Author: Matthew Arkin

The Tale of Two Negronis

Happy Negroni Week!
 
This week, Campari and Imbibe Magazine join forces to celebrate one of the world’s most popular cocktails and to support Slow Food, which works to create a more sustainable and equitable environment in the food and beverage industry. Bars and restaurants around the globe will be celebrating the Negroni by highlighting its supreme versatility and seemingly unlimited appeal.

So, what better time to delve into the peculiar, but fascinating origin story of the Negroni?
 
Like many cocktail origin stories, this one has more than one “official” set of facts. General consensus comes down to two mostly accepted versions; let’s call them the “Clown version” and the “General version.”

The Clown Version

In 1892, a colorful character from Florence, Italy named Camillo Negroni sailed into the port of Ellis Island on the steamship Fulda. Camillo called himself a “count,” but his provenance for this title has long been doubted and debated.  Also hazy was his actual job history while in the States: Count Negroni has been described as a banker, a riverboat gambler, a cowboy, and a rodeo clown. Whatever his job, it seems that during his time stateside, Negroni developed a great fondness for the cocktail known as the Americano: Campari, sweet vermouth, and soda. He also developed quite a fondness for gin.
 
Fast forward to 1919, by which time Negroni had returned to Florence. At the Caffè Casoni, “Count” Camillo Negroni asks bartender Fosco Scarselli to make him an Americano, but to make it stronger. Supposedly, it was then that Negroni requests that the bartender replace the soda water with gin. Voila! The Negroni was born (if you go with the clown story).

The General Version

As colorful and entertaining as the story of Count Camillo may be, it has recently been disputed by a verified descendant of the Negroni family.

Noel Negroni asserts that, in fact, it was his relative, distant cousin General Pascal Negroni, who is the rightful inventor of cocktail. Noel’s first line of argument rests on the fact that there is no Count Camillo to be found anywhere on the Negroni family tree!

Pascal Negroni joined the French army in 1847 at the age of 18. At the age of 41, he led a successful charge in the Battle of Worth and was decorated as an Officer of the Legion of Honor. Later, in the Franco-Prussian War, Pascal was taken as a prisoner of war for several months, but would eventually be promoted to brigadier general in 1884.

Prior to his service in the Franco-Prussian War, Pascal Negroni was posted in Saint Louis, Senegal. During this time, Pascal wrote a letter to his brother Roche, which reads: “. . . Incidentally, did you know that the vermouth-based cocktail that I invented in Saint Louis is a great hit at the Lunéville officers club?” This seems to confirm the idea that the original Negroni was indeed Pascal’s invention. Additional accounts from pharmacists and barmaids in Senegal mention a French Army captain who championed the delights of the Negroni throughout the region. Some inconsistencies remain in the accounting of the General’s version, but it appears that there is a greater reason to accept the General theory over the Clown/Count theory.

No matter which version you choose to believe, one thing is indisputable: Negronis are delicious. Just so you have it handy, here’s a recipe for a classic Negroni (and, if you like, the Batch 22 variation). Why not use Negroni Week as your inspiration to go and enjoy this classic cocktail?

Negroni

​Instructions

• In a rocks glass with ice stir:

• 1 oz. Sweet Vermouth
• 1 oz. Gin (or Batch 22)
• 1 oz. Campari

• Garnish with an orange peel.

Added Bonus: Go to @drinkbatch22 on Instagram or drinkbatch22 on Facebook to see the special recipes we created to honor Camillo and Pascal Negroni.

El Floridita, Havana

There are only a few bars in the world that can rightfully claim to be the birthplace of a global cocktail phenomenon, and El Floridita in Havana, Cuba, is one of them. Not only has the bar been host to dozens of the world’s most notable writers, celebrities, and politicians, it’s also a landmark that is credited with the creation of the world’s first daiquiri.

El Floridita has been in business for more than 200 years and has gained worldwide renown for numerous reasons, not the least of which was its creation of one of the world’s most popular and enduring cocktails. It first gained a huge following and worldwide recognition during Prohibition, when many influential Americans flocked to Cuba to enjoy the indulgences of alcohol.

The bar, originally named “La Piña de Plata,” (The Silver Pineapple) first opened in 1817 on a street corner in Havana. It remains there to this day.

