The Spirits #112: The Brandy Crusta

~ Sugar rim ~ Fancy that ~ Audiophile ~

~ THE BRANDY CRUSTA ~

Orange/lemon
50ml brandy
5-10ml lemon juice
5ml golden sugar syrup
5ml maraschino
5ml orange liqueur
Dash Angostura bitters

First prepare the vessel. You will need a small wineglass. Rub a little citrus juice around the edge of the glass and then dip it in a bowl of sugar so that it adheres to the rim. Now carefully pare the peel from an orange (or lemon) so that it is intact as it is possible to be and also contains minimal white pith. Arrange it in the glass. Place the prepared vessel in the freezer, ideally for 30 minutes or so.

Now for the cocktail. Ah, it’s easy! Just put everything in your cocktail tin with ample ice and shake it up. Now strain into the prepared vessel. Then smile.

Some Brandy Crusta notes:

1. The orange peel in the glass could equally be a lemon peel. I simply happened to have oranges to spare. I have read crusta recipes that require you to glue the peel to the glass with sugar so that it stands proud and forms an extra rim and you are supposed to drink the crusta from this rim. A bit much, I think? Just cut a generous swathe.

2. I’m sure we all know by now that one is to stir aromatic-type cocktails and shake sour-type cocktails? Only, curiously in the mid-19th century, the high days of the Crusta, the reverse seemed to obtain. In his How to Mix Drinks (1862), Jerry Thomas commands readers to shake their Manhattans and Martinezes and to stir their Crustas. Fancy that!

3. Note the relatively scant amount of lemon juice. Jerry Thomas - who credits the drink to the Italian-born New Orleans bartender Joseph Santini - specifies a mere “dash”, making the Crusta somewhat less tart than its tather racier great-grand-nephew, the Sidecar - a bit more like a (punchy) punch than a sour.

4. Indeed, Thomas describes the Crusta as “the same as a fancy cocktail only with a little lemon juice added.” Within the Thomas taxonomy, the Fancy Brandy Cocktail is a bit like what we would call an Old Fashioned (brandy, bitters, sugar) only served “up” with a lemon twist and a dash of curaçao. Thomas also lists an Improved Brandy Cocktail which calls for brandy, bitters and sugar plus a drop of maraschino and a dash of absinthe. As you can see, I’ve opted for something between the Fancy and the Improved. Consider brandy, lemon, curaçao, maraschino, sugar, bitters and absinthe to be the pallet; you must go and paint your own pictures with it.

5. You can make Crustas with gin, whiskey, rum, etc, too. Delicious little things. Dangerous too.

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🖊️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.

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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

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PLAYLIST

I am sticking with last week’s intergalactic list, which I have been honing and improving this past week.

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.

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WHAT I’VE BEEN LISTENING TO

I am a recent audiobook convert - and as my wife recently revealed in the Sunday Times. It is true, I am in command of the laundry pile as never before. Currently a few hours into Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov and I can confirm. The man’s a talent.

WHAT I’VE BEEN READING

The news. And meanwhile, trying to resist the urge to add my unprocessed emotions/ill-informed takes to the maelstrom of social media. I don’t feel I have much to add other than to deplore the violence; to deplore the violence that led to the violence; and the violnce that led to the violence that led to the violence that led to the violence that led to the violence which will only lead to more violence. Some lines that have stayed with me:

“Antisemitism (besides being hateful) is the rocket fuel of militant Zionism. What could lessen its power, drain it of some of that fuel? True solidarity. Humanism that unites people across ethnic and religious lines. Fierce opposition to all forms of identity-based hatred, including antisemitism” - Naomi Klein (Guardian)

“Like my grandfather in 1927, I understand why the Palestinians did not want to share the land. But like my grandfather in 1947, I cannot see any choice but sharing” - Danny Finkelstein (The Times)

“If you watched only US news, you would be likely to presume that Palestinians always act while Israel only reacts. You might even think that Palestinians are the ones colonizing the land of Israel, no less. And you probably believe that Israel, which holds ultimate control over the lives of 5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and yet denies them the right to vote in Israeli elections, is a democracy.” - Moustafa Bayoumi (Guardian)

“Imagine a world in which “Judaism” becomes a synonym for religious fanaticism, racism and brutal oppression. Could Judaism survive such a spiritual destruction?” - Yuval Noah Harari (Haaretz)

"What we’ve seen is the utter abandonment of the state in favour of petty, greedy agendas and cynical, narrow-minded, delirious politics” - David Grossman (FT)

"Are you seriously asking me about Palestinian civilians? What’s wrong wth you?” - ex-Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennet when asked about the bombing of hospitals in Gaza (Sky News)

Also

Why the internet isn’t fun anymore (New Yorker)

❤️‍🩹

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NEXT TIME: Subscribers to the CABINET can expect a comprehensive guide to Amaretto, the Italian almond liqueur, featuring many iterations of the Amaretto Sour (and a few bonus crème de noyeau recipes too). I might just manage a little Friday post too.