welcome friends welcome back to the
kitchen welcome back to cocktails after
dark
in this series i am now exploring
cocktails
written in cocktail books from sort of
the prohibition period and
earlier and today we're going to do a
recipe out of this cocktail book
it is called little blue book number
1688
100 cocktails how to make them and what
to eat with them
and this is from a series of books about
different skills that you could pick up
around your home
this one in particular is about
cocktails uh
the date that it was published is
probably 1931 it is undated
1930 1931 seems to be where people fall
on this one
and the language at the beginning of the
book is very careful to tread around the
idea of
these are things that you're supposed to
make with non-alcoholic
gin whiskey vermouth the intro is
written in a very circuitous
way so that no one could be found
breaking the law
and also the the recipes are very vague
they leave it open to you
as the mixer to make it the way you want
to make it
and also to sort of make up with what
you might have or what alcohols might be
available to
you when they say gin they don't really
talk about whether it's a dry
gin or an old tom gin or a jennifer
although when they talk about a gin they
probably do mean a dry
gin so today we're going to make
something called the corral so we're
going to start out with two parts
dry gin and there's no instructions
around mixing this so i'm going to do it
in a mixing glass
one part drive removed one part
regular vermouth which i take to mean
sweet vermouth or a red vermouth
and a half a teaspoon of grenadine and
this is our homemade grenadine so let's
put that in let's see
chop our mixing glass up with ice
and we'll give that a stir
and people often leave me horrible
comments that i don't
stir or shake long enough you know
there's editing right
so we've got our cold glasses there's
not only editing but
stirring and shaking is highly personal
you have to figure out what you like in
terms of
dilution and coldness it's going to
split this between two nickel noir
glasses
so jules and i can both get a taste
there you go so there we have it the
coral
hey jules hey glenn hey friends
the coral okay so i can see that the
color
would be very yeah i had expected that
it would be
a little more coral color
but i guess you know based on the
ingredients this is as coral as it can
be
so cheers
that's got a surprising flavor to it
they're both the same oh okay
i only did it with one gin today okay
sorry
well in keeping with so this is 1930 or
1931 and the book is very sort of
plain in that do it with what you've got
on hand don't
go out of your way to try to find
something because you're probably not
going to find it
it almost has a smoky flavor to it but i
don't know where that
well that might come from the gin
because that is that is a gin made with
rye
as its base spirit i kind of like this i
like the
i like the two vermouths
i might put a little more of grenadine
in it
i don't think it's one for me no no
there's a lot lots to choose from so you
know there's so many
why not just choose the ones you really
really like
and so this this cocktail book i think
is very interesting um it pokes fun
at other cocktail books in that it's
it's written by someone named anderson
fredericks
not formerly of the hotel knickerbocker
but whether he actually works at the
hotel knickerbocker we really don't we
really don't know but he's poking fun at
all of these other cocktail books
that are from this time period and from
earlier where the writer of the book
always used to work somewhere famous
they don't work there anymore
they used to work somewhere famous and
now they're writing books which i think
is is kind of funny and it's also
um it it's also one of those books where
it's like
do what you got to do to make something
tasty make it for yourself
don't make it for anyone else and i
think that is something that
that is the philosophy you have
philosophy to have there's no perfect
way
there's the perfect way for you and if
you can find that
fantastic so this isn't for julie no
i think this is pretty good i would
drink this and i think i might even play
with a little bit i might write in the
margins that they've left for me
maybe not in that copy maybe not in this
copy that's true
i won't be writing this guy had i bought
this in 1931 i might write in the
margins at this point i won't be so
thanks for stopping by
see you again soon julie's not going to
happen
no i'm done
you