The Spirits #160: The Blood & Sand

A Scotch sour for sophisticated grown-ups

~ THE BLOOD & SAND ~

20ml Scotch
20ml Italian vermouth
20ml cherry brandy
20ml (blood) orange juice
5ml lemon juice

Place that cocktail glass in the freezer, my friend - you want that thing frrrrigid. Now pour all of the ingredients into your shaker. Fill halfway with ice. Shake until it hurts. Now fine-strain into the cold, cold glass. Orange peel garnish, I should think.

Some Blood & Sand notes:

1) Should you care to accompany your drink with the 1922 Rudolph Valentino bullfight picture for which it was named, be my guest:

2) It’s fair to say, however, that the drink has proved more enduring than the movie. The Blood & Sand is one of the classic Scotch sours - dashing, sophisticated, debonair. If drinks had moustaches, this would have an excellent one. While blood orange juice is not essential, it feels thematically apt (especially now, since the fruits are currently in season; I ordered a huge box from CrowdFarming). Blood orange juice is just that bit richer than orange orange juice and falls into an easy three-part harmony with the cherry brandy and Italian vermouth.

3) The dash of lemon juice is my addition - it just needs that little extra acidity I feel. Otherwise, note the “equal parts” formula familiar from Last Words, Corpse Revivers, etc.

4) A brief post this week. There’s lots happening in the Godwin homestead this week; and I expended my energies on pancakes. But I didn’t neglect the bloody playlist!

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✨WELCOME TO THE SPIRITS✨
The neighbourhood bar of the internet

🖊️I am Richard Godwin, journalist by trade…
📚… cocktail writer when I’m skirting deadlines.
🧑‍🏫 My 10 RULES FOR MAKING COCKTAILS are here.
🧋My instructions for sugar syrup, ice, grenadine, orgeat, etc are here.
📃My full A-Z recipe archive is here.
⚗️The bottles I think you should get in first? Here.
🍾The bottles you should get in next? Here.
🛒A great place to get these bottles is the SPIRITS STORE.
➡️Please find a round up of organisations helping Ukrainians here.
🏥And here is a list of trusted charities helping people in Gaza.
🍒Here is my favourite poem about maraschino cherries.
📱And if you like The Spirits, please forward this to your friends.

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PLAYLIST

It’s in the blood.

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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SOME CABINET POSTS YOU MIGHT ENJOY

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

COMING SOON… Cherry Brandy.

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WHAT I’VE BEEN READING

Jonathan Malesic on newspapers (Burnout Culture)

Marina Hyde on Meghan Markle but really on the death of a certain type of lifestyle content (Guardian)

Lots of geopolitical stuff including this pretty sizzling take from our former defence secretary… I’m finding the anti-US turn of the formerly craven UK conservatives quite bracing (Telegraph)

Oh and Darran Anderson on Anna Akhmatova and the Russian Silver Age poets… (City Journal)

Not making much progress w/ Praiseworthy…

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SHOPPING LIST: Next week you should get in some gin (some really good gin), some tonic and some soda water.