Sunflower

This week was another fun campaign on Instagram, #WeHaveTheLastWord. Started by Mike of mmydrinks last year, it's a weeklong celebration of one of the greatest cocktails out there, the Last Word. This equal-parts mix of gin, Green Chartreuse, maraschino liqueur, and lime juice is iconic in the cocktail world for its simple recipe and unique flavor. If you haven't had one, you need to make or order one immediately.

As one of the more famous equal-parts cocktails out there, the Last Word lends itself to all sorts of riffs and variations. The Last of the Oaxacans trades the gin for mezcal. The Naked and Famous takes this even farther with Yellow Chartreuse and Aperol instead of the Green Chartreuse and maraschino. The bourbon-based Paper Plane doesn't share a single ingredient with the Last Word, but is still generally considered a variant due to its equal-parts proportions. And if you check out We Have the Last Word on Instagram, you will find countless other variations on this formula containing just about every spirit and liqueur you can think of.

I wanted to create my own riff on the Last Word for the campaign, and even started playing around with some recipes, but I didn't have a chance to perfect one in time. Using equal parts can be a tricky business. Usually when you pick ingredients that you think might work together, you can adjust the amounts of each until they're in perfect harmony. But when you're committed to equal parts, if it doesn't work, it just doesn't.

Not wanting to miss out on all the fun, I turned to my copy of Shake. Stir. Sip. to see if there were any 4-ingredient equal parts cocktails I had never made before. And to my surprise, the first recipe in the 4-ingredient section was not only one I had never made, but it was one that sounded really, really good: the Sunflower. It's actually a riff on the Corpse Reviver, swapping elderflower liqueur for the usual Lillet or Cocchi, but since I've seen some Corpse Revivers and variations posted with the #WeHaveTheLastWord hashtag, I think it will fly.

You can tell the Sunflower is going to be a crowd pleaser long before you taste it. You can't go wrong with gin, lemon, St. Germain, and orange liqueur. It's basically a sunny, floral, boozy lemonade. The absinthe wash might seem a bit polarizing to the casual drinker, but once they try it they'll see that it's fairly subtle touch that really brings the cocktail together, and it keeps the discerning drinker from rolling their eyes at ingredients so tasty and versatile that they might overlook the Sunflower for being too ordinary. Plus, it's a recipe by Sam Ross, creator of the Penicillin and the aforementioned Paper Plane. I will basically drink anything he comes up with, no questions asked.

And man, "Sunflower" is a much happier name than "Corpse Reviver," huh?

History: This cocktail was created by Sam Ross of Milk & Honey and Little Branch in New York, now at Attaboy. He created it around 2008.

Sunflower

3/4 oz. gin
3/4 oz. St. Germain
3/4 oz. Cointreau
3/4 oz. lemon juice
Absinthe rinse

Combine gin, St. Germain, Cointreau, and lemon juice in a shaker with ice and shake until chilled. Pour a dash of absinthe (I used Herbsaint) into a coupe and swirl it to coat the glass. Strain the cocktail into the glass. Garnish with a lemon twist or some sunflower petals.

Recipe from Shake. Stir. Sip.

Dunhill

I usually don't like to drink the same thing every night, preferring to try out new recipes whenever I can. But sometimes I get on little kicks where I'm only craving one specific cocktail. And lately it's been Martinis with Castelvetrano olives. If you like a Martini with an olive garnish, you have to try these - they're bright green, crisp, and perfectly oily. Way better than the usual pimento-stuffed green olives. You can find them in a jar at most supermarkets, although my favorites are the ones from my grocery store olive bar, which tend to be crisper. In a recipe where the garnish has a huge influence on overall flavor, they're a serious upgrade.

My love for these olives got me wondering what other drinks are out there that use an olive garnish. It's not something you see too often. It seems like as soon as you start introducing much sweetness into a cocktail an olive would no longer work. But I promptly found a cocktail that completely refuted that assumption: the Dunhill. It's sort of a cross between a Martini and a Negroni. As it's made with gin, sherry, and dry vermouth, its olive garnish didn't seem too off-base, but it also contains a bit of orange curaçao and an absinthe wash. Absinthe and olives sounded a bit crazy to me. Just crazy enough to work, maybe?

