Charles H. Baker, The Gentleman's Companion, 1939.
| 2 oz · 60 ml | RYE WHISKEY | 45 % |
| ¾ oz · 22 ml | SWEET VERMOUTH | 16 % |
| ½ oz · 15 ml | CHERRY HEERING | 24 % |
| 1 barspoon | ABSINTHE | 60 % |
1 oz taken as 30 ml in the metric column.
1 oz taken as 30 ml in the metric column.
| Pre-batch | 3.42 oz mixed with ice, 1.24 oz of it pure alcohol |
|---|---|
| Melt | Stirred: +15 % of the pre-batch, +0.51 oz of water |
| Served | 3.42 + 0.51 = 3.93 oz in the glass |
| Strength | 1.24 ÷ 3.93 = 31.6 % ABV as served |
| Ethanol | 1.24 oz × 29.57 ml × 0.789 g/ml = 29 g · about 203 kcal from the alcohol alone |
FROM RYE · from oak barrel aging
Bourbon's fingerprint, extracted from the charred American oak the law requires for aging. Same molecule as the vanilla bean's signature, so a well-aged bourbon legitimately tastes like vanilla. Chemistry, not metaphor. Cognac, aged rum, tequila reposado all extract vanillin from oak too. Different barrels, same molecule.
ALSO IN Old Fashioned · Manhattan · Whiskey Sour · Paper Plane · Boulevardier · Sazerac · Espresso Martini · Mai Tai
FROM SWEET 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
FROM ABSINTHE RINSE · the wormwood compound, mythologized
The wormwood compound that got absinthe banned for ninety years over a panic that turned out to be mostly wrong. A GABA-A antagonist at high doses, but the doses in actual absinthe, both modern and historical, were always too low to cause the hallucinations the lore promised. Bans lifted between 1988 and 2007 once the chemistry was finally measured properly.
ALSO IN Sazerac · Corpse Reviver #2 · French 75 · Zombie · Death in the Afternoon · Tuxedo No. 2 · Tuxedo No. 3
Rye, sweet vermouth, Cherry Heering and an absinthe rinse. It is a Manhattan with Cherry Heering's benzaldehyde-forward cherry and thujone from an absinthe rinse. The name references the 1898 USS Maine explosion, a war cry against Spain. Charles H. Baker picked up the recipe in pre-Castro Havana.
Baker collected the recipe at a Havana bar during the 1933 revolution that toppled Gerardo Machado, naming it for the 1898 sinking of the USS Maine in Havana harbor that triggered the Spanish-American War. The 'Remember the Maine' was a war cry against Spain. Baker's 1939 The Gentleman's Companion is one of the foundational pre-WWII American cocktail books; the Maine became a craft-bar standard through Ted Haigh's reintroduction in the 2000s.
