredients. I was sure at least one of these older recipes would be worth resurrecting.

Many drinks later, and after a detour away from Lillet, I finally settled on the Self Starter, an excellent drink that is perhaps just a little like the Corpse Reviver. Recipe below.

Self Starter

1 ½ oz gin (I used Plymouth)

¾ oz Lillet Blanc

¼ oz Apricot Brandy (I used Marie Brizard Apry)

2 dashes pastis (I used about ¼ teaspoon of Henri Bardoin but some people might prefer less)

Stir over ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

This is an excellent summery drink. First you get a whiff of apricots and aniseed, then the dry citrus and aromatic flavors from the gin and Lillet, and finally some apricot sweetness to round things off. The apricot brandy and Lillet almost mesh together into a single fruity taste. As always the pastis adds a touch of complexity, complementing the apricot particularly nicely. Overall the drink does a nice balancing act between dry complexity and more luscious summer flavors.

The theme for this month’s Mixology Monday is Repeal Day, and Pre-prohibition drinks are thus in order. Pisco is flavor of the month at my place since I managed to pick up three different brands of the stuff. That makes the Pisco Punch the obvious choice for this month’s drink.

I mentioned Pisco Punch the last time I wrote here. The problem with Pisco Punch, and it is quite a problem, is that the original recipe seems to have been lost. Certain things about the drink are known with certainty though.

Pisco Punch was invented at the Bank Exchange on the corner of Montgomery and Washington streets in San Francisco. The Bank Exchange was a meeting place for the San Francisco business community and one of the city’s preeminent watering holes for much of the period between its opening in 1854 and its closure on the arrival of Prohibition in 1919. The drink appears to have been invented by the original owners of the Bank Exchange and the recipe was passed on to Duncan Nicol who ran the establishment from the late 1870s until its closure.

For some reason Pisco Punch attracted exaggerated praise among imbibers. Rudyard Kipling wrote in 1889 that the famous punch was: “compounded of the shavings of cherubs’ wings, the glory of a tropical dawn, the red clouds of sunset, and the fragments of lost epics by dead masters”. Another commentator stated more ominously that it would “make a gnat fight an elephant”. The drink was clearly tasty, potent, well-marketed or some combination thereof.

The recipe was a closely guarded secret and seems to have been lost following the death of Nicol. The result is that various different recipes now claim to be the original. All of these recipes share in common the use of pisco and fresh pineapple chunks marinated in syrup. Almost all also call for lemon or lime juice, though at least one uses grape juice in place of citrus and cuts the pineapple juice down to a mere teaspoon. One or two recipes include a dash of absinthe. Some variations call for a spicy element, either from marinating cloves together with the pineapple or though a dash of Angostura Bitters – this last being a variation that may result from confusion with the Pisco Sour. The controversy surrounding the recipe suggests that there may have been some ‘secret ingredient’ that foiled attempts replicate the taste of the original. However, given that Nicol guarded the recipe so closely he might easily have fed rumors of a ‘secret ingredient’, even if none existed, simply to throw imitators off the scent. It seems difficult to know the truth of the matter, but the idea of a ‘secret ingredient’ is certainly attractive.

An article on a blog by Knox Bronson claims that the ‘secret ingredient’ was gum syrup (see The Secrets of Pisco Punch Revealed). I am not sure about this theory. Gum syrup (sugar syrup with the addition of Gum Arabic to prevent crystallization and give a silky texture) was a standard 19^th century sweetener. Modern drinkers might be struck by a unique texture when the punch is prepared with gum syrup rather than standard syrup, but for drinkers in 19th Century San Francisco gum syrup would have been nothing unusual. Having said that though, punch recipes in Jerry Thomas’ 19^th Century bar guide exclusively call for loaf sugar as a sweetener, with gum syrup mostly restricted to use in cocktails. Jerry Thomas does give one punch recipe that uses gelatin to provide a silky texture, an effect that could also have been achieved with gum syrup. A gum syrup sweetened punch therefore might have been an unusual punch variation. It seems less plausible though that it was a ‘secret’ innovation. After all, owing to its easy mixability compared to sugar, gum syrup would likely have been a common substitution for sugar among bartenders mixing single serving punches in a hurry. Concluding that gum syrup was the ‘secret ingredient’ in the pisco punch seems premature.

