The Royale Bar and Grill, Tavern and Restaurant

Robert Griffin presents

Cocktail Museum Sundays
Exhibit #13 – 12/6, 9pm – WORLD AT WAR

The upcoming Pearl Harbor anniversary has us in the mood to taste some
drinks that have their roots in or are associated with wartime.
Spirits and battle have a long history… it didn’t get the nickname
‘liquid courage’ for nothing!

Victory Cocktail $5
During the two major wars of the 20th century, most distilleries were
converted to industrial use. There weren’t a lot of spirits available
and sacrifice was the word of the day, hence this liquor-free, but
elegant cocktail (note this still has alcohol in it, just no liquors).
Equal parts dry and sweet vermouths, with a bit of lemon juice, orange
juice and grenadine, up.

General Order #1 $5
This is a variation by Dale DeGroff on an old drink, General
Harrison’s Eggnog, and was created to honor soldiers returning from
the Middle East. Bulleit bourbon, apple cider, a whole egg and a
little sugar, up. Nutritious and very smooth! We’ll serve the original
(no bourbon, but hard cider) in February for Presidents’ Day.

69th Regiment Punch $6.50
This hot toddy has been associated with this unit since the civil war.
Drawing from NYC’s east side, the 69th was composed of working class,
Irish-Catholic recruits, and its punch is an accordingly spartan
affair. Equal parts Scotch and Irish whisk(e)ys (Springbank 10 &
Jameson 12), a piece of lemon, some demerara sugar and hot water. “A
capital punch for a cold night” – Jerry Thomas, 1862.

French 75 $7
During WWI soldiers in France and Belgium did not lack for gin, but
had nothing with which to mix it. There was plenty of champagne
around, however, so… problem solved! The name is a tribute to the
smooth-firing but wallop-packing 75mm artillery gun used so
extensively in that conflict. Like the gun, the drink fires smoothly
but packs a wallop. Champagne, Plymouth gin, with a touch of lemon
juice and sugar, cherry and lemon twist, up.

Churchill Martini $6
The old bugger infamously stated that it was enough to “glance at the
bottle of vermouth from across the room,” or to raise it in the
direction of France, then get on with the bloody gin. But the secret
to Churchill’s drink is that he preferred Plymouth gin – this one is a
hard go with a more traditional London dry, but more drinkable with
the softer Plymouth style. 2 ounces of chilled Plymouth gin and an
olive, up. By contrast, FDR preferred a very wet Martini, with the
gin/vermouth ratio at 2:1… they could not have been more different.

* * * * *
Plus a few drinks we served last Sunday night, but too often forgot to
put out menus for:

Floridita $7
Havana’s Bar La Florida’s Prohibition-era signature cocktail:
Matusalem Cuban-style rum, lime juice, sweet vermouth, creme de cacao,
grenadine, lime twist, up.

Jungle Bird $6
A lesser-known but mightily delicious tiki drink: pineapple juice,
Gosling’s Black Seal rum, Campari, lime juice, sugar, on the rocks.

Singapore Sling $8
Gin can be exotic, too! As created at the dawn of the 20th century by
Ngiam Tong Boon at Singapore’s Raffles Hotel: pineapple juice,
Beefeater gin, Cherry Heering liqueur, lemon juice, grenadine,
Cointreau, Benedictine, Angostura bitters, on the rocks. In your drink
calculations, this one counts as two.

next week: More Hot Drinks!
Apple Toddy (assuming it doesn’t rain), Irish Whiskey Skin, and Hot Milk Punch

Saturday, December 5, 2009 at 6:00pm
Sunday, December 6, 2009 at 1:30am
The Royale Food and Spirits

This Saturday at the Royale we are presenting a home made chili dinner with fresh baked cornbread, hot companion pretzel ham hoagies with cheese and a special keg of Founder’s Backwoods Bastard Scotch Ale that is aged in bourbon barrels. We will be closed during the day to do some repair and updating of our kitchen, so we will have a special limited menu that evening:

Homemade Chili both w/ meat and vegetarian w/ fresh baked cornbread $5
Companion Pretzel Hoagies w/ option of cheddar cheeze $3 with ham $5
Founder’s Backwoods Bastard Scotch Ale aged in bourbon barrel on draft 10.2% abv $6

Eric Damhorst will be spinning records starting at 6pm for all to enjoy.

