I’m bored, so I’m taking random cocktail recipes from The Savoy Cocktail Book (1930), giving them a try, and modifying/improving them if I think it’s necessary, and reporting my findings here.

Warday’s Cocktail

[p. 169]

This one was pleasant enough, but kind of lackluster. I almost splurged and used some of my very precious green chartreuse — and I am assuming they meant green, not yellow — but chickened out and used Boomsma Kloosterbitter instead. (I may make it again with one of the other not-quite-chartreuses in my cabinet to see how they work. And I may break out the actual Chartreuse.) At any rate, after a sip or two I added another teaspoon of the Kloosterbitter and that helped a lot.

You will also notice that I used Old Tom gin. I was surprised to discover that I had no actual dry gin in the cabinet. Don’t know how that happened, so I may take steps to remedy that before making this again. Also, I could play around with the sweet vermouth to see if one of the others might bump it up a bit.

• 3/4 oz sweet vermouth
• 3/4 oz dry gin
• 3/4 oz Calvados/apple brandy
• 2 tsp green chartreuse

I’m counting this one as my improvement, especially if I make more with alternate ingredients.

SAVOY VARIATIONS SCORECARD:

• Savoy: 7
• Dale: 3
• Sink: 4

I’m bored, so I’m taking random cocktail recipes from The Savoy Cocktail Book (1930), giving them a try, and modifying/improving them if I think it’s necessary, and reporting my findings here.

Doctor Cocktail

[p.61]

This one surprised me a bit, for two reasons: 1) with only two ingredients, this cocktail is far simpler than most in the Savoy; and 2) seeing Swedish Punsch as an ingredient — it’s a bit of a niche liqueur.

Easy enough: 1.5 oz of Kronan Swedish Punsch, .75 oz of lemon juice, et voilá:

It was delicious, hands-down: sweet and tart, very sippable. I made a scaled-down second one using lime juice — equally delicious. I added it to my bar book.

SAVOY VARIATIONS SCORECARD:

• Savoy: 6
• Dale: 2
• Sink: 4

I’m bored, so I’m taking random cocktail recipes from The Savoy Cocktail Book (1930), giving them a try, and modifying/improving them if I think it’s necessary, and reporting my findings here.

The Mule’s Hind Leg Cocktail

[p.110]

I had bookmarked this cocktail some time ago and decided to tackle it, finally, last night.

Ugh. Way too sweet, cloyingly sweet. I tossed it.

I had interpreted the “1/5” to be 1/2 oz, so I revisited the proportions, bumping the gin up to a full ounce and reducing the Bénédictine, syrup, and apricot brandy to 1/4 oz (leaving the applejack at 1/2 oz).

It was still gross. Into the sink.

SAVOY VARIATIONS SCORECARD:

• Savoy: 4
• Dale: 2
• Sink: 4

So I backed up a page.

Morning Cocktail

[p. 109]

Here I took “1/2” to mean 3/4 oz, and I actually measured the dashes. (One dash is 1/8 tsp, so the 2 dashes were 1/4 tsp — a lot easier than whacking the bitters bottle over the admixture and hoping for the best.)

I wasn’t expecting much from the drink, since I am not a big fan of dry vermouth, and absinthe is always a bully in a cocktail. (“Bully” is an actual cocktail term!)

But incredibly, this drink was very drinkable, with enough layers of flavor to keep it interesting. For once, the absinthe played nicely with its neighbors. I will give this drink another whirl.

SAVOY VARIATIONS SCORECARD:

• Savoy: 5
• Dale: 2
• Sink: 4

I’m bored, so I’m taking random cocktail recipes from The Savoy Cocktail Book (1930), giving them a try, and modifying/improving them if I think it’s necessary, and reporting my findings here.

Young Man Cocktail

[p. 180]

I flipped to the back of Savoy and found the Zed Cocktail:

But the mythical substance the Elders knew as “Hercules” remains beyond our grasp.

So I backed up a bit and went with the Young Man Cocktail.

[I heard that.]

It was good. It was okay good, though I doubt I shall ever make it again. But it was good enough that I didn’t need to fix it.

Another point to Savoy.

SAVOY VARIATIONS SCORECARD:

• Savoy: 4
• Dale: 2
• Sink: 3

I’m bored, so I’m taking random cocktail recipes from The Savoy Cocktail Book (1930), giving them a try, and modifying/improving them if I think it’s necessary, and reporting my findings here.

White Lily Cocktail

[p. 176]

I opened the Savoy Cocktail Book randomly and there was the White Lily Cocktail. Wow, I thought, there is no way that this is going to be palatable. Rum + gin? And a dash of absinthe?

So I mixed up a small one, only 1/2 oz of each, so as not to waste the booze before tossing it into the sink.

In anticipation of having to do some radical revision of the recipe, I taste-tested the mixture even before adding ice (and stirring, not shaking — sorry, Savoy, we’re more civilized now).

Well.

It was delicious.

I was shocked. I chilled it, poured it, added a lemon twist to it. It was still delicious, bright and clear and tasty.

I offered it to my Lovely First Wife, who despises gin and boozy cocktails in general. She liked it.

How could this be? It should have been a boozy slug, yet here was this stupid recipe knocking it out of the ballpark.

I attempted a variation with a darker rum and Empress 1908 gin, but it was not better. (I shall continue exploring gin/rum combos, though.)

