Time for a Drink: Knickerbocker
Let's start the weekend right—with a cocktail recipe from Paul Clarke (The Cocktail Chronicles). Need more than one? That kinda week, eh? Here you go. Cheers!
Many people associate the era of elaborate, fruity rum drinks with the mid-20th century, a time when innovative restaurateurs such as Donn Beach and Victor Bergeron created the rum rhapsodies and Polynesian palaces that defined the age of exotica.
But they weren’t the first to venture down the rum and fruit path: behold the Knickerbocker, the ancestor of tiki.
The Knickerbocker dates to at least the 1860s, when it made its print debut in the first known bartending manual, penned by Jerry Thomas. The recipe called for “Santa Cruz rum,” or rum from St. Croix in the Virgin Islands, along with lime juice and sweetener in the form of raspberry syrup and curacao, and garnished with berries in season.
Many of these old recipes show their age today, but the Knickerbocker is still pretty lively. Amber rums from Cruzan, made in St. Croix, are perfectly suitable in this drink, but you can use most any amber rum to good effect. If you don’t happen to have raspberry syrup on hand, you can make your own by lightly bashing a handful of berries, covering with a syrup made from equal parts sugar and water, and letting it soak overnight before straining (failing that, there’s always Chambord). This being berry season, incorporating this do-it-yourself effort can be especially rewarding, or if you don’t feel like that much effort, just festoon fresh berries atop the drink in a gesture of summery exuberance.
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.
Knickerbocker
Ingredients
2 ounces amber rum
1 teaspoon curacao
2 teaspoons raspberry syrup
Juice of 1/2 a lime
Procedure
Combine ingredients in a cocktail shaker and fill with ice; shake well and pour, unstrained, into a chilled old fashioned glass. Garnish with raspberries, blackberries, or most any kind of fresh fruit you have on hand.
View other entries from Cocktail Concoctions.
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1 Comment:
A similar drink, which I've recently found quite tasty is the Leave it to Me (No. 2)
Leave It To Me Cocktail (No. 2)
1 Teaspoonful Raspberry Syrup.
1 Teaspoonful Lemon Juice.
1 Dash Maraschino. (1/3 tsp. Maraschino Liqueur)
3/4 Glass Dry Gin. (1 1/2 oz Gin)
Stir well and strain into cocktail glass.
erik_flannestad at 6:20PM on 08/08/08