Poets Dream – Old Waldorf Bar Days

1 part Benedictine

1 part French (dry) Vermouth

1 part Gin

Lemon zest

Stir

I spent a little bit of time yesterday combing through ‘old Waldorf bar days’ to good effect, listing the drinks I want to try. This one jumped out after the honeymoon cocktail the other day with its Benedictine. And because of the proportions this one looked like there would be a much greater impact from this in the overall taste.

I’ve been working tonight, there’s a Chelsea home game which should’ve meant a busy post-game restaurant. Annoyingly Norwich scored in the 94^th minute and as it’s a cup game so there’s extra time, which means I have a kitchen of slightly grumpy chefs with a new last orders time, and I suspect people may have given up on food by the time they reach us, either that or in desperation go for a closer to the stadium option, either way we hate Norwich.

The drink itself wasn’t the instant hit that the Palmetto was yesterday, my grizzled old palate found it way too sweet, Benedictine packs a 40% punch, but a bucket load of sugar as well, the vermouth cuts through this a little, but is also sweet, so the gins working damn hard but not hard enough. Went back and doubled the amount of gin, and this made it more palatable (and strong, I’ve had one and feeling light headed already), but not sure it’s a keeper. It is however a lot lighter than some of our A-Z drinks, and very easy to drink, and its getting staff votes to make an appearance here.

The pick below is Ivo being arty in front of our pizza oven ?

its gone to penalties. we really hate Norwich.