Next time I will try using the absinthe as a rinse so as to lower its bully quotient, but otherwise this one goes in my bar book.

Point to Savoy!

SAVOY VARIATIONS SCORECARD:

• Savoy: 3
• Dale: 2
• Sink: 3

I’m bored, so I’m taking random cocktail recipes from The Savoy Cocktail Book (1930), giving them a try, and modifying/improving them if I think it’s necessary, and reporting my findings here.

Honeymoon Cocktail

[p. 82]

This one turned out to be a winner, but it took some figuring. The original recipe confirms my suspicion that most of these 700+ recipes were just quick slugs for the Bright Young Things who splashed into the Savoy before heading out to the jazz clubs — no self-respecting bartender these days would publish a recipe with no actual measurements.

• The Juice of ½ Lemon
• 3 Dashes Curaçao
• ½ Bénédictine
• ½ Apple Brandy

There’s a note: “Some sensitive bartenders think it is more tactful to substitute orange juice.”

What? What kind of arch dig is this, and toward whom is it directed?

Never mind, we have to figure out what the heck to pour here.

Half a lemon? How big a lemon? How much juice do you want me to pour, Harry Craddock?

Pretty sure the curaçao called for here is the sweet stuff that I have eschewed in favor of the Dry Curaçao you see in the photo, but again, how much is three dashes? I actually have a set of measuring spoons for tiny amounts, and a dash is 1/8 tsp, so… 3/8 tsp?  That doesn’t seem enough.

::sigh::

The good news is that my first all-over-the-place interpretation was a winner. Here you go:

Honeymoon Cocktail (adapted)

• ¾ oz lemon juice
• ⅛ oz Dry Curaçao
• 1 oz Bénédictine
• 1 oz Apple Brandy (Calvados)

Shake with ice, strain into coupe. I’d probably garnish with a lemon twist.

Let’s give this point to Savoy (with an asterisk, since I had to interpret it and it’s probably not the same cocktail served by Savoy).

SAVOY VARIATIONS SCORECARD:

• Savoy: 2
• Dale: 2
• Sink: 3

I’m bored, so I’m taking random cocktail recipes from The Savoy Cocktail Book (1930), giving them a try, and modifying/improving them if I think it’s necessary, and reporting my findings here.

Fernet-Branca Cocktail

p. 70

I figured I was going to hate this one before I even started: Fernet Branca, while a darling of professional bartenders^[1], tastes gross to me. And indeed, the cocktail was just nasty.^[2]

• ¼ Fernet-Branca
• ¼ Italian (sweet vermouth)
• ½ dry gin

There is a note beneath the recipe: “One of the best ‘morning-after’ cocktails ever invented. Fernet-Branca, an Italian vegetable extract, is a marvellous [sic] headache cure.”

Sure.

But what if you used one of the other amaros/bitters?

I randomly chose Vecchio Amaro Del Capo, which I think I bought because it appeared in some recipe I wanted to try, but with which I am not overly familiar — and it worked. It’s slightly sweet, not overly bitter, and way better than the mentholated cough syrup known as Fernet-Branca.

Vecchio Amaro Cocktail

• ¾ oz Vecchio Amaro Del Capo
• ¾ oz Italian (sweet vermouth)
• 1 ½ oz dry gin

Much better, and worth repeating. I may make further adjustments to its balance, play with the gin involved, etc. If so, I’ll report back.

SAVOY VARIATIONS SCORECARD:

• Savoy: 1
• Dale: 2
• Sink: 3

—————

^[1] Personally, I think it’s one of those in-group things; they all take a shot of Fernet-Branca as a gesture of solidarity, and then they grimace as they clink shot glasses.

^[2] You may very well like Fernet-Branca. If so, I will say that the original recipe will probably delight you. Plus, what is wrong with you?

I’m bored, so I’m taking random cocktail recipes from The Savoy Cocktail Book (1930), giving them a try, and modifying/improving them if  I think it’s necessary, and reporting my findings here.

Fair & Warmer

p. 68

I’m sure the whole “proportions-not-amounts” thing makes sense if that’s what you’re used to, but the bottom line is that a recipe that calls for 1/3 sweet vermouth and 2/3 rum still requires you to figure out how much to measure out.

Even so, that’s a 2:1 ratio, so let’s go with

• 1.5 oz rum (originally Bacardi)
• .75 oz Italian (sweet) vermouth
• 2 dashes curaçao

I had to look up exactly how much a dash is — it’s 1/8 tsp, so 2 dashes is 1/4 tsp. I chose the Cruzan aged rum instead of Bacardi because I thought it might be more interesting. Also, I dug out the deKuyper orange curaçao because, hey, this recipe looked as if it might have been designed for something more sickly sweet than my now-preferred dry curaçao.

It was not good, just sort of a sledgehammer of booze (which, again, I maintain is the intended effect of most of these).

I tried again, switching back to Bacardi and the dry curaçao, and modifying the proportions.

Fair & Warmer (2)

• 1.5 oz white rum
• .5 oz sweet vermouth
• .5 oz dry curaçao

It really wasn’t better. Perhaps a lemon twist might have perked it up, but on the whole it was a failed experiment. There wasn’t even enough to like to interest me in trying to fix it with further trials. Into the sink.

SAVOY VARIATIONS SCORECARD:

• Savoy: 1
• Dale: 1
• Sink: 3