Crescent City – Recipe from David Embury’s ‘The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks’

1 part Lime Juice 

2 parts Italian Vermouth 

4 parts Gold Label Rum

1 or 2 dashes Angostura to each drink 

Shake or stir. 

This cocktail, while not particularly good, is interesting in that it is a compromise between the aromatic type and the Sour type.

Crescent city is an uninspiring town nestled beside a crescent of sand on the Californian coast about halfway between San Francisco and Seattle. It seems to be solely notable as a focal point of wave action and has been hit by several tsunamis in the last 80 years. Aside from that its about as interesting as the drink, Embury referring to it as not particularly good is pretty spot on, adding citrus to vermouth kills the favour, and the sweetness in the vermouth, even Antica formula isn’t anywhere near enough to balance it resulting in a light acidic tart drink. I tried adding some sugar to this to balance things out, it made it more drinkable, but the nuances of the vermouth were completely lost, resulting in its only real contribution to be colour.

Sadly, I suspect this drink is almost as worth visiting as the town its named after.