In 1914, an immigrant from Spain named Constantino Ribalaigua Vert began working as a cantinero (bartender) at the Floridita. By 1918, after only four years working behind the bar, Constante (as he was called by regulars) was in a position to buy the place, which he did.

Constante loved to experiment with ways to serve his patrons rum, the national spirit of Cuba. In 1931, he created what is commonly acknowledged to be the world’s first daiquiri. As time went on, Constante made his frozen cocoction with all kinds of fruit juices—everything from mango to pineapple to strawberry and banana.

One of the most famous Americans to inhabit the bar at El Floridita was writer Ernest Hemingway, who was nicknamed “Papa Doble” for his prodigious talent at downing double-strength daiquiris. In fact, Hemingway, who started frequenting the bar in 1932, inspired the bartenders to create a drink just for him, now known as the “Hemingway Daiquiri.” This non-frozen riff doubled the rum in the original recipe and did away with the added sugar.

El Floridita has won much acclaim over its long history and has been recognized by countless magazines and travel authorities as the most “Iconic Bar in the World,” and the “Best Bar in the World.” In 1992, El Floridita won the highly coveted “Five Star Diamond” award from the American Academy of Hospitality Sciences.

Want to drink like an ex-pat in Havana? Here’s your recipe:

Hemingway Daiquiri
Instructions

• In a shaker with ice combine:
  • 2 ounces white rum
  • 1/2 ounce maraschino liqueur
  • 3/4 ounce lime juice, freshly squeezed
  • 1/2 ounce grapefruit juice, freshly squeezed
  • Garnish: lime wheel

• Shake until well-chilled and strain into a coupe glass. Garnish with a lime wheel.

Note: You can also make a frozen version by combining all the ingredients in a blender with chipped ice.

Once in a while, we’re inspired to tell you about something we’ve seen in another cocktail publication—it can be a new trend, an esoteric ingredient, or a particularly engaging origin story. This week, we’re highlighting a cool cocktail-making technique that first came to our attention in an article from Punch (one of our favorite cocktail industry sources).
 
The technique (actually two related techniques) is called the “regal shake,” which is similar to a technique called the “regal stir.” These “cocktail hacks” are sublimely simple yet add a truly unique character to a cocktail.

The regal shake (first developed by a bartender from Compagnie des Vins Surnaturels named Theo Lieberman) is a process in which a swath of citrus is added directly into a cocktail shaker and is shaken with all the other ingredients. Yes, it’s that simple. Adding the citrus peel to the shaker adds a wonderful layer of aromatic complexity and more effectively distributes the citrus’s essential oils to the body of the drink. It also imparts a touch of bitterness from the pith, which can help to dry the drink out. Often, this technique is used in place of adding bitters.
 
Almost any kind of citrus will work for a regal shake, but the general consensus from bartenders is that lemon, orange, grapefruit, and lime work the best.
 
The “regal stir” is a similar concept to the regal shake, but instead of adding the citrus peel to the shaker, the peel is used to stir the cocktail. A bartender named Jelani Johnson is credited with developing this technique while working at Gage & Tollner, the famous restaurant bar in Brooklyn, New York. In the Punch article, Johnson says he “stumbled upon” the regal stir technique when he decided to stir a lemon peel into a recipe that used sweet vermouth. What he found was that the stir “dried” the drink out a bit and also added a pleasing boost to the mouthfeel of the cocktail. 
 
Here at Downtime Cocktails, we’ll be playing with the regal techniques as we evolve existing recipes and develop new cocktail creations for Batch 22. First on the list of to-dos will be stirring and shaking orange peel for our riffs on a Manhattan, Negroni, and El Presidente and using lemon peel to stir and shake our Cosmopolitan, our Aviation (Flight 22), and our Lemondrop Martini. Which technique will you try first?

The longest bar in the world can be found at a sprawling cocktail establishment called Humble Baron, located within Tennessee’s Nearest Green Distillery. And it turns out that the world’s longest bar also has a long and interesting history behind it.

The record-setting bar is by far the most popular feature at the Nearest Green Distillery, which is also world renowned for producing Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey. Uncle Nearest is famous because it’s named for Nearest Green, the first African-American distiller on record, who is also credited with teaching Tennessee whiskey icon Jack Daniel how to make whiskey.

The Uncle Nearest brand, founded in 2017, has exploded in recent years—it’s credited with being the fastest-growing whiskey in U.S. history—and has won more than 450 awards and accolades since its launch.

