The Spirits #5: The New York Sour

~ Floating ~ Butterbeer ~ For Tonight Is Halloween ~ Five Essentials ~ Cannibalism

~ NEW YORK SOUR ~

50ml bourbon
20ml lemon juice
15ml golden sugar syrup
25ml red wine

Introduce the bourbon, lemon juice and sugar syrup to your mixing vessel. Add plenty of ice and shake for at least five seconds. Strain into a frozen tumbler filled with ice. Now comes the fiddly bit. But it’s not that hard, don’t worry. Take a dessert spoon and rest its tip against the side of the tumbler, just above the alcohol line. Slowly pour the red wine onto the spoon so that it trickles down the side of the glass and floats on top of the sour. Does it look like blood? A little bit? Good.

Music. And don’t get tooooo comfortable, it’s Hallowe’en(e’en).

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I was working in the bar late one night, when my eyes beheld…

Actually, I’m going to keep things brief this week. Normally, around this time of year, I’m busy harvesting backstrokers from the Black Lagoon, tickling the whiskery chins of bogeymen, rescuing mortals from the clutches of faerie queens in the forest of Caerterhaugh, all for the greater services of cocktailing. But we happen to be on holiday.

Where? Oh - in the tiny, cobblestoned village of Dent, which is officially in Cumbria, but actually in the Tri-County Borderlands of Westmoreland, Yorkshire and Lancashire. Lakes to the left of us, Dales to the right. Coal fires. Damp wool. Everlasting waterfalls. Haunted viaducts. Waterproof trousers. No cocktail culture that I’ve been able to uncover. But the things they do with carbohydrates are astonishing.

In these circumstances, I’m usually happy to stick to local beers and tannic teas. But I did bring a bottle of Woodford Reserve bourbon and, with the help of some Angostura bitters (the prudent traveller always keeps a vial about their person), it has filled in all the gaps worth filling. I’ve mixed the bourbon with honey and bitters for Old Fashioneds; I’ve shaken it with Robinson’s lime and mint cordial to make a sort of Gimlet-Mint-Julep hybrid; I’ve experimented with Dandelion and Burdock; but mostly, we’ve drunk it neat by the fire. I like this sort back-to-basics approach on holiday. Time to put first principles into action, make use of what you have, appreciate the simple things.

The New York Sour is a good example of that: spirit, citrus, sugar, plus the wine you didn’t quite finish last night. “From roughly 1860 to 1960,” writes David Wondrich in his book Imbibe, “the Sour, and particularly its whiskey incarnation, was one of the cardinal points of American drinking.” Other Sours are available - but there is something quintessential about the Whiskey Sour. You can serve them ‘up’, in a fancy cocktail glass; or you can serve them down over ice. You can add egg white if you like, too. A dash of bitters is never a bad idea. And regarding the wine, it might seem kind of extra - not to mention a flagrant breach of the grape/grain protocol. But actually, the grape/grain protocol is broken all the time when it comes to vermouth/whiskey. And the New York Sour tastes heavenly - or should that be hellishly? - if you get the balance right. Also looks passably like someone bled into it, making it an excellent choice for the Hallowe’en party that you’re not hosting this year.

I wouldn’t say that my execution was perfect in the above photo, by the way. My excuse? Well, as I say, I’m on holiday. I used a Côtes du Rhone as that’s what I had - and it was a bit overly butch. Bordeaux is traditional. I fancy Beaujolais would be good too. And there’s no earthly reason you shouldn’t give white wine a go, come to think of it, but it won’t look quite so ghoulish. I also poured in too much wine, so it ended up a bit like Sangria. No bad thing. I like Sangria. But what you’re really going for is a stripe of red, bloody and dry, which then mutates in your mouth as the cocktail seeps through.

It’s a two-act cocktail. Sipping it should be a bit like peering behind the door of a dusty old castle… to find a roomful of zombies and ghouls cavorting madly. Or going for a pleasant swim - only to be tickled by something astonishing looming up from the depths.

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PLAYLIST

It’s Halloween tomorrow. Allow me to present you with an extra long All Killer / No Thriller Halloween playlist. I had half a mind to fill this entirely with wicca folk-pop from the late ‘60s but I restricted myself to a mere seven minutes of Fairport Convention.

