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The History of Grenadine Use in Cocktails: Literature Review

When was grenadine first used in cocktails? I thought this would be a simple question to answer, but not so much. Along the way to figuring this out, I've had to split up this one blog post into several.

First we'll look at the cocktail books from 1862 - 1930 and see where grenadine is called for in recipes. Then we'll try to draw some conclusions from that. And then we'll look into what the grenadine that bartenders were using really was: made from fresh pomegranate or artificially-flavored? 

So let's get busy. 

From Nowhere to Everywhere

In Jerry Thomas' How to Mix Drinks, the first bartenders' guide from 1862, he calls for raspberry and strawberry syrups throughout, plus shrubs made from cherries and white currants, but I don't see any pomegranate. 

Fifty years later in Savoy Cocktail Book from 1930, I counted about 100 drinks that call for grenadine. Many of those say "raspberry syrup or grenadine" so it seems one had replaced the other. Let's see what happened in between. 

A Review of Grenadine in Cocktail Books 1862 - 1930

In Harry Johnson's Bartender's Manual from 1882, his list of required syrups at the bar do not include grenadine but white gum, raspberry, pineapple, lemon, strawberry, orange, orchard, rock candy, and orgeat syrups. 

The Modern Bartenders' Guide by O.H. Byron from 1884 lists recipes for cordials and syrups, concentrated fruit syrups, and fruit brandies: none of them list pomegranate or grenadine. 

In The Flowing Bowl (1891) by The "Only" William, I don't see any grenadine or pomegranate recipes, but several have raspberry syrup, including the Violet Fizz, the Knickerbocker, and the Pineapple Julep.

So far, the first grenadine recipe I see in a cocktail book comes from Cocktail Boothby's American Bar-Tender, from 1891. In the body of the text, it is only mentioned once, and not even in a cocktail, but in "Turkish Harem Sherbet." However, stay tuned for more information that comes from a later edition.

In Modern American Drinks by George Kappler (1895), The Bosom Caresser is made with raspberry syrup, egg, brandy, and milk. In later books, the ingredient changes.

This book shows grenadine beginning to creep into cocktails. Specifically:

• Grenadine Cocktail: "Use grenadine in place of gum-syrup in any kind of cocktail."
• Grenadine Lemonade: "Make a plain lemonade rather tart, and add a pony of grenadine before shaking. Trim with fruit, serve with straws."
• Pousse Cafe (French Style): Grenadine, maraschino, orange curacoa, green Chartresue, cognac. Note that there is also an American Style pousse cafe that includes everything but the grenadine, and a New Orleans Style pousse cafe that uses raspberry syrup instead of grenadine, plus you light this drink on fire. 
• Schickler (brandy, grenadine, soda)

Meanwhile, in France, grenadine was all the rage in Louis Fouquet's Bariana from 1896. His recipes include:

• Bosom Caresser - grenadine, maraschino, cognac, sherry
• Corpse Reviver -  This is a 13-layer Pousse Cafe, not the version we know today.
• Pick Me Up - lemon juice, grenadine, kirsch, champagne, orange slice
• Chicago -creme de noyaux (the signature ingredient of this book),grenadine, cognac, Amer Besset, seltzer water, lemon slice
• Mother's Milk - Curacao, noyaux, grenadine, egg yolk, cognac, milk, nutmeg (gross!)
• Ranson Cooler - Noyaux, curacao, grenadine, kirsch, bitter, and seltzer water, lemon slice (looks just like the Chicago)

I also don't see any grenadine in Mixicologist by C.F. Lawlor (1895). 

Stuart's Fancy Drink and How to Mix Them (1902) also lists many recipes for syrups and liqueurs, but no grenadine. 

A brief look through Recipes of American and Other Iced Drinks by Charlie Paul (1902) didn't reveal any grenadine either. 

Back to Cocktail Bill Boothby's American Bar-Tender. In an addendum of the 1908 edition of the book are several typed pages with new cocktails (apparently collected from contact with other bartenders), and here we find some grenadine. 

