Honey American Whiskey is set to be big news over the summer with several brands pollenating the UK market however if popularity in the US market is anything to go by Jack Daniel’s is set to be queen bee.

Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Honey is a mix of Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 and an American Honey Liquor which are blended together to create a product which comes in at 35% ABV. Jack Daniel’s itself has always been a slightly sweet whiskey with maple syrup notes due to the charcoal filtering process so it is the natural brand to be combined with the honey flavours.

The liquid itself is a lot less overtly sweet than we anticipated with some fantastic spiced notes (especially cinnamon) on both the nose and pallet giving it a little sting in the tail. It also manages to avoid the pitfall of many honey based products on the market by not having any claggy mouth feel problems.

Whilst the suggested serves are as a chilled shot or mixed with Lemonade, Ginger or Coke we think it has an opportunity to be the base of some really interesting cocktails. With this in mind we took a bottle down to Callooh Callay, a hive of creativity, for the gang to play with.

Some really great drinks were created for us including one which combined the Tennessee Honey with Fernet Branca for a beautifully balanced cocktail.

Let’s face it, Jack Daniels and Honey combined is going to be a massively popular drink which is sure to see customers swarming to get their hands on a bottle. BarLifeUK also thinks that it will become popular with bartenders as an ingredient to add some honey sweetness to cocktails whilst keeping up the alcohol kick.

For more info have a chat with your friendly Bacardi Brow n Forman Brands rep or visit the Facebook page here.

Last month 30 bartenders gathered in Manchester for a rum blending session lead by James Triffo from Banks Rum and Mal Evans the Mojo head honcho. After an educational talk on the blending process everyone in the room was given a selection of rums from across the Caribbean and allowed to blend their own.

Since then the blends have been resting  up to allow the flavours to blend together, tomorrow (Tuesday 8th May)they will be unveiled to allow the amateur blenders the chance to try their creations.

James and Mal will be joined by Banks Master Blender Arnaud de Trabuc who has flown over specifically to try the blends. Who better to judge the results than the man behind Banks Rum and I am sure he’ll be pleasantly surprised by the results (especially mine!).

The tasting session will be taking place on Tuesday 8th May at 7pm at Mojo Bar Manchester (19 Back Bridge Street, M3 2PB). Banks are inviting all of those who attended the session to come down and try their blends and have a chat with Arnaud.

If you didn’t manage to make it to the session you are more than welcome to come along for some complimentary Banks cocktails and cheer on the rum blending greatness (they have also promised a few surprises along the way – perhaps Triffo will be doing his Elephant impression again).

We look forward to hearing how the blends all worked out.

For more details e-mail James at james@spiritcartel.com or give him a bell on 0779 1275 419.

Since March, when I first wrote about the Martinez cocktail on my website bitters&twisted I’ve had a lot of bartenders ask me which recipe is the best.

That’s a loaded question of course, because as with any drink it comes down to the unique ingredients used and the skill of the person making the drink as to how any particular recipe tastes. That being said with a drink that has seen so many incarnations over the past 128 years, yet is widely known by only one simple version, it seemed to me that it would be interesting to put the recipes head-to-head in an attempt to better understand the amazing Martinez cocktail.

The Martinez we know as today's standard

I hoped that by blind tasting all the unique recipes that I uncovered while researching the Martinez that a clear picture would form about how the drink evolved and how it may have been enjoyed in the past.

For those that haven’t read my original post I encourage you to do so before reading the rest of this article, but if you don’t have time, or are too lazy, below is a brief summary of the history of the Martinez as well as some thoughts about how it may have been enjoyed in the past.

History of the Martinez

It’s fair to say that no one knows for certain who invented the Martinez, or how he or she intended the drink to be served. What we can do however, is base its history on is the written recipes recorded in cocktail book through the years.

The most striking thing about the Martinez is that you can walk into most good bars and order one and be served a drink made to roughly a standard recipe. The Martinez is understood by most bartenders to be two parts sweet vermouth to one part gin, with a dash of bitters and a splash of maraschino liqueur. Yet looking back at the recipes from the past, many use dry vermouth instead of sweet, curacao often replaces the maraschino and orange bitters were often used in place of aromatic.

It is pure conjecture as to how we have arrived at a modern understanding of this drink that differs so distinctly from many of the past versions, but it occurs to me that the version we use today is strikingly similar (or identical) to the version released in the 1887 edition of Jerry Thomas’, Bon Vivant’s Companion.

Many bartenders over the years have turned to this book as a starting point to understanding classic cocktails, so it makes sense to me that this may have influenced our current understanding of the drink.

The first recorded recipe that I have found is from 1884 from three years prior to the Jerry Thomas reference though, and in it O H Byron compares the drink to the Manhattan, only made with gin. His book goes on to give two recipes for the Manhattan, one using dry and one using sweet vermouth.

Is it possible that in its early history the Martinez was a drink that could be ordered either sweet or dry?

It seems a distinct possibility to me, especially when you consider the ingredients used in it, being Old Tom Gin (sweeter than our modern dry gins) with the addition of sweet liqueur. To balance the sweetness of those two ingredients surely dry vermouth might work well?

Blind Tasting

A selection of some of the version's tasted

So with these thoughts in mind I decided that a blind tasting would be the best way to try to understand the complexities of the history of this wonderful cocktail. I’ll admit that I was quietly hoping that one of the recipes with dry vermouth would prove popular, so to guarantee that I couldn’t influence the outcome I decided to ensure that even I didn’t know which drink was which during the tasting.

Richard Wynne, the owner of the fabulous Callooh Callay in Shoreditch, agreed to co-host the tasting event with me in his bar. I pre-made all the recipes in batches and put them in the fridge and then later Richard served them in a random order (obviously keeping track so that we could unravel it all later). Complicated I know, but the system seemed a fair way of ensuring that the session was completely unbiased.

All that was left was to assemble a group of tasters willing to sip their way through nine different versions of the Martinez and offer their thoughts on each one. I asked only one thing of this elite group of guinea pigs, and that was that they all suspend any pre conceived ideas of what a Martinez should taste like, and instead focus on the merits and balance of ingredients in each drink they tried.

I was lucky enough to secure the services of Sarah Mitchell and Adam Smithson, the founders of Juniper society and experts in the field of all things gin related, Emma Stokes, the infamous Gin Monkey, Adam Elmegirab who not only produces Boker’s, the bitters used in some of the recipes, but also helped with my original research into the history of the Martinez.

Joining them to ensure a balanced group of tasters was Sarah Christmas, the other half of my blog bitters&twisted, Simon Webster of BarLifeUK, and two willing consumers with a taste for gin cocktails, Christina and Sophie.

For the sake of those who don’t have all day to read about every individual recipe tasted and the thoughts of our tasting panel, I won’t review each one here. If you do want to read more however there is a full write up on bitters&twisted which you might find of interest.

Instead here I want to focus on the discussion that happened after all nine recipes were tasted and of course reveal which recipes came out on top and why.

Tasting Notes

The one thing that everybody agreed was that the tasting threw out a lot of surprises and that perhaps the Martinez isn’t just the straightforward sweet vermouth and gin concoction that we know so well today. There is a lot of diversity within the historical recipes and actually they were all unique and interesting drinks.

Having asked everyone to pick their top three from the tasting, I found it interesting that every single recipe got at least one vote. It was interesting to hear die hard ‘classic’ Martinez fans suddenly talking about the great balance in versions using dry vermouth, or saying that some of the sweet vermouth versions were too sweet and rich.

The general consensus was that the Martinez should perhaps, as per the first written recipe, be considered in a similar way to the Manhattan, with flexibility as to the style of vermouth used.

