Something Something "From the Ashes"
I recently discovered the below post, in more-or-less complete form, sitting in my drafts. I had written it in February 2020, and was polishing it when the world went sideways.
Obviously, things have changed a great deal since last year, in the world as a whole and also in the narrow corner of it reflected in this website. The spirits consulting business I mentioned was sidelined by the pandemic; on the other hand, I’ve gotten to write two more books, and developed an online cocktail course that is my closest approximation yet to the kind of experience I’ve been trying to offer since 2012.
I’ve also been much better about posting here than I had been in 2018 and 2019. I haven’t developed the formalized blog series I was mulling in 2020, but I’ve effectively covered the “Back to Basics” one with my posts on recipes for Classic Cocktails, and covered a good chunk of the material for “Workhorse Spirits” along the way. The other ideas you’ll see below are still in my mind, and I think I may just have to pursue them now - reviving this particular post essentially makes it the first in the “From the Archives” series, although whether that’s ironic or apt I’m not quite sure.
I’ve mostly chosen to share the below as a sort of time capsule from just before the pandemic. There is an optimism to it that made so much sense at the time, and that rings strange in retrospect, knowing what was right around the corner. But, with more and more people getting vaccinated, perhaps it’s beginning to be warranted once again. Enjoy.
Let’s try this again.
I knew it had been a long time since last I posted an update. I was aware, in the back of my mind, that it had in fact been far too long, some might even say unconscionably long, since the last time I both started and finished recording a thought on this site.
But I had no idea it had been two years.
So much has happened in that time! I made it to the American Bar at the Savoy Hotel (of eponymous cocktail book fame), and there tasted the finest expressions I’ve ever had of not one but two different classic cocktails. I met one of the authors of the cocktail guide that has had the greatest impact upon my life, bar none, and got him to sign the weathered copy I’d been carting around for seven years. I attended the best spirits history panel I’ve ever seen, as well as a seminar on brand ambassadorship that has genuinely changed the trajectory of my professional life.
My foray into craft spirits distribution turned into three years of growth, exploration, and creative pathfinding throughout Massachusetts. And just since the start of this year, I’ve moved on from that sales role to start my own spirits consulting business.
All of which finally came to a head, persuaded me that the time had come to resume posting to this site in earnest (like my friend Randy over at Summit Sips, who’s also recently reawakened from a lengthy slumber), and having come here to write it, I find:
Two. Years.
I know better than to promise that updates are about to become frequent, per se, but I think I can confidently manage to post more than once every 730 days. Y’know, for a little while, at least.
That’s in no small part because I have a lot bottled up to share, including a lot of previously-begun material that’s already nearly ready for prime time.
So, here’s a preview of what I’d like to put on this site now that the Roaring ‘20s have finally returned. Keep an eye out for the following tags:
Back to Basics - A series focusing on true classics done well, with history and commentary as applicable. This is my bread and butter, but it’s not represented proportionally on this website; I’m going to fix that. (Also the name of one of the remarkably few complete digital albums I own.)
From the Archives - If every draft post I have at 70-80% readiness had been published on the day it got there, you would never have noticed a gap in the updates to this blog. Often apropos of nothing, I’m going to begin pulling those updates (plus some other, even older ones!) and posting them more or less as they are, filling in only any obvious gaps in the material.
Workhorse Spirits - Long promised and little delivered, except in the form of a quick guide with precious little detail. But I have three of them locked and loaded in the aforementioned Archives and more in the pipeline.
History of Boston Cocktails - Likewise teased in the past, but never fully fleshed out. The distance between here and there is the greatest for this series, but I have a lengthy list going back to 1840 and quite a lot of material to work with.
And to kick things off, a recipe that’s both thematically appropriate and one of the two fabulous above-mentioned drinks I had at the Savoy:
Corpse Reviver №1
2 oz. Cognac
1 oz. Apple Brandy
1 oz. Sweet Vermouth
Stir. Strain into a chilled coupe glass. Do not garnish.
Both grape and apple brandy are criminally underrated these days (the latter even more so) - sure, cocktail bars will stock them, but they’re not stalwarts on the menus in the way that gin, whiskey, and even mezcal are these days. And that’s at the places that know what they’re doing! The country is still full of establishments that have missed the memo on the last thirty years. In such places, you can often get a recognizable Martini or Old Fashioned, but God help you if you’re hoping for a halfway decent brandy drink. Unless you’re in Wisconsin, in which case you can drink the signature local Old Fashioned variant to your heart’s content.
In that respect, it’s perhaps fitting that the Corpse Reviver №1 languishes in the shadow of the Corpse Reviver №2, but it’s also dreadfully unfortunate, because this is a lovely drink. The recipe I’ve given follows Harry Craddock’s original from the Savoy Cocktail Book, which I’d say is just about perfect. Some people will prefer a lower proportion of vermouth; others will follow Trader Vic and garnish with a lemon twist. Both are perfectly fine variants, but as a lover of old things and brandies - including the very brandy with which vermouth is fortified - I’m content with the original.
How this particular concoction came to be called a ‘corpse reviver’ has been lost to time. Craddock was the one who established the current numbering scheme, and he famously accompanied this one with the instruction, “To be taken before 11AM, or whenever steam or energy is needed.” But while the №2, with its light color and bright, citrussy flavor, seems like a perfectly plausible brunch cocktail, the №1 is unlikely to revive any corpses until about suppertime.