Salty Dog
The Salty Dog is the vodka version of the Greyhound. Most of these drinks are a riff on the drinks of the 1930’s when fruit juices were used to mask the taste of sub-par alcohol due to prohibition. A great summer drink with a salted rim and tang of grapefruit juice it is a drink for those of you who prefer salty over sweet.
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Old Fashion
The original Old Fashioned recipe would have used whiskeys available in America in the late 1800’s, either Bourbon or Rye Whiskey. The first recipe is from 1895. But in some regions, especially Wisconsin, brandy is substituted for whiskey (sometimes called a Brandy Old Fashioned). Eventually the use of other spirits became common, such as a gin recipe becoming popularized in the late 1940s. The first mention of the drink was for a Bourbon whiskey cocktail in the 1880s, at the Pendennis Club, a gentlemen’s club in Louisville, Kentucky.
Common garnishes for an Old Fashioned include an orange slice or a maraschino cherry, although these modifications came around 1930, sometime after the original recipe was invented. The practice of muddling orange and other fruit gained prevalence as late as the 1990s. In muddling the fruit make sure to muddle the fruit but try not to muddle the peel too much. You want to release the oils and fruit flavor but not a lot of the acid. As with spirit only drinks what whiskey/brandy you make this drink with matters. The fun is in trying to find which one you really like!
Maiden’s Prayer
Published in Savoy Cocktail book from the 1930’s this cocktail will make you rethink how you feel about Gin if you don’t think you like it. Refreshing and tasty this cocktail owes it terrible name to the reason it is not more popular. Similar to Between the Sheets it is a cocktail you can play with and make your own. Any London Dry Gin will work and you can add bitters (lemon or orange) and different kinds of citrus juices or change their ratio.
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Mai Tai
Mai Tai comes with multiple recipes depending on which version you like, the Trader Vic’s (1940’s) or Don the Beachcomber (1930’s). Either way both capitalized on the Polynesian trends of the 50’s and 60’s. A great fruit and rum based drink; no Tiki party would be complete without with a Mai Tai with an umbrella! Featured in the Elvis movie “Blue Hawaii” the drink has remained popular since then as a beach side have to have. So whatever recipe you use this is a wonderful fun drink that will be the hit of any pool party.
Brown Derby Cocktail
History has it that this particular cocktail was invented at the Vendome Club in Hollywood in the early 1930’s and was named after the famous hat-shaped restaurant on Wilshire Blvd. … A classic bourbon cocktail made with grapefruit and honey called a Brown Derby.
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Death in the Afternoon
Champion drinker Ernest Hemingway claimed to have invented the Death in the Afternoon, a risky pairing of absinthe and Champagne, himself.
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Corpse Reviver #2
Corpse Reviver #2. Part of a class of “corpse reviver” cocktails—so named because of their purported ability to bring the dead (or at least painfully hungover) back to some semblance of life—this drink was a staple of bar manuals back in the 1930s, only to fall off the map in the last half of the 20th century. It has come back to life and is really worth a try, light and complex with a hint of Absinthe. This is a great cocktail for the serious cocktail connoisseur.
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Champs Elysees
A Sidecar variant, Champs Élysées first appeared in Harry Craddock’s famous Savoy Cocktail Book (1930). While it doesn’t specify green or yellow Chartreuse we used the more earthy herbal flavor of Yellow Chartreuse.
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Cape Codder
Many drinks are an offshoot of the Gin and Vodka drinks out of the 20’s and 30’s that are part of the Cape Codder family which is Vodka and Cranberry. There are many variations on this drink like the Bay Breeze, Sea Breeze, Greyhound… Any way you look at it the drink reminds you of summer by the sea!
Blood and Sand
Blood and Sand is one of the few classic mixed drinks that includes Scotch. It was named for Rudolph Valentino’s 1922 bullfighter movie Blood and Sand. The red juice of …
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