Cocktail Museum Sundays
This week only… a matinee! 4pm-midnight

So we’ve been doing this Cocktail Museum thing for about three months now, but some of you insist that, “it’s past my bedtime,” “I have to go to school,” “I have to visit my Grandma at the leper colony,” and other suchlike nonsense. This Sunday none of that applies, because we’re starting at 4pm, just for you! Our menu today has one drink each from most of our menus to date, some of which you’d be hard pressed to find anywhere, so you can revisit your favorites or catch up on what you’ve missed. Also, museum regulars should note there will also be a few new drinks available at the bar after the kitchen closes (9pm), with our more typical happy hour pricing. Those are listed at the end of this message.

- Early Days of American Boozedom -
Hot Toddy $8
Along with the Julep/Smash, one of the defining tipples of the 19th century and an effective electioneering tool for many a founding father. Your choice of scotch (Laphroaig 10yr) or brandy (Cles des Ducs VSOP Armagnac), with boiling water and pure cane lump sugar. Simple, but so thoroughly warming and life-affirming that it could make an atheist wonder if maybe there really is a plan to the universe after all.

Whiskey Cocktail (Old-Fashioned) $5.50
Rittenhouse rye whiskey, potent Fee’s Old Fashioned bitters, ice, pure cane lump sugar, splash of water, lemon twist, and a spoon. Simple, but so satisfying that this ur-cocktail has endured for nearly two centuries. All that business with the orange and cherry is thoroughly modern and at odds with the less-is-more spirit of the cocktail. A booze haiku!

Gin Sling Cocktail $6
Hayman’s Old Tom gin, club soda, lemon juice, sweet vermouth, and Old-Fashioned bitters, on the rocks. A late 19th century British update on the humble sling that hits the nail on the head.

- More Morning Drinks -
Corpse Reviver no. 2 $8
Fog-cutters, Morning Glories, Fizzes, Revivers, Brace-Ups, Gloom-Lifters, Eye-Openers… they didn’t have Alka-Seltzer or Excedrin back in the day, so much of the barman’s craft had to do with concocting potions to ease the over-hung. Here’s one of the finest: Plymouth gin, Lillet Blanc, Cointreau, lemon juice and a dash of absinthe, up.

Crushed Strawberry Fizz $8
A Fizz is meant to be “drunk without hesitation,” as many of the old manuals say, unlike its nearly identical cousin, the Collins, which is to be lingered over (a Fizz is always shaken and served without ice, a Collins is built in the serving glass and on the rocks). Muddled strawberries, simple syrup, Hayman’s Old Tom gin, lemon juice, club soda.

Ramos Gin Fizz $10
Along with the Sazerac, the most iconic of New Orleans’ drinks, and it remains a popular brunch drink in the city to this day. Carl Ramos’ original recipe: Hayman’s Old Tom gin, cream, half a lime, half a lemon, egg white, orange flower water, sugar, club soda, up. Please be patient; this drink takes a while to assemble and must be shaken hard for a good amount of time to properly emulsify.

- Sours & Coolers -
Hemingway Daiquiri $8 (or Papa Doble $16, limit one)
What a liver that guy had. The original sugarless Daiquiri, as prepared for Papa at Havana’s La Floridita bar: Ron Matusalem Cuban-style rum, maraschino liqueur (not like the cherries!), ruby red grapefruit juice, lime juice, crushed ice. Our default is a half-size portion, but if you want the full monte, we’ll serve you a Papa Doble with a full five ounces of hooch in it.

Jack Rose $6
A wonderful sour based on that most American of spirits, applejack (apple brandy). The very first licensed distillery in the USA was Laird’s, creators of the spirit, and they’re still in business today. Laird’s applejack, lime juice, grenadine, up.