It was also agreed that this is especially important when considering which gin you are using for your Martinez. On the night we used Ransom Old Tom Gin, Hammer & Son Old English Gin, Beefeater, Plymouth and Beefeater 24 in the various recipes, and all of them struck a balance when used in the right recipe.

Another thing that I am keen to point out is that this tasting proved absolutely nothing conclusive in terms of finding the ultimate Martinez recipe. I guess that was never the point, but it’s safe to say that as with all cocktails if you change one of the ingredients, so for example used Martini extra dry instead of Noilly Prat, then the balance of the drink changes.

The point for me was to see if the Martinez should be looked at as a style of drink (much as the Martini or Manhattan is) instead of a definitive cocktail with only one unique recipe.

The tasting table aftermath

The results of the tasting certainly surprised most people in the room and led to much discussion about offering customers more than one option when the words ‘can I have a Martinez please’ are uttered across the bar. So without further waffling from me here are the top three picks from the night, all of which scored well with only three points separating them.

The Results

3rd place – the 1934 recipe from Patrick Duffy’s, Official Mixers Manual and also appearing in 1700 Cocktails for the Man Behind the Bar in the same year – a recipe designed to serve six people, but scaled down here for those who want just one. 45ml dry vermouth, 45ml Plymouth Gin, 2 dashes orange bitters and a barspoon of curacao or maraschino (I chose maraschino).

The general consensus was that this was a light and refreshing version of the drink, and while not what most people would recognize as a Martinez was certainly well-balanced and enjoyable to drink. Some considered it to be closer to a (very) wet Martini, almost a missing link between the two drinks that places an emphasis on the vermouth and offers a nice touch of sweetness as well.

2nd place – the classic 1887 recipe from Jerry Thomas and what most people today would recognize as a Martinez. 60ml sweet vermouth, 30ml Old Tom (or in this case Old English) Gin, 2 dashes maraschino, 1 dash Boker’s bitters.

As you might expect this was considered by many to be a well-balanced cocktail, but several of the tasting panel mentioned that the gin was hidden and the vermouth was the star of the show. My personal favourite comment was that the drink was just a touch too sweet, a little too bitter with a bit too much maraschino and was just TOO CLASSIC. Talk about nailing it. Overall it was considered to be a great drink and everyone agreed that it has become a classic for a reason.

1st place – the surprise winner on the night was the dry vermouth recipe taken from O H Byron in 1884, and the first Martinez recipe to appear in a cocktail book as far as we know. The original recipe was for a small drink containing 30ml dry vermouth, 15ml Old Tom Gin (I used Ransom), 3-4 dashes of Angostura bitters and 3 dashes of gomme.

This was the only recipe that all of the tasters chose in their top three, and reading through the comments it was found to be rich, spicy with dark fruit notes. Most people commented on the long finish and the fact that this recipe left you wanting to take another sip. Almost everyone also mentioned that the balance in this drink was the best of the night and that this version tasted like a classic cocktail with simple ingredients combining to become more than the sum of their parts.

So there you have it, three very different recipes for the Martinez, all of which shone through in the blind tasting as being excellent drinks that are well worth trying.

It was unsurprising to find the classic version from Jerry Thomas coming through as one of the best, but I think that most people in the room on the night were surprised that a Martinez made with dry vermouth came out on top. It just goes to show that perhaps we shouldn’t assume we know how a classic should be served and should be open to new (or maybe old?) ideas.

In the case of the Martinez, I now look at it as a family of drinks that showcase vermouth balanced with gin and bitters, and I’m open to trying it either dry or sweet. A couple of months ago the idea of a dry Martinez would have had me rolling my eyes, but now it doesn’t seem quite so absurd.

We’re never likely to know how the first ever Martinez cocktail was made, but one thing is certain, the recipes throughout the ages have been diverse and interesting, and while I’m sure Jerry Thomas’ version will remain the standard, maybe a few of you will experiment with dry versions too. You never know, it just might catch on.

If you want to read more about all nine of the recipes we tried, then please check out the article here on bitters&twisted.

On the surface of it, the question of ‘what’s a Martinez’ seems pretty self-explanatory.

After all, you can walk into any good bar, order one and be pretty confident about what you’ll get in your glass.

The chances are you’ll get a lot of sweet vermouth, a little bit of gin, a splash of maraschino and a dash or two of bitters.

Occasionally there might be a bit more gin and a little less vermouth, or you might get Boker’s bitters or orange bitters; you might even get a splash of curacao instead of maraschino, but all in all you’re likely to receive a sweet vermouth and gin cocktail, with a splash of liqueur and a dose of bitters.

Over the years there has been much debate about the intertwined history of the Martinez and the Martini, with speculation about whether the Martinez might be the forefather of the Martini or, if in fact they were once the same drink, known by similar names that got confused over the years.

The truth is we’re never likely to know, but somewhere along the way the two drinks have diverged to become completely different cocktails.

It’s now accepted that the Martini is made with dry vermouth and the Martinez with sweet, the former has no liqueur added but the latter is usually enriched with a barspoon of maraschino, the Martini is heavy on gin, with vermouth playing a supporting role, whereas the Martinez is a vermouth-led cocktail. In other words they are only connected in as much as that they are in the broad family of gin and vermouth based drinks.

So when I recently made a drink using the same ingredients as a modern Martinez, but in vastly different proportions, and posted the recipe on Twitter, I was shocked to hear people calling it a Martinez.

After all, 3 parts gin to 1 part sweet vermouth makes a completely different cocktail, in fact it was closer in profile to a Gin and It. An online discussion quickly ensued about what people consider a Martinez to be, and what the original spec was; it soon became clear that this is a cocktail with a hazy past, and even a somewhat muddled present.

Inspired by my previous blog about the Corpse Reviver, I thought a similar tactic might be employed to unravel the past of this delicious, but misunderstood drink. I immediately posted some questions on Facebook and Twitter, and once again Adam Elmegirab and Craig Harper dived in to assist in putting together a timeline of recipes for the Martinez in the hopes of understanding how we have arrived at the modern version we know today.

Along the way our research expanded into the entire family of gin, vermouth and bitters based cocktails, but that’s a subject for another time. In fact Adam is already well on his way to amassing a broad history of this family of drinks.

Why so much confusion?

It seems clear from the modern viewpoint that the Martinez is two parts sweet vermouth to one part gin, with a splash of maraschino and a dash of bitters. In fact when I asked bartenders what their standard recipe is for this drink, all of them said two to one ratios in favour of sweet vermouth, and almost everyone said maraschino and either Boker’s or orange bitters.

So if there is a reasonably standard modern recipe, then why am I implying that there is some confusion as to the recipe for the Martinez? It comes down to two things: vermouth choice and ratios.

You see if you refer to cocktail books from the 1930s and 40s most of them actually call for dry vermouth instead of sweet, in fact the first time I made myself a Martinez I followed the recipe from the Savoy Cocktail Book, which calls for dry.

So to me this has always been a drink that can be served both ways, sweet and dry. That already leaves the drink open to interpretation depending on where you first read the recipe in the first place. In addition, I’ve seen recipes calling for equal parts gin and vermouth, so even the ratio can be called into question.

This got me wondering about when the recipe changed from sweet to dry, and then back again to sweet? The trouble I soon realised from chatting with Adam and Craig is that there are surprisingly few recipes for the Martinez in any early cocktail books. In fact as Craig pointed out you almost never see the Martinez and the Martini in the same book.

So is it possible they are the same drink? Was the name and the recipe muddled in the early years of its invention, leaving us with two cocktails where originally there was just one?

What’s in a name?

