Equinox Cocktails - The Gin Edition

I recently received a shipment of new books to give away as Christmas presents, but I couldn’t resist the temptation to play with one of them first. Shake. Sip. Stir. by Kara Newman originally caught my eye when it was featured in an email promoting a late September Chronicle Books blog post. The concept was simple enough: each drink recipe in the book was made up of two or more ingredients that were measured in equal parts, plus a few dashes of bitters or a splash of soda, ice or a chilled glass, and a garnish.

Anyone who has spent time with me outside my house knows that I usually prefer gin to vodka. So it gave me great pleasure to see that, of the approximately 50 equinox cocktail recipes provided in the book, roughly one-third were gin based. The only liquor that was more prevalent than gin was vermouth, which appeared in five more recipes than did gin.

The gin-based drink recipes seemed to have the common theme of either including a vermouth or orange liqueur. Just to give an idea of what the gin-based landscape looks like, I’ve provided an overview of the recipes – without the dashes, splashes, and garnishes so as to stay straight with copyright laws.

• 50-50 Martini: gin, dry vermouth
• Hanky Panky: gin, sweet vermouth
• Midway Fuji: gin, sake
• Negroni: gin, sweet vermouth, Campari
• Bijou: gin, sweet vermouth, green Chartreuse
• Cin-Cyn: gin, sweet vermouth, Cynar
• En Cuarto: gin, sweet vermouth, dry vermouth, pisco
• Sharpie Mustache: gin, sweet vermouth, rye, Meletti Amaro
• The Cornell Special: gin, Benedictine, lemon juice, club soba
• Corpse Reviver No. 2: gin, orange liqueur, lemon juice, Lillet blanc
• Sunflower: gin, orange liqueur, lemon juice, elderflower liqueur
• Water Lily: gin, orange liqueur, lemon juice, crème de violette
• Last Word: gin, green Chartreuse, maraschino liqueur, lime juice
• Oh, My Word!: gin, green Chartreuse, maraschino liqueur, Amaro Montenegro

Taking stock of my liquor cabinet, I discovered – much to my surprise – that I still had two or three inches of gin left in my green bottle of Tanqueray. I thought I had used it all up experimenting with the cocktails for Butter & Scotch. A half full bottle of sweet vermouth was also a pleasant surprise. I also found a tiny bit of green Chartreuse – probably just enough for one ¾ ounce measure – and an indeterminate amount of Gran Gala orange liqueur. I knew I had an unopened bottle of St Germain elderflower liqueur (I had bought it on a whim to drink in cava) and an almost untouched bottle of maraschino liqueur (I had bought it to test a Jerry Thomas recipe), so finding those was no surprise.

That left me with the tough decision of what alcohol did I want to acquire, thinking of not only the current recipe testing at hand but also of the impending holiday dessert party next month. After much consideration, I decided that I needed three small bottles: dry vermouth, Lillet Blanc, and Campari.

The Sunflower

After vigorously scrubbing the nasty pots in preparation for making my Thanksgiving soups, I felt like I needed a sunny drink to lift my spirits. So I decided on the Sunflower. Of course, when I checked the recipe in the book, I realized that the recipe began by rinsing the glass with an obscure liqueur, which I didn’t have. So I skipped that step. And naturally, I didn’t have any ice, so rather than measure the ingredients into a cocktail shaker to shake with ice to chill, I just measured them straight into my favorite cut glass rocks glass and stirred to combine. I also realized that my measuring shot glass wasn’t marked with the required measurement. But that didn’t cause any major trauma; since everything was measured in equal parts, I just rounded up to the nearest mark for all the ingredients and merrily went on my way.

The Sunflower was definitely a sunny little cocktail. Even though all the ingredients were measured equally, it tasted strongly of lemon juice and gin. But I like both of those ingredients, so that is a good thing! I am probably going to save the recipe (as I did it) so that I can do it again.

The Last Word

Since I delayed my trip to the liquor store, my next attempt at a recipe test was limited to the ingredients that I had on hand. So I opted for the rather repulsive seeming Last Word. I say that because both green Chartreuse and Maraschino liqueur have very strong chest clearing flavors. But I was struggling with a slight cough, so something to clear the chest was welcomed. Again, I didn’t have any ice, but I still measured the ingredients into my cocktail shaker. I just swirled to combine, rather than shook with ice. I also remembered that I had a lovely set of measuring beakers that was given to me for my most recent birthday, and that had a one-ounce beaker with the required fractional measurement on it. Good thing too, because I had just barely enough Chartreuse! If I had used the measuring shot glass and rounded up, the cocktail would have been out of balance. It was supposed to be served in a coupe glass but, since I don’t have any of those, I substituted a cut glass martini glass that was brought back from one of Mom’s recent treasure hunting excursions.

