The Spirits #63: The Bird of Paradise

~ Orange Flower Water ~ Interminable Gap Yah ~ Poisoning Pigeons ~

~ THE BIRD OF PARADISE ~

50ml gin
25ml lime juice
15ml grenadine*
15ml egg white
Drop of orange flower water
~30ml fizzy water

Put the gin, citrus, grenadine, orange flower water and egg white into the shaker. Add copious ice and shake it for Christ’s sake! Fine-strain the liquid into a spare receptacle - a jug perhaps? Then remove the ice from the shaker and shake that cocktail again, icelessly, to maximise the froth. That should do it. Now pour this into a tall ‘fizz’ glass, ideally pre-frozen, with a large oblong of ice in it. Let the beverage settle a moment (think: pouring a pint) and then top it gently with fizzy water. The spume should stand proud of the rim of of the glass. Garnish florally and serve with a straw.

Some B.o.P. Notes:

1) In truth, one is supposed to use raspberry syrup for this. I opted for grenadine as I had some left over from last week and I value expedience over accuracy. Usually, however, when a recipe calls for raspberry syrup, I will simply use my basic sugar syrup but add two or three fresh raspberries to the shaker.

2) As ever with ‘fizzes’, be sure to agitate the drink up and down in the glass as well as round and round, otherwise all the flavourful parts of the drink will sink to the bottom.

3) Anything floral will do for the garnish. A rose petal is customary. Whereas I used a mélange of lightly crushed dried borage and hibiscus, because that’s what I happened to have lying around.

Heaven. Heaven is a place. A place where nothing. Nothing ever happens. Hello.

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🖊️I am Richard Godwin.
🧋My instructions for sugar syrup, ice, grenadine 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.

And you like The Spirits, do please forward this to all of your friends.

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THE Bird of Paradise Fizz is one of the drinks “discovered” by the American adventurer, Charles H. Baker, and noted down in his Gentleman’s Companion(s) of 1939. The book began as a series of columns for Esquire, I believe. Having inherited a load of cash in 1926, Baker decided to flee Prohibition on the first available steamship and go on a 21-year-long pleasure cruise, visiting all the places where they hadn’t banned alcohol, quizzing bartenders, taking notes. He drank with William Faulkner, Errol Flynn and Ernest Hemingway; he scribbled down recipes for Cuban Mojitos, Singapore Slings, Cossack Punches and Mallingholm Swizzles; he generally had a pretty nice time.

The books (there was a food edition, too) contain much wonderful, valuable, priceless material not to be found elsewhere - and some reasonably sound advice, too. Unfortunately, the usefulness of this service to posterity is matched only by the wearisomeness of Charles H. Baker (pictured above, w/ Hemingway). The book reads like a sort of interminable 1930s gap yah anecdote, described in the mannered faux-Victorian prose of someone who was once told he has a “way with words” and thus never uses one where he can get away with 17. Baker never meets a woman, he escorts a “delightful young maiden”; he never has a drink but an “insinuating potation”. He also uses “we” when he means “I” - throughout the entire book! Sadly, one or two contemporary drinks writers I could name seem to think this is the last word in sophistication.

ANYWAY! The Bird of Paradise is a drink noted down by Baker. Or to use its full name: “THE BIRD of PARADISE, a COLOURFUL, EYE-FILLING EXPERIENCE WE FOUND in SIGNING OUR NAMES to the BOOK a the STRANGERS CLUB, COLON, PANAMA” […] He doesn’t actually provide a recipe, but describes it as resembling the Aziz Special only with raspberry syrup instead of sugar, lime instead of lemon and a floral garnish. The Aziz Special (“being the impeccable gin fizz of Aziz Effendi, monitor of the one and only Winter Palace Hotel, which is in Loucqsor, Egypt…”) turns out to be rather like a Ramos Gin Fizz, in its combination of gin, lemon, egg, orange flower water and cream.

You can see, I’ve ommitted the cream and replaced the raspberry syrup with grenadine for my recipe. But my! We certainly enjoyed sipping it in our garden of a Spring afternoon.

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PLAYLIST

BIRDS. Please note, this is a half-remembered reconstruction of an old playlist I made for the Jungle Bird recipe, waaaay back in the early days of this newsletter. There weren’t so many subscribers at the time; and I hadn’t had the bright idea of archiving all the playlists in the Spirits Ongoing list at that point. So I hope this counts as either a fresh delight or a pleasant throwback. Also, Poisoning Pigeons in the Park… such a lovely song to welcome Spring!

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 2021 playlists.

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WHAT I’VE BEEN WRITING

Bitcoin for Bullets: on Ukraine’s efforts to crowdfund the war. (Evening Standard)

WHAT I’VE BEEN READING

Lea Ypi on hope, Kant and growing up in Communist Albania (Guardian)

Russia’s not going to win. (Times)

Most of these assorted reflections on Ukraine (LRB)

Helen Lewis's Substack is always full of interesting links, etc. And here is here essay this morning on ‘ant hills and orphan takes’ - in which she describes a social media phenomenon that I have long felt needs a name. (The Bluestocking)

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SHOPPING LIST

Light rum, lime, Coca-Cola.

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