Sazerac

Technically, the Sazerac isn't so much a Bond cocktail as it is a Leiter cocktail since it's Felix Leiter who orders them while the pair investigate a lead at the Fillet of Soul bar in Harlem in the film version of Live and Let Die. And, sadly, Bond never actually gets to try one because his table sinks into the floor and he is captured by the film's super groovy villain, Mr. Big.

Which is a shame because James Bond would have loved the Sazerac and it might have given a little spice and flavor to this otherwise rather drab entry in the series. It is straight forward, butch and incredibly sensual which is remarkable given how few ingredients are in it.

Sazerac cocktail with absurdly long lemon twist.

This is probably the point where I should come clean and admit that the Sazerac is one of my all-time favorite cocktails. I won't even pretend to be a little objective about this cocktail. It is magnificent. If I were sent to a desert isle with only the makings of one cocktail, I'd likely choose the Sazerac (although I would dearly miss my martini).  I am not a huge fan of anise-flavored spirits but the rinse of absinthe interacts with the rye that brings out the oak, vanilla, tobacco and other notes not usually as present in the whiskey. And it does it in a way that isn't cloying or harsh. Whoever it was coined the phrase "more than a sum of it's parts" was talking about the Sazerac cocktail (not really) or should have been. The flavor of the rye and the flavor of the absinthe almost cancel each other out and become something new entirely with only the best qualities of each remaining.

Initially made with cognac until the phylloxera epidemic of the 1880's and has since been made with rye whiskey, probably because it was easily obtainable and popular in the region. And because it is so old, there is a correct way to make a Sazerac and many incorrect ways; most of which will yield the same drink*. Yes, making a Sazerac is as much respecting mythology as it is mixology.

Strip all the lore away and this is really just a brilliant riff on the Old Fashioned cocktail. It's spirits, sugar, bitters and one extra ingredient, in this case, absinthe. Add a twist of lemon instead of the controversial and entirely unnecessary maraschino cherry and you have an amazing cocktail that only superficially resembles its predecessor.

The "correct" way to make a Sazerac (more or less):

1. Fill a rocks glass with ice (and perhaps cold water) and put to the side to cool.
2. Put a single sugar cube (or more, if you don't like your pride too much) in a second rocks glass
3. Add .5 oz. water to disolve the sugar, and drench the sugar cube in Peychaud's bitters until it's completely red.
4. Muddle the sugar cube until it's mostly dissolved in the water and bitters mixture.
5. Add 2 oz. rye whiskey and stir.
6. Pour ice water out of glass #1 but keep the ice in. Add the whiskey, bitters and sugar from glass #2 and stir for 20 seconds or so.
7. In glass #2, pour in roughly a teaspoon of absinthe, swirl it around to coat the inside of the glass and discard it.
8. Strain the cocktail from glass #1 to glass #2 and then twist a bit of lemon peel (having removed the pith) over the top, run the zest across the top of the glass and either discard or drop the garnish in according to taste (I'd like mine in, please).
9. Kneel in the direction of New Orleans and pay your respects to Tom Handy, ex-manager of the Sazerac Bar

Okay, I made up that last step. But still, if 8 steps sounds like a lot of work for a cocktail with only 4 ingredients, that's because it is.

Here's how I make mine:

1. Put the following into a cocktail shaker or, failing that, pint glass:

• 2 oz. rye whiskey
• 2 dashes Peychaud's bitters (I use 1 goodly dash for each ounce of whiskey. Making a 3 oz. Sazerac? Use 3 dashes)
• 1 to 2 tsp. simple syrup (Or, better yet, gum syrup. For people new to the Sazerac or spirits-forward drinks, I often start with 2 tsp. to ease them into it)

2. Stir with ice for at least 20 seconds. More if your rye is overproof (higher than 80 proof)

3. Rinse a pre-chilled rocks glass with absinthe (if you make a lot of these, it's worth it to use a spray mister to minimize waste of the absinthe)

4. Strain cocktail into the absinthe coated glass

5. Twist lemon peel over the top so the oils from the zest coat the surface of the drink and drop in. Unlike the Old Fashioned, the garnish in this case is not optional. The lemon twist is a key part of the flavor profile.

