Time for a Drink: Blood and Sand
Let's get this weekend started right. Here's a cocktail to kick things off. Need more than one? Here you go. Cheers!
Unlike the unwritten rule about wearing white, there’s no stipulation that you must pack away your white liquor after Labor Day. But after the unofficial end of summer, it’s entirely appropriate to start breaking out the brown spirits of fall and winter.
Scotch whiskey is a notoriously difficult ingredient to mix in a cocktail. Here’s a drink that uses it to great effect: the Blood and Sand. The earliest printed recipe I’ve found for this drink was in the Savoy Cocktail Book, from 1930, and it likely takes its name from the popular 1922 silent film starring Rudolph Valentino as an ill-fated matador. With an unlikely cast of ingredients, the Blood and Sand rises above the chaos and helps set the stage for the approach of more robust-flavored drinks for the cooler months.
BLOOD AND SAND
Adapted from Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails, by Ted Haigh.
In a cocktail shaker, pour:
1 ounce blended Scotch (Famous Grouse is a good brand to use)
1 ounce fresh-squeezed orange juice
3/4 ounce sweet vermouth
3/4 ounce Cherry Heering (no, not “herring,” and yes, the brand matters)
Fill shaker with ice, and shake well for 10 seconds; strain into a chilled cocktail glass, and garnish with a cherry.
About the author: Paul Clarke blogs about cocktails at The Cocktail Chronicles and writes regularly on spirits and cocktails for Imbibe magazine. He lives in Seattle, where he works as a writer and magazine editor.
View other entries from Cocktail Concoctions.
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1 Comment:
I could go for that on an autumn evening. That Savoy book is a keeper.
Another Scotch cocktail that seems to have sadly fallen into oblivion is the Rusty Nail. Good blended Scotch on the rocks with a float of Drambuie on top. (Okay, it's Scotch-on-Scotch, but so what?) A lovely winter after-dinner drink.
cookbot at 9:21AM on 09/15/07