No. 3711

Appetizers and Mixed Drinks

Aperitifs et Boissons Melangees

Iced drinks are those to which plenty of ice is added, then covered with a tin shaker and shaken until the contents are very cold and iced.

Cold drinks are those mixed into chopped ice with a spoon.

A glass of vermuth equals half a gill and is the glass meant in the recipes when not otherwise specified.

Five small glassfuls equal a gill.

Six dashes fill a teaspoon.

Vermuth Cocktail.—Put some fine ice into a large glass, add a glassful of Italian vermuth and one dash of Boker's bitters; mix the whole together with a spoon, strain and serve in small glasses. Another kind of vermuth cocktail is made by replacing the Italian vermuth by French vermuth, and having orange bitters instead of Boker's.

Sherry and Bitters.—Sherry into which a little bitters is mixed.

Brandy, Whiskey, Holland Gin and Tom Gin Cocktails.—Put some very finely broken ice in a large glass, add a glassful either of brandy, whiskey or Holland gin, one dash of Boker's bitters and two dashes of sweetening (gum syrup); mix well together with a spoon, strain and serve in small glasses. Tom gin cocktail is made exactly the same, only using old Tom gin and suppressing the sweetening.

Calisaya Cocktail.—Mix in a large glass some finely chopped ice, a vermuth glassful of calisaya, one dash of orange bitters and a little vermuth; mix well, strain and serve in small glasses.

Peruvian Cocktail.—Add to some finely chopped ice in a glass, a vermuth glassful of Peruvian bitters, one dash of orange bitters and a little vermuth; mix thoroughly, strain and serve in small glasses.

Martine Cocktail.—Have some broken ice in a large glass with the third of a glassful of Tom gin and two-thirds (making a glassful in all) of vermuth, and one dash of Boker's bitters; mix well, strain and pour into small glasses.

Manhattan Cocktail.—Place some very finely broken ice in a large glass, add the third of a glassful of whiskey and two-thirds of vermuth, also one dash of Boker's bitters; mix properly, strain and serve in small glasses.

Jersey Cocktail Iced.—For three cocktails put into a vermuth glass some apple jack and two glassfuls of Italian or French vermuth, adding three dashes of Angostura bitters and finely pounded ice. Cover with a tin shaker, toss, strain and pour into small glasses.

Absinthe Cocktail Iced.—Put some finely chopped ice in a large glass, add a small glassful of absinthe, two dashes of orange bitters and two dashes of sweetening; mix properly, cover with a shaker, toss, strain and serve in small glasses.

Iced Absinthe.—Have some finely chopped ice in a large glass, add a small glassful of absinthe and water, cover with a tin shaker, toss thoroughly, strain and serve in medium-sized glasses.

Riding Club Cocktail.—Put some finely broken ice in a glass with two-thirds of a glass of Hostetter's bitters, half a teaspoonful of Horsford's acid phosphate, two dashes of French vermuth; cover with a tin shaker and toss until the cocktail is iced, then strain and pour into small glasses.

For all cocktails a piece of lemon peel is generally twisted over the cocktail.

← No. 3710 How to Freeze Champagne The Wine Cellar, Punches & Drinks No. 3712 Claret Cup and Claret Cup a la Willard's →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's bar list is a snapshot of Delmonico's service around 1894, when a cocktail meant spirit, vermouth or bitters, ice and nothing else. The measures are internally consistent once you fix the glass sizes, and the proportions will surprise anyone used to a modern Manhattan.

The glasses, in ouncesA gill is 4 fl oz, so the vermouth glass called for throughout is 2 fl oz and the "small glass" the drink is served in is about 0.8 fl oz (five to the gill). A dash is a sixth of a teaspoon, roughly 0.8 ml, which is close to what a modern dasher bottle throws.
The "large glass" is a mixing vesselMost of these are built in a large glass over ice, stirred or shaken, then strained into the small glasses (the Jersey Cocktail is built in a vermuth glass instead). Nothing is served over ice, and the drinks are tiny by modern standards: a vermuth glassful of liquor yields two or three of the small ones.
Iced versus coldRanhofer draws the distinction at the top and means it. "Iced" drinks are covered with a tin shaker and shaken; "cold" ones are stirred into chopped ice with a spoon. The brandy, whiskey, gin, vermuth, Martine and Manhattan cocktails are stirred; the Jersey, the two absinthe drinks and the Riding Club are shaken.
The vermouth proportionsThe Martine and the Manhattan are both two-thirds vermouth to one-third spirit, the reverse of today's ratios. If you want the drink as written, use a rich Italian vermouth and accept that it is a low-proof, wine-forward aperitif rather than a spirit-driven one.
Old Tom, Holland gin, gum syrupOld Tom is a sweetened gin, which is why the sweetening is suppressed in that cocktail; Holland gin is genever, malty and heavier than London dry. Gum syrup is simple syrup with gum arabic dissolved in it for body, and is sold again by cocktail suppliers.
Bitters you may have to substituteBoker's bitters lapsed around Prohibition and has since been revived from period notes; Angostura or a good aromatic bitters stands in. Calisaya and "Peruvian bitters" are cinchona-bark preparations, forerunners of the modern quinine aperitifs and quinquinas.
Hostetter's and acid phosphateThe Riding Club calls for Hostetter's Stomach Bitters, a nineteenth-century patent medicine sold as a remedy and no longer made; do not reach for a modern medicinal tonic in its place. Horsford's acid phosphate is still produced and gives a dry, mineral tartness with no fruit character.
AbsintheLegal again in the US since 2007 under a thujone limit, so these two drinks can be made. The Iced Absinthe is essentially a shaken louche: the water is what turns it opaque. Ranhofer gives no proportion of water to spirit.
The lemon twistThe closing line applies to all of them. Twist the peel over the surface so the oil lands on the drink, then either drop it in or discard it depending on how much of the perfume you want to persist.

A Little History

These entries close out the drinks chapter of Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous compendium he wrote after some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York. What is striking is how early and how matter-of-factly the canon is already set: the Manhattan, the Martine (often said to be an ancestor of the Martini, and close kin to the Martinez recipes circulating in bar books of the 1880s), and a row of bitters-based aperitifs that were sold as much for the stomach as for the palate. Calisaya and Peruvian bitters both take their character from cinchona bark, the source of quinine, and Hostetter's was a heavily advertised patent medicine of high proof; the line between a tonic and a cocktail was thin and deliberately so. The Riding Club, with its half-teaspoon of Horsford's acid phosphate, belongs to the same world of soda-fountain chemistry, phosphate having been promoted as a nerve restorative before it settled into use as a souring agent. Ranhofer's insistence on exact glass sizes, and on the difference between a stirred drink and a shaken one, runs through the whole chapter.