The Spirits #153: The North by Northwest
It's like a French 75. But better.
~ THE NORTH BY NORTHWEST ~
30ml gin
~5ml absinthe
15ml lemon juice
10ml sugar syrup
~60ml dry sparkling wine (champagne, prosecco, crémant, all good)
Now heed: place your daintiest champagne vessel in the freezer. Then pour the gin, absinthe, lemon juice and sugar syrup into your cocktail shaker. Half-fill with this last ice and shake vigorously. Now fine strain this mixture (i.e. through a mesh strainer) into your by now fetchingly frosted champagne glass. And top that with champagne. Lemon zest garnish.
Some North by Northwest notes:
Welcome to those who arrived here after noted Martini drinker Marina Hyde praised the Spirits on her and Richard Osman’s essential podcast, The Rest Is Entertainment. I believe she called it “the most perfectly timed newsletter”. You can imagine how this haunted me when I realised, in full Christmas deadline meltdown, that I was going to be late this week.
Anyway! We’re all here now. The cocktail was invented by Brian Miller at Death & Co, NYC, in 2008 and named after the classic Alfred Hitchcock thriller. It’s supposed to be the sort of thing Cary Grant would have drunk at the Plaza Hotel. NxNW will be screened at 5:05 on BBC2 on Christmas Day and available to stream thereafter. A treat if you haven’t seen. Perhaps even more so if you already have. “I’ve got a job, a secretary, a mother, two ex-wives, and several bartenders that depend on me,” Grant pleads with his captors at one point.
“But that’s just a French 75 with ~5ml absinthe in it!” you cry. You are not wrong. Feel free to omit the absinthe you are short on absinthe and/or discernment. But personally I’ve always found the basic gin French 75 a little disappointing, lacking the zhuzh of champagne or the thrill of a good sour. That refreshing anise tang really provides the necessary alchemy. And actually, everything is better with ~5ml absinthe in it.
Sparkling wine cocktails of this sort batch extremely well for parties. Tell everyone to bring fizz. Multiply the starter cocktail by 10 (or 20 or 30) and prepare in a jug. Ice just before everyone arrives. Then, you have something easy and elegant to serve them the moment they step into the door.
I promised a dessert wine cocktail at the end of last week’s post. Actually I’m still tweaking that. I will send early next week once my experiements are complete and perfection has been attained.
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I wrote a GIFT GUIDE for my paid subscribers last week. It’s full of pleasing, bargainous things to give, receive and/or take to parties. Such as the Italian sweets that will mark you out as an auntie of discernment. And the £15 Lidl spirit I pour into everything. And stupidly cheap cognac. Well, here it is now again, unlocked for you all.
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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.
Favourite albums of this year? Hmm. Cindy Lee (not on Spotify), Arooj Aftab, Chanel Beads, Jessica Pratt, Previous Industries making a late surge.
Favourite discoveries? Milton Nascimento, Irene Kral, Gun Cub, Azeri-Balkan guitar gods, Sarah Vaughan.
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.
SHOPPING LIST
OK once again, next week, you’re going to need… dessert wine. Sauternes is probably best if you can stretch? Riesling auslese would be great too or Tokaji from Hungary. More affordable is Jurancon or maybe a muscat. Just something rich and honeyed and delicious and golden. You can get this stuff by the half bottle and actually it keeps much better than regular white wine. This and vodka (other spirits will work too), lemon and sugar.
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I’ll try it next time I have an open bottle of fizz. But I really want to test “And actually, everything is better with ~5ml absinthe in it.” On a Last Word, or more specifically a Closing Argument.
I think it tastes like a sherbet fountain with the aniseed and lemony fizz. Excellent