The longest bar in the world also boasts a long list of impressive stats. The total length, 518 feet, is evidently something of a challenge for the folks who work it. According to the bartending staff, the winding and curvy design makes it a unique challenge to tend to all of Humble Baron’s patrons; the bar sits within a 20,000-square foot room and features 17 distinct stations. When the bar is full, it can house 202 customers on its built-in bar stools.
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Nearest Green is a black-owned company that is dedicated to promoting other black-owned enterprises, especially those in the spirits space. The extensive cocktail menu at the bar showcases Uncle Nearest, but also highlights selections from other minority-owned American suppliers.

We go to a lot of bars and we read a lot of cocktail menus. Despite our breadth of cocktail knowledge, we still often come upon creations with ingredients that are completely unfamiliar to us. If this happens to us, we assume it also happens to you. So, we wanted to dedicate a few articles to explaining some of the relatively obscure spirits and ingredients that you are likely to see on a cool craft cocktail menu.
 
When it comes to knowing the less common, more esoteric spirits that are available on the market, bartenders and mixologists are usually way ahead of the general public. Because innovation, creativity, and some element of delightful surprise are all goals of most mixologists, they are always on the lookout for that new and interesting ingredient they can incorporate into a cocktail.
 
Until recently, aquavit was one of those spirits that only hip, cutting-edge bartenders had heard of. Now, aquavit is growing quickly in popularity and can be found on the cocktail menus of many bars and restaurants around the world. And there are many other spirits that fall into that category, many of which you probably don’t know. Here are three relatively “unknown” spirits that are becoming more and more prevalent on specialty cocktail menus in the United States.

Strega
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Often considered to be Italy’s answer to chartreuse, this herbal liqueur has been made since 1860 in Benevento, Italy. The spirit contains about 70 different herbal ingredients, including mint, fennel, cinnamon, juniper, cloves, anise, orris root, nutmeg, and saffron, which gives it its distinct yellow color. Bottled at 80 proof, this sweet liqueur is considered to be a digestif, but is commonly added to cocktails for its piney, minty, and licorice notes. Aged in oak before bottling and release, Strega can be used in cocktails alongside a wide variety of other spirits, including gin, tequila, rye whiskey, and cognac.

Sotol
​
As tequila and mezcal have taken center stage on many cocktail menus, other similar but lesser-known spirits have attracted the attention of mixologists. Sotol, the official state spirit of Chihuahua, Mexico, is similar in many ways to tequila but—given its different base ingredient and unique production process—actually tastes quite different. For one thing, sotol is made from a wild indigenous plant (the sotol plant) that looks similar to an agave, but has narrower and finer leaves. It is often described as brighter, crisper, and more vegetal (grassy) than tequila. Some producers favor funkier, more vegetal flavors, even cultivating notes that some describe as “sweaty socks.” Unlike sotol, tequila is mostly farmed (not wild harvested) and is produced with a pot still. Sotol, by comparison, is distilled in a double column copper still. Like tequila, sotol is classified into three categories: Puro, Reposada, and Anejo.

Ancho Reyes
 
This spicy Mexican liqueur can be found on the bar shelves and specialty menus of most innovative cocktail establishments these days. First created in 1927, Ancho Reyes is a chili-infused spirit most akin to a spicy rum. To produce it, ancho chilis are macerated in a cane-based spirit for about six months, which creates a fiery, smoky, delicious elixir with a substantial kick. The majority of cocktail enthusiasts describe the prominent flavors in Ancho Reyes as tobacco, chocolate, caramel, vanilla, and cinnamon. Most bartenders and home mixologists put Ancho Reyes to good use by adding it to margaritas, mules, and other traditionally spicy cocktails.
 
Next installment of What Is That Ingredient?:  Feni, Pisco, and Mama Juana
 
Special Note: Thanks to all the folks who came out to see us at the Living Coast Discovery Center on August 12 and at the Best of San Diego Party on August 18th. We love making Batch 22 and creating great cocktail recipes, but the best part of our business is sharing Batch with an eager and appreciative public. There’s nothing more rewarding for us than seeing the looks of surprised joy and excitement on the faces of folks who get their first taste of our aquavit and decide it’s their new favorite spirit. We love making new fans!

