welcome friends welcome back to the
kitchen welcome back to cocktails after
dark today we're going to do a simple
two ingredient cocktail
but you can see i've got a lot of
cocktail books out here because it's not
that simple um we're gonna do a cocktail
called the zaza or that starts out as
the zaza
and most historians attribute the name
to a french play that was first put on
in 1898 1899 that was later mounted in
the united states and sort of the same
time period that then spawned a bunch of
movies starting in like 1913 1914
i've never seen the play or the movies
so i don't know the reference of whether
this drink
sort of appears in the play or not who
knows if you know let us know down in
the comments
so i started
looking for this cocktail in my cocktail
book collection and i came across it in
this cocktail book from 1906 called
lewis's mixed drinks
um and
then
that's the earliest i found it in my
collection and then i went back to the
euvs collection and a couple of other
university collections that have
cocktails
and i was not able to find it in any
cocktail book earlier than this one 1906
but it could exist and if you know of a
cocktail book from before then let me
know down in the comments because i'd
love to find that book and see what the
cocktail is like
now this cocktail starts out as the zaza
and as it morphs over time it just
starts to be called a dubane and gin
because those are the two main
ingredients it's kind of like the cuba
libre
a guy comes into a bar now and asks for
cuba libre everybody rolls their eyes
because what he wants is a rum and coke
so this cocktail is sort of like that it
morphs over time and we're going to look
at some of those morphs
and we're going to start with this one
in the 1906 book so this one starts out
with two dashes of orange bitters and
the there we go that one the dasher on
this one doesn't work very well and you
know a dash isn't an exact amount as
much as people try to say that it's an
exact amount it isn't it's sort of here
or there
now this one because it is the first one
that i found
it asks for kinkina
now kinkina
is the category
dubinae is a brand within the category
and in 1906 there would have been dozens
and dozens of canquinas on the market so
what lewis has done here is given you
the maker of the drink the opportunity
the choice to use a conquina that you
really like
today in today's marketplace really
dubenae is
you know de facto really the only one
that is widely available
it is not the only cankeena but it is
the one that is widely available other
ones that you can consider are beer if
you can get your hands on this it's
called beer
it is really good and there's an
argument to be made
that this one
kochi rosa
is a cankina because it does contain
chinchona bark but that is up for
argument so i'm going to leave this one
out
we're not going to use it
but i am going to use the beer so it is
one
measure of kinkina
and two measures of london dry gin
and so contemporary versions of this
recipe are one-to-one usually and we're
going to see that with the next recipe
and that is from this book simply called
drinks this one was published in 1914
and it has the zaza cocktail in it and
the zaza in this one is
one-to-one gin dubinae with a dash of
angostura so i'm going to use dubane
an equal amount of gin
and this one gets one dash of angostura
and i should have put the angostura in
first
so now the first cocktail very clearly
says to stir it with ice this cocktail
gives no this book gives no instructions
whatsoever on how to make it
the third cocktail that we're going to
make again still the zaza
is from
this cocktail book the savoy cocktail
book by harry craddick
most people point to this cocktail book
as it being sort of the definitive
version of this cocktail and it is just
one-to-one dubinay and gin no bitters
and
this is the one that most people make
if you go into a bar and asked for
dubinet and gin or
a zaza you're probably going to get this
one but of course we're not going to
stir this one
this one we're going to shake
and moving to the shake is something
that we see in later cocktail books this
is uh this is bottoms up from the 1950s
same recipe and you're going to shake it
i looked for it initially i thought
because this was
queen elizabeth's um favorite drink
and the queen mum's favorite drink i had
assumed that it would be in this
cocktail book from 1937 the cafe royale
and this is the coronation edition
published in 1937
but it's not in here it
well it is in here
it's in the back section that they call
um what do they call it the
supplementary list it's kind of the also
ran list they say
these are cocktails that we just didn't
have space for if you're interested in
them you can find recipes elsewhere and
that's where the zaza is in this
cocktail book
we'll talk more about some other
variations but first i'm going to ice
these cocktails so that we can taste
them so i'm going to ice and stir these
one at a time so they don't get over
diluted
and
into a chilled glass
and the last one
gets a shake
[Music]
and a double strain
okay
so
hey
hi friends
this is
um
the zaza
the salsa okay we've done it three
different ways clearly um showing the
progression through the years although
there's one more that i may make as
we're as we're standing here tasting it
uh
the next one needs a big
goblet
it needs a goblet or a chalice i'm all
out of chalices
so we might use a goblet so this is this
is the first printed version of this
cocktail that i can find from 1906
from a book lewis's mixed drinks
i know people are going to say but glenn
that's louie
um
lewis was a german american
and everything i've read about the guy
says that he pronounced his name lewis
so i'm going to go with lewis but it
could be louis you could be right
uh the second one is from 1914 okay and
this one's from 1930 okay i didn't find
it in the coronation
book from 1937.
