Above: My gun is bigger than yours...

The French 75... named after the French 75mm Field Gun, Model 1897.

This bit of heavy artillery was the mainstay French Field Weaponry of the 1st World War and its recoil system made for soft, smooth operation. It was really the first technical weaponry advance of the 20th century, and its use continued into the 2nd World War. 

The parallels between the Field Gun and the Sparkling cocktail should be obvious...smooth yet packs a wallop!

Jeffrey Morgenthaler on The French 75:

If popular history is to be believed, English soldiers first concocted the drink while fighting in France during World War I. As legend has it, these intrepid men took the only raw ingredients at their disposal (gin, lemon juice, sugar and champagne) and combined them in a 75-millimeter artillery shell. They gave it a little shake, and voilà, that’s how the French 75 was born. (Well, not really.)

A book from 1919 may hold the real story. That year Harry MacElhone published Harry’s ABC of Mixing Cocktails, a precursor to today’s bartending bibles. Inside, he included a recipe for a drink called a French 75; he listed its creator as a bartender named “MacGarry” of Buck’s Club in London. There’s no mention of MacGarry rummaging around for an artillery shell in there. Instead, the drink was identical to a Tom Collins—gin, lemon, sugar, soda—with one change: The substitution of champagne for soda water.

Which brings me to another strange bit of mythology: For some reason, a modern-day French 75 is never served on the rocks. But when I say that MacGarry’s French 75 is identical to a Tom Collins save for the bubbly, I mean exactly that. And so, like a Collins, a French 75 should also come with ice—a far cry from the odd concoction being poured into champagne flutes these days.

Personally, I’ve never understood that version of the drink, with its odd bit of floating lemon peel. I much prefer MacGarry’s version. If properly constructed, it becomes the classic bracer, which he—not a group of thirsty English soldiers—meant all along.

Ingredients:

60 ml Gin

30 ml Fresh Lemon Juice

2 Barspoons of sugar

Champagne

Method: 

Pour the gin, lemon juice, and sugar into an iced cocktail shaker. Shake and pour into a tall glass. Collins / Champagne Flute

Top with Champagne

Stir gently and garnish with a lemon twist.

Adapted from Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails by Ted Haigh

Sources: Playboy.com

The Bacardi Bat Device…one of the most iconic brand trademarks within the spirits industry. A symbol of health, good fortune and family unity according to Spanish and native Taino Indian lore which has a symbolic connection.

Bacardi rum bottles are easily recognised by their elegant shape and classic colour, called Georgia Green. The distinctive green hue dates back more than 100 years and has been the colour used for all Bacardi Superior (Carta Blanca) rum bottles.

Upon purchasing his first distillery in Santiago de Cuba, Dona Amalia, Don Facundo’s wife noticed a colony of fruit bats that hung from the rafters within the distillery. During a period where the inhabitants of Cuba could not read, the rum maker needed a distinguished symbol. Dona Amalia was credited for rendering the symbol, shortly thereafter, his creation became known by the people as el Ron del Murciélago or “the Rum of the Bat.” 152 years later the Bat Device proudly graces and adorns every bottle of Bacardi since 1862. 

The King of Rums and the Rum of Kings. In its 150 year history Bacardi rum has won more than 400 awards, making it the world’s most awarded rum.

On this day in 1862, Bacardi was founded in Santiago de Cuba when Don Facundo Bacardi Masso purchased a small distillary. After years of experimenting, Bacardi revolutionised the spirits industry by adding steps never before used in rum making. After careful and systematic experimentation with a variety of ingredients, aging methods and blends, Bacardi founder Don Facundo offered up the first samples of a new, smooth, light-bodied spirit the world now knows as Bacardi Superior Rum.

His descendants continue to produce Bacardi rum, the world’s best selling and most awarded rum, under its original and proprietary formula, using the pioneering process including distillation, controlled fermentation, charcoal mellowing, filtering, aging and blending techniques he created and mastered in Santiago de Cuba in 1862, 152 years ago. 

