Hop Toad – Recipe below from ‘Old Waldorf Bar Days’

HOP FROG 

Two-thirds Lime Juice 

One-third Brandy 

Frappe 

HOP TOAD 

Lots of people saw no difference in the meaning of the two names above, which were actually synonymous. The “Toad”, however, was a more complicated and a more potent mixture as well. 

Juice of one-half Lime 

One-third Jamaica Rum 

One-third Apricot Brandy 

Frappe 

I love freshly squeezing juice from the lime directly into the shaker, unfortunately mother nature isn’t quite so rigorous in how much juice goes into one lime to the next, and recipes like this, of which I’ve been guilty of many, tend to end up a little all over the place if they’re short ones. I’m also assuming due to the 2 thirds, that the lime in this is supposed to make up the final third, and made it along those lines.

The next issue I have here is the definition of Apricot Brandy, we have an ‘Apricot Brandy’ from Cartron, this is essentially an Apricot Liqueur, as it has a lot of sugar inside, the question is when stating apricot brandy do they mean an eau de vie, or a liqueur, and 90 years ago what did these products taste like? Using Apricot Liqueur this drink ends up too sweet, like a very sweet apricot daiquiri. Using an eau de Vie with no sugar inside this will end up too sour, and very dry. It’s recipes like this which are trickiest to recreate as these products which are more ‘fluid’ in there definition have more scope to change over time.

I made this with the ingredients we had, and as much as I like apricot it ends up juts a little too sweet. Eau de vie’s are trickier to find, and don’t have a lot of use these days in mixed drinks, I also think there may be a sweet spot with an eau de vie and a dash of sugar.