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.

66. B. V. D. Cocktail

My interpretation:
  0.33 oz Bacardí 8 (1/3 pony)
  1.66 oz Bombay Sapphire
  1 oz  Gallo Extra Dry

Shake well (20 seconds) with ice, strain into cocktail glass. — This classic cocktail, not appearing in previous editions of JM, was added to the Post-Prohibition 1933 edition from an unknown source, perhaps with intentional adjustment of the proportions. It calls for a gin-heavy drink light on the rum, where other recipes often call for equal parts. A cynic might call it a “Dry Martini with a dash of rum.”
 

65. Butcher Cocktail

My interpretation:
  1.5 oz The Famous Grouse Blended Scotch
  0.75 oz Bombay Sapphire
  0.75 oz Martini & Rossi Rosso

Fill mixing-glass with broken ice (i.e., about 10-12 oz broken ice), stir, strain, and serve. 
— This bracing Jack’s Manual stand-by first appears on the 1910 edition and continues unchanged. Was it named for a local butcher who liked a fix after a long day at the chopping-block, or for its impenitent butchering of esteemed mixological traditions? The unexpected harmony between Gin and Scotch has since been rediscovered in the “Smoky Martini.”

 

64. Busch Cocktail

My interpretation:
  1.5 oz Carpano Antica
  1.5 oz Bombay Sapphire
  1 tsp Daron Calvados

Shake with ice, strain, serve. — This recipe, a “sweet Martini with apple brandy,” previously appeared in Straub 1913/1914 before being included in JM 1916. The name suggests relation to the Beer Magnate.
 

63. Bud's Cocktail

My interpretation:
  1.5 oz Bombay Sapphire
  0.75 oz Gallo Extra Dry
  0.75 oz Yzaguirre Rojo
  1 dash Regan’s Orange Bitters
  1 dash Hiram Walker Apricot Brandy

Fill mixing-glass with cracked ice, shake, strain, serve. Garnish with twisted orange peel. — This Cocktail, a “perfect Martini with a couple extras,” first appears in the reorganized and expanded JM 1916.

62. Brut Cocktail (French Style)

This interesting recipe deserves a little preliminary study, as it has evolved somewhat over time through the various editions of Jack’s Manual. If one were to follow it as presented in the 1933 edition, one would be missing some important details. Here it is in 1908:

Not only do we have here more ample directions regarding the chilling and dilution of the drink (mixing-glass full of shaved ice), but also somewhat different proportions based on the jigger system, which has the effect of decreased Picon and increased Vermouth (this recipe matches that in Boothby’s book of the same year), and two more dashes of Angostura. In addition, we have the instruction to serve in a cocktail glass. JM 1910 introduces the first set of changes:

Here we still have the mixing-glass full of shaved ice, the good stirring, and the cocktail glass service, but the Angostura bitters have been deidentified and significantly reduced to a single dash, and the proportions significantly altered from a 1:2 to a 1:9. In face, the drink has become quite a bit more focused on the French Vermouth. This may be an attempt to bring the recipe more in line with other/earlier sources, an authenticizing, if you will. This does not last long. After Straub 1913, with its two Brut Cocktails, this Jack’s standard gets shifted to line up with Straub’s “French Style,” adding the epithet in the process, though Jack’s non-French Brut isn’t an exact copy of Straub’s. JM 1914 show influence from the Straub formula:
 

 At the same time, this is not an exact copy of Straub, but a reformulation actually increasing the Amer Picon quotient. If he had followed Straub, he would have reverted to his 1/3 and 2/3 jigger recipe. Customers may have preferred the stiffer, Picon-heavy version. But more importantly, it was in 1916 that Jack introduced his novel percentage system, replacing the old jigger system.

My interpretation:
  2 oz. Dolin Vermouth
  1 oz. Amaro CioCiaro
  4 dashes Angostura bitters.

In a mixing-glass full of fine ice stir well (20 seconds), strain, and serve. I have used a bar glass here but a (stemmed) cocktail glass would be most proper to the original intent.

