321. Sherry Cocktail

My interpretation:
  2 oz Lustau Amontillado Los Arcos
  2 dashes Fee Brothers Cardamom Bitters
  1 dash Luxardo maraschino

Stir with ice, strain into cocktail glass, squeeze lemon peel, garnish with cherry (and lemon). — Obviously I have departed from Jack’s recipe on the supposition that a Sherry Cocktail ought properly to have sherry, not port. Port would have improved this cocktail (as would a superior bitters). After several attempts, I settled on Port and Angostura bitters (Dr. Elmegirab would be good), though I thought the Bristol Cream Sherry was a good runner up. Something sweet of that kind must have been used originally. 

Clearly, this is a very old recipe, as the name, ingredients, and characteristic wording suggest (directions such as “stir up with a spoon” are found mostly in books predating Boothby). It already appears in JM1908. What is of interest here is when, precisely, the recipe was altered by Jack Grohusko. A cursory investigation of the Manuals reveals the answer to be 1910 (the Second Edition), when suddenly “port wine” appears. Was there a sherry shortage? Or did customers think the “sherry wine” of the earlier versions made it too sour or insipid? Straub, at any rate, retains the use of sherry in 1913, and substitutes orange bitters for the maraschino.

241. Morning Cocktail

The Morning Cocktail is an old standard shared by several cocktail manuals, always involving brandy and sweet vermouth augmented by dashes of various ingredients and served with a lemon twist. The name recalls the origin of the cocktail as a genteel morning pick-me-up. This version in JM1933 goes back to the first edition in 1908, showing by its lack of change the perfection of this early form and the regard for it among genteel morning-tide tipplers. Barflies and Cocktails (1927) specifies orange bitters for the generic bitters given here (I used Fee Brothers Cardamom/Boker’s Style this time), and adds a cherry in the glass along with the twist, which variation is reproduced also in the Savoy Cocktail Book (1930). JM omits the cherry.
 

128. Evans' Cocktail

 My interpretation:
  2 oz Hochstadter’s Straight Rye
  1 dash Pierre Ferrand Dry Curaçao
  1 dash Rothman & Winter Apricot Liqueur
  1 dash Fee Brothers Cardamom Bitters (Boker’s Style)

Fill mixing-glass with cracked ice, stir 30 seconds, strain into cocktail glass, serve. — This JM 1908 standby, a variation on a traditional “fancy” whisky cocktail, originally called for Boker’s Bitters, though this specification soon fell away before the 2nd edition in 1910 (I use Fee Brothers cardamom in tribute to this, and it fits really well with the profile). The apostrophe in the name was added in 1933. Straub borrows the recipe in 1913, omitting bitters altogether. Note that I have taken apricot brandy to indicate the sweeter, fruitier brandy-based liqueur, rather than a drier brandy distilled from apricots; this is supported by the small dosage required, suggesting a more flavorful quality.