367. Ward Eight Cocktail.

My interpretation:
   1.5 oz Bulleit Rye
   1 tsp Jack Rudy Grenadine
   2 T orange juice
   1 T lemon juice

Shake well (30 seconds), strain into cocktail glass, serve. — This venerable (ca. 1898) Bostonian, spirit-forward take on a Whisky Sour with grenadine appears in no previous edition of Jack’s Manual. It appears, e.g., in Cocktails and How to Mix Them (1922) by “Robert of the Embassy Club.” The Mr. Boston Bartender Guide was, of course, not printed until 1935.

260. Palmer Cocktail

My interpretation:
  2 oz Bulleit Rye
  1 dash Amaro Ciociaro

Fill mixing-glass with broken (or method) ice, stir, strain into cocktail glass, serve. — This recipe, really a type of “whiskey service” or Whiskey & Bitters, first enters the JM repertoire in 1912 in his third edition. Straub’s recipe by this name is unrelated; it is essentially a Manhattan with St. Croix rum. The Savoy Cocktail Book (1930) has a possibly related drink consisting of Canadian whisky dashed with Angostura and lemon juice.

112. Dean Cocktail

My interpretation:
  1 oz Bulleit Rye
  1 oz Cocchi Vermouth di Torino
  1 dash Amaro CioCiaro
  1 dash Luxardo maraschino

Fill mixing-glass with ice, stir, strain into cocktail glass, serve. — A good Manhattan riff, similar to the Brooklyn with its bitter orange quality, dating back to the first JM 1908.
  

81. C. H. P. Cocktail

My interpretation:
  1.5 oz St. George Americano Bruto
  1.5 Bulleit Rye

Fill mixing-glass with cracked ice, stir, strain into cocktail glass, and serve. — This JM 1933 original is a nice stiff aperitif Duo, kind of a simpler, less sweet Boulevardier. I can’t yet comment on the Brandy version, nor how it might work with Campari or even Cynar. For the time being, however, I do like the faint floral quality of the St. George Americano Bruto mingling with the peppery Bulleit rye. Needless to say, there are lots of options here with lots of nuances possible, so the experiment might take several repetitions. And yet with the eight combinations possible, there are even more possibilities for determining the significance of the recipe’s mysterious name. What could C. H. P. signify to a post-Prohibition Manhattanite?

66.5. Byrrh Cocktail*

Note: I am departing slightly from my formerly stated intentions in order to include a recipe which, being featured in two early editions of JM, as well as in Straub 1913/1914, was sadly omitted in JM 1916, and in JM 1933 for all intents and purposes was replaced by the B. V. D. Cocktail, at least positionally speaking—hence the half-number.

My interpretation:
  0.75 oz Noilly Prat Extra Dry
  0.75 oz Bulleit 95 Rye (90 pf)
  1.5 oz Violet Frères Byrrh Grand Quinquina

Fill mixing-glass half-full of fine ice (hand-cracked or mallet-broken), stir, strain into cocktail glass, express orange peel, garnish, and serve. — The 1908 edition specifies Noilly Prat Vermouth, which I was happily able to obey. This turns out to be a good cocktail, justifying its inclusion here. One wonders whether Byrrh stocks or importations were reduced after the Sad Era. JM 1933 features Byrrh in only one recipe: The Byrrh Wine Daisy, where JM 1910 additionally offers the Byrrh Wine Rickey.

60. Brown Cocktail

My interpretation:
  1.75 oz Bulleit Rye
  1.25 oz Bombay Sapphire
  1 dash Fee Brothers Orange Bitters

Shake with cracked ice, strain, and serve. — This bracing concotion first came to JM 1916 presumably from Jacques Straub’s 1913 recipe book. It is without sweetening agent, though some may be obtained from the proper Rye, and dilution by shaking with cracked ice provides the desirable consistency and potency. The Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book (1935) remembers it being “ascribed to students of Brown University, an early Rockefeller Center.”

59. Brooklyn Cocktail

My interpretation:
  1.5 oz Bulleit Rye
  1.5 oz Martini & Rossi Rosso
  1 dash Amaro Ciociaro
  1 dash Luxardo maraschino

Fill mixing-glass with ice, stir, strain, and serve. — Much has been said of this Cocktail, universally attributed to Jack Grohusko (who includes it from 1908), with the bulk of commentary focusing on its slow reception and the alteration of the recipe in Straub 1913 by substitution of dry vermouth for sweet. Given that most of Straub’s borrowings from JM are patently aware of the difference between sweet and dry vermouth (the terminology “regular vermouth” for sweet appears later after the Sad Era), one must assume that Straub preferred the dry, perhaps for the sake of distinction as well as or more than for the sake of taste. The most Brooklynite aspect of this drink may be the prescription of a nigh-unobtainable ingredient and the ensuing quasi-gnostic debates regarding how the bartender obtained said contraband or which substitution may be best.
 

39. Black Hawk Cocktail

My interpretation:
  1.5 oz Bulleit 95 pf Rye
  1.5 oz Plymouth Sloe Gin

Fill mixing-glass with cracked ice, stir, strain, serve in cocktail glass. — Note, this is technically a duo, not a cocktail, and might best be called simply a Black Hawk.

 

38. Bismarck Cocktail

My interpretation:
  3 oz Bulleit 95 pf Rye
  2 dashes Angostura Bitters
  1 dash Grande Absente absinthe

Build in lowball glass beginning with absinthe and bitters, add large ice, pour over whiskey, stir briefly. Garnish with half orange slice. — Obviously this has no relation to that “Bismarck” mixture of schwarzbier and champagne, aside from the name, which in some places came to be called the Black Velvet from 1914 on.