Bronson also argues that, despite rumors at the time that the recipe included absinthe, this could not have been the case because the absinthe would have dominated the flavor and been easily discernable. I’m not so sure. The use of very small quantities of absinthe (i.e. dashes) was fairly common in other drinks of the time and hence the use of absinthe would not necessarily have implied an absinthe dominated drink. A punch containing absinthe may have been unusual though. Jerry Thomas lists various absinthe drinks, but not a single example of absinthe in a punch. The apparent lack of other absinthe punches, combined with the absinthe rumors associated with the Pisco Punch, thus could be interpreted as evidence that absinthe was the ‘secret ingredient’.

Regarding the possibility of the secret ingredient being some spicy element, Jerry Thomas gives an interesting recipe for a California Milk Punch that contains pineapple, lemons, sugar, cloves, coriander, cinnamon, brandy (unspecified but possibly in California this meant Pisco?), rum, Batavia Arrack, green tea and milk. Jerry Thomas contains several punch recipes that call for pineapple, but only the Californian version combines the pineapple with spices. This could simply be coincidence, but possibly there is a connection between this Californian spiced pineapple punch recipe and the Pisco Punch?

Personally I suspect that much of the novelty of the Pisco Punch may have lain in the use of pineapple. Pineapple is an interesting fruit from a social history perspective. Originally from Brazil, Europeans first encountered pineapple in the Caribbean at the close of the 15th century. The extraordinary natural sweetness of the pineapple (sugar was a luxury item at the time), its exotic appearance, and the difficulty of transporting the ripe fruit (which only deteriorate after harvesting) initially cemented the position of the pineapple as the fruit of the elite. European ships would load pineapples in the Americas, then make the long return voyage to Europe and present what few fruit remained unspoiled to the local monarch. From such lofty beginnings the pineapple could only really see its status decline, but it managed to retain its exotic and aristocratic associations into the 20th century.

In the 18th and early 19th centuries European aristocrats invested huge sums in hot houses and expert gardeners solely for the purpose of growing pineapples with which to impress dinner guests. Such a luxury were these hot house pineapples that often they were not even consumed, instead being presented as ornamental centerpieces during desert. Guests would recount both the number of pineapples presented and the number actually eaten, perhaps saying that a particular banquet had included “six pineapples, two cut”. The American gentry in the early years of the United States followed this English fashion for growing pineapples in hot houses.

The arrival of steam ships and rail in the 19th century reduced transportation times sufficiently that the hothouse cultivated variety became uneconomical compared to imports. The middle classes and even the poor could suddenly afford occasional pineapples. It ceased being de riguer to serve pineapple only by ceremonially cutting a whole fruit, and pineapple ices, pies, fritters, punches, and other recipes began to appear. Pineapple retained their exotic associations though, and in big cities greengrocers would rent out particularly handsome pineapples as decorative centerpieces for dinner parties. One London socialite joked that no dinner party was complete unless the table was graced by Lady Curzon and a pineapple. Pineapple had become a commodity rather than a true rarity.

Pineapple lost its aristocratic exclusivity by the late 19th century, but nevertheless would have remained a novelty throughout most areas of the United States.  The fruit only became truly ubiquitous after commercial farming and canning operations got underway in Hawaii in the early 20^th Century. Thus the use of pineapple, plus the pisco (unfamiliar to most drinkers outside of California), would already have made the Pisco Punch unusual and worthy of comment among drinkers. Just possibly a dash of absinthe, spice, or even Batavia Arrack added the finishing touch.

Maybe though the original recipe really has been found again? A certain Peruvian San Franciscoite named Guillermo Torro-Lira has recently released a book on the subject entitled “Wings of Cherubs: The Saga of the Rediscovery of Pisco Punch, Old San Francisco’s Mystery Drink”. I have not read this book since I only just saw it online while Googling around for different Pisco Punch recipes. Still, the book may shed some light on what mystery ingredients, if any, were contained in the original Pisco Punch. Has anyone in the US had a chance to check it out?

I made my picso punch as follows (recipe scaled down to single serving size):

2 oz pisco

¾ oz lemon juice (or experiment with lime?)

½ oz pineapple flavored gum syrup* (perhaps with spices?)

Perhaps add a dash of absinthe or absinthe substitute?