As we’ve written before, we really enjoy finding connections between famous people and cocktails. Whether it’s exploring the favorite drinks of historical figures or discovering the origins of cocktails named in honor of someone special, the stories behind these drinks tend to elevate our enjoyment while drinking them.

Our research has uncovered a number of fascinating facts, but this week we focus on the idea that many (most?) famous wits and creative geniuses seem to have had a special affection for cocktails. Here are three cocktails inspired by three notable and very colorful men of the past.

Oscar Wilde

• “Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.”

• “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.”

• “There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”

There are few figures from the 20th century who are quoted more often than Oscar Wilde. Well-known in British literary circles as a socialite, a dandy, and a provocateur, Wilde had an outsized personality that came with a serious love of Champagne. He would reportedly drink anything bubbly, but his preferred labels were Perrier Jouët or Dom Perginon; rosés if you had ’em.  Evidently, Wilde would go to almost any lengths to get his bubbly and would often host elaborate champagne dinners where the stuff flowed like water. Even when there was no party at hand, Wilde ordered his staff to serve champagne “at intervals” throughout the day. And it seemed nothing could stop him from getting his fix: After being imprisoned for charges of indecency and sodomy, Wilde ordered cases of his favorite vintage (1874 Perrier-Jouët) to be delivered straight to his cell. (How he got the champagne into his cell is not evident in the historical record.) Wilde lore has it that, at the very end, he ordered champagne to his deathbed and sighed, “Alas, I am dying beyond my means.”

Oscar Wilde Strawberry Champagne Cocktail

• Ingredients

• ​4 Strawberries, in 1/2-inch dice (plus more for garnishing the glass)
• 1 teaspoon Sugar
• 1 oz. Cognac
• 10 oz. Champagne
• Directions
• In a small bowl, combine diced strawberries and sugar. Let sit 1/2 hour, then muddle with a muddler, a wooden spoon, or the back of a fork.
• Add cognac to the muddled strawberries, then pour the mixture into two chilled Champagne flutes. Top with champagne and garnish the glass with an extra strawberry, if desired.

George Gershwin
​
He was born nearly 130 years ago, but his brilliant and innovative melodies remain the crown jewels in what is commonly referred to as the “American Songbook.” 

“Someone to Watch Over Me,” “Fascinating Rhythm,” “Summertime,” “The Man I Love,” “Embraceable You” and “I Got Rhythm,” are some of our most beloved standards, and his musicals and orchestral pieces—Rhapsody in Blue, Of Thee I Sing, An American in Paris, and his opera Porgy and Bess—are considered among the greatest in American music.

Gershwin, who grew up in tenements on Manhattan’s Lower East Side,  grew into a man who liked things from both ends of the spectrum—that is to say, he enjoyed the high life of “sophisticated society,” but also took great pleasure in the simple treats that defined his boyhood. He smoked fine Parisian cigarettes, but also loved a good old stogie.  He had a fondness for ice cream sodas, but also adored Scotch highballs. This cocktail, created by a team of bartenders at the French Embassy, is inspired by Rhapsody in Blue and includes ingredients both simple and sophisticated. 

The Gershwin

Instructions

• In a shaker with ice combine:

• 2 oz. London dry gin
• 1/2 oz.  Ginger liqueur
• 1/2 oz.  Simple Syrup
• 3/4 oz. Lemon juice
• 2 Drops Rose water
• Shake well and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with lemon peel.

Mark Twain

Generally considered to be one of America’s greatest all-time writers, Mark Twain (born Samuel Langhorne Clemens) defined the voice of American literature for generations of readers around the world. His best-known classics, “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” and “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court,” remain beloved classics to this day. The great William Faulkner called Twain “the father of American literature.”

Twain was also a noted humorist, entrepreneur, and book publisher. Among his most famous sayings: “It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt”; “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog”; “If you tell the truth then you don’t have to remember anything.”
 
Unlike the origins of many cocktails from the past, The Mark Twain cocktail is an actual drink that Mark Twain himself referenced in letters and was known to order frequently. He evidently discovered the wonders of this Whiskey Sour variation while traveling in London and wrote home to his wife Olivia about it in 1874:

“Livy my darling, I want you to be sure and remember to have, in the bathroom when I arrive, a bottle of Scotch Whiskey, a lemon, some crushed sugar, and a bottle of Angostura Bitters. Ever since I have been in London I have taken in a wine glass what is called a cock-tail (made with those ingredients) before breakfast, before dinner, and just before going to bed.” 