The first recipe I have been able to find for the Martinez is from 1884, with only a handful of further recipes over the following two decades. Likewise the Martini makes an appearance only a couple of years after the Martinez and has it’s own handful of recipes in the late 1800s.

To make it even more confusing there are other drinks from the same era such as the Martine, Marguerite that also combine gin, vermouth and bitters. So is this just a classic case of Chinese whispers, with a drink being created and named, and then being passed on from bar to bar and slowly changing?

There are of course stories about where the name came from; some claiming it for the town of Martinez in California, others saying it was made for a customer who used to travel to the town. Still others claim that the Martini actually came first and that the Martinez was just confusion over the name.

Then again there are stories of a judge from New York whose name was Martine, so some believe this to be an East coast creation and nothing whatsoever to do with the town in California. Truth be told we’re unlikely to ever know the origins of the name.

Many claim that the Martinez was created in the 1860s and that the Martini came into being in the 1870s, but this is still hard to prove, so for me it seems sensible to start with recipes that have been recorded in cocktail books.

But if all we have are a handful of recipes scattered through a few publications over the years, then what’s the truth about this drink? Has it always been the sweet vermouth based drink we know today? Well let’s see if we can make some sense of it simply by tracking it through the years.

The early days of the Martinez

As I mentioned earlier, the first recipe for the Martinez that I’ve found (and I’d love to hear from anyone who knows of an earlier one, or a version I’ve missed from the timeline below) is from O H Byron in 1884. Unfortunately all he has to say on the subject is this:

“ Same as Manhattan, only you substitute gin for whisky.”

Now this wouldn’t be a problem if he had been considerate enough to list only one recipe for the Manhattan. There were unfortunately two Manhattan recipes listed directly above the entry for the Martinez, one with sweet vermouth one with dry (for full recipes see the timeline further down the page).

So maybe, as with many vermouth and spirit cocktails the Martinez was originally a drink that could be ordered sweet or dry? The problem with this theory is that we never see the Martinez listed in books with the two styles offered as we do with the Martini and the Manhattan.

Often these drinks are offered, for example, as the Dry Martini or the Sweet Martini with distinct recipes. Nowhere have I found the same for the Martinez. Still it’s a thought…

The next recipe that we find in print is from the 1887 revised edition of Jerry Thomas’ Bon Vivants Companion, which was published two years after his death. The recipe calls for one part Old Tom Gin to two parts ‘vermouth’.

Now we know from records that most vermouth in the US at this time was Italian (sweet) vermouth, and it’s taken for granted that unless French vermouth is specified, then Italian should be used. So it seems likely that this recipe is the one responsible for our current understanding of the Martinez as being a sweet vermouth cocktail.

Over the years as cocktails have gone in and out of fashion, at every resurgence bartenders have tended to turn to Jerry Thomas as their first point of reference.

Next up we have the Martinez recipe listed in Stuart’s Fancy Drinks from 1896, but unfortunately it seems that he has plagiarised O H Byron, as his entry is identical to the 1884 entry in that book (word for word, down to the order of the drinks). So other than being a second time that we see both a sweet and dry version, it doesn’t actually help us to understand how this drink might originally have been served.

Fast forward almost a decade to 1905 and we find a recipe for the Martinez in the romantically named Consolidated Library of Modern Cooking and Household Recipes, volume 5 by Christine Terhune Herrick and M. Harland, which is instantly recognisable as the first written record of the Martinez as we know it today.

The recipe calls for two parts vermouth (sweet?) to one part gin with two dashes of maraschino and a dash of Boker’s Bitters. Gum syrup may be added if desired. The parting shot is to point out that this recipe is exactly the same as the one before, which as you might have guessed, is for the Manhattan.

Manhattan? Martinez?

What can be made of these early recipes? Well keeping in mind some good advice I received recently from Dave Wondrich when he said, “I always try to be careful to distinguish between “it happened once or twice” and “it’s in common use.” The latter is much more important for writing history; firsts are in my mind highly overrated. People will do any damn thing once or twice.” It’s hard to draw any firm conclusions from so few recipes.

But it’s certainly interesting to note that three out of the four mentions of this drink compare it directly to the Manhattan cocktail.

We know that the Manhattan was by this time a popular and widely consumed drink, and we often see it served with either dry or sweet vermouth (or on occasion calling for both), so with this in mind, it is at least possible that the Martinez may have been served either way. I’m not for one moment stating this as fact, but instead offer it as food for thought, especially when viewing the next era in the history of the Martinez.

The Prohibition era Martinez

There’s a significant gap in the timeline of the Martinez as far as I’ve been able to tell (but hopefully readers will find some recipes to fill in the gaps) between 1905 and 1922, when we see a recipe appear in Cocktails How To Mix Them by Robert.

In this early prohibition era recipe he calls for equal parts Old Tom Gin and French vermouth, combined with either curacao or maraschino and orange bitters. This is just the start of a trend towards a drier style of drink.

Robert also states that in England the Martinez generally contains Plymouth gin and French vermouth, with orange syrup and Angostura bitters; once again pointing at a dry style of drink.

In 1930 the Martinez pops up in the Savoy Cocktail Book with an almost identical recipe to the Martinez listed in Robert’s book, only not specifying Old Tom and simply listing gin instead. So yet again we have a dry style of Martinez appearing in print.

This is also true of the recipe in 1700 Cocktails for the Man Behind the Bar, in 1924, where the recipe is for several servings.

Here we have three glasses of Plymouth gin and three of French vermouth combined with a dessertspoon of orange bitters and two dessertspoons of curacao or maraschino. In the same year Patrick Gavin Duffy included an identical recipe (again for six people) in his book the Official Mixer’s Manual.

In 1935’s Old Mr. Boston we find the first recipe specifying dry gin, as by this time Old Tom had fallen out of fashion and London Dry was the go-to style of gin for cocktails. Once again equal parts of dry gin and French vermouth are combined with orange bitters and curacao.

So it seems that in the 1920s and 30s dry vermouth was the standard ingredient for the Martinez, and the ratio had changed from being vermouth heavy to equal parts vermouth and gin. The drier style of drink is not surprising as this was very much the taste of that era, in fact this is the period where we start seeing the Martini grow more and more dry, so perhaps this is nothing more than the fashion of the era?

In fact the trend towards dry vermouth is still there in 1946 when Trader Vic includes a Martinez in his Bartender’s Guide, made of equal parts gin and French vermouth, with ½ a teaspoon each of orange bitters and curacao.

It’s interesting that in the ten recipes above only two specify sweet vermouth, two offer it both dry and sweet and the remaining six all call for dry vermouth. While this is still not such a weighty catalogue of evidence as to be able to state that the Martinez should rightly be made using dry vermouth, it is enough to say that it has been made that way in the past, possibly from the time it was first conceived of.

I also can’t help but notice that curacao was called for more often than maraschino, and while we’re usually only talking about a couple of dashes this is enough to change the profile of the drink.

To me this makes some sense when you think about the other ingredients involved; Old Tom Gin was sweeter than the modern style and more full bodied, liqueur is being added to this contributing yet more sweetness, so wouldn’t it make sense to use dry vermouth to balance the drink?

We’ll probably never know how the drink was intended to be, but it’s at least interesting to open ones mind to the possibility that the Martinez may once have been intended as a dry vermouth drink and not the sweet one we know today.

The modern Martinez

So how have we arrived at the modern Martinez? After all, when you look at the history above almost all of the drinks call for dry vermouth and not sweet, many are equal parts gin and vermouth, and a lot of them call for curacao and orange bitters. These differences from the modern understanding of the Martinez are significant enough to make them worth thinking about.