Dilution is powerful magic. Over dilute and you have weak drink. Don't dilute enough and you have fire water burning a hole in your mouth before you can even get to the flavor. This is cool if you want to show how tough you are but not so cool if you want to make drinks both you and your guests will love.

Another point: Sugar, like salt, is a flavor carrier. It doesn't just make drinks sweeter, it does a lot to open up the complex flavors in spirits.  And, in rye and absithe, there are a lot of flavors just waiting for you to unlock them. If you're used to sweeter drinks, go ahead and use more sugar than the recipe calls for; chances are, you'll end up dialing it back over time to the single teaspoon (aka sugar cube) specified in the recipe.

About the ingredients: Use something decent. The rye has nothing to hide behind so if you go with a cheap brand, you're going to get a cheap tasting result. I like Bulleit and Sazerac as good standard rye whiskeys for this drink. There are others but don't skimp if you can help it.  I like St. George Spirits' absinthe but Kubler or Lucid will do. Stay away from anything died green (Le Torment, aptly named) or, oddly, red.

Also, since this cocktail was originally made with brandy, try a cognac in place of the rye. Or, since they compliment each other so well (cognac adding body to the spicey, sometimes strident rye), try a half rye/half cognac Sazerac for a wonderfully rich alternative.

Cheers!



*I say "most" because once I was served what the bartender insisted was a Sazerac with lemon juice in it. We went back and forth and she instisted that, because she was standing behind the bar slinging drinks, I must have been mistaken. I have only found one book that listed this variation and listed it as a variation, not the original. Still, if your Sazerac has juice of any kind in it, send it back. And tell that bartender that vermouth doesn't belong in an Old Fashioned either and she should really take up another line of work.

 •••

Black Velvet (beer cocktail)

At the time of this writing, the 23rd James Bond film by EON Productions is being filmed and, along with the 50th anniversary, is hotly anticipated. Everything from Tom Ford's suits for Daniel Craig (one size too small and too trendy, in this writer's opinion) to the product placement of beer manufacturer Heineken is being scrutinized and argued over. I'm sure, once Skyfall is released, we'll likely have other shallow subjects to get in a twist about but for the time being, this is it.

The argument regarding beer, in case you've been distracted by real life or you are somehow reading this from the far off future, is two-fold: One, the concern seems to be about product placement somehow compromising the artistic integrity of the film and other other is one of perception. The quote regarding the latter seems best summed up as: "Bond trades in his sophisticated vodka martini for a lowly beer." This unacceptable, right?  After all, Bond, as far as most film goers know, is a working class man with only the most elegant taste, who almost exclusively consumes vodka martinis. 

This is, of course, only true enough to make people believe it. 

First, let's get the pesky issue of product placement out of the way. Ian Fleming wasn't even a little bit shy about infusing his novels with brand names to give authenticity, richness and style to his own literary product. From the first, Bond is calling his favorite gin (Gordon's.... not that this writer agrees with him) and his champagne of the moment is almost always specified (Veuve Cliquot and Taittinger in Casino Royale, if memory serves). The 007 novels were intended as escapism and Bond's travels to exotic locales were almost overshadowed by the detail Fleming gave his epicurean adventures and personal preferences. His wrist watch, according to Fleming, was a Rolex Oyster Perpetual of some unspecified variety and, in Casino Royale, Bond sets the tone for ordering an avocado- something most subjects of post-war England would die for and could never have. His suits were tailored and his cigarettes handmade with a special blend of Balkan and Turkish tobacco with three gold bands on them and the list goes one. Bond knows what he likes from how his scrambled eggs are prepared to how his drinks are served. So when the films started introducing brands (Lore has it that Sean Connery wears an ersatz Rolex Oyster Perpetual modeled on Cubby Broccoli's own watch in Dr. No), it was not only not a violation of the character, it was almost a required element.  This is not to say that the films are always graceful about how they place their affiliates' products but the presence of recognized brand names goes all the way back, not only to the first film but the first novel.  The question is not about whether or not it's a sell-out. Of course it's a sell out!  It always has been. In the case of James Bond, it's arguably part not only of his character but the world he inhabits. The question then is about how it's handled and we won't know that until Skyfall is released. One hopes the presence of Heineken will only add to a sense of realism in the landscape Bond traverses and will not interfere with our suspension of disbelief.

