The Cabinet: Drambuie

"After three nights drinking neat Drambuie with nothing but custard creams to soak it up, I was too fusky to ride..."

~ DRAMBUIE ~
Scotch-based honey liqueur / 40% ABV / c.£28 for 700ml
Friends with: Scotch, duh. But actually most of the principle spirits, notably rum. Lemon, orange, grapefruit, pineapple, passion fruit. Cream, oats, honey.

Before we get on to the cocktails, or the Jacobite Rebellion, or Drambuie-induced visions of giants by the A14, or the ever-shifting parameters of this most protean of liqueurs - I’m going to show you how to make your own Drambuie.

It’s not going to be quite the real thing. It’s not the exact recipe gifted to Captain John McKinnon by Bonnie Prince Charlie while the pair were lying low following the Jacobite defeat at Culloden in 1746 and which would subsquently become the basis for the most loved of all Scottish liqueurs.

But the recipe is not a million miles away, either. It will work in most Drambuie contexts and it will save you £28. Use a proper wildflower honey if you can (as opposed to a generic mass-produced one) and a half-decent Scotch. A small splash of Islay sets it all off nicely but if you’ve a fairly smoky blend such as Johnnie Walker Black, you may prefer to omit.

~ DRAMBU…ISH ~

200ml blended Scotch (Chivas Regal, Johnnie Walker etc)
Dash Islay Scotch (Laphroaig, Ardbeg, etc)
50ml wildflower honey
50ml water
Lemon zest
Rosemary
Fennel seeds

In a pan, lightly toast the fennel seeds. Now add the zest from a lemon, a couple of sprigs of rosemary, plus the honey and water. Warm gently until everything is dissolved. Combine this elixir with your Scotch and leave it in a jar in a cool dark place overnight. Taste it after 24 hours. You can strain and decant at this point, but if you want a more pronounced herbal flavour, you can leave the rosemary and fennel seeds to infuse for three or four more days - I would take the lemon out sooner, however, otherwise it will become overdominant.

And that’s all there is to it. Oh except to say that the Scottish liqueur Glayva is in the same basic ballpark. Glayva means: “Good enough” in Scots Gaelic. Apparently some fellas were trying to make imitation Drambuie too and after a few attempts they said: “Ah that’s good enough.”

And now I’ll tell you why I started making my own Drambuie.

It’s because when I first tried the stuff - this would have been in my first cocktailing phase, sometime in the mid-00s - I winced. I found it genuinely quite rank and honestly, there is not much that is alcoholic that I find genuinely quite rank. Over-sweet and cloying with an unpleasantly sambucca-esque tang.

I was also confused. This was the recipe that had made the McKinnon clan the toast of all Scotland? This was the first liqueur to be stocked at the House of Lords? This was the drink that Charles H. Baker, the great cocktail adventurer, described repeatedly as his “absolute favourite”? The one that Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Junior used to sip… whose “unique dry tang” was “beyond description”…?

Then one afternoon, I had the chance to try some bona-fide 1960s Drambuie in the living room of Edgar Harden, founder of the Old Spirits Company. And oh my, this was a liquid worthy of the accolades! Smooth and honeyed, rich and warming, with a delicate wisp of smoke - the Talisker? Easy to sip and yet so much to contemplate. You know if you sit out on a summer evening by a fire and the following morning your pullover has a lovely musky tang to it? That’s what old Drambuie tastes of. You will note from the picture that I am dedicated enough to the cause to have invested in a bottle from the 1960s - which was not nearly as much as you might think. Keep an eye on the Whiskey Auction and you might get lucky.

What explains the discrepancy? Well molecules do change in bottles over time. But more pertinently, booze companies also change their recipes to suit changing palates - probably more often than they let on. The Jacobites! According to Mr Harden, Southern Comfort was amazing back in the day. Now it is on the UN’s list of prohibited weapons. And at some point, Drambuie itself seems to have undergone a catastrophic reformulation, possibly when it was relaunched in 2009 in “sexy” packaging; possibly in 2016 shortly after the brand had been bought from the McKinnon family by William Grant & Sons. The official line is: “No! Shut up! It’s the same as it’s ever been!” But customer reviews online suggest otherwise. Here’s a selection from 2018: “The new bottle I bought is totally different to the original”… “Ruined a good drink, was my favourite now on the deleted list”… “vile, my scotish granddad would be horrified”, “The taste of Drambuie has CHANGED! It's now some kind of Tia Maria abomination......”