Indeed it is. Somehow the hint of anise isn't the least bit out of place, and the sweetish but oily Lustau East India Solera sherry is an unexpected but perfect pairing for olives. The result is, as Chad Parkhill writes in an article on under-appreciated cocktails, "a wonderful paradox of a drink: one that manages to be simultaneously sweet and savory, rich and lean, nutty and herbaceous." This description is dead on. The Dunhill is a drink unlike any other I've had - in a good way.

History: The Dunhill first appears as the Dunhill's Special in the 1925 book Drinks - Long and Short by Nina Toye and A. H. Adair. This is the first time I've encountered this book. It contains recipes for cocktails served by Adair at Hatchett's Bar in Leicester Square in London. The Dunhill's Special was later included in classic cocktail recipe books like The World's Drinks and How to Mix Them and The Savoy Cocktail Book. I'm not sure when the drink became simply the Dunhill. It's certainly special in my book.

Dunhill

1 oz. gin (I used Conniption Navy Strength)
1 oz. Lustau East India Solera Sherry
1 oz. dry vermouth
1/4 oz. dry curaçao
Absinthe rinse (I used Herbsaint)

Combine gin, sherry, vermouth, and curaçao in a mixing glass with ice and stir until chilled. Rinse a rocks glass with absinthe and add one large ice cube. Strain the drink into the prepared glass and garnish with olives or a lemon twist.

Recipe adapted from Punch.

Corpse Reviver #2

When it comes time for a Halloween cocktail, you don't need to look any further than the classics. Flip through any good cocktail menu and you will find some excellent libations with some thoroughly macabre names: Death in the Afternoon, Blood and Sand, Last Word, Zombie... the list goes on. But my personal favorite has to be the Corpse Reviver #2.

I've been meaning to make a Corpse Reviver #2 for the blog for a while, so Halloween seems like the perfect excuse. That said, this is a cocktail for any time of year (sans cherry juice blood, of course). If you're wondering what corpse it is supposed to revive, I'm afraid to say that it's you - the gruesome name is actually a nod to the fact that this cocktail was invented as a hangover cure.

This sour, citrusy cocktail is made with equal parts gin, lemon, Lillet, and triple sec. A wash of absinthe in the glass gives it a delightful hint of anise and a slight eerie green tint. I decided to use Kina L'Aero d'Or instead of Lillet, which gave the cocktail an intriguingly bitter finish - a different experience than with Lillet, but something I definitely recommend trying if you have a bottle. A bit of juice from my jar of Luxardo cherries, slightly reduced in a saucepan, made a spooky, bloody garnish.

History: The fact that this cocktail is called the Corpse Reviver #2 immediately suggests that there is at least one other Corpse Reviver floating around, and that’s true - the Corpse Reviver #1, sometimes just called a Corpse Reviver, made with Cognac, apple brandy or Calvados, and sweet vermouth. Both of these recipes date back to the publication of The Savoy Cocktail Book in 1930, but the idea of a Corpse Reviver has been around a lot longer than that.

Prior to 1930, the term likely didn't refer to a specific cocktail at all; it was rather a catch-all term for a cocktail consumed to cure a bad hangover. Everyone had their own recipe. The earliest mention of a Corpse Reviver is in Punch magazine in 1861, in a brief article entitled “A Smash for a Sensationalist,” a humorous piece about the Trent Affair that I confess I have some difficulty really understanding. But it ends by describing a hangman who “expectorated twice with a marked gaiety of manner, and after liquoring up a Sling, a Stone Wall, and a Corpse-Reviver, he merrily danced forth into the middle of the room and sang a pleasant little song….”

The earliest printed recipe for a Corpse Reviver comes from 1871, in The Gentleman's Table Guide by E. Ricket and C. Thomas. It calls for a 1:1 mixture of brandy and maraschino and two dashes of Boker's bitters, served in a wine glass. The 1903 Steward's Handbook and Guide to Party Catering by Jessup Whitehead has a different recipe, calling for "a long, thin liqueur-glass filled with equal portions noyeau, maraschino and yellow chartreuse, one on top of the other without mixing them; to be taken off with one draught." Here I presume that noyeau is an almond liqueur like Crème de Noyeaux, which makes this a very different cocktail from any of Corpse Revivers above (and one that seems more likely to cause a hangover than cure one).

