Martinez

Let's take a trip back to the very earliest days of cocktails. Back when Mr. Jerry Thomas worked in California and either mixed this for a guy named Martinez or for a guy headed to Martinez in Mexico.
Regardless it is a pleasure to meet the granddaddy of the martini. Like the martini there seems to be many different preferred ratios, I like this one:

• 5 cl gin
• 2,5 cl sweet vermouth
• 1/2 barspoon maraschino liqueur
  
• a dash of Angostura bitters

Mix everything in a mixing glass over ice and stir until cold, then strain into large martini glass and garnish with a lemon twist.

Old Cuban

One of my dreams is to one day visit The Pegu Club in New York and taste Audrey Saunders creations from the master herself (I know, I know she does not run the place herself).

I'm amazed that she always manages to invent cocktails that seem so simple they should have been invented a long time ago.

The Old Cuban would have been a hit at Floridita in Havana in the late 20'ies when Americans came down to drink real cocktails with first class ingredients.

• 4,5 cl golden rum
  
• 6 cl dry champagne
• 3 cl fresh lime juice
• 3 cl simple syrup
• 6 mint leaves
• A dash of Angostura bitters

In a mixing glass gently muddle the mint with the syrup and the lime juice, add ice, the rum and the Angostura bitters. Shake and strain into cocktail coupe and top off with the champagne.

Float a wheel of lime on top with a sprig of mint pushed through a slit.

Ramos Gin Fizz

I happened on a bottle of orange blossom water on a promenade through the part of Copenhagen know as Nørrebro.

It was a bit dusty, quite forgotten but gloriously visible at the back of a shelf in a green grocers that had lured me inside with a stash of fresh mint, fresh corriander and fresh okra. Not produce I normally see in my part of the world - I live 60 km north west of Copenhagen in an area of hardship and processed food.

Once that bottle of orange blossom water was in my possession the weekly cocktail was indisputable: The Ramos Gin Fizz.

I first tasted it at the 1105 cocktail bar in the center of Copenhagen a few years back, and was impressed. It might have been the very first egg white cocktail I ever tasted.

It was invented by Harry Ramos in New Orleans in 1880 at his bar Imperial Cabinet Saloon. After the Sazeraz it is the second most famous New Orleans cocktail.

According to Harry Ramos it needed a 12 minute shake to achieve the perfect smooth texture, so for the 1915 Mardi Gras he hired 32 shaker boys to do the manual work.

As I've previously stated I have no fear of unpasteurized egg white, and also have never had the slime-blob thing at the bottom of the glass happen to me, so here is what I did:

• 6 cl gin
• 3 cl whipping cream
• 1,5 cl fresh lemon juice
• 1,5 cl fresh lime juice
• 1 egg white
• A dash of orange blossom water
• Seltzer

In a shaker put everything but the seltzer and no ice. Dry shake for 2-3 minutes and then rest your arms and shoulder for a minute while you get a good hand full of ice. Add to shaker and shake for another 2-3 minutes and then strain into collins glass topping it off with seltzer and a lime wedge.

Penicillin

Iodine and bandage might not be two tasts that most people enjoy but I do. Sometimes I find them in old French wines - Graves or Margeaux - or in Danish beer from Mikkeller.

Finding them in a cocktail made me quite elated. It happened at Salon 39 a gem of a bar just outside the city center of Copenhagen in Frederiksberg.

Penicillin was invented by an Australian, Sam Ross, and he single handedly convinced me that whisky based cocktails can be amazing.

• 6 cl whisky
• 1,2 cl fresh lemon juice
• 1,2 cl ginger-honey syrup
• 1 cl single malt whisky
• A dash of Cardamom bitters

Start with the ginger-honey syrup: In a small sauce pan mix 1 dl honey and 1 dl water - in Denmark honey from the social project Bybi (City Bees) is an imperative. Add about a pinky fingered sized piece of ginger grated and bring to a boil.

Boil for 2 minutes and then let cool - don't strain out the ginger, let it do it's magic. Cool the syrup.

Then in a shaker add all ingredients except for single malt over ice and shake. Pour into low ball glass and over the back of a teaspoon add a float of single malt the peatier the better.

Moltkes Bar Speakeasy

As you walk through the gate on Dronningens Tværgade do yourself a favor and turn around and admire the inside of it - or save it for when you leave, as you please.

Then proceed up the stairs - perhaps a nice man will greet you there - if not turn right and enter one of the best kept secrets of Copenhagen: Moltkes Bar and Speakeasy.

As you leave the splendid baroque of Moltkes Palace you enter into another world. A bar that has a feeling of a 50'ies boardroom in an elegant bank.

It's a strange sensation the bar closes around it's guests. It's another world, a perfect place to put the hustle and bustle of everyday life behind you.

The cocktail menu is strong on the classics and a surefooted selection of a few modern classics.

Their motto is: Why tamper with something already perfect.

We decided to check whether or not the bar stays true to this motto, and did so by way of the Corpse Reviver II, Clover Club, Ramos Gin Fizz and Sazerac. We had three each.

All of the cocktails we beautiful creations - the two egg white cocktails - the Clover Club and the Ramos Gin Fizz - had soft magical foam that attested to the bartenders skills.

