bamboo

1 1/2 oz Dry Vermouth
1 1/2 oz Fino Sherry
2 dash Angostura Bitters
2 dash Orange Bitters

Stir on ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Twist a lemon peel over the top, and optional to garnish with an olive.

On Thursday morning, we attended a seminar entitled "Vermouth and Apertif Wine" which was lead by Eric Seed of Haus Alpenz, Paul Clarke of Cocktail Chronicles, and Neyah White of Nopa in San Francisco. During the talk, they served up three cocktails to illustrate their points and to show the versatility of vermouths and apertif wines. The Bamboo was first published in the 1908 edition of Bill Boothby's World Drinks And How to Mix Them and the above recipe was adapted by Paul Clarke. The drink was created by Louis Eppinger of Yokohama, Japan, who learned to bartend in San Francisco in the late nineteeth century before moving off to Japan. His recipe was apparently 1 1/2 oz sherry to 1/2 oz dry vermouth with a dash of orange bitters instead of the equal parts recipe that Boothby recorded. The Bamboo had a rather full mouth feel but was rather dry. The nutty flavors of the sherry were complemented quite nicely by the botanical notes in the vermouth and in the bitters. A very simple recipe which would serve as a great pre-dinner drink. I would be more certain about the last assumption if it were not actually my post-breakfast cocktail, for the seminar was the first of the day at 10:30am.