Joe Rickey $6
The original version of the drink, as Joe himself preferred it. Colonel Rickey was a Confederate veteran from Missouri, inveterate financial speculator, gambler, a very active Democratic lobbyist in the 1870s and 1880s, and his drink was the fad tipple of that time. Rittenhouse rye whiskey, lemon juice, club soda, on the rocks.

Paloma $6
You’d think the Margarita was the only drink one could make with tequila, but there are some others. This one is particularly popular in Mexico: El Viejito silver tequila, lime juice, salt, and Squirt, on the rocks.

- Out of this World -
Captain’s Blood $7
An early 20th century cocktail much enjoyed by our patrons. Scarlet Ibis rum, Falernum (syrup with flavors of almond, ginger, lime peel), lime juice, Angostura bitters, up.

Goat’s Delight $7
This one is so exotic we were a little afraid to serve it, but most people really loved it. Kirschwasser (dry cherry brandy), cognac (Martell VSOP), cream, orgeat (almond syrup), and a dash of absinthe, up. Hail Satan!

Weeper’s Joy $9
By the “Only William” Schmidt, an exceptionally creative late 19th century stickman: absinthe, kummel (cumin/caraway/fennel liqueur), sweet vermouth, and a little Grand Marnier, up. “A trainwreck on the page, but tastes like an angel’s tears.” – David Wondrich

- After 9pm -
Jungle Bird $6
A wonderful, lesser-known tiki drink: pineapple juice, Gosling’s Black Seal rum, Campari, lime juice, sugar, on the rocks.

Singapore Sling $7
Gin can be exotic, too! As prepared at Singapore’s Raffles Hotel, created in the early 20th century by barman Ngiam Tong Boon. Pineapple juice, Beefeater gin, Cherry Heering liqueur, lemon juice, grenadine, Cointreau, Benedictine, and a dash of Angostura bitters.

Tour of Scotland $10
Know thy spirits! And kneel before the awesomeness that is Ardbeg! Sampler of 1 ounce drams including Springbank 10yr (Campbeltown), Dalwhinnie 15yr (Highland), and Ardbeg 10yr (Islay).

Jack Rose $5 applejack, lime juice, grenadine, up

Satan’s Whiskers $6 gin, dry & sweet vermouths, OJ, Grand Marnier, orange bitters, up

Obituary Cocktail $7 gin, dry vermouth, absinthe, up

Goat’s Delight $6 kirschwasser, cognac, cream, absinthe, up

Samhain. Not just Glenn Danzig’s band after the Misfits, but the first month of the Celtic calendar and a harvest festival. Samhain marks the break between the light and dark halves of the year and it is at this time that the veil between the living and the dead is most easily pierced. It is customary to walk between two bonfires as a cleansing ritual, but since we just have one firepit, our bonfires will be a few cocktails that may do the job nearly as well.

The Jack Rose is a fine sweet/sour style cocktail built on applejack, an American apple brandy native to New Jersey. Once a flourishing spirit, and today seeing some resurgence largely due to this much-loved drink, there is nonetheless just one brand of applejack available. Laird’s, who originated the spirit and was the first licensed distillery of any kind in the US, supplied applejack to Washington’s troops, and still produces it today. “Bald Jack” Rose was a NYC hitman involved in a high profile political case in 1912, and this was his drink. Or so a few generations of bartenders would like to think, and it does make a good story, but the drink pre-dates him and its name more likely refers to its principal ingredient and its color. Also, do note that we use real grenadine, a pomegranate syrup, rather than the day-glo high fructose corn syrup in most bars.

Satan’s Whiskers (pictured) is an early 20th century concoction, cousin to a Bronx, and was popular enough to spawn a few variations. The most notable is known as “curled” and replaces the Grand Marnier with orange curacao for a drink with a bit more bite. Our default is with the Grandma, but we’re glad to serve you curled whiskers if you so prefer. In either case, this is a good nightcap because its alcohol level isn’t too high.

Not so for the Obituary Cocktail, drink too many of these golden-agers and you’ll be history, too. Essentially a perfect Martini with absinthe sitting in for the sweet vermouth, this drink takes no prisoners. You may know this drink from the Missile Crisis party, where it was rechristened Mutual Assured Destruction for the evening. But tonight we’ll serve it with the last of our Damrak gin, which is a little thicker-bodied and has some citrus notes that play well here.