• Jack Rose Cocktail (credited to R.H. Towner of Wm. St. N.Y.) with grenadine, applejack, and lime juice
• Marguerite Cocktail ("conceived by the famous Otto as served in Henry's Hotel 11 Rue Volney, Paris, France and the La Salle Hotel, Chicago) with lime, grenadine, Plymouth gin, dash of absinthe, white of an egg
• Opalescent Cocktail (a la Bingham American Congress Bar, City of Mexico) with lemon, grenadine, mint leaf, egg white, Plymouth gin). You'll recognize that last drink as the better-known Clover Leaf or Clover Club.

After this point, grenadine really takes off. 

In Drinks by Jacques Straub (1914) we find a ton of grenadine drinks:

• Aviation Cocktail (applejack, lime, absinthe, grenadine)
• Bacardi Cocktail (grenadine, Bacardi, lime)
• Beauty Spot Cocktail (orange juice, sweet and dry vermouth, gin, grenadine)
• Booby Cocktail (gin, grenadine, lime)
• Chantecler Cocktail ("Bronx with 4 dashes of grenadine syrup. Shake.)
• C.O.D. Cocktail (grenadine, gin, slice of grapefruit)
• Isabelle Cocktail (grenadine, creme de cassis)
• Italian Cocktail (Italian vermouthg, grenadine, Fernet Branca)
• Jack Rose
• Japanese Cocktail (not the standard one - this contains grenadine, rye, Italian vermouth, and curacao)
• Marqueray Cocktail (lime, absinthe, grenadine, egg white, gin)
• Millionaire Cocktail (orange bitters, cuacao, rye, grenadine, egg white)
• Rose Cocktail (orange juice, grenadine, gin)
• Royal Smile Cocktail (lime, grenadine, dry vermouth, apple brandy, egg white)
• Ruby Cocktail (grenadine, apple jack, gin)
• Ruby Royal Cocktail (gin, dry vermouth, raspberry, frappe')
• Society Cocktail (dry gin, dry vermouth, grenadine)
• Sunshine Cocktail (lime, dry vermouth, Old Tom gin, grenadine, egg white)
• Country Club Cooler (grenadine, dry vermouth, soda)
• Sea Side Cooler (lime, grenadine, soda)
• Cider Cup (lots of fruit and grenadine)
• Grape Juice (same)
• Ginger Ale (same with ginger ale added)
• Star Daisy (lime, gin, applejack, grenadine)
• Amer Picon Pouffle Fizz (Amer Picon, grenadine, egg white)
• Elsie Ferguson Fizz (lemon, strawberries, gin, grenadine, cream, soda)
• Grenadine Gin Fizz (grenadine, Old Tom gin,lemon, soda)
• King Cole Fizz ("gin fizz with grenadine syrup")
• Bemus Fizz (lemon, grenadine, lime, sugar, gin, cream, soda)
• Ruebli Fizz (lemon, orange, grenadine, Rhine wine, soda)
• Whiskey Grenadine Fizz (lemon, grenadine, rye or bourbon)
• Amer Picon High Ball (Amer Picon, grenadine, soda)
• Irish Rose High Ball (Irish whiskey, grenadine, soda)
• Queen's High Ball (Amer Picon, grenadine, soda)
• French Flag (grenadine, maraschino, creme Yvette)
• Polly ("Gin Fizz made with grenadine syrup instead of using sugar.")
• Pousse Cafe No. 2 (grenadine, anisette, creme Yvette, Green Chartreuse, cognac)
• Millionaire Punch (lime, sugar, whiskey, grenadine, creme de menthe)
• Amer Picon Sour (Amer Picon, lemon, lime, sugar, grenadine)
• Canadian Whisky Sour (lemon, lime, sugar, Canadian whiskey, grenadine)
• Grenadine Sour (lemon, grenadine, dry gin)
• Grenadine Gin Sour (same with whiskey)
• Millionaire Sour (lime, lemon, grenadine, rye, curacao)

The book lists raspberry syrup in other drinks separately. The Knickerbocker lists the drink with raspberry syrup. 