The two recipes that remain well-known today were popularized by Harry Craddock in The Savoy Cocktail Book. I don't think it's known whether he developed the recipes himself or not, but many of the cocktails in the book were his invention. #2 has stood the test of time better than #1, and is certainly better known. 

Corpse Reviver #2

3/4 oz. gin

3/4 oz. Lillet, Cocchi Americano, or Kina L'Aero D'Or

3/4 oz. Cointreau or triple sec

3/4 oz. lemon juice

Absinthe rinse (I used Herbsaint)

Combine gin, Lillet, triple sec, and lemon juice in a shaker with ice. Shake until chilled. Wash a coupe with absinthe and strain the cocktail into the coupe.

Try as a hangover cure if you want, but take care; Harry Craddock notes that "Four of these taken in swift succession will unrevive the corpse again."

Recipe from The Savoy Cocktail Book. Lots of this history came from an article by Cara Strickland for Tales of the Cocktail.

Joy Division

I've been leaning more and more towards stirred gin drinks lately. Remember, you shake cocktails that contain ingredients with different densities from your spirits, like fruit juice, so stirred cocktails tend to be more spirit-forward. Things like the Means of Preservation, #42, Gin-Campari Old Fashioned, Lucien Gaudin, and of course the Martini and its close cousin the Vesper. I've got some new favorite recipes in this category that I'm excited to share. Today it's the Joy Divison.

The Joy Division is definitely a spirit-forward cocktail. It starts with your typical martini ingredients - gin and dry vermouth - and makes the addition of Cointreau and a bit of absinthe. It's strong and herbal with a hint of sweet citrus. It's a great alternative to a martini if you're in the mood for something with a little more flavor.

History: The Joy Division comes from Phil Ward of Death & Co in New York. He created it in 2008. As far as I can tell, the name is an homage to an English rock band.

Joy Division

2 oz. gin
1 oz. dry vermouth
1/2 oz. Cointreau
3 dashes* absinthe (I used Herbsaint)

Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass with ice and stir until chilled. Strain into a coupe glass and garnish with a lemon twist. I discarded the twist and threw in some edible flowers.

*Remember, a dash is between 1/8 and 1/4 tsp. For the absinthe, I recommend measuring it out since the flavor can be overpowering if you put too much.

Recipe from Liquor.com.

Bottle Buy: Cherry Heering

Cherry Heering is a surprisingly difficult spirit to find information on. Given how long it's been around, I thought there would be a lot more out there. Even the Heering website doesn't really have much by way of history or details about how Cherry Heering is made. They do have a pretty cute advertising campaign right now (click on "Our Brand"), but they're light on the details. Luckily you don't have to know everything about a liqueur to enjoy it.

What I do know is that Cherry Heering is a Danish liqueur made from spirits, cherries, and spices that is aged in wooden casks. What spirits, you ask? Well, some sites say brandy and others say grain spirits. (I emailed Heering to ask, but they haven't gotten back to me yet. I'll update this if I find out.) The liqueur was invented by Peter F. Heering, who founded the company that produces it in 1818. It spread throughout the British Empire and is most notably included in the Singapore Sling, a cocktail I will definitely be covering soon. Today it is still produced by the same company, which doesn't appear to have been acquired by any of the big conglomerates.

Cherry Heering smells deliciously like brandied cherries. Its taste is much more subdued and complex than I expected. It's sweet, of course, but not absurdly so, and there's a lovely hint of spice at the end. I think I'd enjoy it straight after dinner. It's a fairly versatile ingredient that is also finding its way into a number of modern cocktails. There's a nice list of cocktail recipes on Heering's website. It can be used whenever cherry brandy is called for, but it is often specified by name.

I enjoyed this article by Tony Sachs in which he gets to taste two aged bottles of Cherry Heering, one from 1888.

Cherry Heering

Price: $30
Alcohol content: 24%
Popular cocktails: Singapore Sling, Blood & Sand, Remember the Maine

I probably should have made the well-known Blood & Sand to showcase Cherry Heering, but I don't have a bottle of blended Scotch. Instead, I suggest the Remember the Maine, which is a really good cocktail. It's sort of a Manhattan crossed with a Sazerac. It actually reminds me quite a bit of the De La Louisiane, the main difference being the replacement of the very herbal Benedictine with Cherry Heering. I kind of wish I could have a couple of those other cocktails side-by-side with this one to do a comparison and really pick out the flavor of the Cherry Heering in this one. It's subtle, but it's a natural pairing with rye and sweet vermouth.