To really understand Bacardi one needs to know the name Bacardi has three meanings: it is a Family, a Company and a Brand. Each has evolved during the course of the 150 years since the establishment of the Company.

When the threat of Prohibition loomed large in the United States, Bacardi saw a window of opportunity. In preparation, Bacardi management formed a corporation, dividing stock shares equally among President Emilio Bacardi, First Vice President Facundo Bacardi and Second Vice President Enrique Schueg. Each principal held stock valued at more than 1million US Dollars. 

On October 28, 1919, the U.S. Congress passed the Volstead Act forbidding the manufacture, transportation, import, export, sale and consumption of alcohol in the United States. As you can imagine, that was not good news for the burgeoning Bacardi, especially since three years prior the Company opened an office in New York City and was faced with having to deplete 60,000 cases of inventory. What was Bacardi to do with all its rum? Bacardi executive Enrique Schueg, who would later become the Company’s fourth chairman, acted quickly by issuing Bacardi “wet stock” a move that would place a value on each case of Bacardi rum as a share.

In order to liquidate the Company, Enrique Schueg created 60,000 shares that he sold as “wet stock” to the public and dissolved the Company by distributing one case per share. A remarkable thing happened for Bacardi when Prohibition got fully underway. Prohibition in the United States prompted American tourists to flock to Havana, Cuba for fun and cocktails. Bacardi was their drink of choice, so much so that a popular international airline promoted the slogan, “Fly to Cuba and Bathe in Bacardi rum.”

Since Prohibition made spirits advertising illegal, Bacardi rolled out a clever and successful promotional campaign using postcards playing up the allure of Cuba’s bars and nightlife. One caption read, “Cuba is great. There is a reason. Bacardi.” Fortune Magazine said Prohibition had “caused Havana to become the ‘unofficial’ United States saloon.” 

Unsurprisingly, Bacardi was the center of Havana’s historic heyday. El Edificio Bacardi, the Bacardi Havana office building and one of the city’s first skyscrapers, was home to the most popular bar in Havana: a black-and-gold bar frequented by celebrities, Bacardi family members and their guests. Production of Bacardi rum increased so quickly during the Prohibition years that the Company had to build a larger facility in Santiago de Cuba to keep up with demand. Profits enabled expansion outside of Cuba during the 1930s, with distilleries opening in Mexico and Puerto Rico. The facility in Cataño, Puerto Rico, is now the largest premium rum distillery in the world and home to the Casa Bacardi Visitor Center, the second most visited venue in greater San Juan today, playing host to more than 230,000 visitors each year.

In 1888, Bacardi rum was appointed “Purveyor to the Royal Spanish Household” by the Regent Queen Christina Maria, mother of the King of Spain Alfonso XIII.

Due to continual threats by the government of Fulgencio Batista, including its nationalisation of Bacardi for one day, Bacardi executives moved to safeguard the Bacardi rum intellectual property and secret formula. The Company strategically moved the trademarks, other intellectual property and the coveted strain of yeast out of Cuba before the revolutionary forces took control. Such vision saved the Company and Bacardi rum.

When Cuban revolutionary forces illegally seized the Company’s Cuban assets on October 14, 1960, Bacardi already had already established operations in four other markets, the United States, Mexico, Puerto Rico and the Bahamas. The coveted strain of yeast continues to provide Bacardi rum its signature taste and unique balance today, and remains under tight security.

Today, Bacardi rum is a premium brand with authenticity and heritage that stands the test of time. It truly is a brand that connects people in memorable ways. Through 152 years of organic growth and acquisition. Bacardi has a presence in more than 150 markets around the world.

Coincidentally 2014 may be the year of the Horse according to Chinese astrology, the 4th February…will mark the year of the bat.