The key to me, as I mentioned earlier, is the importance placed on Jerry Thomas’ book, The Bon Vivant’s Companion, or How to Mix Drinks. The first edition in 1862 is also the first cocktail book in existence, and as such is often the starting place for bartenders to gain insight into the classic cocktails of the 1800s.

But although I agree it’s an important book, but it’s by no means infallible. The fact that the Martinez doesn’t appear in the first edition and wasn’t added until two years after Thomas’ death, means that we don’t even know the real source of this recipe.

Who was it that edited this book and added the Martinez? Where did he or she get their recipe? It seems to me unlikely that a drink that was in the process of establishing itself in the repertoire of bartenders of that era had a standard spec, so why does this interpretation carry so much weight?

I suspect it’s no coincidence that our modern version of the Martinez contains maraschino, and that this is one of the few recipes to call for it, and not at least give the option of curacao. In fact, looking at the recipe it is remarkably similar to the modern standard that so many bartenders take for granted.

I’m not saying that the industry is wrong, or that bartenders have their facts mixed up, but if you look through the recipes I’ve found so far, it seems that the jerry Thomas recipe has been held up as the correct one, without much thought being given to other recipes of the time.

So, is there any such thing as a Martinez?

What conclusion can be drawn from all of the above? We can see that in our current cocktail culture the Martinez is a well-known drink that is widely accepted as being made with sweet vermouth and gin (Old Tom), some maraschino and bitters.

It’s clear from looking at the timeline below that it has not always been made this way though and for at least some of its life was a dry vermouth and gin based drink.

Also worth thinking about is the fact that for a drink that is so well established in the repertoire of modern bartenders there are surprisingly few references to it in cocktail books over the years.

It seems likely to me that if it had not been included in two of the most important and well respected cocktails books of all time, this drink might very well have faded into oblivion, despite the fact that it is a damned tasty cocktail.

The fact that the two recipes are so very different can at least partly be put down to the availability of ingredients in different countries and different eras, and also to the fashion for sweeter drinks in the 1880s and dry drinks in the 1920s. None the less there is enough difference between recipes from across the decades that it calls into question what the Martinez really was.

In fact, given the intertwined history of the Martini, Martinez, Martine and even the Turf Club, it’s almost impossible to know if they were all the same drink, but known by different names or if they were designed to be different from the outset.

Seeing as we have arrived at a time and place where we do indeed have two individual drinks, it probably doesn’t matter what the original intention behind them was, they have grown apart, and now stand on their own merits as individual cocktails.

So here is a timeline of recipes, for a drink that may or may not ever have been intended to be different from the martini, and may or may not have originally been made with dry vermouth:

1884 – OH Byron – ‘same as Manhattan but with gin replacing whisky’

Martinez 1

• 1 pony French vermouth, ½ pony gin, 3 or 4 dashes Angostura bitters, 3 dashes gum syrup

Martinez 2

• 2 dashes curacao, 2 dashes Angostura bitters, ½ wineglass gin, ½ wineglass Italian vermouth

1887 – Jerry Thomas – revised edition 2 years after his death

Martinez – 1

• dash Boker’s bitters, 2 dashes maraschino, 1 pony Old Tom gin, 1 wineglass vermouth.

1896 – Stuart’s Fancy Drinks and how to mix them

• Identical recipe to OH Byron 1884 and once again compared to the Manhattan, served both dry and sweet

1905 – Consolidated Library of Modern Cooking and Household Recipes, volume 5

• Martinez – shake up well and strain into a large cocktail glass 1 dash of bitters, 2 dashes of maraschino, 1 pony of Old Tom gin, 1 wineglassful of vermouth, 2 small lumps of ice. Add a slice of lemon, and gum syrup if desired, as in last recipe (Manhattan)

1922 – Cocktails and How to Mix Them by Robert

• Martinez cocktail – 2 dashes orange bitters, 3 dashes curacao or maraschino, ¼ gill Old Tom Gin, ¼ gill French vermouth
• Martinez in England – 2 dashes orange syrup, 2 dashes Angostura bitters, ¼ gill Plymouth gin, ¼ gill French Vermouth

1930 – Savoy Cocktail Book

• Martinez cocktail (6 people) – Pour into the shaker 3 glasses of gin, 3 of French vermouth, add a dessertspoonful of orange bitters and 2 of curacao or maraschino. Shake and serve with a cherry and a piece of lemon rind

1934 – 1700 Cocktails for the Man Behind the Bar

• Martinez – 3 glasses Plymouth gin, 3 glasses French Vermouth, 1 dessertspoonful orange bitters, 2 dessertspoonful curacao or maraschino, serve with a cherry and a lemon rind

1934 – Official Mixer’s Manual, Patrick Gavin Duffy

• Same recipe as 1700 Cocktails for the Man Behind the Bar

1935 – Old Mr. Boston

• Martinez cocktail – ½ dry gin, ½ French vermouth, 1 dash orange bitters, 1 dash curacao

1946 – Trader Vic – Bartender’s Guide

• ¾ oz gin, ¾ oz French vermouth, ½ tsp orange bitters, ½ tsp curacao

So there we have it, 10 recipes for the Martinez spanning from 1884 to 1946, with the majority specifying dry vermouth.

The gin, we can accept, changes through the ages as Old Tom becomes less popular and gives way to London Dry and in some cases even Plymouth. Most of the recipes offer your choice of either maraschino or curacao, and many call for orange bitters too.

And so we have a modern drink that doesn’t sit perfectly against its forefathers, but does sit comfortably with the version included by an anonymous editor of Jerry Thomas’ work, who added his recipe two years after the professors’ death.

I love a good Martinez and will gladly accept the current version of this drink whenever someone wishes to stir one up for me. That being said I can’t wait to try all of the recipes above to see how they differ, but that’s a blog for another day.

I hope to get many of those who contributed their research to this blog together, so that we can try these recipes alongside each other to get a real feel for how the drink evolved. In the meantime I’ll make do with my own version of this drink… after all, as long as you combine roughly the right ingredients, you seem to be able to call anything a Martinez!

The Compromised Martinez

• 45ml Hammer & Son Old English Gin
• 45ml Noilly Ambre vermouth
• 1 Dash curaçao
• 1 Dash maraschino
• 1 Dash orange bitters
• 1 Dash Boker’s bitters

Stir or shake (after all both methods have been used over the years), then strain into a chilled coupe and garnish with your choice from the following: a cherry, a lemon twist, a slice of lemon, or all three, it’s entirely up to you!

Please if you have more information or recipes for the Martinez, we’d love to hear from you and add it into the timeline of this ever evolving cocktail.

Further reading – in reply to the question posed in the title of this article Adam Elmegirab has posted his thoughts and research regarding the intertwined nature of the Manhattan, Martinez and Martini here. an excellent read and definitely states the case for the camp who believe that the Martinez was a sweet vermouth drink from the outset!

also see this great chart based on the timeline above as created by Tristan Stephenson of Purl and Whistling Shop fame:

When I started with El Dorado just over 4 years ago the master blender and distiller at DDL (who make El Dorado) had mentioned the Swizzle as popular and traditional rum drinks made in Guyana & so this became the drink that we focused on.

They really were bad at spelling in the old days

Swizzles are a type of mixed-drink that pre-dates the ‘cocktail’ and they are generally thought to be a Caribbean style of drink usually made with rum. From doing a quick search on the internet and in a few old cocktail books, it didn’t take long to discover that the swizzle was first mentioned in print in 1788 (as being in existence since at least 1760) in the brilliantly entitled A Classical Dictionary of Vulgar Tongue by Francis Grose (as seen in the picture to the right).

The place mentioned as the ‘Swizzle Club’ is listed as being a French/Canadian fort that was captured by the British in 1759, so the swizzle must have been a well known drink before this club was established for it to be named after it.