The Mark Twain

Instructions

• In a shaker with ice combine:

• 2 oz. Scotch whisky
• .75 oz. Lemon juice
• .75 oz Simple syrup
• 2 dashes Angostura bitters
• Shake until well chilled and strain into a coupe or cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.

“The mad geniuses behind Death & Co have elevated cocktail creation to punk-rock artistry.” — Aisha Tyler, critic

So far, in our ongoing dive into the World’s Most Iconic Bars, we’ve covered two classic European institutions that set worldwide standards for style at the turn of the twentieth century. In this installment, we profile a contemporary bar in New York City that has become iconic for its role in helping to define the modern cocktail movement.

According to the website thelifestyledco.com, Death & Co is the most important, influential, and oft-imitated bar to emerge from the contemporary craft cocktail movement. Since it opened its doors in 2006, in Manhattan’s trendy East Village, Death & Co has established itself as a cocktail Mecca for tourists and local cocktail enthusiasts alike. Since opening, the bar has snagged just about every major award in the industry—including America’s Best Cocktail Bar and Best Cocktail Menu at the prestigious Tales of the Cocktail convention in New Orleans.

Much of the bar’s success rests on the fact that Founding Partners David Kaplan, Alex Day, Devon Tarby, and Ravi DeRossi have been supremely fortunate in recruiting and engaging some of the most talented bartenders in America. As they explain in their book, Death & Co: Modern Classic Cocktails, (published in 2014 and now the bestselling cocktail book of all time) they have taken pains to “get out of the way” of their bartenders so creativity and playfulness can drive the development of the menu. The strategy appears to have worked. Today, it’s not uncommon for cocktail pilgrims to wait two-and-a-half hours to get inside for a drink.

New York City has long been an incubator for creativity in the cocktail world. The Death & Co team, along with other highly influential NYC bars, such as Employees Only, PDT, and The Dead Rabbit, is widely credited with elevating America’s cocktail menus past the standard gin & tonic and vodka cranberry. Death & Co is the birthplace of some of the modern era’s most iconic drinks: the Oaxaca Old-Fashioned, Naked and Famous, and the Conference, to name just a few.
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Death & Co has also led the industry in its innovative use of lesser-known spirits and ingredients—everything from mole bitters to habañero shrub to pomegranate molasses, curry, rose water, and verjus (juice from unripe grapes). The bar has also long been a proponent of using aquavit in its cocktails. In their book, published nearly ten years ago, the authors write, “We love the complex spice flavors aquavit can add [to a cocktail], whether as a base spirit or as a modifier. As a result, we probably use more aquavit than most cocktail bars.” One of their most popular aquavit cocktails is called Tunnel Vision: It features Linie Aquavit, Probitas white rum, carrot and carrot Eau de Vie, and coconut. Another, called the Jesper Lind, combines gin, solera sherry, aquavit, vanilla syrup, and orange bitters. A third—the May Fair— combines two kinds of aquavit (Krogstad and Linie) with gin, sweet vermouth, Bénédictine, Angostura bitters, and Peychaud’s bitters. 

Some of the other more intriguing concoctions developed by the D&C team include Space Oddity, which is made with Ford’s gin, fino sherry, smoked sunchokes, and finished with yellow chartreuse. The Tenement Yard combines sugar-snap-pea-infused gin with génépy liqueur, lemon juice, and orgeat (almond liqueur). And then there’s the Shattered Glasser, which combines what appears to be a hodgepodge of ingredients to create a smoky, spicy, and slightly sweet drink: Reposado tequila, mezcal, sweet vermouth, Van Oosten Batavia Arrack (a funky spirit made from sugar cane and fermented rice), St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram, Bénédictine, and Bittermens mole bitters.

In 2018, Death & Co took its show on the road and opened a second location (they called it “a full-scale hospitality experience”) in Denver, Colorado, where they became the marquee bar and exclusive food-and-drink partner of the Ramble Hotel.  In December of 2019, Death & Co opened its third outpost in the Arts District of Los Angeles.
Today, all three locations remain exceedingly popular with cocktail enthusiasts, and Death & Co continues to exert a major influence on the scope and direction of the current craft cocktail scene around the world.