61. Brut Cocktail

My interpretation:
  1.5 oz Gallo Extra Dry
  0.75 oz Old Forester Signature
  0.75 oz homemade Calisaya mixture

Fill mixing-glass with cracked ice. Stir, strain, and serve. — This recipe did not exist in JM editions before Straub 1913. While Jack has a Brut Cocktail there, after Straub’s publication, that recipe is re-named “Brut Cocktail (French Style)” and this one is preposited. Nevertheless, this is not an exact copy of Straub’s regular Brut Cocktail, which calls for equal parts Calisaya and Dry Vermouth with a dash of Absinthe. Instead, Jack drops the absinthe and bumps down the Liquore Calisay with an equal showing of Whisky (here I interpolate Bourbon whisky, though sour mash might do nicely,). Were Jack’s reserves of Calisaya and absinthe diminishing, or does this represent another viable and venerable tradition? Hard to say, though the only Brut Jack’s Manual knew before was the next one, now dubbed French Style — for which see the following post.

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.
 

58. Bronx Terrace

My interpretation:
  1.5 oz St. George Botanivore
  1.5 oz Dolin Extra Dry
  2 T fresh lime juice.

Fill mixing-glass with ice. Shake, strain, serve in cocktail glass. — Named for an area of the Bronx, New York, this cocktail, or rather Sour or Gimlet varaiation utilizing Dry Vermouth as mild sweetening agent and imitating a Bronx Dry with substitution of lime juice for orange (remember, the Bronx Dry does not appear in JM until 1916, and the Bronx before that has only an orange twist, not juice), first appears in Jack’s Manual 1908 and continues without change to the 1933 edition—contrary to some claims that it first appears in the 1930s. It may be that Jack picked it up, with several other recipes, from the Waldorf-Astoria, but that book was not published until after the Sad Era. Straub 1914 picks it up, omitting the cocktail glass and serve part in keeping with his usual abbreviated style. It also appears in the Savoy cocktail book (1930). The drink is bracing but tart, and remained a steady shower throughout the JM editions.

57. Bronx Dry Cocktail

My interpretation:
  1.5 oz St. George Botanivore
  1.5 oz Gallo Extra Dry
  2 T fresh orange juice.

Shake with ice, finely strain, and serve. — No comments needed here but that this came into Jack’s repertoire in the 1916 expanded edition probably after Straub 1914 and testifies to an increasing proclivity toward drier drinks.
 

56. Bronx Cocktail

My interpretation:
  1.5 oz St. George Botanivore
  0.75 oz Gallo Extra Dry
  0.75 oz Martini & Rossi Rosso

Jack’s Manual (1908)

  2 T fresh orange juice

Fill mixing-glass with ice, shake, and strain. — A classic cocktail for the 1899 inauguration of the Bronx Zoo, this drink went through a little mutation during the Sad Era. In the 1908 and 1916 (it is mysteriously absent from 1910), we have no juice but a twist of orange or, in Straub a “piece of orange.” 

Only in 1933 does Jack’s Manual get the juicy version so famous today (pictured below).
 

55. Brighton Cocktail

 My interpretation:
  1.5 oz Carpano Antica
  0.75 oz Uncle Val’s Restorative
  0.75 oz Hayman’s Old Tom Gin
  1 dash Regan’s Orange Bitters

Stir well (20 seconds) with ice, garnish with twisted lemon peel, serve. — Another interesting cocktail apparently picked up from Straub 1914 for the JM 1916 edition, this “Martini” riff sweetens the gin side slightly with a spot of Old Tom.

54. Bridal Cocktail

My interpretation:
  1.75 oz Uncle Val’s Restorative
  1.25 oz Yzaguirre Rojo
  1 dash Fee Brothers Orange Bitters
  1 dash Luxardo maraschino

Stir well (20 seconds) with ice, strain. Garnish with twisted orange peel; serve. — A delicious cocktail of the sweet “Martini” type which at this ratio might as easily be served at room-temperature. Straub, from whom Jack presumably acquired this recipe for his 1916 expanded and re-organized manual, specifies Holland maraschino.



 

53. Brant Cocktail

My interpretation:
  2.25 oz Courvoisier VSOP
  0.75 oz Hiram Walker Creme de Menthe
  1 dash Angostura bitters

Shake with ice, strain, garnish with twisted lemon peel. — This classic cocktail recipe with a portmanteau name (from Brandy + Mint), otherwise known as a Stinger, is taken up by Jack in his 1916 edition, presumably from Straub 1914.
 
