all things mixed up
For a long time, the unspoken rule of drinking has been to avoid anything your grandparents might have drunk. The Brandy Alexander and the Pink Gin lost their place on the menu to Sex on the Beach or other absurdly named (and, frankly, foul-tasting) concoctions.
Sure, like your grandparents’ wardrobe, some cocktails have gone out of fashion; and some, like the Dempsey (apple brandy, gin, anise liqueur and grenadine), disappeared for good reason. But to truly preserve America’s cocktail culture, we can’t rely solely on bartenders to know their history, or allow the next HBO series to dictate what belongs in a martini glass. We need drinkers to save some cocktails, like those below, now consigned to the endangered-species list.
The Bronx
Although the martini and the Manhattan made it into cocktail lore, the Bronx hasn’t gained the same notoriety. Like the way we’ve forgotten Gouverneur Morris, a primary author of the Constitution who is buried in the South Bronx, we the people have ignored the Bronx cocktail. If you like the sweet and dry taste of the perfect martini, then you’ll enjoy the Bronx (2 ounces gin, 1/2 ounce orange juice, 1/2 ounce dry vermouth, 1/2 ounce sweet vermouth), which—like Morris’ famous document—was designed to form a more perfect union.
The Manhattan became the quintessential drink of the 1930s and 1940s in our minds, while the Bronx, voted the third-best cocktail of 1934, seems to be known to only a few bartenders. Although the Bronx is as strong as the martini or the Manhattan, the orange juice gives it a citrus flavor neither cocktail can match. As with the rejuvenation project in the Bronx, Yankee fans can have not only a new stadium but a new drink … or an old drink in need of revival.
The Stinger
Instead of dessert, order a Stinger (2 ounces brandy, 1 ounce white or green crème de menthe), a sort of liquid after-dinner mint made famous by Cary Grant and Jayne Mansfield in the 1957 movie “Kiss Them for Me.” A bartender in Squaw Valley, Ca., recommended its revival.
As popular as the mojito is today, it would seem logical to prepare the Stinger with fresh mint, but white crème de menthe provides a tasty counterpoint to the strong brandy. Crème de menthe gets a bad rap in some corners because of its likeness to mouthwash, but consider this: In the Stinger’s heyday, the mouthwash tasted like medicine, and mint was actually a treat.