The Last Word was an odd cocktail. It didn’t taste strongly of any one liquor, but I could definitely discern the presence of the green Chartreuse, the Maraschino, and the lime juice. Fortunately, the lime juice mellowed out both the Chartreuse and the Maraschino, as the cocktail lacked the chest clearing property of either of those liqueurs. It definitely did warm the back of my throat, though, and I didn’t cough for quite some time after finishing the cocktail. In the end, I probably would not make this cocktail again. It just wasn’t a joy to sip.

The Corpse Reviver No. 2

The Corpse Reviver No. 2 is so named because it (and its kin) allegedly is a terrific drink for reanimating the hungover. This 1920s cocktail is very similar to the Sunflower. In fact, the headnote to the Sunflower recipe in the book states that a chef invented the Sunflower as a riff on the classic recipe for the Corpse Reviver No. 2. In this cocktail, Lillet Blanc is used in place of St Germain, and a dash of the obscure liqueur is added to the shaker instead of just rinsing the glass with it. I still didn’t acquire that liqueur when I made my trip to the liquor store, so, yet again, I skipped that ingredient. I was near the end of a bottle of orange liqueur, so I finished what was left, which was a little more than the fractional measurement called for by the recipe. And I still didn’t have any ice, so I just swirled the ingredients in my cocktail shaker to combine, rather than shook them with ice to chill. Of course, I made the obvious substitution of a martini glass for a coupe glass.

Like the Sunflower, the Corpse Reviver No. 2 tasted strongly of lemon juice, even though that was a little less than one quarter of the cocktail. The Lillet and the orange liqueur were almost imperceptible. Since about a week had elapsed since I mixed the Sunflower, it was difficult to say exactly how the two compared, other than that they both tasted strongly of lemon juice and gin. However, because I like both lemon juice and gin, I would likely mix this cocktail again.

The Negroni

The legend of the Negroni is that in the 1920s an Italian count ordered an Americano - sweet vermouth and Campari, topped with soda water – and requested that gin be substituted for the soda water. The cocktail evolved into an equinox cocktail of gin, sweet vermouth, and Campari. I’m not a real fan of Campari, but I do love gin and sweet vermouth, so I was hoping that the two would balance out the bitter taste of the Campari. The instructions on this cocktail were super simple: measure all ingredients into an old fashioned glass with ice and stir well to combine. I just happened to skip the ice and the garnish.

I was actually a little scared to try the Negroni after I mixed it because it looked so much like straight Campari. But once I got over my (irrational) fear and tried it, the Negroni was actually pretty good. The Campari was definitely discernible, but the sweetness of the red vermouth mellowed out the bitterness to a certain extent. The gin was imperceptible, although I felt it once I tried doing higher level thought tasks after finishing the cocktail. The drink definitely got better as I swirled and sipped it, although right until the end I had a barely repressible urge to add a splash of sugar syrup to it. By the bottom of the cocktail, it had definitely grown on me as something that I would try again.

The 50-50 Martini

A 50-50 Martini is exactly what it sounds like: equal parts dry gin and dry vermouth. It sounds a little blasphemous these days, but, according to the recipe headnote, this was the way martinis were made prior to Prohibition. Since I like both gin and white vermouth, I figured it would be easy enough to try. Of course, I skipped the stirring in a mixing glass with ice and garnishing with an olive; I just poured the gin and vermouth into my cut glass martini glass and swirled to combine.

My first reaction to this unconventional drink was “Wow. That’s rather pleasant.” It lacked the worst taste of gin and the worst taste of white vermouth, as the two liquors balanced themselves out in the glass. Of course, this is actually one drink that I think might benefit from being chilled. And this is something that I might actually feel comfortable ordering in a bar instead of a Tanqueray and tonic.

The Verdict

Notwithstanding my lack of ice and garnishes, the equinox cocktails were a breeze to mix because, once the ingredients were assembled, there really was no thinking involved. The same measurement was used for each main ingredient – be it a one-half ounce measure or a can of Quaker oatmeal. The author aimed to create recipes for single serve cocktails with about three to four ounces of liquor in them, but rounding the measurement off to the nearest ounce didn’t seem to do any damage to the overall balance of the ingredients in the cocktail. Of the five gin-based cocktails that I tried, only one was something that I would not want to try again. And that is a pretty good track record.