 

52. Brandy Cocktail

My interpretation:
  3 oz Courvoisier VSOP
  1 dash Angostura bitters

Fill mixing-glass half full of ice, stir, strain, serve. Garnish with lemon rind if desired. — A nice, simple classic. The 1908 Edition of Jack’s Manual is significantly different enough to warrant inclusion, and shows the proclivity toward simpler, less finnicky, and stronger or drier drinks:

 If you have Boker’s bitters, or a decent imitation, and some gum syrup on hand, this would probably be preferable, and is surely more historic. Nevertheless, here is the 1933 version:
 

51. Bornn’s Cocktail

My interpretation:
  1.5 oz St. George Botanivore
  1.5 oz Martini & Rossi Rosso
  1 dash Pierre Ferrand Dry Curaçao

Stir with broken ice, strain, serve. Garnish with twisted orange peel if desired. — This drink appears in the first JM 1908 with Ballor vermouth and a “high and dry” gin and brown curaçao. In 1916 the sponsored M&R vermouth and Gordon’s dry come in, and in 1933, curaçao brun being presumably more difficult to obtain, the brown color is dropped from the prescription (though not in a few other recipes). This is a decent house variation on the classic (sweet) Martini.

 

50. Booby Cocktail

My interpretation:
  1.25 oz St. George Botanivore
  1.5 oz fresh lime juice
  0.25 oz Jack Rudy grenadine.

Shake well (20 seconds) with fine ice (use mallet and bag), strain, and serve. — Properly a Booby Sour (cf. Grenadine Gin Sour, p. 216), this drink first appears in Straub and is thence taken up into JM 1916 with the single addition “and serve.” The dilution from a long shake on fine ice should bring this drink up to capacity and sufficiently soften the lime’s acidity. One question is whether or not to strain the drink, since no instruction is given.  This is a shim or lighter drink in any case.
 
  

49. Bonnett Cocktail

This drink, properly a Sling rather than a Cocktail, seems to have been a house specialty at Baracca’s. It appears from the start in JM 1908 and continues to the end, though, unlike the Brooklyn Cocktail, it is not picked up by Straub. The 1933 recipe raises a few questions, for instance, the type of glass. This is answered by an instruction omitted after 1908:
 

Notice Ballor Vermouth is a sweet, not a dry as in the 1933 edition; in fact, all earlier editions call for some kind of Italian vermouth. Also, using a champagne glass, that is, something more ample than a 2-3 oz cocktail coupe, makes sense. The bowl of such a glass should be about 5-6 oz, and one should be able to stir the contents without difficulty or disaster, thus a thin punch glass or footed highball or small goblet as for a Singapore Sling.

My interpretation:
  2 T lime juice
  1.5 oz Benedictine
  1.5 oz Martini & Rossi Rosso
  
Build drink in glass with large ice cube, stir, top up with soda. Garnish with pineapple slice. 

48. Boles Cocktail

My interpretation:
  0.75 oz Gallo Dry
  0.75 oz Martini & Rossi Rosso
  1.5 oz St. George Botanivore

Build drink in glass, add large ice, stir, express orange peel and garnish. — This drink, which might be called a cocktail with the addition of (improving) bitters, first appears in Straub (1913, 1914), and from thence is taken up in JM (1916). There, perhaps in exchange for sponsorship monies, Jack likes to specify Martini & Rossi sweet vermouth and Gordon Dry Gin, whereas in 1908 he used Ballor chinato for his sweet component and Chappaz for the French. It may be that Baracca’s or a neighboring shop was importing these brands specially. One wonders whether this drink was originally spelt Bols and called for that brand of gin or genever; nevertheless, it is a dry gin here. This drink is especially good for those inclined to overturning their perfect martinis when served in stemware.

47. Bogerz Cocktail

My interpretation:
  2.25 oz St. George Botanivore
  0.75 oz Martini & Rossi Extra Dry
  1 T fresh lime juice.

Fill mixing-glass with broken ice, stir, strain, serve. Garnish with half slice of lime. — This drink first appears in Jack’s 1910 manual. It differs from the Bronx Terrace in proportion and method of preparation (stirring instead of shaking).
 

46. Bobbie Burns Cocktail (for Two)

My interpretation:
  1 tsp (barspoon) fresh orange juice
  1 tsp (barspoon) Luxardo maraschino
  1 tsp fine sugar
  1.5 oz The Famous Grouse Blended Scotch
  1.5 oz Yzaguirre Rojo Sweet Vermouth

Shake with ice, strain into two glasses. — This drink, which I hesitate to call a cocktail (perhaps a sort of blossom) comes from Straub’s pocket manual and is designated there also as “for two”—so I made two. Not sure that’s what was meant. Since Straub specifies 1/2 jiggers, Jack has 50%’s here. Still, two 1/2 jiggers will only get you one drink. Also note, the usual recipe for a Bobbie Burns today is a bit different.