Hello I'm Clayton and we're here in the Art Deco splendor of Eltham Palace to look at
some vintage cocktails.
Now thanks to prohibition a lot of talented American bartenders left the States to get
work taking with them their ideas and their skills creating a global golden age of cocktails.
Now we know that Stephen Courtauld himself used to make cocktails in this very room in
the evening. So we're going to be looking at three classics from the era, running through
how to make them so you can recreate them at home.
Mah-Jonng is a Chinese game played with little counters a bit like Scrabble tiles, and like
many things it became quite a craze in the 1920s. We can reasonably assume that the Courtauld's
played this game because they had a pet lemur whom they named Mah-Jonng. So in honor of
Mah-Jonng the lemur, we're going to make a Mah-Jonng cocktail.
What's slightly unusual about this cocktail is that it has two spirits in it. So we're
going to start of with some Gin, about 50mls, two standard cocktail measures. And then to
that, we're going to add some White Rum - another spirit. Only about half a measure, so that's
about 12 and a half mls. And finally we're going to add an orange liqueur, you'll sometimes
see it called triple sec or Curaçao, it's all essentially an orange flavoured liqueur,
so again about half a measure of that. Shake all that up, put it in your shaker, plenty
of ice. Now do be careful with this because as you've seen every thing that goes into
this cocktail is spirit strength so it has got quite a bite. As apparently did the lemur.
And finally as a garnish, a little bit of lemon peel.
So there you have it. The Mah-Jonng cocktail.
Chin chin.
From about the nineteen-teens onwards, aviation became a very popular hobby for those that
could afford it. And the whole world thrilled to the exploits of aviators like Charles Lindbergh
who crossed the Atlantic solo in 1927, and in fact it became quite the commercial enterprise
pretty soon too, and during prohibition one American airline teamed up with a Cuban Rum
producer to lay on what you might call 'Booze Cruises' - flying out of Florida straight
into Havanna harbour where they spilled out and hit the bars.
So it's not surprising that before long someone would name a cocktail after it.
So start of with about 50mls of Gin, about two standard measures. And I'm going to add
about half a measure of Maraschino - 12 and a half mls.
And about the same amount of lemon juice. Here's some I squeezed earlier.
And finally just about a teaspoon of Crème de Violette.
Plenty of ice.
And if we have got our proportions right, there you have it. A sky blue cocktail.
The Aviation cocktail.
Now a Commodore is a rank in the navy and of course the navy have a fine drinking tradition
of its own so its not surprising they should have a cocktail named after the Commodore.
And in fact the Courtaulds themselves had their own yacht and they were great travelers
and they even had their own map room where they plotted their travels.
So we're going to start of with about two shots of Rye Whiskey. And then we're going
to add some lemon juice - about half a measure. And about the same amount of sugar syrup - literally
it's just two thirds sugar to one third water, you can make it yourself.
And the final ingredient is orange bitters. Now if you have heard of cocktail bitters
you've probably only heard of Angostura and for a long time that's pretty much all you
could get. But back in the day there was a whole range of different bitters and they
were very intense infusions of barks and spices and in this case orange peel, fortunately
you can now get them all again. Orange bitters, about two dashes.
Give it a good shake.
A piece of orange peel.
And there you have it. The Commodore cocktail. Chin Chin!