Swizzles are mentioned as Caribbean rum-based drinks in other early literature and the branch used to mix them is said to be from an ‘allspice’ or Quararibea turbinata tree/bush but more on that later.

The Swizzle itself is a rustic type of mixed drink that is named after the way it’s mixed rather than the ingredients – ‘rotating a special forked stick made from a root between the palms’. It is also often related to non-alcoholic drinks called ‘switchels’ which appear to be an early form of energy drink containing vinegar, honey/molasses/sugar and ginger which were given to thirsty farmers during harvest time or travellers, although these don’t seem to be mixed with a stick. There is also no recorded mention of a shot of Jager being dropped into a Switchel.

The guys in Guyana we had spoken to implied that the method of mixing with a forked stick had come over to the West Indies with the slave trade from Africa and that this was a common method of mixing drinks there, but there seems to be no historical evidence to support this which I could find.

Many islands claim the swizzle as their own (currently on the font of all factual information, Wikipedia, it appears that Bermuda did the most recent edit of the ‘Rum Swizzle’ page, but St Kitts, Trinidad, Barbados, Jamaica, St Thomas, Martininque and many other countries, including Guyana, have just as much of a link to it), and each of these islands have their own most famous recipe.

The bastion of rum-ness Trader Vic seems to have been a fan, listing quite a few and giving a nice bit of background to the drink as well. Many of these are refreshingly simple recipes that all follow the same structure – rum, a sour, a sweet, a bitter and some kind of non-alcoholic element.

The Green and Queen’s Park Swizzles

This is how a Green Park Swizzle should NOT look

One of the most intriguing of these traditional recipes is the Green Swizzle, a drink mentioned in P.G. Wodehouse’s 1924 short story “The Rummy Affair of Old Biffy”. According to a lot of sources and recent articles the recipe to this drink is ‘lost in history, if it ever existed at all’ but when discussing the drink with Brian de Silva (who was at Rules at the time) we decided to get to the bottom of this classic drink, so we set about scouring as many old books as we could.

Initially a lot of the recipes we found called for crème de menthe, but most of these were from the 1940s onwards and to be honest the drink was horrid. Imagine someone trying to recreate a mojito without any fresh mint. This made us think these recipes were written after the original recipe was ‘lost in history’ and they just used the greenest thing they could get their hands on to match the name.

Trader Vic’s statement about his, crème de menthe containing, green swizzle recipe backed this opinion up as he said it was ‘not what Bertie had at Wembley’ (a nod to P.G. Wodehouse’s most famous character creation). Eventually we came across an article in a newspaper from 1910 that mentioned the ingredient that made the drink green was ‘wormwood bitters’. This was different, and it wasn’t a big jump to use absinthe as the ‘wormwood bitters’ ingredient.

This worked fantastically and made for a really refreshing, dry, aromatic swizzle which we decided was much more likely to make Bertie a happy toff.. Brian also experimented with making his own wormwood bitters – which made a delicious swizzle, but lacked the distinctive green colour.

Since then Darcy O’Neill has come to the same conclusion and his piece on the Green Swizzle goes into much more depth than I have room to here.

Another of the most famous swizzles is the Queen’s Park Swizzle which hails from the legendary Queen’s Park Hotel in Port of Spain, Trinidad. Trader Vic himself said this drink was the ‘most delightful form of anaesthesia given out today’ and contains rum (according to Dave Wondrich it would have been made with a heavy, fragrant Demerara rum from Guyana rather than the lighter Trinidad rums), fresh lime, fresh mint, Demerara sugar syrup and Angostura bitters. Although less well known than the Singapore Sling, it was created for a similar clientele – the Brit abroad (how the hell did we go from that to a pint of John Smiths and a Big Mac?).

Stick it to me

Swizzle sticks aplenty

So much for the recipes, what about the all-important stick? The most widely accepted ‘correct’ stick to use is from the Caribbean Swizzle Stick Tree (Quararibea turbinata as mentioned earlier), but allspice is also mentioned in older literature. Both grow widely in the Caribbean, and have branches that fork, but the branches of the swizzle stick tree are slightly more suited to the job as well as sharing the name.

The sticks from both of these trees have aromatic bark on them, which, if used vigorously enough, would have given early swizzles a slightly bitter/spicy flavour. Our swizzle-making friends in Guyana said that the tree the swizzle sticks come from is commonly used to make tinctures or teas that are drunk for medicinal purposes.

The sticks used for mixing drinks nowadays are generally stripped of the bark – or worse, made from plastic – which might explain why most modern swizzle recipes include a dash of bitters.

As mentioned before, we aren’t sure whether swizzling originated in the Caribbean/South America or if the technique was brought over to that region from Africa/Europe, but to be honest, stirring things with sticks is hardly a high-tech ‘invention’. I’m sure a lot of people around the world who used sticks as stirrers discovered that rubbing it between the palms made it go faster (and become a bit more fun).

There is evidence of swizzling in Europe – specifically areas in Eastern Europe where pine trees grow. I was lucky enough to go to a talk on swizzles by the inspirational Stanislav Vadrna at Tales of the Cocktail last year. He showed how people in some villages used the top sections of pine trees (imagine the bit of your Christmas tree that you put the star on and the 4 or 5 branches that radiate out below this… now trim them down) to mix drinks. It’s not quite as widely used (or as related to cocktails) as Caribbean swizzles, but the technique is the same.

So that is a little insight into the Swizzle, a drink so dripping in history it was served at the world’s first cocktail party in London in 1924 held by novelist Alec Waugh. There is so much more out there to be found and I look forward to hearing all about your discoveries and tasting your Swizzles in the competition heats. So get your stick in one hand, a bottle of El Dorado in the other and get your swizzle on by entering the competition here. Oh did I mention the winner gets to come to Guyana?

I’ve resorted to pretty much doing what I was anyway, making drinks. But not in a bar for paying customers, but in my kitchen for myself in front of the 30 Rock box set!

So to alleviate my frustrations I’ve decided that it was probably about time I cut loose with another blog after having told Simon and Andy I’ve been working on one for the last 6 months! So here it is…

Here’s a question for you…

What is going to take to get the general public appreciating Tequila rather than just abusing it?

Andy's online dating picture didn't get the reaction he had hoped for

Please someone tell me! Don’t get me wrong, I have enjoyed the odd bit of Tequila abuse in my time (who hasn’t?) but with the rise of quality 100% Agave Tequilas such as Ocho, Tradicional or Siete Leguas it seems such as waste to just habitually knock it back doesn’t it?

I mean, surely Joe and Jane Average wouldn’t treat a Single Malt or a half decent Cognac like that would they? I know, I’m preaching to the choir here a bit, we’re all firm advocates of the beer and a shot on the side school of thought but what can we do to spread this message further?

Perhaps the problem is that, culturally, we don’t really take our time to enjoy anything. We all buzz around as fast as roadrunner on amphetamines, what we need to do is to encourage our guests to sit down, relax and take it slow.

After all, the old mantra ‘Life’s too short’ isn’t always necessarily true, especially when it comes to good drinks.

So I’m on a bit of a crusade at the moment to get people to re-evaluate Tequila, even something as small as encouraging people to take a sip before they down their shot can make a difference as it forces them to actually taste the spirit. It’s all about baby steps I reckon.

Another thing I’ve found to work on those less keen on Agave spirits is to (trust me on this) serve it cold. I know, I know, it goes against everything we’ve been taught about sprits and tequila over the last 10 years but bear with me a minute.