Goat’s Delight can knock you out too, but moreso with its unusual flavors than its potency. Composed of kirschwasser (a dry, young cherry brandy), cognac, orgeat (almond syrup), cream and a dash of absinthe, it’s safe to say you’ve never tasted anything like it. And you may not want to taste anything like it ever again, especially if you’re on the squeamish side. Who said worshiping Satan would be easy? The master bids you drink the cursed milk, so go on…kiss the goat! Lick the goat! Quaff deeply and defile your soul!

next week: HOT DRINKS: Apple Toddy, Hot Scotch Toddy, Hot Spiced Rum

Date: Saturday, October 24, 2009
Time: 6:00pm – 10:00pm
Free w/ proper attire

Plan to party like it’s the end of the world, because at this time in 1962, it almost was. Enjoy era-inspired food and drink specials as Dr. Jeff of KDHX spins records of the music you heard on the radio at that time, from Bobby Rydell to Henry Mancini, Ray Charles to Nelson Riddle. Proper attire is required – think Don Draper/JFK/Jackie Kennedy/Audrey Hepburn. Suits and skinny ties, elbow gloves, pillbox hats and cigarette holders a bonus. Regardless of your circumstance, it will be October of 1962 and we have a nuclear bomb proof fallout shelter here at the Royale with the finest cocktails ready to imbibe. And we’ll even throw in a duck-and-cover drill somewhere along the way!

Jupiter IRBM
A shot of Stoli Vanil with a float of high octane rum on top, and you guessed it, we’re gonna light it on fire!

Nike Hercules
Maker’s Mark with a bit of crème de menthe and cream, chilled and served up with grated dark chocolate on top.

Pinko
A bit of grenadine and sugar added to a shot of gin and topped with champagne.

Blockade
Stoli Oranj, lime juice and ginger ale. Served on the rocks.

Khruschev’s Shoe
Potato vodka with just enough kalamata brine to make it look like shoe leather, garnish = radish.

DEFCON 2
Irish Whiskey with a touch of bitters, a bit of sweet vermouth, splash of lemon juice, topped with ginger beer. Served on the rocks.

Cuba Libre
Light rum floating atop cola and lime. Served on the rocks. (Yes, it’s a rum and coke, but the free rum floats on top of the black water of imperialism!)

Daiquiri
Light rum and lime juice with a touch of sugar. Chilled and served up, this was JFK’s favorite cocktail.

el lider Maximo
Rum, dry vermouth, orange liquer and grenadine. Chilled and served up with an orange twist.

Mutual Assured Destruction
Gin with a dash of dry vermouth and absinthe. Chilled and served up.

Every Wednesday in October at 10pm

Come in and celebrate the spirit of All Hallo’s Eve every Wednesday in October! Grab a ghoulish cocktail special at the bar and then find yourself a seat by the fire in the courtyard. Weekly scary B movies of the past will be projected on the outside courtyard starting at the witching hour at 10pm.

Ramos Gin Fizz $8
Hayman’s Old Tom gin, cream, egg white, club soda, lemon juice, lime juice, simple syrup, orange flower water. Shaken with extreme prejudice for a full two minutes to produce a smooth, icy cold, lightly tart drink. Drink without hesitation.

Whiskey Cocktail (Old-Fashioned) $4
Lump sugar muddled in a little water, ice, Rittenhouse rye whiskey, lemon peel, and Fee’s Aromatic bitters. Served with spoon; agitate the undissolved sugar a little if you want to make it sweeter.