History: The "Maine" we're meant to be remembering with this cocktail is the USS Maine, a naval ship that sank off the coast of Havana, Cuba on February 15, 1898 during the Cuban War of Independence. Though it remains unclear whether the ship was deliberately fired upon by the Spanish or whether a coal fire ignited its own ammunition, American journalists rushed to blame Spain in an effort to spur the US to declare war. Their rallying cry became, "Remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain!" Later that year, the Spanish-American War began.

The Remember the Maine was invented or discovered by Charles H. Baker and first published in his 1939 book The Gentleman's Companion: Around the World with Jigger, Beaker, and Flask. By way of explanation, he writes:

"Remember the Maine, a hazy memory of a night in Havana during the unpleasantness of 1933, when each swallow was punctuated with bombs going off on the Prado, or the sound of 3" shells being fired at the hotel Nacional, then haven for certain anti-revolutionary officers."

The unpleasantness Baker is referring to was a coup called the Revolt of the Sergeants led by Fulgencio Batista against the Cuban government. The coup ended with Ramon Grau San Martin becoming president. Interestingly, it was only 100 days before Batista deposed him as well, putting Carlos Mendieta into power. This became something of a trend, with four more presidents coming and going before Batista himself was elected president in 1940.

Anyway, Baker, who traveled the world collecting cocktail recipes, was in Havana during Batista's coup. But where did the recipe come from? An earlier publication, The Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book, includes a recipe identical to the Remember the Maine called McKinley's Delight - interesting since William McKinley was the U.S. president during the Spanish-American War. It's likely that these recipes share a single origin, with the McKinley's Delight the older of the two. In the 1896 U.S. presidential election, McKinley faced off against William Jennings Bryan, and for some reason they both ended up with signature cocktails: the McKinley's Delight for McKinley and the Free Silver Fizz (gin, lime, sugar, egg white, club soda) for Bryan. Quite a bit of history for one cocktail!

Remember the Maine

2 oz. rye
3/4 oz. sweet vermouth
2 tsp. Cherry Heering
1 dash absinthe (I used Herbsaint)

Add absinthe to a coupe glass and swirl to coat. Combine remaining ingredients in a mixing glass with ice and stir until chilled. Strain into the prepared glass. Garnish with a brandied cherry.

Recipe from Punch.

De La Louisiane

Guess what, blog readers? I have officially defended my dissertation. Call me Dr. GarnishGirl. Or don't, actually. That just sounds silly.

Anyway, though I've still got to finish up that pesky thesis, I'm excited to have a bit more time to blog and make cocktails and enjoy what's left of the summer. I've got a few more summery drinks coming your way, but today I thought I'd take a little break and talk about something a little different: the De La Louisiane.

With its rye, sweet vermouth, Benedictine, and Peychaud's bitters, the De La Louisiane is quite similar to the Vieux Carre, another classic New Orleans cocktail. It lacks the Vieux Carre's Cognac, and also amps up the herbal notes that are only hinted at in the Vieux Carre to extremes with much more Benedictine and a few dashes of absinthe (as usual, I used Herbsaint). As such, it's a much more polarizing taste; if you don't like absinthe or Benedictine, I'd steer clear of this one. But if you do, they work beautifully together for a very layered, complex cocktail, something you're going to want to sip slowly and savor.

History: This was the signature cocktail of the restaurant La Louisiane in New Orleans. The hotel and restaurant was opened in 1881 by Louis Bezaudun in a residence on Iberville Street that had been built in 1837. It became famous for its Creole cuisine and served many famous guests, from Teddy Roosevelt to Harry Houdini. It closed in 1932, and the property changed hands several times. In 1954, it became an Italian restaurant also called La Louisiane. It was sold again in 1998 and has been renovated and re-opened as a restaurant and event space in the spirit of the original Creole restaurant.