The question then, is one of what Bond chooses to imbibe. James Bond drinks vodka martinis. And gin martinis. And Ouzo. And bourbon. And scotch. And glüh vein. And sake. And brandy. And, yes, beer. When James Bond drinks beer in the novel Goldfinger (popping off for a quick one as Sean Connery's Bond suggests in the film whilst Q introduces him to his enhanced Aston Martin DB5), it is Löwenbräu and used to chase down a double schnapps. He does the same in The Living Daylights. When he and Felix Leiter are driving from New York to Saratoga in Diamonds are Forever, he orders a Miller's High Life.  The novels are all about the high life and the literary Bond, like his celluloid counterpart, is very much a man who appreciates specificity.

In a way, this is the function James Bond serves in our culture. It's why we queue up to see each new film, whether our favorite actor is playing the role or not, whether the tone of the film is light, gritty or something in between. The writing, the music, the actors and the styles all change.  Even the brands change. Many of the brands Ian Fleming enjoyed have either been eclipsed by finer products, changed in quality or disappeared completely. What has not changed,  possibly, the only thing that has not changed in the nearly 60 years since Casino Royale was first published is that James Bond always lives the high life. He is a working man who somehow drives the best cars, travels to the most beautiful locales, wears the best clothes, makes love to the most beautiful women, eats the finest food and drinks the most sophisticated beverages. For most of us, the 007 films are our only glimpse into the way of the monied and James Bond is our proxy, showing us what sophistication looks like. We either want to be him or we want to bed him and his exotic lifestyle is the key. James Bond is a kind of blank canvas on to which we can superimpose ourselves** and the fact that there will always be another actor playing the role helps reinforce our own ability to imagine ourselves in 007's custom made shoes. There's something almost sacred in this pact.

The audience can forgive almost any transgression; from painful double entendres to logic holes so big you could hide a giant orbiting space station inside them but when the 007 franchise fails us in the high living department, we rebel. Timothy Dalton learned this the hard way with License to Kill in 1989.  His attempt at demythologizing James Bond was met with lukewarm box office returns despite his very credible acting and clear reverence for the original source material. Timothy Dalton was Fleming's Bond more than any other except for one thing: No one wanted to be his interpretation of James Bond*.

Which brings us back to beer. Regular folk drink beer. It is inexpensive and considered common. We look to James Bond to show us something special, something we cannot easily experience ourselves not something we could pick up at the local convenience store. This isn't just an affectation of the films, it's woven into the DNA from the very first words on the page.

But let's get one thing clear.  James Bond is a drinker. He has a high stress job and lives, at least in the novels, in a world where Xanax, Ativan and other at-will sedatives do not exist and even the admission of an emotional problem comes with a devastating stigma. Bond self medicates with booze. He also enjoys pleasant sensory experiences for all they offer in light of the fact that, as Daniel Craig's Bond states quite clearly, "00's have a short life expectancy."  James Bond is picky but not overly so. In a pinch, he will drink Martinis from a can (in the novel Live and Let Die) or whatever the local beer might be. In fact, the only thing James Bond does not drink, is water.