Bourbon Cocktail $5 as above, with Jefferson’s

Gin Cocktail $5 with Hayman’s Old Tom

Brandy Cocktail $6 with Remy Martin VSOP

One of thee iconic New Orleans cocktails along with the Sazerac and Vieux Carre, the Ramos Gin Fizz is the king of the fizzes, if not their emperor, despite the fact that it isn’t even meant to fizz. A truly giant recipe and taste, fit to stand toe to toe with any other exalted members of booze Valhalla. Bartender Carl Ramos began mixing the drink not long after 1887, just as New Orleans was beginning to experience a major boom in tourist business. He soon earned his bar, The Imperial Cabinet, a reputation as the foremost gin fizz saloon in the world. Then things really took off when he starting managing the Stag Saloon for the “mayor of Storyville,” Tom Anderson. During the 1915 Mardi Gras, Carl had 35 “shaker boys” supporting 7 bartenders and still could not come close to keeping up with demand. Once prohibition came, he was not shy about sharing his recipe, so the drink has been able to live on, but as ingredients became uncommon, it fell into decline and came to be served primarily in New Orleans. The long construction time and required physical effort have not endeared it to bartenders or proprietors either. Tonight we follow Carl’s original recipe, as dictated a few years before his death. But we’ll leave his final instruction, “drink freely,” in your capable hands.

If that all sounds like a lot of bother, much ado about a gin milkshake, let’s get on with the hooch already, we have your drink. The Whiskey Cocktail, which is the original Old-Fashioned. Some of the older generation in the 1880 and 1890s didn’t cotton to all these new and exotic wines or liqueurs being added to their spirit of choice, not to mention all that noisy shaking. There was no telling what you’d be served when asking for a “whiskey cocktail” at that time, there could even be absinthe in it. Drinkers learned to specify an “old-fashioned whiskey cocktail,” which would reliably produce a drink with lump sugar, water and bitters, which was stirred rather than shaken with violence; easy and quiet, a drink to be sipped, not dispatched. Well, once you’ve quenched your thirst with the first one, that is. The world was getting awfully fast, and perhaps the old-fashioned drinkers knew what they were on about; we’re still trying to slow down more than a century later. Eventually people began to just ask for Old-Fashioneds, the whiskey variation being the most popular by that time anyway.

This ur-Cocktail is the seed of thousands of cocktails – spirit, sweetener, bittering agent. It IS cocktail, and in the early 19th century was described as simply that – “had some cocktail.” This is where the cocktail’s DNA came together, and such is the drink’s perfect simplicity that drinkers clung to it for many generations before the muddled orange and cherry got cemented into the mix. Perhaps younger post-WWII bartenders thought all that fruit-muddling business made it more old-timey? Then again, it did stick. It is the oldest cocktail, and still asked for everywhere, albeit or perhaps because of that significant new twist.

As late as the 1950s there were still a great many drinkers who knew better and weren’t shy with their opinions. Some high-profile advocates of the original drink included both the Roosevelts and Trumans. Some cities such as Chicago were slow to get with the Modern Old-Fashioned. A New York columnist of the time, who himself crusaded against the orange and cherry, relates a tense encounter with a bartender at Chicago’s Drake Hotel, when he ordered an “Old-Fashioned, without the fruit except the lemon peel.” The barkeep screamed at him, “I’ve built Old-Fashioned cocktails these 60 years, and I have never yet had the perverted nastiness of mind to put fruit in an Old-Fashioned. Now get out!”

Truth is, all the oldest recipes do specify lemon peel, so we’re putting one in unless you request otherwise. We’re building them old school, muddling a pure cane rough-cut sugarcube in a little water. then adding ice, spirit, and period bitters with real Angostura bark, along with that bit of lemon. But the real garnish is a spoon. Some of the sugar is intentionally left undissolved, so that you may make it sweeter if so desired.

NEXT WEEK: SOUTH OF THE BORDER
Two popular Mexican drinks, the Paloma and the Cantarito, and a swell tequila cocktail called a Rosita.

$4 Joe Rickey – Rittenhouse rye whiskey, lime juice, club soda
$4 Joe Rickey’s Rickey – Rittenhouse rye whiskey, lemon juice, club soda
$4 John Collins – Hayman’s Old Tom gin, lemon juice, club soda, sugar

As the hot weather fades, it seems a good idea to present a pair of classic small punches or coolers and have a last taste of summer. Each grew to be drink types in their own right, and each is associated with a particular historical figure. Each have been adulterated over time in terms of name and small changes in ingredients, tonight we present them in their original state.