In Hugo R. Ensslin's Recipes for Mixed Drinks (1916-1917) we also have a ton of grenadine drinks. Clearly grenadine was  well-established at this point. Drinks that include grenadine in the book are: Beauty Spot, Clover Leaf Cocktail, Daiguiri [sic] Cocktail, Hugo Bracer, "Have a Heart" Cocktail, Jack Rose Cocktail, Littlest Rebel Cocktail, Millionaire Cocktail I, New York Cocktail, Oppenheim Cocktail, President Cocktail, Pollyanna Cocktail, Pinky Cocktail, Royal Smile Cocktail, Santiago Cocktail (same as the 'Daiguiri"), September Morn, Saxon Cocktail, Twin Six Cocktail, Wallick's Special, Apricot Cooler, Lone Tree Cooler, Picon Highball, California Lemonade, American Rum Punch, Bacardi Rum Punch, Pineapple Punch, Hugo Rickey, Applejack Sour, Fireman's Sour, Knickerbein, Pousse Cafe, Wild Eye Rose. 

Some interesting things about this book:

• The Bacardi Cocktail doesn't mention grenadine, and yet the "Daiguiri" does. 
• The Knickerbein isn't made with grenadine in many recipes but here it is. 
• The Daisies are all made with grenadine, not raspberry syrup. This seems a big switch from previous books. 

In Cocktails: How To Mix Them by Robert Vermeire (1922), which was published in London, we see grenadine drinks such as the Chinese Cocktail, Club Cocktail, Daiquiri (the same Bacardi Cocktail-Daiquiri reversal is present here), Dempsey Cocktail, Depth Bomb, Gloom Raiser, Luigi Cocktail, Millionaire, Monkey Gland, R.A.C. Cocktail, Monkey Gland Cocktail, "75" Cocktail, Tipperary, Trocadero, Ward Eight Cocktail, and Whiz-Bang. That's just the cocktails- there are also coolers, juleps, sangarees, etc. 

• In the Clover Club Cocktail recipe, raspberry syrup is listed in the ingredients, but in the description it says, "Grenadine is often substituted for raspberry syrup."
• The Jack Rose Cocktail lists "A little raspberry syrup or grenadine" in the ingredients. 

In Barflies and Cocktails by Harry and Wynn (published in Paris in 1927), we again see lots of grenadine in the recipes. Below are some notes.

• The Bacardi Cocktail has grenadine and so does the "Dacqueri"
• The Clover Club Cocktail is again listed with raspberry but a note says "In London for some time it has been the custom to serve Grenadine instead of Raspberry."
• The Clover Leaf Cocktail (a Clover Club with a mint leaf on top), however, specifies grenadine. 
• The Daisies use grenadine. 
• Under "Various Continental Beverages" (the continent would be Europe), we see some interesting combinations such as Kirsch and Grenadine and Picon Grenadine, both of which are the two mixed with soda.

And that brings us to the Savoy Cocktail Book from London in 1930. Some notes:

• The Bacardi Cocktail Special is made with grenadine, Beefeater Gin, Bacardi Rum, and lime juice. 
• The Clover Club is made with grenadine, and the Clover Leaf is listed as "The same as Clover Club with a sprig of fresh mint on top."
• There are a few Daisy cocktails, but only the Gin Daisy is sweetened with grenadine. Other daisies call for different liqueurs. 
• The Jack Rose is made with grenadine and "applejack or calvados" (as I'm sure the latter would be easier to come by in London).
• The Bosom Caresser is made with grenadine 
• The Monkey Gland is made with grenadine 

In the next post in this series, we'll look at some conclusions from this literature review. 

 

For the month of December I'll be looking at the pomegranate and its use in cocktails, including in grenadine and in PAMA pomegranate liqueur, the sponsor of the project. Check out the information developed just for bartenders at PamaPros.com.

 

When Pot Distilled Whiskey Is Not Pot Still Whiskey

What is pot still whiskey?

The obvious answer is "whiskey that's made in a pot still," but apparently that's not true if you're in Ireland.