Being in the spirits business, we don’t tend to spend too much time talking about the dangers of excessive alcohol use. It is, of course, a serious problem for many people, and one that shouldn’t be ignored—even by folks in the alcohol industry.

We do love looking at all the ways in which alcohol has played a role in history—both the good ways and the bad. Once in a while, a cautionary tale of such epic proportions presents itself and cannot be ignored. The story of Alexander the Great and his unhealthy relationship with alcohol is one of those tales.

It’s probably safe to say that it takes something of an outsized personality to create one of the largest empires in the history of the world. Macedonian King Alexander was just such a person. By the time he died at age 32 in 323 B.C.E., ATG had built an empire that stretched from Greece to India—and he did it all in about 10 years.

Outsized personalities tend to be prone to grand gestures and excesses of all kinds. For ATG, alcohol was one of those excesses.

Historians have debated for centuries about whether Alexander was an alcoholic or not. Many contemporary researchers and analysts contend that he was driven in and out of alcohol abuse as a result of being raised by over-demanding parents. Whatever the cause, there’s no doubt that ATG had a problem.

Alexander’s drinking benders are legendary: In one, he killed his good friend Cleitus with a spear. This was a man who had saved ATG’s life in an epic battle. When he sobered up and realized what he had done, Alexander was so remorseful that he wept for three days.

Perhaps the most infamous example of Alexander’s alcoholic excess was a drinking contest he held in 324 B.C.E. The event was an attempt to boost public opinion with the locals of Susa (part of present-day Iran). In order to fully appreciate the circumstances, one needs to know a little bit about daily life in Macedonia 300+ years before the Common Era. Wine produced in those days was much stronger than the wine we know today, and people in most countries diluted their wine with water as a common practice. Macedonians, however, prided themselves on their ability to hold their booze; they liked their wine at full strength.

While in Susa, Alexander declared that there would be a public drinking competition. His most trusted advisor, Calanus, had recently died and this competition would be the crowning event held in his honor as part of a large public celebration of Calanus’s life.

It was decided that the winner would be whoever consumed the greatest amount of wine. The prize would be a gold crown and widespread recognition and respect from the masses. A total of 41 contestants decided to take part—a mix of Alexander’s soldiers and locals—and it was determined that full-strength Macedonian wine would be used.

After drinking 4 gallons of wine, Promachus—a foot soldier in Alexander’s army—was declared the winner. The other contestants, all of whom were raging drunk and sick, suffered acute alcohol poisoning. In total, 35 of the 41 participants died that day, all succumbing to fatally toxic levels of alcohol. Promachus and the other five drinkers who survived the first day only made it another 24 hours or so. By the following nightfall, all six of them were dead as well.

Given Alexander’s penchant for Bacchanalian spectacles and acute overindulgence, his reaction to the contest’s outcome was likely one of resigned indifference. All in all, he probably thought the entertainment factor outweighed the ultimate cost in human lives. We’ll never know for sure. We do know, however, that ATG became even more unpredictable and megalomaniacal in the years that followed. At age 32, suffering from a fever, he insisted on drinking a huge quantity of wine instead of water to slake his thirst. A few hours later, he was dead.

Military strategists and historians agree that Alexander the Great was one of humankind’s most impressive leaders. His bravery on the battlefield and his drive to conquer and expand his empire was unmatched. Unfortunately, that intensity and ambition was driven in large part by a personality bent on self-destruction.

In culinary school, many classical curricula teach students to become fluent in preparing what are called the “Mother Sauces.” In French cuisine, these are the five sauces that can pretty much be used as the foundation for any sauce you may want to create in the kitchen. (For reference, the five Mother Sauces are Bechamel, Veloute (white stock), Espagnole (brown stock), Hollandaise, and Tomate.)

Just as in French cuisine, there are several basic “families” of cocktails that form the core foundation of just about any drink you might want to create at your bar. By most accounts, there are 12 different “families” in mixology: Buck/Mule, Cobbler, Cocktail, Crusta, Fizz, Flip, Rickey, Sling, Smash, Sour, Swizzle, and Toddy. Although some of these categories remain barely known (when’s the last time you had a Crusta?) a few—like the Mother Sauces—provide the basic roadmap for creating an infinite number of cocktail variations.

