So, happy hour has been coming to the Brooks-Busby household at around 4:59pm lately, ...sometimes 4:25. Maybe 4 is on my horizon. Anyhoo, my go to drink has been a Manhattan for a couple of years now, and I still love them. Easy to make, complex, delicious, and alcohol-forward.
Before the end of the world, I used to hang out with a couple of friends who took cocktail making much more seriously. Almost every week I’d drink one or two of their much more ambitious drinks before the main event of watching campy scifi or thrillers on Netflix. Now that I’m WFH, and only hanging out via Zoom these days, I’m getting more ambitious? Less Lazy? Bored? Here are a couple of things I’ve been enjoying.
So why this drink? The Vesper is a creation of James Bond, via Ian Fleming, in Casino Royale (1953).
'A dry martini,' he said. 'One. In a deep champagne goblet.'
'Oui, monsieur.'
'Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel. Got it?'
'Certainly monsieur.' The barman seemed pleased with the idea.
'Gosh, that's certainly a drink,' said Leiter.
Bond laughed. 'When I'm ... er ... concentrating,' he explained, 'I never have more than one drink before dinner. But I do like that one to be large and very strong and very cold, and very well-made. I hate small portions of anything, particularly when they taste bad. This drink's my own invention. I'm going to patent it when I think of a good name.'
I hadn’t heard of it until my friend Dave posted this sad article about the closing of Prune in New York. Near the end of her article, Gabrielle Hamilton imagines her perfect re-opening, which is unlikely feasible in New York City:
I want to bring to their tables small dishes of the feta cheese I’ve learned to make these long idle weeks, with a few slices of the saucisson sec I’ve been hanging downstairs to cure while we wait to reopen, and to again hear Greg rattle the ice, shaking perfectly proportioned Vespers that he pours right to the rim of the chilled glass without spilling over.
Perfectly proportioned Vespers, why does that sound so good? What the hell is a Vesper? So I Googled it, found the original Ian Fleming recipe, which uses Kina Lillet, which contained quinine before its production ended. Current day bartenders sub in Lillet Blanc with bitters, or quinine powder—yeah, okay, I’ll try bitters. It was very good. Next, I go out with a bandana on my face and but some Cocchi Americano to see what that’s all about.
Vesper 2.0 is the winner. I may have been influenced by the portions, but I swear I had that opinion at the first sip.
So, why this cocktail? Only one person in my circle is a fan of akavit, and that’s me. I usually drink it alone, 1-1/2 oz in a cordial or rocks glass, but that feels kinda sad (even though, I like how it makes me feel like a stoic Norwegian).
Maybe if I added some citrus juice? I’m the unconfident bartender, so bare with me, I needed courage in the form of a recipe I found at the North Shore Distillery website. This is really good. I would serve this to my discerning booze drinking friends.
This is the drink my grandfather, Michael Borge made nearly ever night before dinner for he and my grandmother, Betty. When company was over, he’s rub his hands together, and ask, “Who’s ready for a cocktail?” an hour or so before dinner. Family lore says I would ask for sips of people’s martinis as a three year old, and the occasional bitter sip didn’t dissuade me from continuing to ask. When I was 11 or 12, he showed me how to make one. “Just the tiniest bit of vermouth. Some people say to just wave the bottle at the glass.”
I’m not sure where my grandfather bought his booze, but I’m pretty sure he often bought wine at the old Sam’s on North and Halsted. I overheard stories of him stepping over passed out ‘winos’ on the way to the good stuff downstairs.
That location closed down in the late 70s, but I’d think of his story of stepping over winos, every time I passed the building. For some reason, my young brain latched on to it, like the martini recipe.
This is my house cocktail. I learned it from Steve Carrow’s wonderful resource, The Potation Handbook. I thought it was out of print, but it looks like there’s one copy on Amazon? Maybe ping Steve on Twitter to see if he has one lying around. We bought ours over the bar at Naha years ago.
Cheers.
I don't drink but love the art and humour!!
its no Iced Shackleton's Adeventure