I was on a trip recently with whiskey writer/expert/class clown/author Dominic Roskrow and was showing off my sexy Irish whiskey distillery diagram, when he called me out on it. He said that the Cooley distillery makes no pot still whiskey.

"But they have pot stills in which they make whiskey, so obviously they make pot still whiskey," I said. It went back and forth for a few days, but the argument comes down to this:

In Ireland, "pure pot still" whiskey has long meant whiskey distilled from a combination of malted and unmalted barley. Thus "pot still Irish whiskey" doesn't tell us the type of still used to make it; it tells us the barley blend used. They claim if you distill another type of whiskey in a pot still (such as all-malted barley) in Ireland it is not pot still Irish whiskey.

That's like a basketball player arguing that an soccer ball is not a ball because it's not a basketball.

But apparently there is no use arguing logic in Ireland... so let's look at the law. 

In his efforts to prove me wrong, Roskrow turned to someone with even more expertise in Irish whiskey, Peter Mulryan. Mulryan filled us in on how they've changed the legal definition to fit their local definition of pot still Irish whiskey. Mulryan wrote in an email:

Until very recently there was no legal definition of what constituted a Pot Still Irish whiskey, this allowed John Teeling [of Cooley distillery] to say that his single malt was a pot still whiskey, as it was distilled in a pot still. This was of course nonsense, as the traditional industry definition of a pot still whiskey has nothing to do with the distillation process itself; it was and is, all about the mash. A pot still whiskey is made from a COMBINATION of both malted and unmalted barley. Simple.
 
The industry and the Irish Government have recently clarified this new definition and it is now certified by the EU, John Teeling has backed down and he too now endorses this new legal status. At the same time the word 'Pure' was dropped from packaging, as the word had no standing in law, it was replaced by the word 'Single', this now appears on all Irish Distillers bottlings and literature.

So from the start of 2012 a single pot still Irish whiskey is one made on the island of Ireland, from a mash of malted and unmalted barely, which has been matured for at least three years in oak. However that was always accepted as the norm, the law simply enforces best practice.

But here's the thing: in order to conform to international standards, they had to drop the word "pure" from "pure pot still Irish whiskey." So apparently you can't just completely make things up in Ireland after all!

It's just too bad their also-historically-accurate-but-logically-nonsensical definition of "pot still" made it through legislation.

 

The American Whiskey Trail: History in the Making

A few weeks ago I traveled along the American Whiskey Trail, from Washginton DC to Tennessee to Kentucky. While I'll have a lot more to write about the whiskey distilleries I visited, here's a first story in CLASS Magazine about the rest of the trip: the historic sites, copper still makers, and cooperage.

The highlights of a trip through America's whiskey distilleries are, of course, the distilleries themselves: the contrasting scales of operations in Tennessee of the George Dickel distillery and its neighbour Jack Daniel's; the gleaming new Wild Turkey distillery in Kentucky; the idyllic village-like setting of Maker's Mark; the rare pot stills at Woodford Reserve. But getting out of the commercial distilleries and into the museums and machine shops reveals a bigger picture of the past, present and future of American whiskey.

The American Whiskey Trail (AmericanWhiskeyTrail.com) is an initiative of the Distilled Spirits Council (DISCUS) designed to promote the cultural heritage of spirits in the USA. The website, which suggests distilleries to visit from its member companies (major liquor owners like Diageo and Jim Beam), links to a map of its many craft distilling affiliate members (that may or may not be open to the public for visits), and also encompasses several historical sites.

Geographically, the trail extends as far north as the Fraunces Tavern Museum in New York City, includes historic points of interest in Pennsylvania and Virginia, and includes the two major Tennessee whiskey distilleries - George Dickel and Jack Daniel's - along with four bourbon distilleries in Kentucky. From a practical standpoint the entire American Whiskey Trail would likely make a week-long road trip, though the majority of the distilleries and sites are in a small geographic area between Louisville and Lexington, Kentucky.

My trip, however, began in Virginia....

 

Read the rest of the story here.

Modern Day Pond and Lake Ice Harvests in America

I got it into my head that I want to see a pond or lake ice harvest, despite my contempt for winter. 

