7. Allies Cocktail

 

My interpretation:
  generous 1.5 oz Hawthorn London Dry Gin
  scant 1.5 oz Dolin Blanc
  2 long dashes homemade kümmel

Shake well (on cracked ice) and strain into cocktail glass. Here we are supposed to have all the Allies— Gin for England, Dry Vermouth for France, and Kümmel for Russia (not Germany, which is a long story). What we might call today a slightly interesting Martini riff. I went with the Blanc because it’s so good. It might be just as fine with the Extra Dry, but I can’t say. It’s still French, at least.

6. Alexander's Sister Cocktail

My interpretation:
  1 oz Uncle Val’s Restorative gin
  0.75 oz heavy cream
  1 oz green creme de menthe (homemade)

Shake well (about 20 seconds) and strain into cocktail glass (here a dessert glass). Garnish with fresh mint. This is pretty straightforward. Related to the Alexander, it seems to have been designed for ladies and, like its counterpart, fits well in the dessert domain.

5. Alexander Cocktail

 My interpretation:
  .75 oz Hiram Walker Creme de Cacao (white)
  .75 oz Uncle Val’s Restorative Gin
  1.5 oz heavy cream

Shake on cracked ice, strain, and serve. Garnish with grated nutmeg (and spill some on the counter). Heavier on the cream and lighter on the gin than I’m used to, but fully conceivable as an early 1900s dessert cocktail.

4. Ale Beanie Cocktail

My interpretation:
  2.5 oz Jameson — Caskmates Stout edition
  2.5 oz Dolin Blanc (in lieu of dry)

Nothing unusual here for this drink (really a duo), except everything. First, my portions were increased to fill the obnoxiously large glass. My Jameson on hand was Caskmates, which isn’t bad here. I feel like I liked this better with the Dolin Blanc than with the Dry, but that is an emotional decision and should perhaps be rejected. Stirred on broken (not cracked) ice, strained and served.

3. Alaska Cocktail

My interpretation:
  1 dash Regan’s Orange Bitters
  1.25 oz Yellow Chartreuse
  1.75 oz Uncle Val’s Restorative Gin

Talk about laconic instructions (see previous post), here Jack gives us none. I take my cue instead from the great state of Alaska and stir it over a glass 3/4 full of cracked ice. (Although my Hayman’s Old Tom was not accessible at the time of preparation, I think the Uncle Val’s Restorative worked well in the cocktail, especially given the sweetness of the chartreuse.) Garnish with orange peel—though sans garnish would be fine.

2. Adonis Cocktail

My interpretation:
  2 dashes Fee Brothers Orange Bitters
  1 oz El Maestro Sierra Oloroso sherry
  2 oz Casa Mariol Vermut negro (sweet vermouth)

Stir over ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with lemon twist. Jack might have intended this to be stirred without ice and built in the glass, but as is often the case, the instructions are unclear, indeed, laconic to the extreme, and historical comparisons must be relied upon.

1. Absinthe Cocktail

My interpretation:
  2.25 oz Grand Absente absinthe
  1 dash Regan’s Orange Bitters
  1 dash Angostura Bitters
  1 dash Romana Sambuca (in lieu of anisette)

Shake well. I interpolate a full glass of cracked ice, although it is not specified. Jack says his normal shake is 10 seconds. Given that the three dashes are not going to raise the 2.25 oz of absinthe to a 3 oz cocktail, we are depending on wet ice or a long shake to obtain the proper volume. I add a garnish of fresh mint from the garden, also not specified. 

Preliminary Remarks

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.
Jack’s Manual is justly renowned, if for nothing more, for the first appearance of the Brooklyn Cocktail, and thus Jack for its invention. David Wondrich discusses this here. In addition, an interesting analysis of drinking culture in Jack’s milieu is provided by Mr. Wondrich here.

Regarding the author of our Manual: Jack Grohusko was born to Russian-Jewish immigrants in England in the late 19th c., from whence he  came to the States at a young age. He lived in Hoboken, New Jersey, and by the time of his publication was occupied as bartender at Barraca’s Italian restaurant in Lower Manhattan (the building was demolished in the 1970s to make way for the enormous 85 Broad building, but much of the old neighborhood around has been variously restored and gentrified). He later opened his “own” place, apparently adjoining the back of the restaurant on a now-defunct part of Stone Street, which because of the 85 Broad project ends abruptly at Coenties Alley. 

As evidenced from Jack’s Manual, which went through at least five editions, Jack Grohusko was very interested in the proper preservation and presentation of wines and liquors, and prided himself to some extent in the precision of his recipes, especially in the proportions of liquors (notably, he uses percentages rather than jiggers and ponies in his later editions). This is a marked distinction from earlier books, like that of the Waldorf-Astoria, which influenced him, and hangers-on, like Jacques Straub, who cribbed Jack Grohusko’s book almost entire (erring or departing e.g. on the kind of Vermouth to be used for Jack’s own Brooklyn Cocktail). This brings up another distinction to note: vermouths are identified in our later, post-Prohibition 1933 edition as Regular or Dry / French. Regular thus means sweet. In earlier pre-Prohibition editions, Ballor is mentioned, which seems to have been a heavier Italian Vermouth leaning toward the Torino chinato style; then Martini & Rossi gets its turn. The dry vermouth of the early days was Chappaz. Later editions feature advertisements for Noilly Prat. My own approach to ingredients will be a little loose and exploratory, but it is my intent to use nothing too out of the ordinary here. A few ingredients now unavailable or too different from their original recipe will be replaced with decent surrogates (first of note is Calisaya, of which the newest product by Elixir is not yet available in Tennessee; likewise, Amer Picon, for which I use Amaro CioCiaro).


There is a notable evolution also in the attention to the classes of mixed drinks, which in 1916 were finally separated more or less into proper categories (cobblers, cocktails, coolers, punches, smashes, &c.), though even the Cocktails are not all properly such. My intent currently is to examine only the Cocktails, and perhaps the Miscellaneous section, which includes several drinks that might be described as cocktails. It is hoped that in the progress through this ample array of beverages, some greater appreciation for the earlier cocktail repertoire, and for Grohusko’s methods and inventions.

But enough for now. Let us begin our jaunt with Jack. — “Very Truly, the Editor.”


Nota Bene. Some kind folks have provided for free public use scans of our three primary editions. They can be found here:
Jack’s Manual (1908) - (1916) - (1933)

And here is a 1906 Menu & Wine List from Victor Baracca’s Eating-house, where Jack worked prior to publishing his Manual.