In recent years, however, it’s notable that the reviews become positive once more - and the drink duly brings back fond memories of RAF comrades and fireside chats and rosy-cheeked grandfathers. (“Had a Drambuie today for the first time in a long time, still one of my favourites. Love the bold flavours and long linger. Brings back a lot of good memories….”) It seems someone upstairs was taking notes after all - and Drambuie has been reformulated into something like its former glory. Is it precisely the same as of yore? Hard to say. But modern Drambuie does taste pretty damn nice. A little like a Scotch version of Bénédictine in fact. And actually almost as versatile.

Nevertheless, there remains something rather unhip about the stuff - I haven’t seen it embraced by many modern bartenders in the way that Chartreuse or Bénédictine have. It’s a little bit “golf weekend” perhaps. A bit “biscuit tin”. Still, there are mysteries in that bottle. It’s what Johnny ‘Rooster’ Byron, the hero of Jez Butterworth’s play Jerusalem, had been drinking when he glimpsed the giant who had built Stonehenge. The encounter happened “just off the A14 outside Upavon. About half a mile from the Little Chef,” as Rooster explains:

“I'd been up for three days and nights straight, playing canasta with these old ladies in a retirement home outside Wootton Bassett. They were extremely good players. They bled me white. I didn't even have the money left for half a gallon of two star to fill the bike to get me home. So I set off from Wootton round midnight, and I ran out of petrol outside Wilcot, three, four in the morning. It's a good job too because after three nights drinking neat Drambuie with nothing but custard creams to soak it up, I was too fusky to ride it…

It is at this point that the giant appears to him. My advice is, always chase Drambuie with custard creams.

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OTHER CABINET POSTS YOU MIGHT ENJOY

🐿️ Amaretto
🧡 Aperol
🍑 Apricot Brandy
🕊️ Bénédictine
❄️ Brancamenta
☕ Coffee Liqueur
🍌 Crème de Banane
🍫 Crème de Cacao
🫐 Crème de Cassis
🌷 Cynar
🦌 Drambuie (you’re reading it now, silly!)
🌸Elderflower Liqueur
🏝️ Falernum
🦅 Fernet-Branca
🌿 Green Chartreuse
🐻 Kümmel
🍒 Maraschino
🌵 Mezcal
🦙 Pisco
🐂 Sherry
🧙‍♀️ Strega (incorporating Yellow Chartreuse)
🌻 Suze

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HOW TO MAKE COCKTAILS WITH DRAMBUIE

The Stirred

We’ve already covered the signature Drambuie cocktail, i.e. the RUSTY NAIL, tailor made for a hipflask should you be heading out on a brisk winter walk. There’s not much science behind this thing. It’s Scotch and Drambuie. I recommend starting with a 4:1 Scotch to Drambuie ratio and taking it from there. You can also try it with bourbon, rum, brandy. But can I make another suggestion? This is one of those rare cocktails that’s as good at room temperature as it is shivering over ice - so, if you’re having friends over to dinner, you might leave a bottle of each on the table after dinner and let everyone find their own balance.

Another Drambuie classic is the BOBBY BURNS. Now, let’s be serious here. Strictly speaking, the Bobby Burns is 50ml Scotch / 25ml Italian vermouth / 5ml Bénédictine and a dash of absinthe. But given the Auld Alliance between Bénédictine and Drambuie - I say use Drambuie makes a lot of sense. Indeed, it’s what David Embury used in his Bobby Burns. In fact, why not try ALL of the Bénédictine cocktails with Drambuie in them? I dare you.

We also have PRINCE EDWARD which is a essentially a Bobby Burns only with Kina Lillet (the forerunner of Lillet Blanc) in place of the Italian vermouth. Cocchi Americano is generally regarded as the best sub for Kina Lillet but basically we are talking a sweet white vermouth. OK? 50ml Scotch / 20ml sweet white vermouth / 10ml Drambuie and a dash of orange bitters (or orange curacao). Stir and serve up while fleeing the English.

Shaken

The greatest of all Drambuie cocktails? For my money this is the COTONIAN. It was listed in the Café Royal book of 1937 and catches the eye for its outlandish combination of passion fruit and Drambuie. But it really works. I reformulated the recipe in the aforelinked post for easier drinking - i.e. I substituted the Drambuie for honey syrup. However, I see no reason not to make this the proper way: 40ml Scotch, 20ml Drambuie, 20ml French vermouth, 20ml passion fruit pulp, plus a squitz of lemon juice to help things along.