Commercial ice harvests changed the cocktail landscape in America in the early-mid 1800s, allowing for the creation of juleps and cobblers and the popularization of the drinking straw and the cocktail shaker. 

Today there is still ice harvesting on many American lakes and ponds. As far as I can tell it's more historic reenactment more than practical, with most of the places that have an ice harvest limited to a single day of the year. 

Most places bring out the old tools - the long saws and the hooks - and allow people to cut up pre-scored sections of ice. Then they float it to the collection point on the lake, grab it with a hook, and slide it on a series of ramps (or sometimes pull it with a horse or tractor) into an ice house, where the blocks of ice are stacked with layers of sawdust in between.

I was looking for one that I might visit and came up with several places, so I thought I'd share them with you in case you live nearby. 

Modern Ice Harvests

- Tobyhanna ice harvest - Near the Steamtown National Historic Site near Scranton, Pennsylvania. They run a train to the ice harvest. A write-up on the harvest is here.

- Howell Living History Farm - in Lambertville, New Jersey. I believe the ice harvest date is January 28th. In addition to harvesting, you can make ice cream with the ice. Information from last year is here.

- Curran Homestead - Located near Bangor, Maine. The next Ice harvest is on February 11, 2012. 

- Cape Pond Ice - This is not an ice harvesting location, but a modern manufactured ice house in Gloucester, Massachusetts. They offer tours. 

- Thompson Ice House -  Located in South Bristol, Maine, which looks pretty far out there. The ice harvest is in February but the date hasn't been announced yet.

- Hanford Mills Museum -  Not far from Cooperstown or Oneonta, New York. The 2012 ice harvest is on February 4, 2012. Besides the ice harvest there are vintage cooking demonstrations and lots of food for sale.

- Brookfield Ice Harvest - In Brookfield, Vermont, a ways from Burlington. Not sure of the website or the exact date, but last year it was January 29. Call 802-276-3959 for information. Some details here. "Activities include ice cutting and ice boom demonstrations, an ice-hauling contest, a chance to try hand-made snowshoes and view ice sculpting."

 - Longfellow's Wayside Inn - In Sudbury, Massachusetts. Nothing on the calendar yet, but last year they did ice harvesting.

 - Old Sturbridge Village - In central Massachussetts. Had ice harvest demos in the past, I don't see any on the calendar for 2012. 

 - Ice Alaska - This is more of an ice carving celebration/competition near Fairbanks. The park is open February 28 - March 25, 2012. They harvest ice from an on-site pond with a more modern tool that looks like a saw on legs. I don't know if the ice harvest is demonstrated for the public or not. 

- I haven't seen any case where it's a public event, but some Amish people harvest ice. There are some good write-ups online. 

Please let me know in the comments if you find any others. 

Japanese Whisky Backgrounder

This November I visited Japan courtesy of Suntory whisky. It was an amazing trip and I've got a lot to share over a few blog posts. 

 

The History of Whisky in Japan

After US Navy Commodore Matthew Perry helped open Japan to the West in the 1850s, there was a trend of the Japanese making fake foreign products including whisky. These were not whisky. 

But in 1918 Masatake Taketsuru, a Japanese chemist, visited Scotland and trained at several distilleries. After he returned to Japan, Shinjiro Torii (I would guess his name is the basis of the company name Suntory) provided the funds to start a Scottish-style distillery in Japan. 

They broke ground on the Yamazaki distillery in 1923, first distilled in 1924, and released their first whisky in 1929. 

A decade later, Taketsuru left Suntory and started Nikka, releasing their first whisky in 1940. Thus Taketsuru is the founder of the two great rivals in Japanese whisky today. 

Fifty years after founding the Yamazaki distillery, Suntory built the Hakushu distillery in 1973, distilling in 1974. They also own a grain distillery on another site.  

Whisky in Japan

As it was in the rest of the world, most Japanese whisky was blended whisky, a blend of column-distilled grain whisky with pot-distilled and more flavorful single malt whisky (usually from many different distilleries blended together). Single malts (made from all malted barley at a single distillery) were all the rage in the 1980s with the good economy, then consumption fell off, and then it came back again. Still, as it is in the rest of the world, blends are king. 