For the purposes of this article, let’s not worry about “families,” but rather let’s look at the basic structure of some of the most popular cocktail styles on menus today. Let’s look at the Manhattan, the Negroni, The Mule, The Martini, and The Cosmo. These drinks are a good place to start if you want to know five basic formulas for five diverse styles of cocktail. And the great thing is that each of them only requires three main ingredients (plus a garnish or two if you’re so inclined).

The Basic Manhattan
A classic Manhattan cocktail is whiskey, sweet vermouth, and bitters:  

• Ingredients
  • 2 ounces whiskey
  • 1 ounce sweet vermouth
  • 2 dashes Angostura bitters. 
• Directions
  • A Manhattan is traditionally stirred over ice, strained, and served up in a coupe, rocks, or martini glass. The most common garnish for this is a cherry of one sort or another.

If you’re not a big whiskey fan (or if you just want to play) you can try the M22, which is the less-sweet aquavit hack for a Manhattan. Again, only three main ingredients: 

• Ingredients

• 2 ounces Batch 22 Classic Gold aquavit
• 1/2 ounce dry vermouth
• 1/2 ounce sweet vermouth
• Dashes of Angostura bitters, optional
• Directions
  • Stir ingredients on ice, strain, and serve in a cocktail glass. Garnish with a cherry (we like to add a splash of the cherry liquid or a dash of Luxardo Sangue Morlacco to punch up the fruit).

The Basic Negroni
The classic negroni is a simple 3-part cocktail: 

• Ingredients

• 1 part gin
• 1 part sweet vermouth
• 1 part Campari
• Directions
  • The ingredients are combined in a rocks glass with ice, stirred to chill, and garnished (usually with an orange peel).

The Batch hack—the Batchroni—simply substitutes Batch 22 for the gin. The aquavit provides an herbal and floral component similar to the gin, but does it with different herbs and floral notes.

The Batchroni is:

• Ingredients
  • 1 ounce Batch 22 Classic Gold aquavit
  • 1 ounce sweet vermouth
  • 1 ounce Campari
• Directions
  • Combine the ingredients in a rocks glass with ice and stir. Garnish with an orange peel or wheel. If you want a more elegant look, you can shake the ingredients over ice and strain into a martini glass.

The Basic Martini
Technically, a martini is not even a 3-ingredient cocktail. You can chill some vodka, gin, or aquavit and pour it into a martini glass with a garnish and call it a martini. You can also shake any of the above with a dash or a good amount of vermouth, strain it into a cocktail glass, and have a martini.
 
One of our favorite martinis is the Batch Dirty Martini, which is a 3-ingredient cocktail only because we use two types of vermouth:

Dirty Martini

• Ingredients

• 3 ounces Batch 22 Classic Gold aquavit
• 1/2 ounce sweet vermouth
• 1/2 ounce dry vermouth
• Add any amount of olive brine and/or olive bitters to taste
• Directions
  • Combine ingredients in a shaker with ice, shake, and strain into a martini glass. Garnish with olives and a lemon twist, if desired.

The Basic Cosmo
Okay, the basic Cosmo is really a four-ingredient cocktail, if you count the lime juice in the traditional recipe, but the Batch hack requires only a squeeze of fresh lime to your taste. The classic Cosmo is:

• Ingredients

• 1 ounce vodka
• 1 ounce cranberry juice
• 1/2 ounce Cointreau
• 1/2 ounce lime juice
• Directions
  • Combine ingredients in a shaker with ice, shake to chill, and strain into a martini glass. Garnish with lime wheel.

The Batch Cosmo
Here, we substitute Batch 22 for vodka, we use pomegranate juice instead of cranberry, and we use Triple Sec instead of Cointreau (though using Cointreau or cranberry with this is perfectly delicious). 

• Ingredients

• 2 ounces Batch 22 Classic Gold aquavit
• 1 ounce pomegranate juice
• 1/2 Triple Sec
•  Squeeze of fresh lime juice to your taste​
• Directions
  • Combine all ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake to chill, strain into a coupe or martini glass. Garnish with orange peel or lime wheel.

The Basic Mule
A Mule (also called a Buck) is basically a cocktail made with ginger ale or ginger beer (the ginger gives it a “kick,” hence the name). The basic Mule, most often made with vodka, is a simple 3-part creation:

• Ingredients

• 1 1/2 ounces of vodka
• 1/4 ounce lime juice
• 4 ounces ginger beer
• Directions
  • Combine the vodka and lime in copper mug or highball glass with ice, stir to combine. Add the ginger beer and stir gently to combine. Garnish with lime wedge.