CW: Seven minutes of Fairport Convention

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OFFER!

Online alcohol shop The Drop Store is giving readers of the Spirits a discount. Head HERE, have a mooch and if you add thespirits10 (i.e. lowercase!) in the promo code you will get 10% off at checkout.

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TOWARDS A BETTER BUTTERBEER

My boy Teddy has become quite taken with a series of children’s novels about a pubescent wizard who attends a magic boarding school with various magic friends. He’s really into it. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of it, to be honest. I was quite taken with it too – at least until we reached the fifth one, which is interminable. “I can’t believe we’ve got up to page 211 and NOTHING HAS HAPPENED!” said Teddy. Yeah, mate, imagine being the one having to read the thing aloud.

I have been sustained, however, by the references to butterbeer, apparently a popular drink in the taverns near this magical school. Sometimes, this butterbeer seems to be served in foaming hot tankards; sometimes from glass bottles. Unlike firewhiskey, it is non-alcoholic and therefore apparently suitable for children. According to the author of the series, it tastes: “a little bit like less-sickly butterscotch.”

You can (of course!) buy butterbeer from an expensive website and apparently they sell it at a theme park inspired by these books. (I mean seriously, there’s a theme park based on these books and you’ve never heard of them? You should stay in more). But we decided to make our own. This might make a suitably placatory Hallowe’en activity if any members of your household are appalled that mugging strangers for e-numbers door-to-door is a no-no this year.

Combine about 50ml water with 100g brown sugar and bring to the boil. Once it has bubbled for a few seconds, remove from heat. Whisk in 50g butter, 25ml cream (I used Lacto-Free single cream), a dessertspoon of cider vinegar and a pinch of salt. You should now have a warm, slightly tart salted caramel cordial. Pour this into a glass – a tankard would be best – and top up with fizzy water to taste. Drink immediately. Because after ten minutes or so, the butter will begin to congeal and it won’t look nearly so fetching.

This is - please note - a sketch, not the finished article. If I were in my home laboratory, I would have maybe lobbed in a little nutmeg, cinnamon and/or vanilla prior to the boiling phase. I think we could probably do better than fizzy water too. The recipe I based this on demands cream soda, which sounds abominable. Perhaps some ginger ale or non-alcoholic beer as less sickly alternatives? (Actual beer? Dry cider?) I’m sure there is some clever way of emulsifying the mixture too so that it doesn’t separate too. But it was a hit with the boy, anyway. And, erm, me.

You might also like to know that I mixed the leftover salted caramel syrup with bourbon and Angostura bitters and made an indecently tasty Old Fashioned-type thing too.

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ASK RICHARD

The spectre of the Late Edward Rosoman rises from his slab to enquire:

What are the five cocktails you should be able to make to a good standard? I can do Old Fashioneds, Negronis, Manhattans and Martinis, but I feel I should have a fifth…

Sir, you have answered four-fifths of your own question right there! If I were to suggest one more, it would be the Sour - see above - and if were to be incredibly specific about it, I’d say the Daiquiri… or maybe a Boston Sour (that’s a Whiskey Sour with egg white). Can I quibble though? I reckon if you can make a Martini you can make a Manhattan. It’s the same basic technique. So I would supplement that list with an extra one: Rum Punch. How do you make Rum Punch? Well, keep subscribing to this newsletter and you’ll find out.

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WHAT I’M READING

Mother for Dinner by Shalom Auslander. His last book, Hope, was about a Jewish-American man who moved his family to an ancient farmhouse in upstate New York only to discover an aged Anne Frank hiding out in his attic, working on the follow-up to her bestselling diary. This one is about the Cannibal-American community. It’s out in February and it’s HILARIOUS.

Patricia Lockwood on Vladimir Nabokov (LRB)

Misremembering the British Empire (New Yorker)

Hyper-regional fish and chips (Vittles)

Nationalise pubs! (Jacobin)

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SHOPPING LIST

Next week, you’re going to need Campari, Italian vermouth and gin. Not what you think though!

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