Shepheard's Hotel, Cairo, 1942.
| 1 oz · 30 ml | GIN | 40 % |
| 1 oz · 30 ml | BRANDY | 40 % |
| ½ oz · 15 ml | LIME JUICE | |
| 2 dashes | ANGOSTURA BITTERS | 44 % |
| 4 oz · 120 ml | GINGER BEER |
1 oz taken as 30 ml in the metric column.
1 oz taken as 30 ml in the metric column.
| Pre-batch | 2.56 oz mixed with ice, 0.83 oz of it pure alcohol |
|---|---|
| Melt | Built in the glass: +5 % of the pre-batch, +0.13 oz of water |
| Topped | Poured after the melt, kept whole: ginger beer 4 oz, no alcohol |
| Served | 2.56 + 0.13 + 4 = 6.69 oz in the glass, 0.83 oz of it alcohol |
| Strength | 0.83 ÷ 6.69 = 12.4 % ABV as served |
| Ethanol | 0.83 oz × 29.57 ml × 0.789 g/ml = 19 g · about 135 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 GINGER BEER · the ginger heat
Fresh ginger's heat, a phenolic ketone that activates TRPV1 (the same capsaicin receptor) at a fraction of chili-pepper intensity. Dried ginger converts gingerol into shogaol via heat-driven dehydration, which is why dried ginger reads as warmer and sharper than fresh root. Ginger beer, the Moscow Mule, and the Dark 'n' Stormy all lean on it.
ALSO IN Moscow Mule · Penicillin · Dark & Stormy · Floradora · El Diablo · Dark 'n' Mule · American Buck · Presbyterian
FROM BRANDY · 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
Gin, brandy, lime, Angostura and ginger beer. Joe Scialom's Cairo drink from WWII: gingerol from ginger beer, Angostura's bark bitters and citral from lime form a flavor triangle of heat, bitter and sour under the two spirits. ABV is about 12%.
Joe Scialom created the Suffering Bastard at Shepheard's Hotel in Cairo for the British officers who drank there during the North African Campaign of WWII. The story goes that it was sent out by the gallon to British troops at El Alamein during the 1942 battle. After the hotel burned in 1952, Scialom opened bars for Conrad Hilton; Trader Vic's later tiki variant adds rum but the original is the gin-and-brandy template.
