Equal Portions of Everything: A Journalist

A while ago, I read about a journalist in one of my cocktail books. It looked interesting at the time, like one of those classic cocktails the artsy crowd drank in the 30s at the Algonquin. I tried ordering one at Cesar’s where I know they have an extensive bar - but they hadn’t heard of it and at the time I couldn’t remember all the ingredients.

I forgot about it until recently when I was at Zut, a restaurant bar on 4^th Street, with a friend who asked for a suggestion for a dry drink. My mind jumped to a journalist, but then I was worried the bar tender there wouldn’t know what was in it either. John ordered an old-fashioned, but later that evening we looked it up and made them at his place. It’s a gin based drink that has both sweet and dry vermouth, triple sec (or cointreau if you are going upscale), lemon juice and a dash of bitters. Only problem is I didn’t read the proportions properly and mixed equal portions of everything. A few evenings later, I tried again – paying close attention to the ratios.

2 oz gin

1/4 oz sweet vermouth

1/4 oz dry vermouth

1/4 oz triple sec

1/4 oz lemon juice

dash of bitters

Perfect! Not sweet, but not killer dry like a martini either. Despite all those ingredients the flavor of the gin really comes through, enhanced even. I used pretty cheap ingredients for everything but the gin. To be local, I used No 209 which is distilled in SF. For those you in Philadelphia, you could use locally made Bluecoat gin. Apparently the cocktail first made an appearance in “The Savoy Cocktail Book” out of London in the 30’s. I wonder which journalist was its namesake. I like to imagine Hemingway drinking them. Cheers!