May your year be filled with health, good fortune and family unity

Above: The Pegu Club, Ragoon, Burma 

Epilogue: On March 7, 1942, a hundred years almost to the day after they occupied it, the British abandoned Rangoon in the face of the rapidly advancing Japanese 33rd Infantry Division (they would've held it, see, but curacao stocks were running dangerously low and the lime situation was perilous...). The British came back in 1945, but the Club was never the same. Now it's a barracks for the Burmese Army. We don't know what they're drinking. ~ David Wondrich

The Pegu Club... we are not entirely sure when it was created but it had to be invented before 1927 when it turned up in Harry MacElhones "Barflies And Cocktails" 

It was the signature drink of Burma's Pegu Club. The Club was located just outside Ragoon and its membership comprised of foreigners who were senior government and military officials and prominent businessmen.

It is not entirely clear when the house cocktail came to be in existence, but one can safely assume that the first provisions that arrived were well stocked with both Gin and Orange Curacao from the other ends of the empire, limes being native to the region would have been in ready supply, even Angostura Bitters, a product of Spanish controlled Venezuela. 

Ingredients:

45 ml Gin

15 ml Cointreau

20 ml Fresh Lime Juice

2 x Dashes of Angostura Bitters

Method: 

Shake in an iced cocktail shaker and strain into a cocktail glass

Adapted from Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails by Ted Haigh

Foraged Cocktails... by Emil Seth Areng

The Sidecar...often signaled out as the only good cocktail to come out of the long national nightmare that is Prohibition. Would I go as far to agree on this sentiment...perhaps, it was unquestionably the most famous product of those years.

The luminous, golden-straw color, the perfectly controlled sweetness, the jazzy high notes of the citrus against the steady bass of the brandy. This is a drink whose suavité is beyond question - it is the Warren Beatty of modern mixology. It's so easy, in fact, to be seduced by this clever old roué that a word of caution would not be out of place here. ~ David Wondrich

Harry McElhone first published the recipe in 1922 and credits its invention to a celebrated bartender named Pat McGarry, who was then working at an American Bar, The Bucks Club, a bar that served American style drinks mainly during Prohibition, in London. Interestingly McElhone credits himself in later editions. 

Another features Harry's New York Bar, in Paris, 1920's, an American army captain who liked to ride in a motorcycle sidecar. And thus the Sidecar was christened?

Dale DeGroff on the Sidecar: 

The Sidecar was actually invented in New Orleans in the 19th Century. Sidecar is the term bartenders' use for the left over liquor they pour into shot glasses, more likely where the cocktail got its name from.

Years later in 1947 drink book author, David Embury who compiled The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks would say the drink was invented by a friend of his bar in Paris, France, during the First World War

We can assume perhaps that the aforementioned McGarry might have done a stint in Paris, only later to end up in London with his Sidecar.

Ingredients:

30 ml Cognac / Brandy

30 ml Cointreau

30 ml Fresh Lemon Juice

Method:

Combine all ingredients in an iced cocktail shaker. Shake and strain into a cocktail glass.

Goggles not included.

Adapted from Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails by Ted Haigh

A short film we made with Luke Whearty, head bartender at Der Raum.

Der Raum is a cocktail bar in Melbourne that creates cocktails using a mix of traditional and modern ingredients and techniques. Der Raum is currently the Australian Cocktail Bar of the Year.

To find out more about Melbourne and the interesting people who live there visit milkbarmag.com

What is Bacardi Legacy?

The Bacardi  Legacy Global Cocktail Competition was established to challenge the best contemporary bartenders in the World to create their own cocktail legacy.

To create a drink that will endure within the industry, stand the test of time and ensure that both the bartender and their drink are remembered like the illustrious classic cocktails of the past.

This is a truly International Competition that will empower you to create a drink that could define your place in the industry forever. If you are up for the challenge, we invite you to be part of it.

