The Spirits #154: The Sauternes Sour

Not to mention: The Sauternes Martini

~ THE SAUTERNES SOUR ~

30ml vodka
15ml brandy
15ml Sauternes syrup
10ml lemon juice

Sauternes Syrup: combine one part Sauternes (or similar dessert wine) with one part caster sugar. Apply the gentlest possible heat and stir until the sugar is fully dissolved. Allow to cool. Decant. It will keep for a month or so in the fridge.

For the cocktail itself? Freeze a coupe. Add the spirits, syrup and lemon to the shaker, half-fill with ice and shake enthusiastically. Fine-strain into the cold cocktail glass and garnish with a lemon zest twist.

Some Sauternes Sour notes:

1. When I say Sauternes, I mean use Sauternes if you can - it’s wonderful stuff. But you can also use just about any dessert wine with character. Tokaji, monbazillac, jurançon, maybe even Moscato d’Asti, or sweet German riesling. In fact, I first “invented” this cocktail when I had a surfeit of vintage Riesling auslese - a great problem to have. I called it a Mosel Sour (40ml brandy, 20ml dessert wine, 10ml lemon juice).

2. No doubt the above proportions were delicious in 2020. But this time, after much experimentation, I found turning the dessert wine into a syrup to be the best strategy. The extra sweetness helps to balance the drink - otherwise you need too much of the wine and the cocktail starts to lose vigour.

3. I ended up using vodka as the base for the simple reason that it’s more of a blank canvas than brandy, allowing the character of the dessert wine to dominate. Still, just a dash of brandy gives the drink a good anchor. Pisco is great too.

4. That’s a BERGAMOT twist, friends. This is the kind of household I keep.

5. And for the Sauternes Martini? You’ll have to read on.

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YOU have to feel for Sauternes. Back in the 19th century, this angelic dessert wine from the Bordeaux region was prized alongside champagne as a marque of luxe - a sign that the party had started. Chateau d’Yquem, the end-of-level-boss of the Sauternes region, was celebrated in particular for its ethereal aftertaste, owing to the fungal complexities of the noble rot, the practise of allowing grapes to putrefy on the vine before fermentation. One writer compared it to “the silence that follows Mozart”. The French say that it fait la queue de paon, it spreads out like a peacock’s fan. It was the crucial ingredient in Pnin’s punch too.

And now? No one beyond a select audience of wine collectors seems to appreciate the stuff. Sales have been dwindling for decades. Sauternes producers face calamity. Your 2020’s drinker prefers celebrity-endorsed rosé or Tangfastic-flavour sauvignon b. to a drink that tastes like a peacock’s tail. And for those who like sweet wines, well, there are many regions that produce them for cheaper. Modern life is rubbish. The circus is in town.

All this has caused widespread despondency among Sauternes producers - together with a view that the world is GETTING SAUTERNES WRONG. Witness this hilariously pompous open letter written by M. Le Comte Alexandre de Lur Saluces formerly of Chateau d’Yquem back in 2019, decrying the arrogance of those who imagine they can improve the fortunes of this heavenly wine by the “subterfuges” of mixology… “ice cubes in glasses, orange or lemon zest, sparkling water… ” Horreur!

You are right that our wine is very expensive to produce [continues the count; my translation]. Like a luxury watch, a rare jewel, caviar, water in the middle of the Sahara. And here is another obstacle that your cocktails do not allow us to overcome. This is a commercial hurdle and a marketing problem. It’s also a choice. Your obstinacy in thinking that Sauternes must be sampled with additives in order to improve it - when in fact they pervert it - would be better served by broadcasting the truth about Sauternes wine - the real, authentic, original Sauternes - which has been very poorly served these past few years.

Love the French. Best of luck to the Count. But I personally think we absolutely must pervert Sauternes with pisco, passionfruit, Coke, strawberry Nesquik, Diet Mountain Dew, etc. In fact, I see no alternative course of action but to make Sauternes Sidecars, Sauternes Sours, Sauternes Martinis, putain, if any of you fancies having a go at a Sauternes Alexander, I’d be keen to hear.