A big difference between Japan and Scotland is how those blended whiskies are made. In Scotland, even rival whisky companies trade whiskies with each other to make their blends. In Japan they do not. 

 So in order to have a range of different tasting whiskies to make up their blends, the Japanese install many different shapes of pot stills at their distilleries. Suntory opened the second distillery, Hakushu, to provide them with even more flavors for their blends. And as you'll see in upcoming posts, they also use a variety of barrel types to age the whisky.

A Visit to the Cointreau Distillery in Angers, France

This October I visited the Cointreau distillery in Angers, France. Angers is located southwest of Paris, about equidistant from Paris and Bordeaux. 

I hadn't realized, but Cointreau was not originally famous for orange liqueur, but for Guignolet, a cherry liqueur. Cherries were brought the region by King Rene', who lived at the Chateau D'Angers.

We visited this castle and its tapestry called The Apocalypse; the world's longest. 

(This way to the Apocalypse!)

The original Cointreau distillery was located in downtown Angers, but has since relocated. We drove to the distillery. 

There, Alfred Cointreau explained the process.

The Distillation of Cointreau

Bitter and sweet orange peels are purchased from Brazil, Africa, and Spain. The dried peels at a certain ratio, along with some fresh peels, 96 percent neutral sugar beet alcohol, and water, are placed into the stills. The peels sit on a plate in the stills to make them easier to remove after distillation. They macerate this mixture overnight before distilling.

The stills for the first distillation are shaped like water tanks, made of copper.

After the first distillation, the alcohol passes up and over the tall, curved lyne arm to the second still. 

The second still is a column. 

(The straight pipes going back to the first stills are a type of reflux.)

In this one room they make the world's supply of Cointreau- 15 million bottles annually. 

Due to local restrictions, the Cointreau for Brazil and Argentina is distilled here as usual to make a concentrated Cointreau, but then diluted and sweetened with sugar cane alcohol and sugar cane sugar, while the rest of the world gets beet alcohol/sugar. It would be fun to compare the two to see if one could detect any differences. 

Production Parameters

We were then given a talk by Cointreau's Master Distiller Bernadette Langlais. Some information learned:

• The sweet oranges lend the orangey taste; the bitter peels bring a fresh, zesty lemon/lime notes
• Bitter oranges are harvested when still green
• The peels are either dried in the sun or in ovens 
• There are 220 different essential oils in orange peels
• The bitter molecules from orange pith don't carry over during distillation. Thus they don't worry about the thickness of the peels. However, when something is just macerated (for example, limoncello) and not distilled then it is important to not get pith on the peels.
• When they add water to reduce Cointreau to proof, the essential oils in the peels cause the liqueur to louche; to get cloudy like when you add water to absinthe. They centrifuge the Cointreau to make it clear again. [*Update* This isn't quite true - see this post for clarification on the centrifuge process.]
• Of competing brands, they say that Cointreau has the highest amount of essential oils and the lowest amount of added sugar.
• The used orange peels go for cattle feed after distillation.
• Because of the volatility of the essential oils in Cointreau, bartenders should not leave a pour spout on the bottle overnight- some of the flavor will evaporate.

 History

As mentioned previously, Cointreau originally produced cherry and many other liqueurs. (Today they still produce other products at the distillery but not under their name.) 

As mentioned in this post, the Dutch were the first to make Curacao using bitter oranges from that island. When the French became famous for their liqueurs, curacao evolved into triple sec. 

Cointreau initially produced a product called curacao, and then a 'curacao triple sec' and then a 'triple sec."

Eventually many brands of triple sec came on the market. Cointreau's label used to have a big "Triple Sec" and a small "Cointreau" but later reversed their relative size. Today Cointreau doesn't even use 'triple sec' in its descriptor. 