Place a chunk or two of marinated pineapple* in a glass. Gently muddle if you feel like it. Stir pisco, lemon juice, gum syrup and (if desired) absinthe over ice and strain into the prepared glass. Recipes for the scaled up punch generally include an ounce or so of water per serving so give it a good long stir over the ice to allow plenty of dilution.

I have also tried adding various other herbal flavorings, such as Chartreuse (green and yellow) and Peychauds Bitters. Chartreuse has an affinity with pineapple, and Peychauds Bitters has anise notes not unlike pastis. It might not be very authentic but there is room to experiment with something along these lines. Still, absinthe/pastis probably works as well as anything.

* Make pineapple marinade by chopping up a fresh pineapple into chunks, covering in gum syrup (sugar syrup with the addition of gum Arabic), and leaving overnight. Both the fruit and syrup are later used in the punch. You could try adding spices to the marinade, perhaps cloves, cinnamon and coriander as in the California Milk Punch. If you added spices it would make sense to gently warm them in the syrup before adding the fruit to allow better infusion of flavors.

It was the craze of the day.

The Bunny Hug (click to listen) was a ragtime dance. It was one of a family of ‘lewd’ animal dances that were originally danced in bars and bordellos and spread from there to the dance halls frequented by the more polite portion of American society. Other such dances included the Grizzly Bear, the Camel Hop and the Turkey Trot. In its day the Bunny Hug was the cutting edge, the latest fad. It was loved and loathed, and swept across America and around the world even as cities passed ordinances banning it. On March 27, 1913, dance hall manager Ed Spence of Grants Pass, Oregon was reported to be “in serious condition from 11 knife wounds as a result of trying to enforce his taboo of the ‘Bunny Hug’, the ‘Turkey Trot’ and like terpsichorean confections.” Forgotten today, the Bunny Hug once stirred passions.

The Bunny Hug was part of the transition from the old to the modern. Like ragtime itself, the Bunny Hug filled an awkward gap between two different ages. Traditionalists abhorred it. Its fashion conscious champions quickly discarded it The craze of the day changed. People hearing the words ‘bunny hug’ are now more likely think of a brand of diapers than anything else.

Fittingly, as the craze of the day the Bunny Hug had its name attached to a cocktail. You can resurrect the Bunny Hug by mixing equal parts whiskey, gin, and pastis, stirring over ice (or shaking) and straining into a cocktail glass. Any type of whiskey is OK, but given the strong flavors at work a blended Scotch probably brings a little more to the drink than a Bourbon does. On the other hand, in America (the place the drink would have been most popular) a rye or bourbon would have been more likely suspects. To be authentic substitute absinthe for the pastis.

This mixture of whiskey, gin and aniseed probably divides drinkers as much as Bunnyhug dance divided society. Liking pastis is obviously a prerequisite for trying this drink. Even then the drink is raw, unconventional, and not for the faint hearted. Give it a chance though and you will find some interesting layers of taste to reflect upon. Although this looks like a drink dreamed up by someone in a hurry to get drunk and not much caring how they went about it, just possibly this lush had a sense of style? They certainly created something to ponder on. The pastis grabs the foreground, while the gin and whiskey fight an unresolved struggle for second place. The mixture is jarring in the extreme, yet something in the chaos pulls it all together. Another nice thing about this drink is that virtually any bar has the ingredients on hand to make it (an important consideration given China’s sometimes primitive bar culture), and the concoction is robust enough to stand up to a fair bit of mistreatment.  The only way to really destroy it would probably be to light it on fire. It makes a handy drink when in doubt but feeling brave.

In terms of cocktails, the Bunny Hug evokes another age, an age that predates almost everything drinkers now associate with the cocktail. The Bunny Hug predates vermouth atomizers, umbrella garnishes, Oreo cookie rimmed glassware, and snickered requests for Sex on the Beach. It caters to those expecting to be served straight liquor and not much else. Challenging and roughly stylish, it combines the fire of whiskey, the abandonment of gin and the divisive funkiness of pastis.

The same cocktail is now probably better known, in so far as it is known at all, as the Earthquake. Possibly someone recognized the problem with walking into a bar and requesting an extra large Bunny Hug? The name Earthquake is less evocative though. The Earthquake a potent concoction to be downed with lots of bravado and little thought. The Bunny Hug suggests something that to be savored, if only during a quick break from the dance floor.

This site is dedicated to the spirit of the Bunny Hug. Dubious it may be, but did it deserve to be quite so forgotten?