Science Of Drink

This cocktail has interesting composition but very familiar and annoing name. Great Scottish poet and a lyricist Robert Burns merit bigger respect that “Bobby”.

Dale DeGroff specify that Bobby Burns Cocktail was created at one of the great and famous pre-prohibited bar of Amirica - Big Brass Rail (Waldorf) for celebration of Robert Burns Day. This cocktail has so similar composition to Rob Roy Holiday Style.

Bobby Burns

35 ml scotch
35 ml sweet vermouth
8 ml Benedictine
Stir. Cocktail glass. Garnish with lemon twist.

Some sources specify that Drambuie is substitute of Benedictine in this cocktail. I think that is bad idea. If you do not have Benedictine but Drambuie - please try the Rob Roy Holiday Style but not Bobby Burns Cocktail.

The Bobby Burns Cocktail is one of the great cocktail with scotch, actually. It has very smooth, so sweet and aromatic taste.

This simple cocktail is standart woman cocktail as specify many authors. Equal parts of gin and sweet vermouth (It) and some interesting for garnish. My favorite Salvatore “Maestro” Calabrese garnish own Gin & It with a maraschino cherry and orange peel. I think is it optimal choice for this cocktail :)

Gin & It

35 ml sweet vermouth
35 ml gin
Stir. Cocktail glass. Garnish with a red maraschino cherry and orange peel.

The Gin & It Cocktail has good-balanced sweet and dry herbal taste. It is good evening cocktail and not for woman only. Some mixologist (like Dale DeGroff) reccomend to add some drops of Angostura bitter in the Gin & It Cocktail.

Gin & It (Dale DeGroff)

35 ml sweet vermouth
35 ml gin
1 dash Angostura bitter
Stir. Cocktail glass. Garnish with an orange peel.

This version has more complex palate with wide herbal bitternes of Angostura. It is good cocktail for any romantic evening.

My new passion is scotch. I explore blend scotch meanwhile. I have Johny Walker, Balantines, Famous Grouse an Chivas Regal in my bar. Today I explore the one of the classic whisky cocktail - the Rob Roy.

The Rob Roy (Robert Roy MacGregor) is folk Scottish folk hero, something like English Robin Good. The operetta about him (Rob Roy) was popular at Broadway in 1890s. The Rob Roy Cocktail was created at the old Waldorf Astoria Hotel in this time. It was popularized by famous Scottish whisky distiller Tommy Dewar.

The Rob Roy Cocktail is a Manhattan with scotch instead rye (or bourbon). As Manhattan it has three version - Sweet (common), Dry and Perfect. Today we explore this three versions of the Rob Roy Cocktail.

Rob Roy

35 ml scotch
35 ml sweet vermouth
1 dash Angostura bitters
Stir. Cocktail glass. Garnish with a maraschino cherry.

The proportions of the Rob Roy Cocktail may be variable.

The Rob Roy Cocktail is an excellent cocktail with so sweet complex palate with powerful scotch finish.

Dry Rob Roy

50 ml scotch
20 ml dry vermouth
1 dash Angostura bitters
Stir. Cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon peel or an olive.

The Dry Rob Roy Cocktail has so dry taste with dominant taste of scotch.

Perfect Роб Рой

40 ml scotch
20 ml sweet vermouth
20 ml dry vermouth
1 dash Angostura bitters
Stir. Cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon peel.

The Perfect Rob Roy Cocktail has interesting and good-balanced taste with herbal notes of vermouth and powerful scotch finish. I think that Rob Roy is a great cocktail.

Specially for my Rob Roy Cocktail exploring I get yet one bottle of scotch - Teacher`s Highland Cream. And I explore yet one version of Rob Roy - the Rob Roy Holiday Style, which was found on the CocktailDB.

Rob Roy Holiday Style

50 ml scotch
8 ml sweet vermouth
8 ml dry vermouth
8 ml Drambuie
Stir. Cocktail glass. Garnish with a maraschino cherry.

Actually the Rob Roy Holiday Style is magnificient cocktail. It has very balanced strong and sweet taste with wide whisky palate. I use one of my new bottle - Teacher`s Highland Cream, in result I have very smooth anв delicious cocktail.