As we know, the 'sec' refers to the dry, or less sweetened style of liqueur. Their opinion about the word 'triple' (the two arguments being either triple distillation/triple refined, or three times as orangey) is three times as concentrated orange flavor. The company had also produced a 'triple creme de menthe' and other 'triple' products, which I think backs up this argument. 

Happy 60th Birthday, Golden Cadillac Cocktail

Poor Red's BBQ in the California gold country is famous for the Golden Cadillac, a cocktail created in 1952. Next year will be the drink's 60th birthday.

It's a combination of Galliano, creme de cacao, and cream, thrown into a blender.

Poor Red's sells them by the thousands. 

(They don't look this fancy at Poor Red's. Image courtesy of Galliano.)

As you might imagine, it's not the most... nuanced drink in the world but should you find yourself in El Dorado (located between Sacramento and South Lake Tahoe) it's one of those when-in-Rome cocktails. 

Here's some history of the drink. 

Poor Reds

In El Dorado, California exists a bar known as Poor Red’s. Originally constructed as a weigh station for Wells Fargo, it previously operated under the name Kelly’s Bar from 1927 until 1945. Poor Red won the bar in a game of dice, and he and his wife and bookkeeper Rich Opal took it over then.

The murals currently on the walls of Poor Red’s were installed in the 40s. They are all former employees and patrons, including the dog which used to sit out front. It is rumored his dog ran for office, but he lost.

People come from all over California to enjoy 2 things at Poor Red’s: great barbeque and their famous Golden Cadillac cocktails.

The Golden Cadillac

Sometime in 1951 or 52, a woman and her new fiancé came into Poor Red’s. To celebrate their engagement they decided their very own cocktail should be created in their honor. The couple and long-time bartender Frank Klein decided it should be created to match their newly purchased golden Cadillac. Several recipes were tried, butt he final concoction is still known worldwide as the Golden Cadillac: a cocktail whose success has been credited to the unmatched quality of Bols Crème de Cacao, the clean mountain water that makes up the ice, decades old metal blenders, the perfect measure of half and half, and of course – the unique flavors and golden color of Galliano L’Autentico.

Since this was written the bar has narrowed its creation date to 1952.

Galliano recently gave Poor Red's a Golden Cadillac to display indefinitely outside the bar. 

And if you're not in the area any time soon, here is the recipe. 

Golden Cadillac
by Frank Klein of Poor Red's BBQ 

1 oz Galliano L’Autentico
1 oz Bols White Crème de Cacao liqueur
1 oz cream
Dark chocolate shavings

Shake the ingredients and double strain through a sieve into a small wine glass. Place on a white tray and grate with dark chocolate.

 

Book Review: America Walks Into A Bar by Christine Sismondo

I read the new book America Walks Into A Bar: A Spirited History of Taverns and Saloons, Speakeasies and Grog Shops by Christine Sismondo. 

The book covers American history that took place in bars and our often-conflicted feelings about the bars themselves.

The stories begin with the Pilgrims and continues on through the Salem Witch Trials, American Revolution, machine politics, Civil War, racism and nativism and the Underground Railroad, political corruption, Carry Nation and the Anti-Saloon League and Prohibition, the women's liberation and gay liberation movements. She finds a bar involved in most important events in American history. 

Also interesting is the discussion of the changing format of the bar through the years; from taverns, saloons, grog shops/groceries, hotel bars, fern bars, gay bars, and dive bars, and what each of these types of drinking establishments signified and to whom they catered. In the last chapter she even tackles the babies-in-bars controversy of last year in Brooklyn. 

Along the way I picked up great information about saloon tokens, various methods attempted to try to shut down bars, how immigrants influenced our drinking culture and how people tried to close bars out of racism (and that the Anti-Saloon League and the KKK worked together), that all bars in Los Angeles before Prohibition were actually owned by breweries, that I most definitely must read John Barleycorn by Jack London, that slumming dates back to the Victorian age, that the Carousel Bar in the Monteleone was known as a gay bar, and so much more. 

I found the history to be interesting if sometimes dry, the level of detail spectacular,  and the information on the changing bar formats and their ever-changing reputation fascinating. If you are interested in American history and bar history, this is your new favorite book.