The Bacardi Legacy Global Cocktail Competition gave me the opportunity to showcase an extension of my creative abilities against the finest bartenders from across the globe. It gave me the platform to not only voice my Legacy but to express my personal journey as a South African bartender through a drink I created called THE TOURIST A drink that will forever stand the test of time within my memories & experiences, and in Bacardi Legacy history. ~ Nick Koumbarakis

For more information register online at bacardilegacy.com 

On this day in 1875 Harry "The Dean of Cocktail Shakers" Craddock who was born near Minchinhampton, Gloucestershire in the Cotswolds on this day in 1875. A lifelong bartending career that started when he immigrated to the US and got his first hotel bar post, Harry was reputedly the last man to shake a cocktail before the Prohibition bell rang in New York. Returning to the UK with an American accent and an impressive CV he was at the right place at the right time when the Savoy management decided they needed an "American" head bartender at its American Bar.

Along with William J Tarling and few others, Craddock founded the UKBG, an organisation dedicated to improving the skills of British barmen and elevating the stature of the profession.

Moving to the Dorchester before the Second World War, Craddock continued to shake cocktails well into his 70s...a heroic accomplishment in anyone's book!

Harry Craddock in a Nutshell:

Born in 1875 in Stroud, Gloucestershire 

1897 arrives in America, and from 1901-1911 works at a succession of hotel bars in New York and Chicago 

Becomes a US citizen in September 1916 and is drafted in 1918 at the end of the First World War 

In 1920 he loses his job as Prohibition bites, and heads back to England, to Liverpool, Bristol and London, where he starts at a dispense bar at the Savoy. 

By 1926 the hotel management wants an American at the helm in the American bar. Craddock had acquired an American accent and fitted the bill. Ada Coleman retires to the hotel's flower shop. The Savoy becomes known as the 49th State due to the number of Americans it attracts 

In 1928 Harry adds the 2,000th recipe to his index card library of cocktails, now in Peter Dorelli's possession. In 1930 the hotel management asked Harry to compile a Savoy Cocktail Book. Harry never earns a single penny from it. 

In 1934 Harry co-founds the UKBG with William J Tarling. 

He develops his own recipe for Martini, which Erik found in the Savoy's cellars (image shown). The label contains an illustration of Harry and contains an advert for the Savoy Cocktail Book's 1,000 recipes 

Becomes famous for entombing vials of cocktails and shakers in the walls 

In 1938, Harry moves to the Dorchester hotel, serving Eisenhower (the Dorchester was the American military headquarters during the Second World War). 

In 1947 he retires to Kensington and dies in 1963, buried in a common grave.

...the alchemist says

Harry "The Dean" Johnson was born on 28 August 1845 in Kaliningrad, Prussia. He made his name in the United States, documenting the bartending profession at the height of its first golden age in the US.

I am not boasting, but I am glad of the chance to say that it takes training to be a publican and that a publican’s chances for success are just in proportion to his observance of business rules. And the best of those rules are to keep an orderly place and sell good stuff. Oh yes, it does not hurt if he knows how to mix drinks properly. ~ Harry Johnson

Harry Johnson in a Nutshell:

Known as the 'Dean' of Bartenders, he was born in 1845 in Konigsburg, now Kaliningrad, Russia. 

In 1860, now a sailor, he was left behind in America after breaking his leg, Harry gets a job at the Union Hotel in San Francisco, across the road from the El Dorado where Jerry Thomas worked.

In 1868, writes a 'little book' of cocktails and opens a bar in Chicago downtown near north side, around Ohio street - the book is so far untraced.

In 1869, wins a national bartending competition in New Orleans, creating a dozen whisky cocktails, pouring them in a 'fountain' style and providing fodder for that famous illustration. 

In 1871, he lost $170,000 and his business in the renowned Chicago fire, but a bookseller asks him to revise his little book of cocktails for $1,700 - this is also still untraced. 

