Fibber McGee – Recipe from David Embury’s ‘The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks’

A Sweet Martini with a dash of Angostura and about 2 teaspoonfuls of grapefruit juice to each drink.

Fibber McGee and Molly was a very popular vaudeville show, which turned into a radio show, then movies and a tv series getting as much as 40% of all listeners with its radio show in the 1940’s at its peak. The name stems from the lead characters love of a good story, or a fib.

Nowadays its survives rather unceremoniously as Fibber Magee’s traditional Irish music bar in Belfast and Dublin, surely a must visit if your on the emerald isle.

Days like today are the toughest to make it to my one drink each day, days that start with friends coming over for a glass of wine or two in the afternoon, at a time when it’s a little rude to make yourself something different to your guests, knowing that they really don’t want what you’re having, so I plan to wait until after they leave to have my daily drink.

This obviously isn’t a great idea as I have fantastic friends who like wine, which means there’s never a shortage and by the time evening roles round and they’ve left all I really want to do is curl up in bed, not make myself a cocktail. Which means its an effort to make, and an effort to drink and normally is not a drink I’m pleased with or enjoy.

This was a little different, somehow my wine addled brain went for something lighter and gin based versus whiskey, something with a lot of flavour (Antica) and something with a little freshness to it making it a bit of a palate cleanser. I’m not entirely sure how good it was, but I d remember really enjoying it, and drinking it to the last drop which is always a good sign. The citrus got a little lost under the flavours from the Antica, but provided just enough citrus to stop it being to cloying and meant the Antica didn’t overpower the whole drink. Worth a try.

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