Drinks
Nowadays, when a bartender is throwing Scotch into their mixing glass, they’re most likely reaching for a blended whisky. That’s what we think of when we read “Scotch whisky” in a cocktail book, right? We think of consistent, all-rounder blends.
But in the days of Harry Johnson and Jerry Thomas, the Scotch they would have reached for most likely would have been a single malt.
Cast your mind back to the early 2000’s and eating and drinking were two separate things, done in two different places. Without a strong history of restaurant bars like other countries — see London and New York for healthy restaurant bar culture — drinking used to be confined to the pub or the high-end style bars (as they once were called).
There’s something inescapably rustic about tequila. It’s more in the idea than the product itself. Although the spirit itself is capable of being a rareified, elegant spirit — and often is — so much of the imagery around it brings everything back to the haciendas and agave fields of Mexico — a dusty, dilapidated glamour it has made all its own.
Vodka arrived on the scene later than other cocktailing spirits, only really hitting its stride after the second world war had wrought its destruction. So on the topic of vodka, the pages of the old cocktail books we often turn to are, for the most part, silent. Lucky, then, that there’s a rich vein of vodka coursing through the pages of some of the 20th century’s greatest writers…
In our 150th issue we looked at the trends we’ve seen over the last decade, and one that was prominent was the rise and rise of better food in bars. So much so, that just about everyone now has an opinion on what makes a good burger — we asked Sydney chef Tomoyuku Usui from Rabbit Hole Bar & Dining for his tips on how to make a great burger.
The story of the 12 Mile Limit is far from clear-cut. But it’s a product of the age of Prohibition, an age which is summed up in the experience of the drink’s creator, a journalist called Thomas Franklin Fairfax Millard.
Absinthe: perhaps no other spirit has held quite the attraction for writers that this green spirit has had. It is the spirit of writers, artists and vagabonds; perhaps this is why it is seldom called for in a bar. Taken with iced water or over lots of crushed ice, however, there’s something very refreshing about absinthe. It’s a little old-fashioned. It’s not a taste that someone new to drinking is going to like. Hell, drunk in this manner, you need to be a grown-up to like it.
At its simplest, Rock and Rye was little more than rye whiskey, its edges rounded out by a little rock candy syrup. Indeed, that was how Harry Johnson prescribed it in his 1882 Bartender’s Manual. It was a simple preparation: the barkeep only needed to place a whiskey glass in front of the customer, pour in some rock candy syrup, place a spoon in the glass, and “hand the bottle of Rye whiskey to the customer, to help himself.”
Easing the ills of mankind with booze and herbs has a long history. It goes back at least to the days of Hippocrates, the ancient Greek known as the father of western medicine, who proffered a recipe for vermouth to cure jaundice, rheumatism and menstrual pain, among other things. He died in 370 BC but the idea of a herbal potion would kick on.
Ever missed being able to order a Coke Spider? Here’s a drink that’s similar, but a little more refined — heck, the name translates from French to Silk with Champagne. It doesn’t get more refined than that (at least as far as sugary drinks go).
Champagne didn’t always effervesce. Though the area had become known for as a place of some quality, the wine it produced was “light, pinkish still wines made from the pinot noir grape”. Eventually, though, these wines came to be overshadowed by their sparkling successors.
Hangovers suck. We all know it. You simply have to endure it and that takes time (at least a day, depending on your age), lots of water, Berocca, bad movies, sleep and, of course, really greasy food. You can, however, stave off the pain and push it to the next day with one of the world’s most popular hangover solutions, the Bloody Mary. “What better way to kick off a new day, especially when recovering from the night before, than having a boozy, spicy (healthy) smack in the face,” says James Bradey from Sydney’s Grandma’s and Wild Rover.
This is an old fashioned preparation. In this day and age, with fruit being snap-frozen, shipped around the globe and available all year round, preserving fruit is an old idea. But there’s something to be said for the old ways.