Becomes a serial entrepreneur, opening and operating a number of bars, first in Philadelphia, then New York, with some success and some failure - going bankrupt in 1903. 

At Little Jumbo, in the Bowery in 1882, creates a 'pyramid' bar menu with the shortest drink at the top, the longest at the bottom.

Was a pioneer of bar operations advice: the 1882 edition of his Manual contains 15 pages of bar operations, the 1888 edition contains 29 pages devoted to bar operations (and 242 cocktails) and the 1900 edition contains 120 pages of operations and 266 cocktails. 

In 1896, his first son, Herbert, is born, but never showed up on the US census as his wife left for Germany. A second child, Sigrid, was born two years later. 

In 1903, opens Pabst Grand Circle on Columbus Circle, which has a 1,600 seat theatre where The Wizard of Oz premiered. His own, presumably saucy, art collection could be viewed through key-holes. 

...the alchemist says

Above: The Worlds 50 Best Bartenders

Words by: Ian Cameron

It's the biggest and arguably the most difficult bartending challenge in the modern drinks industry: welcome to the Diageo Reserve World Class 2013 Global Final.

Inspired by True Events.

Today we commemorate National Daiquiri Day… as its tradition on the 19th July

It is said that the Daiquiri was invented (in the sense that “necessity is the mother of invention" )…

Origin Is Disclosed of Daiquiri Cocktail:

One Group of American Engineers Named Drink at Santiago Bar

During prohibition Havana was the mecca for Americans and the Sevilla Biltmore, with its sophisticated atmosphere equaling that of the Ritz in Paris and the Hotel de Paris at Monte Carlo, was the rendezvous of the dimplomatic corps, the army and the navy, men of the arts and science, financiers and those who came to ace and rub elbows with the cosmopolitan.

Many new drinks were invented behind the Sevilla’s great bar. The basic ingredients of numerous concoctions was Cuba’s favourite liquor. Ron Bacardi. At the time the Sevilla Biltmore was opened and the variety of Bacardi drinks was limited. 

As time passed, however this rum became outstanding because the clever artists behind the Sevilla’s bar recognised its superiority for mixing and invented new recipes for its use.

Eddie Woelke then at the Sevilla was among those who enriched the art of mixers. Some of his noted creations are the Mary Pickford, El Presidente, Dorothy Gish and Nacional cocktails. While in Havana he recieved the “La Corona" in recognition of being the only man ever known to have prepared one million drinks from Ron Bacardi. In 1930, Eddie took first prize in an important mixing contest held in Havana. Pictures of this affair were taken by Fox Movietone News and widely distributed.

The most renowned of all Cuban drinks is the daiquiri or Bacardi cocktail. Here is its history.

Shortly after the Spanish - American war, there was a popular trysting place in Santiago known as the Venus Bar. One day a group of American engineers who had come into town from the Daiquiri mines were imbibing their favourite drink in this restful spot. It was one of those wonderful rum concoctions made from Ron Bacardi. 

A jovial fellow by the name of Jennings Stockton Cox spoke up “Cabelleros y amigos, we have been enjoying this delicious mixture for some time but strange to admit the drink has no name. Don’t you think it is about time something was done to extricate us from this sad predicament" It was unanimously agreed that the drink should be named without further procrastination. There was a silence for several minutes as each man became immersed in deep thought. Suddenly Cox’s voice was heard again. “I have it men! Let’s call it the Daiquiri". And so it was christened.

Originally it was a tall drink. The glass being packed with cracked ice and a teaspoonful of granulated sugar poured over the ice. The juice of one or two limes was squeezed in and two or three ounces of Bacardi added. The glass was frosted by stirring with a long handled spoon for several minutes.