The Corpse Revivers where mixed on on a traditional London Dry Gin, but on the French grape based G'Vine which together with orange bitters gave the drink a small twist.

The Sazerac wasn't just served in a Absinthe rinsed glass, the Absinthe also came a part in it's own glass. A wonderful way to serve it.

Moltke does not go wild with garnish - it's a very focused presentation with the underlaying understanding that you come to drink cocktails, not to eat them.

Not that you starve - perhaps the biggest surprise is Moltkes bar snack: A silver platter of croutons and a dry cheese.

And of cause you are offered plenty of water to minimize the damages the next day.

Vesper

I have to admit I've been a bit pig headed about this cocktail. I've considered it a gimmicky martini and only mixed it with gin flat out refusing to consider that vodka could have any place in a cocktail.

Well, then I bought a tiny bottle of vodka and gave it a shot and ended up being quite impressed, the vodka does seem to add something to the balance of this drink.

• 6 cl Tanqueray
  
• 2 cl Smirnoff
  
• 1 cl Lillet Blanc

Stir everything with ice and strain into martini glass - shaking my be James Bonds preferred method, but why bother when stirring keep the drink crystal clear?

Another way at looking at the recipe is: Two parts gin, to one part vodka to one half part dry vermouth. But Mr. Ian Flemming was quite specific and wrote Kina Lillet instead of dry vermouth in Casino Royal where the drink debuts.

Kina Lillet has gone out of production and Lillet Blanc is the closest living cousin.

Whisky sour

Jerry Thomas organized cocktails in his bar manual 7 years before Dimitri Mendeleev organized the chemical elements in the first periodic table. So since 1862 the idea of dividing cocktails into groups like sours, flips, fizzes and punches has existed.

The whisky sour is the cocktail equivalent of carbon.

• 5 cl whisky or bourbon
• 2,5 cl fresh lemon jucice
• 1 cl simple syrup or maple syrup

Shake everything with ice and strain into a low ball glass or a whisky tumbler. Garnish with a lemon twist.

Fin de Siecle

Having procured a bottle of Martin Miller's gin I looked around for something to test it with and stumbled across the Fin de Siecle cocktail. Apparently created in the 1920'ies in honor of the previous turn of the century.

This cocktail contains Picon, a orange bitter liqueur that is poured into beer in some parts of France for a very refreshing Picon biere.

Without further ado, here it is:

• 4 cl gin - Millers was great
• 2 cl Lillet Blanc
• 1 cl Picon
• 1 dash of orange bitters

Stir the first three ingredient with ice in a mixing glass until your cocktail is very cold. Strain into pretty cocktail glass, add the dash of orange bitters and a twist of orange.

Pago Pago

Much like synchronized swimming I have a hard taking Tiki-cocktails seriously.

There's much to be giggling and pointing fingers at, but at the same time I have this strange feeling that the laugh is on me, so I do try.

And was happy to come across The Pago Pago that involves one of my favorite liqueurs Chartreuse. Also it does not seem to have that over the top amount of ingredients that sometimes make me suspect that the main attraction to Tiki-drinks is to get drunk really, really fast.

• A fresh slice of pineapple
• 1,5 cl fresh lime juice
• 1,5 cl Green Chartreuse
• 0,75 white Bols creme de cacao
• 4 cl golden rum

Start by muddling the pineapple, with the lime juice, the Chartreuse and the creme de cacao in a shaker. The object is to get all the juice out of the pineapple. Then add ice and rum and shake.

Strain into cocktail coupe and garnish with a piece of pineapple and a maraschino cherry.

Mandarine Deams

I am trying to comprehend jelly shots as not just something for people who don't like booze can eat and get really drunk from.

I can certainly see their aesthetic appeal, when I see pictures like these. But I'm still not sure I get them.

I had a few mandarins quickly loosing their appeal and figured I had better juice them, that done I remembered Jelly Shot Test Kitchens candy corn shots and figured I could do something similar, but with only two layers.

I started with the opaque layer:

• 8 grams gelatin powder
• 33 ml water
• 33 ml condensed milk
• 16 ml Absolut Vanilla vodka
• 15 ml (clear) Bols cream de cacao

The gelatine I carefully dissolved in the water over slow heat stirring pretty much constantly. The three alcohols I mixed in a bowl and once the gelatin was completely dissolved I poured the warm liquid into the booze and poured a bottom layer into my molds. And put them into the fridge.
Barely twenty minutes later I could proceed with the orange layer:

• 8 grams gelatin powder
• 50 ml mandarin juice
• 50 ml Cointreau
• A dash of orange bitters

I dissolved the gelatin in the mandarin juice over slow heat and then poured it into the Cointreau with the dash of orange bitters added. By then the opaque layer was completely set and I could fill up the molds with this orange liquid.

Once I was ready to try my creations I used the rest of my mandarin juice in a modified Blood and Sand:

• 2 cl rye whiskey
• 1 cl sweet vermouth
• 1 cl cherry wine (a wonderful Danish product from Frederiksdal )
• 4 cl mandarin juice

Put all ingredients in a shaker with ice and shake vigorously then strain into small glass or in my case a small glass bottle.
Since a single mandarin had showed itself to have eating qualities I turned that into a bar snack by wrapping thin strips of a good quality fried bacon around the sections.