Japanese Cocktail – Jerry Thomas

Use small bar glass

One teaspoonful of orgeat syrup

One half teaspoon of bitters

One wineglass of brandy

One or two pieces of lemon peel

Fill the tumbler one third with ice and stir well with a spoon

 

My first cocktail at Goat for 2018, post-midnight on NYE was much more of a straight rum and tequila kind of morning.

We had our first cocktail class of the year tonight, our ‘Dry Martini January’ class.

A couple of years ago I decided to do sober October, which was a piece of cake. Following on from that I thought i’d do dry January as well, this proved a lot more difficult, and only lasted a few days. I quickly realised that if there was ever a month you need a drink in while in London, its January, as the realisation of how much you spent in December combines with the weather being decidedly less friendly, as those 10 degree days turn to 1’s and 2’s with the threat of a light dusting of snow, which from experience we know paralyses the country. Fun times. I remember discussing my failure with our favourite rep from Amathus, Josh, who stated I should’ve done dry Martini January instead, and a new, substantially more fun habit was formed.

I’ve been resisting trying a martini early in this experiment as its one of my favorite drinks, and I’m saving it for an occasion, probably either Martini day on the 19th of June, or my birthday. Its one of those drinks I crave now and then.

The class went well, then afterwards bumped into some friends and we descended on the Chelsea Prayer room (CPR) upstairs for a drink. The plan for this was for it to be a civilised one or two, and then an escape.

With all of the resources in the CPR, and my ‘to drink’ list at hand I settled on a Japanese Cocktail, I’ve always noticed it when flipping through books, and found the ingredients and the name to ‘jar’ a little when reading it, and yes I’d never tried it. David Wondrich has a great explanation on the origin of the name which can be found here http://www.esquire.com/food-drink/drinks/recipes/a3697/japanese-cocktail-drink-recipe/

Orgeat is a almond syrup, often with orange flower water or rose water added. This gets most use in a Mai Tai here at Goat, and not much else to be fair.

To be honest I checked the recipe but overlooked the ‘stir’ direction and looking at the orgeat decided to shake, the result has a nice small froth, and like the Tovarich was too delicious to sip, which is where our evening started to go downhill.

One turned into two, which turned into 3, 4, 5 all of a sudden it was 1:30am, Maggie’s was suggested, and now today at least two people are AWOL.

This is making my resolution look a little more dangerous than I thought it would be, and a lot more fun.