Our first cocktail this evening is the Air Mail.
Drinks historian David Wondrich has said this cocktail randomly popped up as if by “spontaneous generation”. Its name though is easily explaned:
Way back when, airmail was the last word in getting something from point A to point B. And in fact, this one’ll do just that to you, but quick. So quick that, if we were inclined to take such liberties, we’d rename it the ‘Email.’
Continuing being fruity, we’re ending with a brunch suggestion. Our third cocktail this evening is a Pineapple Mimosa.
Continuing the fruit theme, our second cocktail this evening is the Cherry Long Island Iced Tea which is a variation of the classic Long Island Iced Tea.
Unlike the more varied variants such as the Miami, Tokyo or Electric iced teas, this cherry one is much closer to the original with some tweaks of removing the simple syrup and replacing some of the lemon juice with lime juice. Plus the addition of muddled cherries to impart the cherry flavour; we used some sweet dark cherries.
Our first cocktail this evening is the Old Tom Fruit Cup. We’ve come to the end of summer and the weather today is very changeable, but I thought a farewell to summer with a last fruit cup would be a fitting end.
This is perhaps the most “English” fruit cup after the original Pimm’s Fruit Cup{/link]. It uses Old Tom gin instead of Pimm’s which makes it a bit sweeter.
Our third cocktail this evening for Negroni Week, is the Jasmine. This was created as a brighter variation of the Negroni in the 1990s by Paul Harrington.
Our second cocktail this evening for Negroni Week, is the Boulevardier which is a variation of the classic Negroni which swaps out the dry gin for more bourbon or rye whiskey.
We opted to use Maker’s Mark Kentucky Straight bourbon.
The boulevardier cocktail is an alcoholic drink composed of whiskey, sweet vermouth, and Campari. Its creation is ascribed to Erskine Gwynne, an American-born writer who founded a monthly magazine in Paris called Boulevardier, which appeared from 1927 to 1932.
The boulevardier is similar to a Negroni, sharing two of its three ingredients. It is differentiated by its use of bourbon whiskey or rye whiskey as its principal component instead of gin. Paul Clark, writing for the food blog Serious Eats, says, “This isn’t a Negroni. It is, however, the Negroni’s long-lost autumnal cousin.” He continued:
A simple substitution? Hardly. The bittersweet interplay between Campari and vermouth remains, but the whiskey changes the storyline. Where the Negroni is crisp and lean, the Boulevardier is rich and intriguing. There’s a small difference in the preparation, but the result is absolutely stunning.
Recipes vary the proportions of its components. Some boulevardier recipes call for 1½ parts rather than 1 part whiskey, or call for two parts bourbon to one part vermouth and one part Campari.
Boulevardier (cocktail) – from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Our first cocktail this evening for Negroni Week, is the Negroni Sbagliato (or Wrong Negroni in English) is a variation of the classic Negroni which swaps out the dry gin for prosecco.
I’ll be entirely honest and say that until yesterday I could not have named the Queen of Denmark. While reading some news about the death of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, I came across an article which mentioned that the Queen of Denmark was scaling back her golden jubilee celebrations following the death of her third cousin, Queen Elizabeth II, with whom she had been quite close.
The Queen of Denmark is Queen Margrethe II who ascended to the throne in January 1972, following the death of her father Frederik IX. Her golden jubilee celebrations were initially delayed due to Covid-19 restrictions, but have now been scaled down with some events cancelled.
I’m raising a glass this evening for Queen Margrethe II of Denmark tonight. The cocktail is the Golden Reign created for Queen Elizabeth II’s golden jubilee in 2002 by Peter Dorelli at The American Bar in The Savoy Hotel.
It seems appropriate to raise the Golden Reign this evening for Queen Margrethe as she has scaled down her golden jubilee celebrations after the death of her third cousin for whom the cocktail was created.
For the third cocktail I decided that I’d use Dubonnet Red, which is a primary ingredient in two of Her Royal Majesties favourite cocktails; the Dubonnet Red and Gin and, close cousin, the Zaza/a> are said to be especial favourites of Queen Elizabeth II, but we’ve posted them before.
So, looking for another cocktail we decided on the Dubonnet Royal (not to be mistaken for the a href=’https://thecocktailsmustflow.co.uk/cocktails/dubonnet-royale/’>Dubonnet Royale). There are a few recipes for this cocktail, but we’ve opted for an old one which featured in the long out-of-print Café Royal Cocktail Book by em>W. J. Tarling published in 1937.
For anyone born after February 1952 Queen Elizabeth II has been the only monarch that we’ve known. She was born third in line to the throne with little expectation that she would ever become Queen, but that changed in 1936 with the abdication of her uncle, King Edward VIII, and her father became King George VI. She then became Queen upon her father’s death in 1952 and with her death in 2022 is Britain’s longest reigning monarch, after Queen Victoria with 70 years service to her country.
70 years of service in which she remained very popular, both at home and abroad. Will we ever see her like again? Perhaps, although I fear most likely not and, if we should be so fortunate, only once in a blue moon.
