Florida – Recipe from ‘Old Waldorf Bar Days’

One-half Italian Vermuth 

One-half Orange Juice 

Shake

This is a strange drink, in that its actually quite a nice combination, if a little drab. When I first started working at a decent bar in London, making a lot of cocktails and looking after a lot of Europeans I started getting orders for ‘Rosso and Orange Juice’ or just vermouth on ice. The most charming and initially baffling order I got was for a ‘white martini’ after asking all the staff if they knew what a white martini was, and feeling more than a little sheepish when going back and saying I had no idea she pointed to the Martini Bianco bottle while looking at me as if I was a complete idiot.

The first orange trees were planted in Florida in the mid 1500’s and today oranges in Florida are a $9 Billion per year business, employing 76000 people, second in the world only to Brazil so no prizes for guessing where the name comes from. I’d drink this again, probably over ice in a tall glass as something semi-refreshing on a hot afternoon, I find that orange juice is a little high in sugar so it tends to dehydrate me so vermouth and soda is a more frequent go to drink for me. I’d also say this works with the right vermouth, and some vermouth’s won’t stand up so well against juice like this, so be a little picky.