Mixology Monday: The Innocents Abroad

Hello from Louisiana! GarnishGuy and I are back home until Christmas, spending time with family and eating far more than we ought to. We're hoping to sneak away to New Orleans later in the week to celebrate our anniversary (eight years!) and check out some bars. Until then, we've been having fun experimenting with the contents of my parents' liquor cabinet, which has definitely grown since I started this blog! Last night's cocktails were, appropriately, the De La Louisiane and the Vieux Carre - both big hits.

Since we were pretty busy leading up to our trip, I didn't have much time to experiment with cocktails for this month's Mixology Monday. Luckily, the theme of this month's challenge, hosted by Stacey Markow, is digestifs. And I've had an absolutely fantastic recipe for a digestif that I've been looking forward to sharing. It's not an original recipe, but it's so good I can't resist sharing it for this challenge.

There's an excellent new restaurant in Boston's South End called SRV. It's a "Venetian-style Bacaro and wine bar" from the folks behind The Salty Pig and Canary Square, two of our favorite spots. We first went there for a drink while we waited for a table at Toro. We ordered a couple of cocktails and several of their bar bites, and we were really blown away. The bar snacks were ridiculously good: salt cod brandade on black bread with herbs, soft boiled quail eggs with white anchovies and a crunchy garlic pangrattato, grilled octopus with pine nuts and preserved lemon... I need to stop talking about this, I'm making myself really hungry right now.

The cocktail menu at SRV is heavy on amari and vermouth, which I love. They have a vermouth of the day ("We always drink to world peace") and some really great cocktails. One of these is The Innocents Abroad: Fighting Cock bourbon, Amaro Nonino, Gran Classico, and Kina L'Aero D'Or. It's been a while since I was so blown away by a cocktail that I thought, "I HAVE to make this at home," but that was what I thought about The Innocents Abroad, and I didn't really care how many bottles of liquor I needed to buy (three, it turned out - four if I wanted to use the same bourbon). On our second visit, I worked up the courage to ask the bartender for the recipe, which he happily shared. I hope they won't mind me re-posting it here, so that others can know the joy of this wonderful drink.

The Innocents Abroad is a perfect digestif. We recently made it after dinner for a couple of friends, and it was wonderful: sweet with just enough bitterness. It has an almost syrupy texture, thick on your tongue. It's one of those cocktails where the ingredients knit together so perfectly and tightly that it's hard to pick them all out. It's nutty, citrusy, and herbal, with the lovely flavor of the Amaro Nonino in the middle of your sip and the distinctive bitterness of the Gran Classico and Kina L'Aero at the end. It's definitely one of the best cocktails I've tried this year.

History: This cocktail was created for SRV by David Spielburg. According to this article, it's a something of a riff on the Paper Plane. I imagine it must have been named after the book The Innocents Abroad, or the New Pilgrim's Progress by Mark Twain, which tells the story of his travels through Europe and the Holy Land on a retired Civil War ship.

The Innocents Abroad

1 1/2 oz. bourbon (Fighting Cock recommended)
3/4 oz. Amaro Nonino
1/2 oz. Gran Classico
1/2 oz. Kina L'Aero D'Or

Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass with ice and stir until chilled. Strain into an Old Fashioned glass and garnish with a lemon twist.

Recipe courtesy of SRV.

Charles Lindbergh

One great bar in Boston that has been a cocktail inspiration for me is Island Creek Oyster Bar. As at its neighboring bars also run by Jackson Cannon, Eastern Standard and The Hawthorne, the cocktails at ICOB are never anything short of fantastic. It was the first place I ever tried an Air Mail, and it has since become one of my favorite cocktails. Last time I was there, I ordered the Charles Lindbergh, particularly because of the inclusion of Tempus Fugit's Kina L'Aero D'Or, one of my new obsessions. It was really good, and I knew I'd like to make it at home.

Luckily, it turns out the Charles Lindbergh is an old cocktail, dating back to the classic Savoy Cocktail Book, and the original recipe wasn't hard to find: gin, Kina Lillet, apricot brandy, and a dash of orange juice. Lacking the last two ingredients, I came up with my own variation using a dash of Cointreau and about 1/4 tsp. apricot preserves. I also used the Kina L'Aero, which is sweeter and more bitter than the Lillet Blanc on the shelves today, but probably more similar to the original recipe. The result is surprisingly similar to what I remember from the bar, and thoroughly enjoyable. You could just as easily make it with Lillet Blanc or even dry or blanc vermouth; you'd be in for a different experience, but I think it would still be a very quaffable cocktail. It's nicely balanced, sweet with a bitter finish, with flavors of citrus, apricot, and botanicals.

Charles Lindbergh

History: Charles Lindbergh was, of course, the famous pilot who flew the Spirit of St. Louis from New York to Paris on the first nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic. He was only 25 years old. Harry Craddock of the Savoy Hotel in London invented this cocktail to celebrate the occasion. It would later appear in the 1930 Savoy Cocktail Book.

Charles Lindbergh

1 1/2 oz. gin
1 oz. Kina L'Aero D'Or, Lillet, or Cocchi Americano
1 dash Cointreau
1/4 tsp. apricot preserves

Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass and stir to mix in the preserves. Add ice and stir until chilled. Fine-strain into a coupe glass. Twist a lemon peel over the cocktail and discard.

Recipe adapted from Cocktail 101.

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.

20th Century

I've already gone on at length about how much I love Tempus Fugit's Crème de Cacao. After buying it, I started encountering their other spirits at a lot of bars, in particular the Gran Classico and the Kina L'Aero D'Or (great name, right?). The Gran Classico is an amaro, and the Kina L'Aero is a kind of aperitif wine called a kina or a quinaquina. These wines are infused with citrus and spices, most importantly cinchona bark, which contains quinine (see my Gin and Tonic post for more on this). The most well-known spirit in this category is Lillet Blanc, which used to be called Kina Lillet. It was reformulated in the 80's and is no longer as bitter as it once was. Kina L'Aero D'Or would make a good substitute in something like a Vesper, which was created when Lillet was more bitter.

Anyway, I eventually decided to buy both the Gran Classico and the Kina L'Aero D'Or, and I've been thoroughly enjoying both of them. The Kina L'Aero came with a couple of classic cocktail recipes on the side of the bottle, including this one: the 20th Century. It also makes use of the crème de cacao, so I definitely wanted to give it a try.

It may sound odd to add crème de cacao to bitter wine, gin, and lemon, but it blends surprisingly well with the other bright flavors, giving them a lovely richness. I think the Kina L'Aero D'Or probably has a lot to do with how nicely the recipe works; Lillet might not hold up as well against the sweetness of the crème de cacao.

History: Though you may not have heard of the 20th Century before, it's actually quite an old cocktail, invented in 1937 by a Brit named C.A. Tuck. The recipe was published in the 1937 Café Royal Cocktail Book by William J. Tarling. It was recently resurrected by Ted Haigh's book Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails.

Tuck named this cocktail for the Twentieth Century Limited train that ran between Chicago and New York City from 1902 until 1967. It was advertised as "the most famous train in the world," and it was quite a fancy way to travel - a red carpet was literally rolled out for passengers as they got on and off. Naming the 20th Century after the train was a nod to its elegance and sophistication, and I think the cocktail fits the bill.

20th Century

1 1/2 oz. gin
3/4 oz. kina (Lillet Blanc, Cocchi Americano, or Kina L'Aero D'Or)
3/4 oz. crème de cacao
3/4 oz. lemon juice

Combine all ingredients in a shaker with ice and shake until chilled. Strain into a coupe glass and garnish with a lemon twist.

Recipe from Tempus Fugit.