Sunday, September 24, 2017

creole

3/4 jigger Whisky (2 oz Old Granddad Bonded Bourbon)
2 drop Curaçao (1/2 oz Pierre Ferrand Dry)
3 drop Peychaud's Bitters (3 dash)
2 drop Bitters (2 dash Angostura)

Stir with ice and strain into an absinthe-rinsed (Herbsaint) cocktail glass (rocks glass). Serve with an ice water chaser.

Two Sundays ago, I was perusing Boothby's 1934 World Drinks And How to Mix Them and I spotted a pair of Creole cocktails. The Creole No. 2 was the better know one with whiskey, sweet vermouth, Benedictine, and Amer Picon, while the Creole No. 1 was a bit of a surprise. The drink read like an orange-tinged Sazerac Cocktail served in a cocktail glass. I have already written about two Creole Sazeracs with one of them being a modern one calling for rhum agricole and orange liqueur similar to this whiskey and orange liqueur one (the other, the Death & Co. one, took a rum and brandy with simple syrup route). Gary Regan also had an orange liqueur sweetened Sazerac riff with the La Tour Eiffel. The 1934 Boothby recipe read like a shooter given the small addition of modifiers and the ice water back; however, the cocktail glass as a means to shoot a drink seemed a bit odd, and I morphed the recipe into something more akin to a Sazerac.
The Creole No. 1 began with an anise bouquet from the Herbsaint rinse. Next, malt and dark orange notes on the sip transitioned into Bourbon and orange on the swallow with an anise-herbal, mint, and clove finish. With the Pierre Ferrand's Dry Curaçao, the drink felt a little dark and perhaps flat as compared to the Cointreau (with added depth from gentian liqueur) in Regan's, and overall, I think the better known Creole No. 2 reigns supreme of the duo both in history and in flavor.

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