Bourbon Fun! A Return to Autumnal Drinking…
I recently stumbled upon an old recipe for the Ward Eight Cocktail, which was immediately followed by a disagreement with my handsome associate regarding the appropriate proportions of the drink. Our dispute ultimately hinged upon (and he’s free to disagree) the differences in taste of contemporary cocktail culture versus the culture of the early 1900s. I maintain that people today (and this is certainly true of the women-folk I know) prefer more juicy, less hard (raunchy?) cocktails. Case in point: the seemingly omnipresent Cosmopolitan Cocktail- I’ve found that most of my customers prefer more mix than alcohol, thereby castrating it (if a Cosmo could ever be said to be “virile,” or even “interesting”).
The Ward Eight Cocktail is itself a product of a different time: 1898 was its birth year, and the zenith of its popularity was probably shortly before Prohibition. This was the time of the Gin Martini, Manhattan, and Sidecar: drinks that one respected lest one have a run-in with the pavement. In short, a very different era in the evolution of the cocktail.
With this in mind, and knowing that I’m a product of the contemporary culture, I proposed changing the original recipe of the Ward Eight to something slightly less intense. The original recipe was:
2 oz Bourbon
1/2 oz lemon juice (fresh)
1/2 oz Orange Juice
1 tsp Grenadine
Granted, the 1 tsp of Grenadine sweetens things up considerably, but the bourbon would still make this a very hard cocktail. Not that many don’t still enjoy it! But to make this more pleasing to the less refined masses, I suggested increasing the mix from 1/2 oz to 3/4 oz each. But oh! The onslaught of protests from certain gentlemen!
So, I did the only logical thing I could in such a situation: propose a taste test. Come this September or October, a small number of us will gather in my kitchen and proceed to play with proportions, whiskies and bourbons to discover whether or not we can master the perfect Ward Eight Cocktail……..
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