Wednesday, January 9, 2013

fourth regiment cocktail

1/2 jigger Whiskey (1 oz Ryan & Wood Rye)
1/2 jigger Sweet Vermouth (1 oz Cocchi)
1 dash Orange Bitters (Regan's)
1 dash Peychaud's Bitters
1 dash Celery Bitters (my own)

Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.

After the punch, I decided to knock another drink off of the new Anvil 100 Drinks List. The one I picked was the Fourth Regiment Cocktail -- a drink I had seen many times before but had skipped over for it seemed too much like a Manhattan, albeit one with orange and vegetal notes. The two recipes I have found list the drink as Angostura Bitters one despite the Anvil posting it as a Peychaud's. Jacques Straub's 1914 Drinks has it as an Angostura Bitters recipe pretty close to what is listed above save for the aromatic bitters identity. And so does Charles H. Baker's 1931 recipe with the only additional differences from above being the 4 oz size and a lime instead of lemon twist; Baker declared that it was brought to his attention by a Commander Livesey "in command of one of His Majesty's dapper little sloops of war" in Bombay. The Peychaud's Bitters does appear in a recipe that Robert Hess found in an obscure 19th century book he owns called 282 Mixed Drinks for the Private Records of a Bartender of the Olden Days (cerca 1889). Thus, the recipe given above is a hybrid of Straub and the one Hess provides on his site.
fourth regiment cocktail whiskey vermouth
The lemon oil joined the celery note from the bitters on the nose. A grape and malt sip led into a rye and spice swallow with an orange and vegetal finish. Overall, no great surprises here, but the Fourth Regiment Cocktail is a worthy Manhattan variation or tweak, and the celery notes are not out of place.

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