This very interesting cocktail was found in the Coctails and Mixed Drinks by Anthony Hogg. Elegant and delicious composition of brandy and Fernet-Branca. Actually, Fernet-Branca is my favorite palatable bitter.

Fernet Cocktail

35 ml brandy
35 ml Fernet-Branca
1 dash Angostura
2 dash rich sugar syrup (2:1)
Stir. Cocktail glass, garnish with a twist of lemon peel.

Awesome cocktail!

Last week many of imbabers-blogers participated in real Zombiennale (New Zombie Recipes - TDN). I decided to support this theme. This great recipe of Zombie cocktails was found on Cocktail.Idea [site with very pretty design, but mediocre cocktails recipe]. But idea Zombie cocktail with Stroh (overproof specied rum from Austria) seems very interesting. I tasted Stroh rum in my Mai Tai some times ago and obtained a lot of pleasure.

Zombie (Stroh Edition)

60 ml white rum
30 ml gold rum
30 ml Stroh 60
1 dash Angostura
30 ml orange juice
30 ml lemon juice
30 ml pineapple juice
20 ml simple syrup
Shake with a lot of crushed ice and pour in hurricane glass. Garnish with any apropriate garnish (something poisonouos, I hope…).

This Zombie Cocktail has very strong and no so sweet taste. It is magnificent drink! This cocktail is great with song named Zombie by Fela Kuti.

Pegu Club Cocktail is very interesting drink. It was born in Pegu Club, Rangoon, Burma about 1927. I think it was very interesting place and time. Great time for great classical cocktails and very unusual place - Burma…

I payed attention for Pegu Club Cocktail on my blog. But I think that this classical cocktail is worthy of most detailed investigation. I try some version of this cocktail from competent sources for best understanding of Pegu Club Cocktail.

First recipe was found on Esquire Drink Database:

Pegu Club #1

60 ml gin
20 ml orange curacao
20 ml fresh lime juice
1 dash Angostura bitters
1 dash orange bitters
Shake with a lot of cracked ice. Strain into cocktail glass and garnish with lime wedge.

We have sour and bitter-taste cocktail in result. I think that it is great aperetive but it is not my choice.

Two next recipe was found on CocktailDB:

Pegu Club #2

60 ml gin
30 ml ml orange curacao
5 ml fresh lime juice
1 dash Angostura bitters
1 dash orange bitters
Stir with ice. Strain into cocktail glass and garnish with lime wedge.

This cocktail is awful. It has oily-sweet and very bitter taste. As for me it is disappointing thing. But this cocktail let me to understand one key problem of Pegu Club Cocktail. One of key thing of Pegu is airing of a drink. Airing of coctail during it shaking give us smooth and pleasant drink.

Next recipe of Pegu Cocktail was found on CocktailDB too. The composition of this version of Pegu Club Cocktail seems very interesting:

Pegu Club #3

50 ml gin
15 ml orange curacao
8 ml fresh lime juice
1 dash Angostura bitters
1 dash orange bitters
Shake (Hard! Bruise it!) with a lot of cracked (or crushed) ice. Strain into chilled cocktail glass and garnish with lime wedge.

This cocktail has bright, very aromatic and smooth bitter taste. Actually this Pegu Club Cocktail is great cocktail. For best result you must shake your cocktail very, very hard. I use crushed ice and shake hard my cocktail about 30 - 45 sec. In this condition the airing of drink is optimal and we obtain great cocktail.

I try version of Pegu Cocktail by Dale DeGroff too.

Pegu Club by Dale DeGroff

60 ml gin
20 ml orange curacao
2 lime wedge
2 dash Angostura bitters
Muddle lime with liqueur and bitters, then add gin, ice and shake. Strain into cocktail glass and garnish with lime wedge.

It is very interesting and refreshing cocktail. This version of Pegu Club Cocktail has light bitter taste and is good balanced. The taste of this cocktail is more closest to #3 version but has some interesting notes of lime essential oils from peel. Actually it is very interesting drink.

I posted the Martinez Cocktail on my blog before, but I decided to return to this cocktail for detailed investigation. The Martinez Cocktail is one of my favorite classic cocktail.

The Martinez Cocktail is very old cocktail. Some peoples think that Martinez is the precursor of most famous cocktail of the world - The Martini cocktail. The author of Martinez Cocktail is legendary Jerry Thomas.