Viewed from the other side of the bar, you see, Sauternes is a marvellous cocktail ingredient. It’s more than welcome here. Oversweetness isn’t a problem in our world. You just mix it with something less sweet. And Sauternes (and, I should say, Tokaji, aged Riesling Auslese, etc) sort of spans two classes of cocktail ingredient too. It’s sweet like a liqueur. But its also vinous like a vermouth. With judicious balancing, it can perform both roles, while shining in its own celestial light.

I also like the fact that - like champagne - it’s kind of a GUEST STAR in the cabinet, a glamorous icon that sashays in for a limited seasonal run just once or twice a year, instantly multiplying the number of cocktails you might make. But rather better than champagne, it keeps well. If you vacuumise a bottle and keep it in the fridge, you should get a couple of weeks’ worth of Martinis out of it. Your midnight roquefort wanderings will be improved no end. In fact, you might even develop a taste for it neat. Mid-afternoon is the moment, I feel.

As for your Martinis? Well, I’ve made copious Sauternes Martinis these past few days and they’re fucking amazing. The best one I made at home with a dash of pisco and a mere hint of Strega. But I also made an amazing round at my mum’s with just vodka and a bit of Dolin Dry. Contra the Count, these subterfuges actually did improve the Sauternes, I’d argue. The essential elegance of the wine remains, delicate and suggestive and luxurious and lingering. But it’s all made much colder and stronger and sharper by the alcohol. I can’t think of a better way to ring in 2025.

~ THE SAUTERNES MARTINI ~

50ml vodka
20ml Sauternes
5ml French vermouth
Dash Suze (optional)

Freeze your glassware! Now stir all the ingredients patiently with copious ice in a mixing vessel. And strain into the chilled glass. Lemon (or orange?) zest twist for this one, I feel.

Some Sauternes Martini notes:

1) Actually, if you have pisco, that’s great in this too. Say, 40ml vodka, 10ml pisco. Just gives it an extra bloom.

2) The French vermouth + Suze just give it a little extra bitterness that prevents the drink from literally evanescing into the air. A dash of Strega or Yellow Chartreuse might work too? But feel free to omit either.

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MY FAVOURITE ARTICLES OF 2024

What’s the point in having your own newsletter if you can’t indulge yourself in this fashion? Here are eight pieces I particularly enjoyed writing this year.

Interview with Dame Jane Goodall
Talking chimpanzee consciousness with the 90-year-old primatologist. (You)

The Lost Art of Getting Lost
Taking a thought for a walk. (Telegraph Magazine)

The Gambling Epidemic Part I
How gambling companies use football to groom young men into becoming addicts. (Men’s Health)

The Gambling Epidemic (part II)
I was glad to be able to follow up the above with a piece largely on how gambling companies target women. (Telegraph Magazine)

Interview with Rupert Everett
I drank Martinis, he drank Rum Punch. We mostly talked about death. (You)

Here for the Potatoes
Everything you could possibly want to know about Britain’s favourite vegetable (Telegraph Magazine)

Jeremy King’s Rules for the Perfect Restaurant
Some articles are just fun for the encounter. This was a joy. (Independent)

How Water Became Ridiculously Complicated
And finally, kind of a silly piece on aspirational water consumption - which nonetheless taught me a lot about both water and algorithmic capitalism. (Guardian)

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PLAYLIST

I’m keeping my BEST OF 2024 list up for the forseeable. Lightly edited from last week for better flow.

THIS PLAYLIST UPDATES AUTOMATICALLY EACH WEEK. The idea is, you download it and return to it each week in your Spotify. If there was an old song you’d like to hear again, you’ll find it RIGHT HERE in the ongoing archive of past playlists.

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SHOPPING LIST: I’m going to take a short break from the Spirits for the next couple of weeks. Also a short break from spirits. Allow us all to recover, a bit. I’ll be back on the 17th January and it might even be with something NON-ALCOHOLIC.