I am not suggesting that it is the way to serve Tequila to people who actually enjoy their agave but, as we all know when you chill a spirit you dull some of that spirits characteristics right? So for someone who has negative connotations with either the aroma or initial taste of a spirit, if they are less prominent it makes that spirit more accessible and open to re-evaluation right?

This is a good thing! We need to collectively make sure that we are trying to find new ways for the public to tap into and enjoy some of these fantastic products and not keep them to ourselves like the dirty magazine collection under our beds.

Right, whinge over. There’s loads of good things happening the trade with Tequila, the Pacifico group are continuing to do great things and new Soho Sex Shop hangout La Bodega Negra is taking Tequila to the A list.

My dream is to get a decent chunk of the population going out and actually enjoying their Tequila rather than regretting having drunk it in the morning. Perhaps if we can help the public understand a little more about it then we can slowly change people’s perceptions on it.

Right, I’m off for a Tradicional and Ting. Till next time. Salud, Tim.

Henrik’s latest adventure saw him aim to launch a gin with the taste and look of a product from 1783. That rather specific date wasn’t picked out of a hat, it was, instead, the date on a recipe picked out of the safe at the distillery where Geranium Gin is made. The distillery in question, Langley Distillery, also has the oldest pot still in the UK giving the product an extra bit of historic gravitas.

The first thing you notice about Old English Gin is the design looks like it could be straight out of the 18th century, having you believe it could have been discovered in a long lost spirits collection. The bottle, an old champagne bottle, is a nod to the fact that back in 1783 England was the largest importer of French Champagne and people visiting gin shops would bring their own empty bottles to fill up. It is, therefore, a fair assumption that a lot of gin was being drunk from old champagne bottles.

The gin itself is bound to lead to conversations and arguments about the authenticity of the product and the ability to effectively re-create a gin from 220 years ago. Henrik has however been very open about the process and idea behind his new launch ‘…my aim was to reach a tasting profile as how I would have made a Gin being a gin distiller at that time.’

He went on to explain:
‘English Gin would have been made from various recipes, and some would have been more or less sweetened depending on the quality of the spirit or simply just for being more palatable for taken neat and the producers would brand their Gin fancy names as Old Tom, Young Tom or Samson, or after the name of the distiller or the location as Booth’s, Gordon’s, Warrington and Beefeater. Today, many people think that English Gin before the London Dry Gin styles occurred in the 1890’s were named Old Tom, but this perception is not right according to my research’.

We are the caring, sharing type over at BarLifeUK so we decided to grab our bottle of Old English Gin and take it around a few bars to give people a chance to try it before the next batch hits the UK in May and to get some feedback. The response was overwhelmingly positive, with a lot of the botanicals used being picked up on such as the orris root, orange peel, liquorice, cassia and cinnamon.

Whilst it is certainly sweet and smooth enough to sip neat, imaginations were running wild and soon we were being treated to some great cocktails featuring Mint leaves, Kiwi, Blueberries, Cucumber, Passion Fruit Syrup and Beetroot (not all in the same drink I hasten to add!).

Below are our two favourites from the night:

Jose from Venn Street Records came up with this light, refreshing combination:
50ml Old English Gin
10ml lychee juice
15ml lemon juice
20ml sugar syrup
Chunk cucumber
Piece lemon grass
40ml apple juice
Muddle all ingredients except gin and apple juice. Add remaining ingredients, shake hard and fine strain into a martini glass.

Ivan over at Powder Keg Diplomacy gave us this beetroot and gin goody:
40ml Old English Gin
15ml lemon juice
10ml sugar syrup
Beetroot juice
Shake gin, lemon and sugar syrup. Pour into ice filled highball glass and top with beetroot juice.

We get the feeling that people will have a lot to say about Old English Gin (as can be seen in the comments on Dan Priseman’s excellent piece here) however once it has been tried people may find themselves too busy drinking it to do much talking.

There will be more news on the show in the coming days but in the meantime we thought we’d bring you the skinny on one of a few new products to join the Speciality Brands portfolio – Smith & Cross Traditional Jamaican Rum.

BarLifeUK first heard about this rum from the Hayman Distillers last year at Tales of the Cocktail when they were nominated in the Best New Spirit category at the Spirited Awards (with the same level of success as us as it turned out!). We then got to try it over at Bar Convent Berlin in October where it went one step further and won the Best New Spirit award.

One of the reasons for this quick rise to prominence is the surge in popularity of punches and the resultant need for traditional style of spirits from the late 19th and early 20th century. In David Wondrich’s excellent book PUNCH (a review here) Smith & Cross features in many of the cocktails for this very reason.

The rum itself is a mix of Wedderburn and Plummer pot still distillates aiming to recreate the flavourful and aromatic style that made Jamaica rum famous back in the day. It certainly isn’t afraid of packing a punch (sorry…) being bottled at 57% abv navy strength.

Whilst a lot of the talk around the brand is Punch focused (and we did have a try of a lovely concoction Skippy had put together at the show) we are more excited about the prospect of it in a Mai Tai. Several bars including The Liars Club in Manchester and London Cocktail Club, Shaftesbury Avenue are already using Smith & Cross combined with a lighter rum in their recipes and we can see that trend spreading pretty quickly.

If you would like to get your hands on a bottle or ten then speak to Speciality Drinks on 020 8838 9367 or visit their website

We resisted the urge to get our tongue stuck on this...

And with good reason, because a glass full of good ice can turn the humble gin and tonic into an all-time great drink, something that is unfortunately much misunderstood by customers.

Having recently used them for an event we were running, Eskimo Ice invited us to come to their factory for a look round. And so, on one of the hottest days of the year so far, we spent an hour breathing steam in New Covent Garden market.

Eskimo’s warehouse is an ice-carver’s dream. There are huge, 120KG blocks along one wall in a room full of tools you would expect to see in a mechanic’s workshop.

The drills, sanders and saws are used to turn the blocks into an almost limitless variety of sculptures, including luges, corporate logos, and our personal favourite, rather fetching visions of the female form.

Some of the blocks are milky white, while others are crystal clear. I asked how this was achieved and was told that to create the ice, water is bombarded with UV rays to eradicate bacteria, then filtered to remove any solid particles.

Where's Ueno San when you need him?

Once this is done, to create clear ice the water is constantly circulated by pumps as it cools, which prevents bubbles forming around the ice crystals. This process means it takes a week for one 120KG block to freeze. The water used in opaque blocks is not circulated, and so the resulting bubbles make the ice look milky.

The 120KG blocks really are huge, and probably a little unwieldy for use by bartenders would like to carve their own ice. However, Eskimo also supply smaller, 30KG blocks that measure 50 x 22 x 25cm, which would be perfect for the job. These cost £29.40 and can be delivered for free anywhere in Central London.

You’ve probably seen Eskimo Ice vans bowling about London’s streets, delivering the customary bags of cubed, crushed and flaked. However, they also supply ice balls in both 5.5 and 6.6cm diameters, the latter fitting perfectly in an Old Fashioned glass.

We were also particularly impressed with some large, oversized cubes we found in our sample pack. They fit snugly in a standard highball, and looked fantastic in the resulting Monkey 47 gin and tonics we made, keeping the drink freezing cold for ages.

High ABV spirits only in this, obviously...

Any bars or brands looking for unusual or creative sculptures or centerpieces should give Eskimo a buzz too.

They showed me plans for an ice bar that looked pretty epic, and at the slightly smaller end of the scale, they can create a sculpture that completely encases a bottle but still allows the liquid to be served. This looked great and showcased the bottle perfectly.

The team at Eskimo were keen to talk about the weird and wonderful projects they have been asked to work on, and were very enthusiastic when I mentioned cocktail competitions.

It seems that as long as they are given a bit of notice, ‘the answer is yes, what’s the question’ seems to be the case when it comes to designing eye-catching ice.

