Savoy Hotel, London, early 1900s.
| 1½ oz · 45 ml | GIN | 40 % |
| 1½ oz · 45 ml | SWEET VERMOUTH | 16 % |
| 2 dashes | FERNET BRANCA | 39 % |
1 oz taken as 30 ml in the metric column.
1 oz taken as 30 ml in the metric column.
| Pre-batch | 3.06 oz mixed with ice, 0.86 oz of it pure alcohol |
|---|---|
| Melt | Stirred: +15 % of the pre-batch, +0.46 oz of water |
| Served | 3.06 + 0.46 = 3.52 oz in the glass |
| Strength | 0.86 ÷ 3.52 = 24.5 % ABV as served |
| Ethanol | 0.86 oz × 29.57 ml × 0.789 g/ml = 20 g · about 141 kcal from the alcohol alone |
FROM GIN
The pine note in juniper berries, and the reason gin tastes like a forest. Co-distilled with the spirit during production. Found in actual pine trees, rosemary, basil, and a good London Dry. The "Christmas tree" smell of gin and the smell of a forest floor share a single molecule.
ALSO IN Negroni · Martini · Gimlet · Gin & Tonic · Aviation · Corpse Reviver #2 · French 75 · Bramble
FROM FERNET + VERMOUTH
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.
ALSO IN Negroni · Manhattan · Paper Plane · Boulevardier · Sazerac · Naked & Famous · Last Word · Vieux Carré
Gin, sweet vermouth and two dashes of Fernet. The Fernet is load-bearing; it is the whole point. Gentiopicroside from the Fernet's 27-botanical blend turns a sweetish gin-vermouth stir into something deeply bitter, with a menthol-adjacent finish over the Fernet's saffron and aloe.
Ada Coleman, the American Bar's first female head bartender at the Savoy, created the Hanky Panky for actor Charles Hawtrey, who'd asked her for something with 'a bit of punch.' His reaction, supposedly: 'By Jove! That is the real hanky-panky!' Coleman ran the American Bar from 1903 to 1926 and trained a generation of British bartenders; the Savoy Cocktail Book that followed her was assembled by her successor Harry Craddock, who included her recipes.