it was the queen mum's favorite tipple
and i thought it might be in there just
as a nod since you know the coronation
had just happened but that wasn't the
case perhaps you don't talk about their
tippling
maybe not maybe now that you know it
was so long ago we talked about it but
so let's i'm going to try this one first
okay when do we get to start we take a
stick let's start tasting and then we'll
talk about different variations okay
many variations okay here we go
interesting
it's okay
no
that one's got leia
oh
interesting
so this one you don't like this one do
you this mm-hmm
no
it's not even different to all of them
so this one's no i don't like that one
sorry so this one's two parts gin one
part
beer could it be the beer
um i think that it's i think it's just
because it's more gin heavy
apparently not balancing it
and it has orange bitters this one has
angostura bitters one to one angostura
bitters
this one is
one to one one to one with nothing else
in it
i like this one the best
i think i like this one better
if i had to if i was drinking one i'm
kind of indifferent to these two like
it i clearly didn't make the face i made
like when i tried that one that one was
like well the that was not for me that
first one
i
if we were to actually do this there'd
be 30 of these sitting in front of us by
the time you get all the flavor some
with beer some that's it some with
different gins this could be completely
different with a different gin in this
moment
this recipe with this combination is not
for me
so the last one in the goblet i
and yes good point
different combination last one in the
goblet is one part
gin okay
two parts dupine which is oh exact
opposite of this one okay
um
and when did this recipe is this like a
more this is a more recent recipe
apparently this is the one that that
queen elizabeth would drink every day
before lunch oh this one yes and it's
it gets a lemon
put in
now
buckingham palace tells me
that i need to put two perfectly formed
pieces of ice inside
she's going to get whatever i sleep
i don't have she stopped if she would
have come by maybe we would have made
that effort i would have i would have
made two perfectly formed pieces of ice
and they're supposed to hold down the
lemon wheel now
oh huh that's brilliant
but apparently you don't have this i
don't have the skills but i like the
idea of it holding down the lemon wheel
so it doesn't need a snack so it doesn't
smash into you no
this is a cocktail that has a lot of
variation to it and so you can see it
progresses through time
different proportions and then it leaves
out the bitters
some of these have lemon in them earlier
a twist of lemon around the rim or a
twist of lemon as a garnish but not in
the beverage
uh some of them like this
from 1948
it's says zaza cocktail half dube and i
have gin no other instruction whatsoever
no other mention of what should be in
there
you get to
this
it's even in the old mr boston from the
1940s
but you get to this cocktail book um
the fine art of mixing drinks by david
embry this is a cocktail book where mr
embry
sort of works on the premise that there
are only so many mother cocktails and
every cocktail is a derivative of one of
those five or six mother cocktails
he gets down to the zaza
and he says the most common version of
this drink is equal parts gina dubinet
decorated with a twist of lemon peel
a second version substitutes slow gin
for the dry gin
a third version substitutes dry sherry
for the gin when we get into this old
wall old waldorf bar days book
um it uses old tom gin and so slogin and
old tom jin are sweet
and it would add another layer of
sweetness to it how to make it a very
sweet drink like even just that one is
significantly sweeter than
this one
i like that i like that now this is this
is also you start seeing this
combination in the early 2020s
as people become a little more health
conscious
the two to one dubinate to dry gin
lowers the alcohol content of the
cocktail
that's like the diet cookie it is
who still want to have a cocktail but
they don't want all the alcohol this
sort of lowers the alcohol
yeah they straight up you know three
ounces of vegetables alcohol is too much
if it's
so have you ever had a duvernay gin or
azaza and how do you put it together
what what ingredients do you use
i think my favorite is this one
um from from 1914 from this cocktail
book just called drinks
i think if this was a little cooler i
would like it if it had two perfectly
formed cubes of ice
it might be a better cocktail that it's
that for just enough time now it's
better now that it's a little cooler and
for i don't know if i covered this
earlier because i've had so much stuff
running through my brain
dubinae or cankina
is a fortified wine that uses cinchona
bark as the bittering agent
it is vermouth adjacent
but not vermouth
but it's sort of in the same in the same
vein
um
that's it i think that's it okay that's
a lot of books for a two ingredient
sometimes three ingredient but mostly
two ingredients there's a lot of
variations yes yeah we didn't have to
make them up this time no someone
already wrote somebody all already did
it all of the variations are written out
um so let me know down in the comments
what you think of this cocktail let me
know in the comments if you can find
something earlier than 1906
let me know in the comments
just generally what you think thanks for
stopping by oh no not generally what you
think that's a bad idea
but just about this drink about this
cocktail thanks for stopping by see you
again soon
you