At the Venus bar the Daiquiri was prepared and served as follows:

The juice of half a large lime , or one small lime was squeezed into a shaker containing one teaspoonful of granulated sugar. Two ounces of Bacardi (carta Blanca) were added and a generous quantity of shaved ice prepared the shaker for frosting. When the mixture was thoroughly mixed, it was then poured (not strained) into a chilled glass known as  a “flute" This recipe is the correct one and was given by Facundo Bacardi and corroborated by one of the men who attended the christening.

During Eddie’s early days at the Sevilla Biltmore bar, he discovered that the Daquiri made an ideal appetizer when cracked ice was used in place of shaved ice and the mxture was strained into a large cocktail glass. Well chilled. This method was blessed with the name of Bacardi cocktail, in honor of its proprietors.

During prohibition this drink was pitifully abused. Many establishments used grenadine in place of sugar and this still obtains today.

There is a cocktail called Santiago which requires no sweetening but it is absolutely wrong to give it the name Daiquiri. The Daiquiri and Bacardi cocktails are the same. The serving of ice in the glass is generally omitted unless otherwise specified.

Words by: Simon Difford

In-flu-ence

n'

A power affecting a person, thing, or course of events, especially one that operates without any direct / apparent effort: relaxed under the influence of music; the influence the bartender has on society...

Above: William Faulkner

“Civilization begins with distillation,” William Faulkner once said, and like many of the great writers of the 20th century — Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce — the bard of Oxford, Mississippi certainly had a fondness for alcohol.

Unlike many of the others, though, Faulkner liked to drink while he was writing. In 1937 his French translator, Maurice Edgar Coindreau, was trying to decipher one of Faulkner’s idiosyncratically baroque sentences. He showed the passage to the writer, who puzzled over it for a moment and then broke out laughing. “I have absolutely no idea of what I meant,” Faulkner told Coindreau. “You see, I usually write at night. I always keep my whiskey within reach; so many ideas that I can’t remember in the morning pop into my head.”

Every now and then Faulkner would embark on a drunken binge. His publisher, Bennett Cerf, recalled:

“The maddening thing about Bill Faulkner was that he’d go off on one of those benders, which were sometimes deliberate, and when he came out of it, he’d come walking into the office clear-eyed, ready for action, as though he hadn’t had a drink in six months. But during those bouts he didn’t know what he was doing. He was helpless. His capacity wasn’t very great; it didn’t take too much to send him off. Occasionally, at a good dinner, with the fine wines and brandy he loved, he would miscalculate. Other times I think he pretended to be drunk to avoid doing something he didn’t want to do.”

Wine and brandy were not Faulkner’s favorite spirits. He loved whiskey. His favorite cocktail was the mint julep. Faulkner would make one by mixing whiskey–preferably bourbon–with one teaspoon of sugar, a sprig or two of crushed mint, and ice. He liked to drink his mint julep in a frosty metal cup. The word “julep” first appeared in the late 14th century to describe a syrupy drink used to wash down medicine. Faulkner believed in the medicinal efficacy of alcohol. Lillian Ross once visited the author when he was ailing, and quoted him as saying, “Isn’t anythin’ Ah got whiskey won’t cure.”

On a cold winter night, Faulkner’s medicine of choice was the hot toddy. His niece, Dean Faulkner Wells, described the recipe and ritual for hot toddies favoured by her uncle (whom she called “Pappy”) in The Great American Writers’ Cookbook.

Pappy alone decided when a Hot Toddy was needed, and he administered it to his patient with the best bedside manner of a country doctor.

He prepared it in the kitchen in the following way: Take one heavy glass tumbler. Fill approximately half full with Heaven Hill bourbon (the Jack Daniel’s was reserved for Pappy’s ailments). Add one tablespoon of sugar. Squeeze 1/2 lemon and drop into glass. Stir until sugar dissolves. Fill glass with boiling water. Serve with potholder to protect patient’s hands from the hot glass.

Pappy always made a small ceremony out of serving his Hot Toddy, bringing it upstairs on a silver tray and admonishing his patient to drink it quickly, before it cooled off. It never failed.