Some imbabers-bloggers give attention to this cocktail too. You can find more interesting information about Martinez on one of my favorite blog Oh, Gosh! (by Jay Hapburn) and, of course, on Spirits And Cocktails (by Jamie Boudreau).

First I discovered old-style version of Martinez Cocktail, which is more closest to original recipe by Jerry Thomas.

Martinez (Old Style)

60 ml sweet vermouth
30 ml gin (Old Tom gin is preferable)
1 tsp maraschino liqueur
1 dash bitters
Stir. Strain in cocktail glass. Garnish with a quarter of lemon wheel.

It is amazing cocktail with right and elegant taste. It is so week as for my taste, but rich complex taste of this version is very good for me.

Next step of my investigation is recipe of Martinez from CocktailDB. In this Martinez we can to try orange curacao as substitute of maraschino liqueur and dry vermouth instead sweet.

Martinez (Dry Style)

35 ml gin
30 ml dry vermouth
7 ml orange curacao (or maraschino liqueur)
1 dash orange bitters
Stir. Strain into cocktail glass. Garnish with maraschino cherry.

This Martinez is so closest to Martini Cocktail. It has so dry, aromatic taste (I use MB Orange Curacao 30%). This cocktail is very good aperetive, but this version is not my choice.

This version of Martinez with maraschino liqueur has beautiful light sweet aromatic taste with floral undertones. This taste is more preferable for my understanding of Martinez Cocktail.

And of course I try modern version of Martinez Cocktail by Jamie Boudreau. It is one of my favorite cocktail.

Martinez (Modern style)

45 ml gin
45 ml sweet vermouth
2 tsp maraschino liqueur
2 dash orange bitters
Stir. Strain into cocktail glass and garnish with lemon slice.

Magnificent cocktail! It is smooth and very aromatic cocktail. Sometimes I use Angostura aromatic bitters instead orange bitters, this work well in my opinion.

In conclusion I try my own version of this classic cocktail. I like to use sweet citrus vermouth by Cinzano in my Martinez.

My Martinez

35 ml gin
35 ml sweet citrus vermouth (I prefer Cinzano Limetto)
2 tsp maraschino liqueur
2 dash Angostura bitter
Stir. Strain into cocktail glass and garnish with lemon slice.

It is beautiful cocktail with smooth aromatic citrus taste.

This (I think so) tiki-cocktail was found on my favorite CocktailDB. It has some strange things in recipe. 15 ml of sugar… Hm-m-m-m… 1 oz of simple syrup? It seems so (very!!!) sweet drink, but I use sweetened pineapple juice and no sugar :)

Treasure Island Special

30 ml light rum
30 ml Jamaican rum
7 ml orange curacao
7 ml peach brandy
15 ml fresh lime juice
60 ml pineapple juice
15 ml sugar
2 drops Angostura bitters
Shake. Strain over ice in a double rocks glass.

Admirable! Treasure Island Special Cocktail is well-balanced and has very interesting piquant rum flavor.

Theme of this MxMo is local flavor. Actually it is very interesting for me. I glad to present to you our ukrainian authentic alcohol drink - gorilka. Gorilka is same thing that vodka - strong drink from wheat and rye (in common case grain) rectificated spirit with different aromatic additives such as aromatic spirits from plants, berries and other. The real ukrainian taste of gorilka is unusual and very brave combination of pepper and honey. It is very cool combination I must say.

For MxMo I prepare very unusual cocktail from Honey Pepper Gorilka - Honey Pepper Manhattan. It is coctail for real man with big heart :) And bad appetite ;) It is a joke!

Nemiroff Honey Pepper Manhattan

50 ml Nemiroff Honey Pepper Original Gorilka
20 ml sweet italian vermouth
1-2 drops Angostura bitters
Stir. Cocktail glass. Garnish with a cocktail cherry.

This cocktail has unique combination of burning pepper and sweet honey taste.

Some people think that blue cocktail is not serious. It unworthy of real imbiber, but I think different :) For example, this cocktail is very serious - 2 oz of gin is no joke!

Blue Bird

60 ml gin
30 ml Cointreau
30 ml blue curacao
1-2 dash Angostura bitter
Shake. Cocktail glass, garnish with lemon twist and cherry.

It is potent aperitif with bright bitter-sweet taste.