Not only will James Bond drink beer in a pinch but he enjoys it, particularly paired with food and usually during the day when he still needs his wits about him for the work ahead. In the novel Diamonds are Forever, Bill Tanner, the Chief of Staff and Bond's best friend in the service, takes Bond out to "black velvets and dressed crab" for lunch after their briefing about Bond's mission with M. Nothing tells you either you're a favorite in the firm or that you're about to go on a mission you're not expected to return from like a free lunch of dressed crab and black velvets!

Dressed crab is, of course, crab meat, scooped out of, and served up inside, the shell; traditionally served up with brown bread and high quality mayonnaise. Make mayonnaise yourself and you know what they mean by "high quality". It's a completely different product from what stores sell in vacuum sealed jars. Dressed crab is a luxurious and high-maintenance meal enhanced, no doubt by the Black Velvet which is, ostensibly, just equal parts Guinness draught beer and a brut champagne, served in either a champagne flute or a pint glass. Some float the beer over the champagne (which looks great but is something I was unable to accomplish), some float the champagne on top (at which I was marginally more successful) and some just mix the two (which I ended up doing for the mixed flavor of the two, which was delightful). 

As histories about mixed drinks go, most are more legend and myth than fact but the story of the Black Velvet is that, according to the legendary historian of mixed drinks David Wondrich (who endorses the mixing method), the drink was created by a bartender at the Brooks's Club of London in 1861 as an alternative to wearing a black arm band to morn the death of Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's Prince Consort who was very popular at the time. 

Here's how I made mine:

• Fill half a pint or highball glass with Guinness draught beer (Guinness extra stout works too but the flavors mix less seamlessly)
• Place a large spoon with the convex side facing skyward inside the top of the glass and gently top with champagne or another sparkling wine. I used a non-vintage (N.V.) Piper-Heidseick Brut but I suspect any sparkling wine will do.

If you like the notion of having a glass of sparkling wine followed by a glass of beer, enjoy.  If not, stir gently and drink the alchemical magic the two make together. Where the Guinness ends, the champagne takes over and just at the finish, both blend and become one; simultaneously light-hearted and sophisticated. For a simple drink, the Black Velvet is either incredibly brilliant or an incredibly lucky combination.

I tried both a stout and a draught from Guinness in two separate instances. While the draught flavors seamlessly integrated with the Piper-Heidseick (which is a very nice low-to-mid-end champagne), the stout did less well, maintaining a gaminess not present in the draught. In any case, this is a very forgiving drink and worthy of any warm day or occasion where your immediate superior offers you what might be your last free lunch.

•••

*Full disclosure: I totally wanted to be Timothy Dalton's incarnation of James Bond. Are you kidding me? Dalton was Bond as far as I was concerned. He was tough, dapper and took Bond seriously (this last trait is less important to me as I get older). The Living Daylights more than made up for the worst offenses of Roger Moore's tenure. That said, mine was certainly the minority opinion and License to Kill... ah, the lost opportunities.

 ** There is a good interview with David Leigh from James Bond Dossier on the subject that elaborates on this point.

Veuve Clicquot Rosé

"I'm not going to sleep with you," said Tiffany Case in a matter-of-fact voice, "so don't waste your money getting me tight. But I'll have another and probably another after that. I just don't want to drink your vodka Martinis under false pretenses."

Bond laughed. He gave the order and turned back to her. "We haven't ordered dinner yet, "He said. "I was going to suggest shellfish and hock. That might have changed your mind. The combination's supposed to have quite an effect."

"Listen Bond," Said Tiffany, "it'd take more than Crabmeat Ravigotte to get me into bed. In any case, since it's your check, I'm going to have caviar and what you English call cutlets and some pink champagne. I don't often date a good-looking Englishman, and the dinner's going to live up to the occasion."Suddenly she leaned forward towards him and reached out a hand and put it over his. "Sorry,"She said abruptly, "I didn't mean that about the check. The dinner's on me. But I did mean it about the occasion."  