“Colonel” Joe Rickey of Keokuk, Missouri was a veteran of the confederacy, Democratic lobbyist, lover of horseracing and poker, financial speculator, and stakeholder in Shoomaker’s bar in Washington, DC. Despite being a dive of the lowest order it was known as the “third” chamber of Congress in the later 19th century. Rickey and some pals bought the place when the original owner passed on, so attached was the Colonel to having his morning eye-opener there. Being one block off Pennsylvania Ave didn’t hurt his lobbying business either.

Rickey had very certain beliefs about liquors, among them that it was “injurious” to drink whiskey neat, but that whiskey with water “never hurt anybody,” and whiskey with carbonated water was even better. So typically Joe drank a tall whiskey soda with some ice. While at “Shoo’s” one day he had the thought to add some lemon juice “to get a healthful drink, for the lemon acid is highly beneficial and tones up the stomach wonderfully.” Later, head barman George Williamson (or possibly a Caribbean visitor who had some limes in his pocket) tried some lime in place of the lemon, and this was the combination that caught on, though Rickey himself stuck to lemon juice, and claimed to have never drunk a Rickey in his life. The drink wound up being named after the Colonel because customers would ask for “that drink that Rickey likes.” Given that the clientele were politicians who brought the drink recipe back to their home states, and that Rickey himself was a gregarious sporting man who traveled extensively (and was glad to describe the drink to every barman he met), the drink was quickly transmitted across the country and became the fad drink of the late 19th century. In later years, Rickey even got into the lime importing business as well as marketing his own brand of seltzer, and sold his likeness to decorate bottles of whiskey.

Rickey took his own life in 1903 in NYC with a whiskey and carbolic acid cocktail. Reportedly he was in deep financial distress. He had developed a love/hate relationship with his drink; he preferred to be known as a statesman, but on the other hand he liked the fast money he was able to mine from his association with the Rickey. He most definitely did not approve of the use of gin in the drink, telling the New York Telegraph, “Only here in New York was it perverted and made a thing of shame. Here they make it with gin, which is a liquor no gentleman could ever bring himself to drink. In fact, the Gin Rickey is about the only kind known in this city and the average barkeeper looks surprised if you ask him for one made with rye whisky.” Were Rickey alive today he’d be doubly dismayed – not only is it the gin version that people know, but it is sweetened as well. Rickey claimed that sugar “heats the blood,” and that because the Rickey is meant as a cooler to be sipped, it absolutely should not contain any sugar. But to be fair, the gin incarnation does need a little sweetening. But whiskey? Joe had it right.

As to John Collins, we know little of him other than he was a bartender in London in the 1830s and 1840s at Limmer’s Hotel Bar, where he concocted this simple gin and lemon juice punch. Limmer’s was a favorite haunt of literary types (Dickens went to visit Collins after he retired, Charles and Frank Sheridan celebrated him in verse), well-to-do tourists, and military officers. It was the last of these who are thought to have transmitted the recipe to New York in the 1850s, whence it spread quickly as a refreshing summer beverage. But given the sheer size of the US, and that the Old Tom style of gin was the most popular of the day, somewhere in that cross-continental game of telephone John became Tom, and today a John Collins refers to a whiskey variation rather than John’s gin punch. The recipe itself has been fairly constant over time, but to know why it caught on so well, one must have it with the sweeter, rounder Old Tom gin of those times rather than a London Dry.

next week: The Simple and the Baroque – Ramos Gin Fizz and (Real) Old-Fashioned

Thanks to Kristin and Nina!!

Start Time:
Sunday, October 4, 2009 at 5:00pm

End Time:

Sunday, October 4 at 7:000pm

Stop down to the Royale to find out more about Saint Francis on his feast day Sunday October 4th. And in honor of this feast day, pets are welcome to the outdoor patio.

Speaking at this installment of Theology on Tap is Jay Hammond, an assistant professor of Medieval Historical Theology at Saint Louis University. His research focuses on medieval Franciscan thought, especially Francis and Bonaventure. He regularly gives talks on Francis of Assisi and the religious movement he inspired. This Spring 2010 semester he will be teaching SLU’s senior seminar, which will examine Francis as a theologian.