The recipe for the De La Louisiane (sometimes just called the La Louisiane) was first published in Stanley Clisby Arthur's 1937 book Famous New Orleans Drinks and How to Mix 'Em. His recipe called for equal parts rye, Benedictine, and sweet vermouth. This version from The PDT Cocktail Book tones down the sweetness and increases the rye for a well-balanced cocktail.

De La Louisiane

2 oz. rye
3/4 oz sweet vermouth
3/4 oz. Benedictine
3 dashes* absinthe or Herbsaint
3 dashes Peychaud's bitters

Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass and stir well with ice. Strain into a coupe glass and garnish with three brandied cherries.

*A "dash" is easy with a bottle of bitters, but tougher with something like absinthe. One dash should equal about 1/8 tsp.

Recipe adapted from The PDT Cocktail Book.

Bottle Buy: Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur

St. Germain was the first splurge I ever made for my bar; Luxardo was the second. It took me a while to buy it because it was pricey for me at the time, and I didn't think it was very versatile. While St. Germain popped up in bunches of cocktails and tasted amazing mixed with just about anything, I really only wanted the bottle of Luxardo to make one of my new favorite cocktails, the Aviation. I didn't think I'd be using it in much else. But boy, was I wrong. Luxardo appears in tons of classic cocktails. So many that it's one of the bottles Roger Kamholz picked for The Kitchn's 9-Bottle Bar.

Luxardo hails from the town of Zara on the Dalmatian Coast, once part of the Venetian Empire (now called Zadar and located in Croatia). Girolamo Luxardo and his wife Maria Canevari moved there from Genova in 1817 when Girolamo was appointed consular representative for the Kingdom of Sardinia (the predecessor of Italy today). Maria occupied herself by making liqueurs, and set out to perfect a recipe for a traditional Dalmatian rosolio maraschino. The result was so impressive and well-liked that Girolamo founded a distillery in 1821 to produce Luxardo.

When Zara was ceded to Yugoslavia at the end of World War II, most of its Italian population was forced to leave. Many were killed. Only a single member of the fourth generation of Luxardos survived, Giorgio Luxardo. He rebuilt the distillery in Torreglia, Italy, where it remains today. The company is still family run, and owns the largest cherry orchard in Europe.

Luxardo is a liqueur made from sour marasca cherries. Ripe cherries are combined with pits, leaves, and stems as well as honey and other secret ingredients to infuse in larchwood containers. The liqueur is then distilled in copper stills and aged for two years in Finnish ash wood vats before being diluted and sweetened. On the Luxardo label, you can see the seals of the many awards it has earned, as well as the signature of Girolamo Luxardo. The bottles are easily recognized by their straw sleeves, which protect them during shipping.

Luxardo is sweet, almost sickeningly so on its own, but it's also complex. It's not the in-your-face cherry flavor your might expect; piney and herbal notes give it a lot of depth. Its distinct flavor makes it difficult to miss in a drink, and it can easily overpower other ingredients, but in the right amounts it makes an amazing cocktail.

Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur

Price: $32

Alcohol content: 32%

Popular cocktails: Martinez, Turf Cocktail, Aviation, Red Hook, Last Word, Hemingway Daiquiri

To introduce this delicious an unusual spirit, I chose the Turf Cocktail. The addition of absinthe, two kinds of bitters, and the Luxardo gives it a strong herbal quality. It's a drink with many layers. For this reason, it may have not been the best choice to really showcase Luxardo's flavor, but it does show how nicely it can blend with other ingredients when used right.

History: A "turf club" was where well-to-do gentlemen would go to bet on horse racing around the turn of the century. As such, a number of different Turf Cocktails popped up from the various clubs, and three recipes have persisted. This is the best-known, first published in Harry Johnson's 1882 Bartender's Manual.

Turf Cocktail

2 oz. gin
3/4 oz. dry vermouth
1/4 oz. maraschino liqueur
1 dash absinthe (I used Herbsaint)*
1 dash orange bitters

Combine ingredients in a mixing glass and fill with ice. Stir until chilled. Strain into a cocktail glass or coupe. Garnish with a lemon twist.

*Note: Be careful with your "dash" of absinthe. While bitters are made to be dispensed in dashes, it can be a trickier business with big bottles, and too much anise flavor will ruin this cocktail. As discussed in this article, also from The Kitchn, a dash is about 1/5 of a teaspoon.

Recipe from Imbibe.