So begins the chapter "Bitter Champagne" where Bond, under cover, reunites with Tiffany Case to celebrate their successful diamond smuggling job. Three Martinis and some surprisingly barbed banter later, Bond orders and tastes the champagne. He finds it ice cold and tasting faintly of strawberries.  In retrospect, I can't help but wonder if his impression of the champagne is a metaphor for Tiffany. 

From James Bond Omnibus 001

Tiffany Case is emotionally damaged and mercurial in a way no other character in the series is with the possible exception of Bond himself; seeming for all the world like someone desperate for escape from her life but unable to imagine anything more lasting than a fancy dinner and a few cocktails with a handsome Englishman she has no intention of taking to bed.  The entire chapter is devoted to their evening at Club 21 in New York as Bond tries, mostly without success, to charm information out of her about The Spangled Mob.  She is clearly unashamed, even proud, of her work but clearly hates it and herself for doing it all the same.  007 is out of his depth with Tiffany Case and the disconnect between their obvious attraction to one another and their own self loathing about their individual and conflicting jobs is what gives the novel its vaguely schizoid emotional center as well as propelling the needlessly complicated plot forward. 

In a sense, this feeling of unattainable or unrealized potential resonates with my own feelings about the champagne they drink with dinner; Veuve Clicquot Rosé .  On the whole, I found it pleasant but somehow inconsistent. What flavor notes were present were balanced in a way not unlike Bollinger N.V. (at nearly the same price point) but, unlike the Bollinger, the mouth feel seemed a bit rough with what one of my tasting companions described as "vivacious bubbles."  Where the flavors and texture of the Bollinger were in complete harmony, I felt the Vueve Cliquot Rosé was a study in minimalist melodies with arrhythmic structures.

I did not encounter notes of strawberries but those of cassis and green apples. I found this mildly surprising as cassis is not a flavor one associates with Reims where the Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin champagne house is located but with Dijon (some 200 miles south).  

Another of my companions enthusiastically remarked that the wine tasted "like An Affair to Remember", sophisticated, romantic and dry and, perhaps, this is where it comes to down to personal taste. Everything I might want from a Rosé Brut is here but I prefer bold, confident notes to delicate ones and while this was a very enjoyable champagne and one I would not hesitate to drink again (particularly with seafood), where I found myself wishing for a delicate texture, I found it rough and where I yearned for slightly stronger flavors, I found restraint.  

That said, this would be a delightful champagne to pair with crème de cassis for a Kir Royale, owing to the predominate (such as it is) cassis flavor.

Note: It is, perhaps, worth mentioning that in a party of four, mine was the minority opinion. My companions all found the Vueve Cliquot Rosé to be a more than satisfactory champagne. 

Raki and Ouzo

It is evening in the gypsy camp outside of Istanbul. It is an inopportune evening to arrive but because Kerim Bey is a friend of the family, he and his guest, James Bond will be allowed to stay. "Ah, raki!" He says with enthusiasm as he sits down to dinner, "filthy stuff!" Later, after the Bulgars attack the camp and Kerim Bay is shot due to his pistol jamming, Bond pours raki over his wound and says "Meanwhile, I'll take care of this 'filthy stuff'" as he starts to take a swig of the bottle. Powerful stuff, I think to myself, after all, Kerim Bey's bullet riddled arm heals in just a day or two. Magnificent! I must try some.


So it goes anyway in the film version of From Russia with Love. In the novel, things transpire slightly differently. First, his the way to Turkey, Bond endures a harrowing flight to Athens and then, once safely landed, walks straight to the transit lounge bar and orders an Ouzo, drinks it down and follows it with a mouthful of ice water. Fleming writes "There was a strong bite under the sickly taste of anise and Bond felt it light a quick, small fire down his throat and in his stomach. He put down his glass and ordered another." Thus, he is fortified for the next leg of his journey. Well, after "an excellent dinner, half a bottle of Calvet claret and two martinis", he is, at any rate!