As regular competition judges ourselves, BarLifeUK would be very impressed if some of those oversized cubes were rocked out in a drink we had to score.

The Eskimo Ice website is well worth a look, and they are happy to have a chat on the phone if you have any questions about all-things-ice.

Visit the Eskimo Ice website here.

God bless Southern Comfort for finally giving me the opportunity to use Kinks lyrics in an article. I salute you. Bold Black Cherry is the latest addition to the SoCo stable of flavours, joining original and lime.

The product is aimed squarely at customers between legal drinking age and 24, and is being supported by ‘here’s to the unexpected’ TV ads that will be airing in the UK shortly.

Branded POS and LED-illuminated bottles to support the launch are also available. One of the Southern Comfort Bold Black Cherry signature serves is called Black Cherry Jam, and can be made thusly:

Black Cherry Jam

• 35ml Southern Comfort Bold Black Cherry
• 2 barspoons of Morello cherry jam or cherry puree
• 40ml Apple juice
• Cherry
• Lemon wedge

Method

• Fill glass with crushed ice
• Add Southern Comfort Bold Black Cherry, Morillo jam and apple juice
• Place lid on jam jar and shake vigourously
• Garnish with cherry and lemon wedge

For more information, contact your Bacardi Brown Forman Brands rep.

His name is Ralph Erenzo and up until a few years ago he was a professional rock climber, his business partner is Brian Lee, he was an Engineer. With no experience in the industry they built the first bourbon distillery in the state of New York for 80 years and now produce one of the hottest products in our industry.

Ralph is a true character, when he says he built the distillery he isn’t being metaphorical, with the help of Brian they built every part of the Hudson distillery by hand. Learning as they went using the internet they successfully built the whole thing from the ground up (with the exception of the well for the water and ‘that was only because they guy that owned the machine wouldn’t lend it to us’). Even more remarkably, when they first turned it on it didn’t blow up, well not entirely, all the steam pipes leaked and they had to redo the lot of them.

Hudson Baby Bourbon

That was back in 2003, in late 2005 they turned on the stills for the first time, produced their first whiskey in 2006 and launched into Europe in 2007. They now produce 5 varieties of American Whiskey, employ 25 people and two years ago signed a distribution agreement with William Grant & Sons.

When our friends from across the pond bang on about ‘The American Dream’ I generally feel a little nauseous but you can’t deny Hudson is a darn fine example of it.

The 5 varieties in question are a Baby Bourbon and Corn Whiskey (the same base product with the Bourbon simply an aged version of the Corn Whiskey), the Manhattan Rye, 4 Grain Bourbon and Single Malt. We were lucky enough to try them all however from the start of April it is the Baby Bourbon and Manhattan Rye that will be hitting the UK with the others coming over later in the year.

All of the products (with the exception of the Corn Whiskey which is a New Make i.e. unaged) are put into heavily charred new American oak barrels to age. One of two unique things about this is the size of the barrels they use, which are very small for this industry – generally 3, 5 or 8 gallons. The reason for this was born out of necessity, they needed to age the whiskey quickly so they could get it out there and get some money coming in!

The other unique point was born more out of laziness than necessity. As I mentioned they had no experience in distilling and learnt as they went along, one day Brian took Ralph into the ageing warehouse and explained that all of the barrels needed to be regularly agitated and this was done by turning them. Ralph politely explained there was no chance of that happening so the next day Brian turned up to work with two massive subwoofers. These were rigged up and some heavy bass R ‘n B was pumped through the room. These base notes agitated the whiskey perfectly and this technique is still used on every barrel (although Ralph has now moved out of the room he had next to the warehouse to get more regular sleep).

As you can see these guys do things differently, including the fact that (with the obvious exception of the Four Grain) all of their whiskey is made from 100% of one grain. Their bourbons are the only 100% corn bourbons on the market and it produces a unique and exceptional product. Making a 100% Rye was the hardest job they had and as a result is currently their favourite.

Barrel Ageing Cocktails

Hudson Manhattan Rye

Hudson were also early innovators in the Barrel Ageing Cocktail trend. Ralph’s son was the one who saw the opportunity to target the bar industry and quickly started giving their used barrels free of charge to New York’s top bars for use in their ageing experiments. The small size of the barrels and the speed in which they can get from distillery to bar made them very popular with the cities bartenders.

In fact Hudson embrace the cocktail scene with open arms, Ralph sees his products as ‘a jumping off point for bartenders as far as we are concerned’. When getting into a new bar Ralph will hand over his business card and tell the bartenders that if any customers have questions about the product to give them his card and tell them to call his mobile, anytime day or night. They also bring bar staff from New York to the distillery for a day to look around and, if they so desire, they can stay for a few days and work various jobs in the distillery to get a better understanding.

From certain people this could easily be viewed as a crass marketing ploy or even a way of getting free labour but not in the case of Hudson. In fact it is this very attitude, combined with the quality of the products that has given Hudson such a cult following in the New York bar industry.

Not ones to rest on their laurels, despite the fact they are struggling to keep up with demand at the moment, they are working on or already producing an Apple Brandy (the Hudson Valley is famous for its apples), a Cassis, a Gin with the base neutral spirit being corn and apple mixed and a range of bitters made by and dreamt up by the bottling line crew.

The amount of product coming into the UK is very limited so if you want to be one of the few venues to get your hands on the Baby Bourbon and Manhattan Rye when it’s released we suggest you start chatting up your First Drinks rep right away or calling them on 01256 748100 – oh and I’ll have a Manhattan Rye Manhattan please.

Sipping a drink made by Jim Meehan and chatting to Banks Rums Masterblender Arnaud de Trabuc, it was turning into a good day.

It all started a couple of hours earlier with a Banks 5 Island Negroni made by Ian Goodman’s great bar team at Oxo as we waited for Arnaud to arrive (he was understandably running a little late as he’d just received news he had become a Grandfather for the first time) to talk us through the new Banks 7 Golden Age Rum.

Arnaud spreading the good word of Banks

Before long Jim and Arnaud were in full flow as the attentive crowd listened to the story behind their new golden rum. Whereas the Banks 5 Island blend uses, unsurprisingly, rums from 5 countries the & 7 Golden Age uses, yep that’s right, rums from 7 countries.

To the original Trinidad, Jamaica, Guyana, Barbados and Java, Arnaud has added Guatemalan and Panamanian rums to the mix.

This had led the amount of rums used in the blend to rise to 23 and balancing this all together is obviously no mean feat. Arnaud, who has a long history in the rum industry, was inspired to blend rums to make Banks by the Scotch and Cognac industries and the quality of products this produces.

Jim explained that every rum brought something unique to the blend such as the Javanese rum which he likened to the ‘bitters in a Manhattan’.

After sampling the 7 Golden Age, Jim jumped behind the bar loosened his shaking arm up and started knocking out some cocktails inspired by the brand, starting with a twist on a Mulata which was superb.

Whilst Jim was mixing up a storm we took the opportunity to have a chat with him, seeing as he is traveling the world these days with Banks we wanted to know where he thought the most exciting bar scene in the world is at the moment?

‘London, definitely. Over the last 12 months the new bars that have opened have been fantastic added to this the re-emergence of bars such as the Artesian has London ahead. In the next 12 months there are going to be some exciting things happening in New York which should help redress the balance but probably not enough to take it ahead of London.’

The always dapper Jim Meehan

Jim then went on to explain just how lucky bar operators have it over here by pointing out that brands financial involvement in bars is a huge help and something that is illegal in the US. The same can be said for distilling your own products on site which, is also illegal over the pond.

