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By Root 384 0

lemon juice, and maraschino liqueur, all stirred over ice and served in a cocktail glass. I also wrote that no one really knew why this drink was called the Aviation. Well, it turns out I was all wrong. It’s not totally my fault. I gleaned my misinformation, and adapted my recipe, from the august body of cocktail knowledge to which I had access in May 2007. Specifically, I relied on The Savoy Cocktail Book—one of the bibles of its genre. My error perfectly illustrates a couple of points about the swift evolution of cocktail making that happened at the end of the 2000s. As cocktail geeks delved further into dusty, out-of-print cocktail guides, we soon learned that our Aviation was missing a key ingredient: the purple, floral liqueur called crème de violette. Adding a tiny amount of it to the gin, lemon juice, and maraschino results in a sky blue drink. So the name Aviation suddenly becomes self-explanatory. Today, of course, you can find any number of speakeasies that will serve you a historically correct Aviation. But that’s a recent development—crème de violette didn’t become available until 2008.

AVIATION

Serves 1

1 ½ ounces gin

¾ ounce freshly squeezed lemon juice

½ ounce maraschino liqueur

¼ ounce crème de violette or Crème Yvette

Fill a mixing glass halfway with ice. Add the gin, lemon juice, maraschino liqueur, and crème de violette. Stir vigorously, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Maraschino, absinthe, and curaçao were among the first liqueurs to make their way into cocktails in nineteenth-century America. Much of the time, they were paired with genever. The Bols genever we have in the United States is a special formula created specifically for the American market, but it mimics very closely a traditional oude genever style, and those who may have enjoyed a taste of it in Amsterdam will recognize it as the real thing. Beyond Bols, real Dutch genever is not widely available in the United States. Some brands, such as Boomsma and Zuidam, are here but hard to find.

When you track down your genever, try this classic adapted from the legendary nineteenth-century bartender Jerry Thomas’s 1876 bar guide. In those days, there were three standard cocktails for brandy, whiskey, or genever: Plain, Fancy, or Improved. Fancy meant you got a dash of curaçao. Improved meant you got dashes of both absinthe and maraschino liqueur.

IMPROVED GIN COCKTAIL

Serves 1

2 ounces genever

1 teaspoon simple syrup

½ teaspoon maraschino liqueur

2 dashes Angostura bitters

1 dash absinthe

Lemon peel twist, for garnish

Fill a mixing glass halfway with ice. Add the genever, simple syrup, maraschino liqueur, bitters, and absinthe. Stir vigorously for 30 seconds, then strain into a cocktail glass. Twist the lemon peel over the drink, rub it around the rim of the glass, then use it as a garnish.

Another Round of Drinks:

Fizzes and Collins

If I told you that mixing a drink required you to squeeze the juice from a lemon into a glass and add a tablespoonful of sugar or some simple syrup, it wouldn’t seem so difficult, right? It would be somewhat less complicated than, say, driving a car while chatting on your cell phone? Or, if you worked as a bartender, perhaps less complicated than, say, drawing a Miller Lite from a tap while chatting up an attractive bar patron about her new lower-back tattoo?

Well, then, allow me to be blunt: I harbor a major dislike of bars that sidestep that simple maneuver by using commercial sour mixes made from concentrate or powder. Most of us have by now shaken that mid-twentieth-century love of artificial and processed foods and drinks. We don’t see a lot of Tang being served these days, or Salisbury steak TV dinners in aluminum trays, or squeeze-tube Velveeta, and I think most of us have given up the Jetsons fantasy that we’ll someday get all our flavor and nutrients from a little pill served by a robot. Why, then, during this supposed golden renaissance of cocktail making does commercial sour mix persist?

This mix usually sneaks up on you, like a mullet seen from the