Once in Turkey, Bond meets the Head of Station T, Kerim Bey. Unlike his celluloid counterpart, the novel's Kerim Bey is a big, powerfully built man but much as in the film, he has strong opinions and is intensely likeable and pragmatic. When Bond arrives, he opines that serious discussion can only transpire with Turkish coffee or raki and, as it is morning and too early for raki, he chooses coffee. Of course, their discussion continues well into lunch, and he introduces Bond to his first taste of raki. Bond's appraisal is that raki is identical to ouzo and he drinks it down without complaint. But, of course he does! He is Bond.



The next time Bond encounters Raki, it is served at the gypsy camp the way many people today serve table wine. There is an open bottle in front of them, served with water on the side and several other unopened bottles, planned for a long evening of dining and deliberation. It is clearly meant to accompany the hot, spicy goulash they are served and meant to eat with their fingers. After the attack, Kerim Bey is not injured as in the film, although his gun does indeed jam. Bond has some raki to calm down and hands some to Kerim and to Vavra, leader of the gypsies.


At no point in the novel is raki referred to as "filthy stuff" In fact, in my own research, I found many remarks about it's similarity to ouzo and even to absinthe but I found none that supported such a remark. Rather the opposite. Many claim that raki is the unofficial liquor of Turkey.


In part owing to the fact that From Russia with Love is one of my favorite 007 novels and certainly my favorite of the film series featuring Sean Connery, I was deeply intrigued and purchased a bottle each of raki and of ouzo so I could try them side by side and see for myself if Ian Fleming was correct about them being identical. I did not find either had a "sickly taste of anise" but then, that is a matter of taste. Understand that I only bought the best of the handful of brands available to me, this is by no means a definitive evaluation of the two classifications of spirits; merely this writer's impressions of two examples of this spirit.



Ouzo - Compared with raki, ouzo (in the form of Ouzo 12) is the lower proof of the two spirits (at 80 proof) and more straight forward in terms of nose and flavor profile. The nose is very anise forward with a hint of lemon and lime. The flavor is anise forward with a subtle note of wintergreen in the finish. The color, when mixed with an equal amount of water was cloudy but not opaque.


I found that it pared nicely with spicy food, cleansing the palette as needed. My companion and I found it very drinkable but a good deal less herbaceous and far sweeter than absinthe or Herbsaint but certainly drier and more nibble than Sambuca or, another anise-forward spirit. Paring with food did much to repair this potential inequity.



Raki - Indeed, as Mr. Fleming asserts, very similar to ouzo but not identical. While both spirits are made from fermented poultice of grapes and occasionally other fruits and both are distilled with anise and other herbs found in abundance around the Mediterranean and both are sweetened, the are not identical. Our example of raki possessed a deeper flavor with subtle savory notes and pronounced, but not unpleasant, bitter notes not present in the ouzo. Very much an "anise spirit" but with enough other herbal notes present that the anise seemed less "forward" while the alcohol burn was stronger; which is not surprising considering the spirit is sold at 90 proof. Oddly, the raki possessed in both the nose and the flavor, in addition to the expected anise presence, a kind of acrid quality that was hard to identify. My companion said it reminded her of cheap tequila "mixtos" from her youth while it reminded me of the scent of tires; certainly a "funk". This is not necessarily a negative. Many old spirits, Maraschino and Batavia Arrak in particular, possess a kind of funk that modern palettes find disturbing. I attribute this to what I imagine was a wider, more forgiving palette in generations past but if this quality is present in all or even most incarnations of raki, I can see why the 007 filmmakers chose to refer to raki as "filthy stuff". There is a kind of unrefined quality to it. Not at all unpleasant but a taste to be acquired. By the end of the tasting, I preferred the raki (although I learned that it is not to be mixed with other spirits- a tale I will hopefully never tell!) and she far preferred the ouzo.


Since both raki and ouzo are relatively affordable spirits, I would suggest that any Bond fan truly curious, try both. If you do not care for the flavor of anise, you are missing out on one of the oldest flavors in the history of mankind and you just may find that these spirits could change your mind.


Enjoy.