"When this baby hits 88 miles per hour..."

In honour of the forthcoming tenth edition of Tales of the Cocktail - which, coincidentally marks my first attendence - I've been spending a fair bit of time thinking about the Sazerac. It's often cited as the world's oldest cocktail (though the burden of proof suggests otherwise) but I think it represents something far more interesting. The Sazerac, you see, is a time machine.

It's a relic of an age of drinking very different to the one we have now. Its creation is tied to two specific occurrences - the entry of one Antoine Amedie Peychaud into the manufacture of medicinal bitters (sometime around 1830; the Sazerac Company, who do have a horse in the race, specifically date the drink's creation to 1838) and the establishment of the Merchant's Exchange Coffee House (later the Sazerac House) in New Orleans - and both happen before molecular mixology was a thing, before super-premium vodka was thing, before the light, sour style of cocktail found in places like Cuba and Mexico gain prominence during US prohibition became a thing, even before vermouth was a thing.

If anything, the Sazerac is a product of constraint. It's arguably as good of a drink as can be made from its four ingredients and even those have been informed by constraint. The original formulation called for a Cognac base which changed to rye whiskey after the phylloxera blight ended the former's run as the world's pre-eminent spirit; the absinthe rinse was modified to a less intense, more legal substitute following the US ban on La Fée Verte in 1912; whenever an ingredient became unavailble, the recipe was amended to suit what was available. Its survival and enduring popularity really is a testament to not being dogmatic about a recipe.

These days, if someone creates a recipe along similar lines to a Sazerac, or its close cousin, the Old-Fashioned, it's a conscious choice to reject the possibilities offered by the sheer range of ingredients available. Conversely, the Sazerac itself rejects those possibilities not because its creator wanted to but rather because he had no choice other than to do so; those things just weren't available. Trying a Sazerac today is taking a step back to a time when bartenders didn't have a lot to work with and worked wonders with what they had.

In another startling break with tradition, we're presenting this recipe in video form.

The Sazerac from Jon Hughes on Vimeo.

Sazerac

50ml rye whiskey or Cognac
3 dashes Peychaud's Bitters
1 barspoon sugar syrup
~10ml absinthe

Stir the first the ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled, absinthe-rinsed* glass. Twist and discard a lemon zest to garnish.

*To rinse the glass, either fill it with ice, add a small amount of absinthe and discard the contents of the glass before straining in the other other ingredients, or you could - as in the video - simply pop some absinthe in an atomiser.

Moving on with Lillet

I stopped by a fairly informal tasting session with Sébastian Martinon of Lillet last week. He was on a flying visit from France and had asked to see somewhere outside of London; Edinburgh's not a bad choice, but I'm pretty biased. (I'm also pretty biased because the tasting took place in the private lounge at Sygn.)

Lillet was founded in 1872 by two brothers who had made themselves a career as wine merchants. Right now, it's probably more famous for what it was rather than what it is - and you can blame James Bond for that.

Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet.

This recipe, given to the bartender at the Royale-Les-Eaux casino by 007 in his début, represents something of a dilemma for the cocktail bartender. I've lost count of the number of people who've asked for a "vodka Martini, shaken - not stirred" in the months after the release of a Bond film without really knowing what they were getting themselves into. We, members of the secret brother/sisterhood of bar geeks, would roll our eyes, knowing that Bond didn't drink vodka Martinis. He drank Vespers - and he'd do it alone, because Kina Lillet wasn't available anymore.

The "Kina" refers to quinine, which was the only ingredient other than citrus liqueurs and Bordeaux that I can remember Sébastian referring to through the tasting. When the recipe was reformulated in 1987, the level of quinine was reduced - not completely removed; there's still a pleasant bitterness across the range - and the product was relaunched as Lillet Blanc. It's said to be less bitter and less sweet than Kina Lillet, but I haven't got a frame of reference - I've never tried Kina Lillet and the opportunity to do so seems pretty unlikely if they stopped making it almost a quarter of a century ago.

