prince of wales

1 1/2 oz Brandy (Château de Plassons VSOP)
1 1/2 oz Madiera (Blandy's 5 Year)
1 tsp Orange Curaçao (Senior Curaçao of Curaçao)
1 dash Angostura Bitters

Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Top with Champagne (~1 1/2 oz Gloria Ferrer Blanc de Noirs), and garnish with a cherry or slice of orange (Luxardo Maraschino cherry).

On Thursday night, I was flipping through our copy of Latin Quarter Souvenir Book Of Cocktails & How To Mix Them and spotted a curious drink, the Prince of Wales. What was so intriguing about it was that it used Madeira which is one of the lesser used fortified wines in cocktails. Perhaps it gets overlooked due to its oxidized and sharper flavors, but it was used in some older drinks including the Boston Egg Nog and Boston Flip. I have no clue if this version of the Prince of Wales started in Boston (one of the Latin Quarter clubs was based here in Boston), or how it relates to the Madeira-less one David Wondrich wrote about in Imbibe!, but it was definitely worth a moment to try out the recipe.
The Prince of Wales's began with sparkling wine and orange notes at the beginning of the sip and a very grapey flavor from the Madeira in the middle. Moreover, the swallow contained the brandy's heat and the Angostura's complexity. The Curaçao's orange notes complemented the Madeira rather well; while the sparkling wine's crispness tempered the Madeira's oxidized flavor, the drink was still strongly flavored of Madeira. Overall, the Prince of Wales' usage of three very distinctly flavored grape products made it a rather intriguing tipple.