Jerry Thomas's 1862 Bartender's Guide.
| 1 cube | SUGAR CUBE | |
| 3 dashes | ANGOSTURA BITTERS | 44 % |
| 4 oz · 120 ml | CHAMPAGNE | 12 % |
1 oz taken as 30 ml in the metric column.
1 oz taken as 30 ml in the metric column.
| Pre-batch | 0.09 oz mixed with ice, 0.04 oz of it pure alcohol |
|---|---|
| Melt | Stirred: +15 % of the pre-batch, +0.01 oz of water |
| Topped | Poured after the melt, kept whole: champagne 4 oz, +0.48 oz of alcohol |
| Served | 0.09 + 0.01 + 4 = 4.1 oz in the glass, 0.52 oz of it alcohol |
| Strength | 0.52 ÷ 4.1 = 12.7 % ABV as served |
| Ethanol | 0.52 oz × 29.57 ml × 0.789 g/ml = 12 g · about 85 kcal from the alcohol alone |
FROM CHAMPAGNE · the dominant grape acid
The dominant acid in grapes and the reason wine tastes sharp instead of flat. Forms crystals ("wine diamonds") when bottled wine gets cold; harmless, sometimes filtered out, sometimes left in as a mark of authenticity. Without acid, wine is sugar water.
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FROM ANGOSTURA
The bitter from gentian root, used across Campari, Aperol, sweet vermouth, Angostura, and most amari. Bitter compounds activate TAS2R taste receptors that evolved to detect plant alkaloids. The same machinery that makes broccoli taste bad to children also makes a Negroni taste like an adult ordered it.
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Sugar, Angostura and Champagne. The bitters-saturated sugar cube dissolves slowly at the bottom of the flute. Each sip carries a slightly different sugar-to-Angostura ratio, from dry and fresh at the top to sweet and bitter at the last swallow. ABV is about 11%.
Pour the champagne slowly down the side of the flute, not onto the bitters-soaked sugar cube. Henry's Law: opened, the wine holds more CO₂ than it can keep, and the cube's porous crystal and trapped air are thousands of nucleation sites, so a direct pour foams over. Undisturbed, the dissolving cube streams a steady bead.
One of the oldest cocktails still made close to its first printed recipe: Jerry Thomas's 1862 Bartender's Guide builds sugar, bitters and lemon peel in a small tumbler a third full of broken ice, topped with wine; the iceless flute is the modern serve. The bitters-soaked sugar cube survives in modern bartending as a study in concentration gradients: the drink literally changes character from top to bottom of the glass.