We tasted three expressions of the aperitif - the Blanc, the Rouge and the 2006 Vintage Jean de Lillet Blanc. They're all made in a similar way, adding a fruit liqueur flavoured with a range of citrus peels, quinine and other, secret aromatics to Bordeaux wine. All three offer a deep citrus flavour with more sweetness than I'd expected and a touch of bitterness, but each also has distinct characteristics that I'd guess are attributable to the wines used. The Blanc is refreshing and light; the Rouge is richer and slightly tannic. The Jean de Lillet is only made when the company's maître de chai comes across a wine good enough to be commemorated. The 2006 vintage we tasted seemed more rounded and slightly more bitter than the Blanc. For anyone who's wondering why it's not in the photo, it proved to be the most popular bottle in the room.

France is Lillet's main market and over there they drink it straight-up, chilled but it's often hard for me not to try something out in a mixed drink. Gin, particularly something juniper- and citrus-heavy like No. 3, seemed like a natural choice, and the recipe wrote itself from there.

Tesseract

35ml No. 3 Gin
25ml Lillet Blanc
1 dash Peychaud's Bitters
20ml lemon juice
10ml sugar syrup (2:1)

Shake all ingredients with ice and fine-strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Garnish with an orange zest twist.

The new gin

The sun is out, the flowers are blooming and Easter has come and gone. Spring has sprung like a beartrap and that means that it's time to add some new things to the backbar. No, really. It's like a spring tradition.

Photo from NOTCOT.com

Among our new treats is Greenall's Bloom, the latest addition to the world of super-premium gin with a less traditional mix of botanicals. In its award-winning, jewel-cut bottle, Bloom combines juniper with pomelo, chamomile and honeysuckle for a rounded, floral flavour. It's another gin that might make a good gin-and-tonic, but really sings in a cocktail.

The emergence of gins like Bloom, Caorunn, Hendrick's, Martin Miller's, Tanqueray No. Ten - I could go on for days, by the way - presents an opportunity to look at classics afresh. They'll make a Martini that's very different to those enjoyed even ten years ago, but there's no particular reason to confine them to white-spirit classics. The new, non-traditional gins arguably are robust enough to use in an Old-Fashioned, or even a Sazerac.

There's a sense in which a twisted classic is the perfect cocktail for Spring. It's the combination of taking something from the past and something from the future and reconfiguring and transforming both.

Elderblossom Sazerac

50ml Bloom
15ml St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur
2 dashes Peychaud's Bitters
1 dash Absinthe

Rinse a chilled martini glass or brandy balloon with Absinthe. Stir the other ingredients with ice and strain into the chilled, absinthe-rinsed glass. Garnish with a lemon zest twist.

Twenty Six: Federação

We've been experiencing a small technical issue, so bear with us. We're trying to find a way to kick off another post about cachaca and, of course, the obvious thing to do is make a joke about Brazil's notable exports - sugar, bikini waxes, footballing humiliation - and follow the punchline with the words "and now there's one more: cachaca." The problem is 1) doing this in a slightly less clichéd manner, and 2) without sounding like a total prick. Don't worry, we've got the guys from Grammar & Syntax doing their thing and we can get things kicked off in just...a couple...of...

...And now there's one more: cachaca.

There are aspects of the spirit that are still to be fully revealed to markets outside of Brazil and while some varieties are available in the UK, I suspect that aged cachacas are one of those categories. Abelha Gold is aged for three years in small barrels made from garapeira - a Brazilian hardwood - which gives the liquid a fantastic golden amber colour. The aroma is reminiscent of an anejo tequila - the vegetal notes are less pronounced, with hints of vanilla, cinnamon and caramel. It's a proper grown-up spirit with a great range of flavour. Being honest, it's the first aged cachaca I've spent much time with, but it's made me eager to try more.

Federação

50ml Abelha Gold Cachaça
2 barspoons sugar cane syrup
1 dash Peychaud's Bitters
15ml pressed apple juice

Place the bitters and syrup in the base of a rocks/old-fashioned glass. Add a couple of ice cubes and stir to thin out the mixture. Add the cachaca, fill the glass with ice and stir. Float the apple juice and garnish with an apple fan.