Leviathan 477 – Recipe from David Embury’s ‘The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks’

1 part Sugar Syrup 

2 parts Lemon Juice

2 parts Orange Juice

4 parts Scotch 

Shake.

Leviathan is about as biblical sounding and scary as you get, and it features in initially in Judaism before making a scary life ending entry into Christianity. In most references it refers to a large frightening sea bound creature, the mouth of hell, which is often cut up and eaten as all scary biblical monsters should be (except David, by all accounts he was to small to feed the many, yes I said David, the man who took a gun to a knife fight). Over time the word has been used to refer to sea monsters in general, although where Embury got this exact tag from I’m not sure. At first I thought the number was biblical in origin, which probably says more about my lack of any theological education, now I’m beginning to wonder if it wasn’t the name of a yacht.

If I’m being honest this is one of those drinks I chose because it was fairly late and I needed a drink with which I had all of the ingredients at home for, and this seemed perfect, even if it meant putting a small cocktail sized dent in one of my mother in laws bottles of Dalmore.

I’m not a massive fan of scotch, let alone in cocktails, all those punchy flavours don’t play well with others, generally. One of the exceptions to this rule I know of is a ‘blood and sand’ cocktail named after the Rudolph Valentino film of the same name, which is orange juice, scotch and cherry, I always think of the cherry as the blood, and the scotch as the scratchy sand. The proportions of this drink don’t fit into the normal Embury canon, and when drinks to vary he normally has some sort of feedback regarding just how rubbish they are, so the absence of this is interesting in itself.

The drink is actually damn good, there is a ton of fruit juice in there, that and the sugar making over half the drink, so after shaking its almost more similar to a highball then a cocktail, but I really enjoyed it, surprisingly so. Its not a drink for Scotch purists, and I feel a little bad about using Dalmore in a drink where any entry blended would suffice, but it was damn nice, and I think something I might start using in cocktail classes at Goat.