There are actually quite a few weird Drambuie cocktails in the Café Royal book. I can’t say I’ve made them all but if anyone fancies a go at a JOCKEY - equal parts bourbon, kirsch, Drambuie and orange juice plus a dash of grenadine… report back. The stuff was clearly in vogue around that time because here’s another outlandish combination from 1937 in the form of the BONNY PRINCE CHARLIE. It was first listed in a book called The How and the When and was later revived by Trader Vic. It’s a slightly peculiar blend of 40ml brandy, 20ml Drambuie, 15ml lime juice. Peculiar in that it pairs the Drambuie with brandy. And also the brandy with lime - I can’t think of another cocktail that does that. And how does it taste? Hmm. A bit like when you get a split in tenpin bowling. I see that Mr Difford recommends a dash of saline solution - salt often has the effect of knitting disparate flavours together. I found that more Drambuie helped. But it’s fair to say that I won’t be making this again….

…Not when I could be making a BAY ROC SPECIAL! (Above). Now, this recipe comes from the Bay Roc hotel in Jamaica circa 1950 and the canonical version involves an ingredient known as ‘Jasper’s Basic Stock’ after the headbartender Jasper LeFranc. On closer inspection, however, said stock is only sugar dissolved in lime juice with a healthy dash of Angostura bitters and a good grating of nutmeg. So we’re in Swizzle Town, folks, with Drambuie lending a little extra herbal intrigue rather in the manner of falernum. I think this one’s best over crushed ice. Shake: 50ml Jamaican rum (I used Appleton’s 12-year!), 25ml lime juice, 15ml sugar syrup, 10ml Drambuie and a decent dash of Angostura. Dump it all into a rocks glass, heap more crushed ice and grate plenty of nutmeg on top. Dehydrated orange garnish.

And here at last are two modern bartenders trying to do interesting things with Drambuie. The PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY was invented by Alex Waldman in Istanbul and it has a dry, bitter roundness that I found pleasing. The formula feels like one that might travel, too. too. Shake: 45ml Scotch, 20ml Drambuie, 15ml Campari, 15ml lime juice. Strain into a coupe and garnish with a lime wedge.

Then we have the CURSE OF SCOTLAND invented by Jacob Grier from Portland, Oregon, who by the looks of things does close-up magic as well as cocktails. (But aren’t cocktails in themselves close-up magic?). There’s the chassis of a Last Word in there - or actually, more like a Pete’s Word, which is a hip variation that subs the gin for 10-year-old Laphraoig. So we’re going to shake up equal parts: smoky Islay Scotch, Drambuie, Maraschino and lemon juice. Usually those equal parts are 20-25ml each but I like making drinks like this in small format - like, 10ml of each - for an post-modern pre-dinner micrococktail.

The Long

A Scotch and Soda benefits from a dash of Drambuie and a splash of bitters, as you might expect. The question is, does that turn it into a long Rusty Nail… or merely a modified Scotch and Soda? I’m not sure. But the URBANITE certainly seems worth a try. Recipe here. This is a long Rusty Nail with the surprise addition of grapefruit juice and coffee extract (I’m assuming dash of actual espresso or possibly coffee liqueur is going to do a similar job.)

Another long drink involving Drambuie is the GANSEVOORT FIZZ (below) invented by cocktail historian David Wondrich, no less. Shake up: 50ml rum, 25ml Drambuie, 25ml lemon juice and a couple of dashes of Peychaud’s bitters. Take a tall glass, fill with ice and add a dash of fizzy water. Now pour in the cocktail. Top with more fizzy water and stir. (This process stops the cocktail mix from simply sinking to the bottom).

And for dessert

Well it’s going to have to be an ATHOLL BROSE? Brose is a bit like 15th-century oat milk. It’s what you get when you leave oats soaking in water and Atholl Brose is what you get when you mix this with whiskey, honey and maybe cream i.e. pretty fucking delicious. Maybe I’ll do a whole post on it one day. But do note that Drambuie also works wonderfully in such contexts. You could certainly do a lot worse than stirring 25ml Scotch, 25ml Drambuie and 25ml cream for a sort of Scotch Alexander. (An Alec?). Or for a truer, lactose-free Atholl Brose try the same with oat milk in place of the cream.

But that’s more than enough to be getting along with.

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NEXT TIME: Cherry brandy 🍒