 
The Batch Happy Mule is a simple variation on the classic formula:

• Ingredients

• 2 ounces Batch 22 Classic Gold aquavit
• 1/4 fresh lime juice
• 4 ounces ginger beer
• Dash of Angostura bitters, if desired
• Directions
  • Combine the non-carbonated ingredients in a cocktail glass or mug with ice. Stir to combine. Add the ginger beer and stir gently. Garnish with lime wedge or wheel.

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If you commit these simple formulas to memory, you’ll have the basic knowledge you need to create all kinds of fun and interesting variations. You can do a Mule with tequila or gin instead of vodka or aquavit. You can try making a Cosmo with cherry juice or even mango, passionfruit, or blueberry. You can do a Manhattan with all kinds of aged brown spirits. Once you understand the basics, you’re free to let your creativity and passions go wild. Enjoy!

American Bar at The Savoy Hotel

The now-iconic Savoy Hotel in London was a glittering showpiece from the moment it opened its doors in 1889. The genius behind the hotel was theatrical impresario Richard D’Oyly Carte, who brought his unique flair for the theater to the ambience and service at the Savoy.

An essential part of the Savoy experience was the wonderful American Bar that became both a showpiece and a major draw for the hotel. Helmed by the legendary barman Harry Craddock, who gained worldwide notoriety for his cocktail creations in the 1920s and 1930s, the American Bar was a hive of activity for writers, artists, performers, and politicians from all over the world. Craddock, however, was not the first talented cocktail wizard to grace the bar at the Savoy. That title belonged to a woman named Ada Coleman, who headed the bar from 1903 to 1925.

“Coley,” as she was known to her regulars, served her inspired drinks to just about everybody who was anybody, including Mark Twain, Diamond Jim Brady and the Prince of Wales. Her signature Hanky Panky (credited as the first drink invented at the Savoy) is her most-famous cocktail; it’s a fabulous mixture featuring equal parts gin and sweet vermouth. You can find the recipe at the end of this article.

Barman Harry Craddock was an avid collector of cocktail recipes. In 1930, at the request of the Savoy, he compiled The Savoy Cocktail Book, which was a collection of more than 2,000 recipes that Craddock amassed from his years as a bartender. 93 years later, The Savoy Cocktail Book is still in print and is still considered to be one of the most important cocktail books of the 20th century.

Stylish and au courant, The Savoy hosted all kinds of society’s most glamourous and fashionable notables in the 1920s and 1930s, from royalty to Hollywood movie stars, to rock stars and politicians. One of the establishment’s first guests was world-famous French actress Sarah Bernhardt, who was delighted to find her old friend August Escoffier heading up the hotel’s kitchen. Escoffier was perhaps France’s most famous and influential chef at the time. His culinary techniques are still being taught in cooking schools all over the world.

The Prince of Wales was a regular guest at the Savoy, as were mega-stars Al Jolson, Cary Grant, John Wayne, Frank Sinatra, Ava Gardner, Bob Hope, and Marilyn Monroe. Contemporary music legends—Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, the Beatles, Rihanna, Duran Duran, and Taylor Swift, to name a few—have also spent a good deal of time at London’s most chic address.

The Savoy was one of the first hotels—and The American Bar was one of the first bars—to highlight the importance and appeal of a theatrical and well curated space for socializing. The “Roaring Twenties” ushered in a time of great social and cultural change around the world, especially in Europe (the U.S. was suffering in the restrictive yoke of Prohibition from 1920 to 1933) and the Savoy was a setting that embodied that change. 

Hanky Panky

Ada Coleman created this cocktail for Sir Charles Hawtrey, a celebrated actor who was a frequent visitor to the bar. As the story goes, he asked for a drink with a punch. Coleman served him this bracing concoction, leading him to exclaim “By Jove! That is the real hanky-panky!” The name stuck.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 ounces gin
• ​1 1/2 ounces sweet vermouth
• 2 dashes Fernet-Branca
• Garnish: orange twist​​

Directions

• Combine the gin, sweet vermouth and Fernet-Branca in a mixing glass with ice and stir until well-chilled. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with an orange twist.