The Spirits #111: The Cosmonaut
~ Space Jam ~ Maria Callas's Vermicide ~ Oral Hygiene w/ Jeff Goldblum ~ Andromeda ~
~ THE COSMONAUT ~
50ml gin
15ml lemon juice
Heaped teaspoon raspberry jam
~5ml sugar syrup to taste
Freeze a cocktail glass. Put the gin, lemon and jam in your tin, add plenty of ice and give it a vigorous shake for 10 seconds or so. I’d pause here to taste - add a tot of sugar syrup if you feel it’s required. Now, fine-strain - I mean through a fine-mesh sieve - into the frozen glass and garnish with a lemon twist.
Some Cosmonaut notes:
1. A three-ingredient marvel, the Cosmonaut was invented by Sasha Petraske at Milk & Honey, NYC, probably after one too many customers ordered a Cosmopolitan. Although the gin/lemon/raspberry connection makes it closer to a Clover Club.
2. American readers: jam = preserves. But you knew that. And I’m guessing if you’re translating millitres into fluid ounces each week, these quaint anglicisms are part of the charm?
3. All readers: use a halfway classy jam here (probably not “jelly”) ideally picked up from some interesting Turkish market stall or master confiturier or best of all, a gift from a person you know. Don’t feel limited by raspberry either. The formula works with strawberry, apricot, fig, plum, marmalade, pineapple - whatever you happen to have in that pantry of yours. One of the best jams I ever tasted was a French strawberry and absinthe number. Also, did you know that peach and apricot jam is known in France as “cul d’ange”, angel’s butt?
4. As a general rule, your classier jams will have a lower sugar content so - as with a liqueur-based sour - you might need that lick of sugar syrup to help things along.
Cosmic. Now, here is an astral playlist for you.
🖊️I am Richard Godwin.
🧋My instructions for sugar syrup, ice, grenadine, orgeat, etc are here.
🧑🏫 My 10 RULES FOR MAKING COCKTAILS are here.
⚗️ My bottle recommendations are here.
📃 The full A-Z recipe archive is here.
➡️ Please find a round up of organisations helping Ukrainians here.
MOST of my efforts this week have gone into a) the playlist, below, and b) the operatic Brancamenta post - about the most complete guide to the Italian minty-amaro you will find on the internet. Featuring exclusive Marina Abramovic content and Maria Callas, no less!
CABINET POSTS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
🌿Green Chartreuse
🍒 Maraschino
🍑 Apricot Brandy
🍫 Crème de Cacao
🌷Cynar
🏝️ Falernum
🌵 Mezcal
🐂 Sherry
🧡 Aperol
🍌 Crème de Banane
🐻 Kümmel
🕊️ Bénédictine
🦅Fernet-Branca
❄️Brancamenta
Coming soon: Amaretto
PLAYLIST
Space! A pleasing theme for a Spirits playlist.
PLEASE NOTE: This playlist updates weekly (or thereabouts). Follow/like and you will have an ever-replenishing list of interestingly curated songs to put on when you like. I keep an archive list of all songs featured so far here.
WHAT I’VE BEEN WRITING
I interviewed Jeff Goldblum! We didn’t get on to cocktails but we did talk a lot about oral hygiene. (C Magazine)
Oh no. I swore I would never write about “masculinity” again - a subject that I am often exhorted to write about but which unfailingly gives me a headache. And yet… (ES Magazine)
WHAT I’VE BEEN READING
I finished Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Unconsoled. I should say, I listened to this one via audiobook, something I don't do often - but I think Ishiguro’s novels (all in the first person) lend themselves particularly well to the form. It was dismissed on its 1995 publication by James Woods no less, as inventing its own category of bad. I found it almost unbearably moving…. and the most effective evocation of dream logic I can remember reading, sort of like Kafka’s The Castle, but with music. Extremely funny, too.
Shopping List: I have had a bit more time to catch up with myself and can tell you that next week will require: brandy, lemon, orange, maraschino and/or orange liqueur.