When he was finally freed from behind the bar Jim was gracious enough to sign a copy of his excellent The PDT Cocktail Book for all of the attendees. BarLifeUK will be doing a full review next week and Jim has promised us a signed copy to give away to you wonderful people.

A night out in Happiness Forgets and Hawksmore followed with the Spirits Cartel guys, Jim, the Goodmans (Ian and JJ) and Dan Priseman but that will stay between us. Needless to say rum, beer and hotdogs were consumed.

For more info on Banks 7 Golden Age or 5 Island get in touch with the Spirits Cartel via their website here and keep an eye on BarLifeUK for the chance to get your hands on a signed copy of Jim’s book.

Launched by Hi-Spirits and the brain child of Chairman Jeremy Hill, Vodka One has been successfully trialed in several high street venues to great success. Amongst the other benefits highlighted above it also produces zero wastage and houses built-in stock control software.

The new Vodka One system also puts spirits right in front of the customer the moment they walk to the bar with the delivery system sitting on the bar top in an area long the sole domain of beer and cider (let’s face it their bottles have been encroaching on the spirit ruled back bar for many years).

On top of that it frees up a huge amount of back bar space that high volume high street venues have had to give to their house pour vodka to keep up with demand. With the Vodka One system all of that back bar space can now be given over to different spirits, to help encourage people to try something new.

Company chairman Jeremy Hill said: “We believe Vodka One is a wonderful piece of brand development and technology rolled into one. Vodka One is crafted and five-times distilled in the United States and is delivered at a perfectly chilled one degree centigrade within one second. The benefits are numerous and include: zero product waste, fast serve speed, reduced packaging and in-built stock control software. Vodka One has been trialed at a well-known high street operator and it’s been shown to dramatically reduce serve time to the customer, not least because it’s a single-handed operation, allowing mixers to be added at the same time.  A lot of time, and often product, is wasted at the moment as staff switch over bottles of vodka on optics.”

If you would like more information on Vodka One then visit the Hi-Spirits website here or give them a call on 01932 252100

When it’s with Herradura and El Jimador she can say whatever she wants, plus plus Ruben was over from Mexico so I’m not missing out on that.

Ruben is one of those characters in this wonderful industry of ours that makes it so enjoyable. Venn Street Records in Clapham was the venue, Stu Fritz and Ciaran McNicholas from Mangrove were the hosts and 6 tequilas and some education were the order of the day.

An attentive crowd

The history of tequila is a rich one dating back to the 13th Century when the local Indians in Mexico were surrounded by agave.

The legend goes that they were unaware of how to use this plant for anything other than roofing material until lightening stuck some agave one night instantly cooking the plant and producing a milky substance which they turned into what we would these days call a Mezcal Wine (and presumably not touch with a barge pole).

Jump forward to 1521 and the Spanish turned up with their distilling knowledge and created a basic Blanco Tequila. In 1870 Herradura (meaning good luck) was born and 124 years later (that’s 1994 for those trying to do the maths on their fingers) El Jimador was introduced.

These were the two brands we were to taste and the format of the session gave a great opportunity to compare the two brands, tasting the Herradura and El Jimador alongside each other in their different guises – Blanco, Reposado and Anejo.

Time for some tasting

First up came the El Jimador Blanco at 38% and the Herradura Blanco at 40% which is aged in new oak barrels for 45 days, very rare for a Blanco Tequila and giving it a slight colour and oaky/vanilla/peppery taste. Both EJ and H start with the same raw product 100% Agave Tequila made from agave between 7 – 10 years old, cooked in clay ovens for 26 hours at 95 degrees Celsius and using a 100% spontaneous fermentation process (no chemicals folks).

Just in case some fo you didn't know what a tasting looks like

All of these elements along with a double distillation process, with each one having the heads and tails cut, are designed to give a quality tequila base from which to produce the different varietals. If the Blanco’s were anything to go by then they are certainly doing a grand job.

This was followed up by the El Jimador Reposado which is aged in oak for 2 months and the Herradura Reposado which is aged in oak for 11 months (9 times the industry standard 60 days). As you can imagine the difference in aging time gives two very distinct tequilas, both are excellent but it was the Herradura that took this round for me.

Herradura has a certain history with Reposado tequila, in fact Herradura is the history of Reposado as it was they who invented the category back in 1974 (they also invented Extra Anejo for the record). El Jimador Reposado is not to be outdone however and has been the best selling tequila in Mexico since 1997.

Finally came the Anejo’s with El Jimador’s being aged for 12 months and Herradura’s for 2 years. It was the first time that I have tried the EJ Anejo and I immediately regretted not finding it earlier in my life. It is a superb tequila with real Banoffee Pie notes and I am reliably informed by Ciaran only about £18 a bottle making it a steal as well.

One of the reasons the EJ is so good, in my opinion, is the heavy charring that the new oak barrels get before the tequila is placed inside, this really brings out the almost bourbon/rum qualities whilst still maintaining the very distinct tequila flavour. Herradura use different charring levels for different expressions with some getting a light or medium char.

All of the barrels are smaller than industry standard and all are only used a maximum of 9 years, the extra flavour this gives all of the aged tequilas is very apparent.

So far my Thursday was going pretty well with 6 tequilas and some extra knowledge inside me so I took the opportunity to sit down with Ruben for a quick chat.

Ruben time

Ruben is a tequila man through and through. He drinks his tequila straight (in fact he drinks all his spirits straight) occasionally with a glass of ice but usually as they come. His favourite tequila depends on the time of day, in the evenings he likes El Jimador Reposado however (and at this point you are all going to bow down to the man) for his pre-lunch tequila he likes an unaged Herradura at 46% that, unfortunately, isn’t available in this country.

Ruben in full flow

As you will have gathered by now this man enjoys his product (as well as whiskey both Tennessee and Scotch) however he has judged many a cocktail competition and although he was too polite to pick a favourite he has certainly tried some great creations (I did get the distinct impression if you want to impress him when he comes to your bar though, give it him straight).

As for the bars he enjoys he had visited Callooh Callay for the first time the night before and was already proclaiming it as one of his favourite in the world, in fact London’s bars in general got massive thumbs up along with The Library Bar in New York and the Tap Room at Pebble Beach Golf Course.

Ruben was also very proud of the environmental side of their distillery which is amazingly sustainable. The aforementioned heads and tails are not thrown away but instead used to produce energy which powers 13% of the distillery.

The cleaned water is also used on the grounds and fields and the left over agave fibre goes through a 6 month process to make compost which helps make the new agave’s grow.

Great guy, great tequila and great eco message. When he’s next in town make sure you get along to one of his sessions.

Named for the London stockbrokers who traditionally celebrated  a successful day on the trading floor with a dry gin cocktail, each bottle of Broker’s is capped with a miniature bowler hat, the traditional headgear of city gents.

Broker’s is made in a 200-year-old gin distillery in Warwickshire, using a traditional copper pot-still.  The raw ingredients are quadruple-distilled pure grain spirit made from English wheat, and ten natural botanicals.  The botanicals are steeped for 24 hours in the spirit, which is then distilled for a fifth time.

The many awards and accolades won by Broker’s Gin include a Masters Award in the super-premium category at the London Gin Masters in 2011, the Chairman’s Trophy at The Ultimate Spirits Challenge in 2010, a Platinum Award at the World Beverage Competition in 2007 and a Gold Medal at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition in 2005.

Broker’s London Dry Gin is distilled in two strengths, at 40% and 47% ABV.  Cases of 6 x 70cl bottles and 60 x 5cl miniatures are available in both strengths.

For more information contact Hi-Spirits on 01932 252 100, email info@hi-spirits.com or visit www.hi-spirits.com.