Properly Sauced: Auditorium Cocktail
Via Art of Drink we discovered Beverages De Luxe, a wonderful bar book dating from 1914. Digitized from a copy in the collection of the Library of Congress, it's an utterly fascinating glimpse into the world of alcohol just before Prohibition. It features a number of pieces written by various distillers and brewers, including chapters entitled "New England Rum" and "Making 'Hand-made' Sour Mash." The entire second half of the book is made up of cocktail recipes from clubs and hotels across the country, and that's where we found the Auditorium Cocktail.
According to The Encyclopedia of Chicago, The Auditorium Building included a world-class hotel from 1890 until about 1946, when Roosevelt University took over the space. Beverages de Luxe includes seven recipes from a Samuel Foote, who at the time was the manager of the liquor department at the hotel apparently. There's a concoction called a Brain Duster; and summery sounding drinks such as Foote's Summer Sour and the Auditorium Gin Fizz make us wish it was July again. Alas, it's November; but the Auditorium Cocktail is right in season.
Auditorium Cocktail (for two)
3 oz. gin
2 oz. French (dry) vermouth
1 egg white
Combine ingredients in a well-iced cocktail shaker and shake like the dickens. No, really: shake continuously for a good two minutes, until it feels like your arm is going to fall off. Strain into two chilled cocktail glasses and serve immediately.
At first glance it just looks like a martini variation. But it tastes completely other. Whereas a martini is an ideal before-dinner drink, the Auditorium Cocktail is much better after dinner. Or even as a nightcap. Pair with some ginger snaps or a warmed slice of pumpkin pie and you're in business.
Don't let the egg white component freak you out. Just use a fresh egg (i.e. one that's less than a week old) and you've nothing to fear. It gives the drink a frothy, silky mouthfeel, completely disguising the cocktail's potency. And it's not overpoweringly sweet like so many vintage cocktails. There's a true elegance to its simplicity. We made this cocktail using Gordon's gin (and Noilly Prat, of course). But if you've got a bottle of an old style gin like Ransom, go for it. Then you'll know what it must have tasted like in 1914, when Jelly Roll Morton was still in vaudeville and the Auditorium Hotel was served by the Congress el station.
Filed in Food and tagged Auditorium Hotel, books, cocktails, gin, liquor, properly sauced, vermouth, vintage
I've seen a very similar mix ages ago at, I shit you not, a VFW post I was drinking at. It was a Christmas-y drink. It was served with one of those Piroutte rolled wafers. Very tasty.
I enjoy imagining the set of circumstance that leads the person I imagine you to be to a VFW post, Nevins. It would make for a great sitcom episode.
My Dad was in the RAF and my best friend from grade school is an Army Ranger who lost most of his left leg in Afghanistan late last year. Four of my cousins are in the Navy and one is a SEAL on a sniper team "somewhere in Asia" he likes to say when he's back home.
You want to meet the most anti-war people on the planet, you buy drinks at a VFW post some week night.
I'm curious what you picture me as. Shaggy dog or guile-less kitten?
My image of you is probably about as accurate as anyone's image of anyone else on this site ... we're all just playing caricatures of ourselves, after all. But since you expressed curiosity, I see your character physically as the guy in the easily googlable photo of Jess Nevins, the real-life librarian in Riverside, California. (For similar reasons, I see dopplerd as actually looking like his Jeff Bridges icon ... it's just an obvious visual connection that seems to fit.) I see you as a mildly academic type still trying to compensate for youthful nerdishness with hair styled in that bed-head sort of way and who wears expensive versions of solid sweaters over nifty fitted shirts and expensive jeans. I'd say there's a fifty-fifty chance you have a tattoo of a Chinese character that doesn't mean what you think it means someplace innocuous, like your ankle or hand or something. You have fairly expensive tastes that lean toward trendiness, which means your preferred beers would not be served at any VFW hall I've ever seen. You might go to a VFW hall for the same reason you might go to the Bud Biliken parade, as a way of connecting with something you see as being "real," but you wouldn't do it often. You probably drive something like a black 2003 Honda Accord, though if you made a bit more money you'd go the Audi or BMW route.
In short, to make a pop culture sitcom reference, you are a version of Ted Mosby who still wears his spectacles.
As I say, I'm probably no more accurate than your assertion that matilda is a really fat girl (I'm almost sure matilda's a guy). This is just a mental game I play with all the random collections of pixels formed into icons that make up this site. You all exist only in my head.
Yeah, that's, pretty much completely off.
-I live on the north side
-I wear my hear cropped pretty short
-Basically wear black jean and grey/black/dark red shirts everywhere. I shop almost entirely at places like LA Police Gear and army/navy surplus since the clothes are built better and last longer. Seriously, best advice I ever got was to buy where cops and firemen buy.
-I drink very seldomly and tend towards either whisky or the odd mixed drink
-My only brand loyalty is to apple, and that's because they give us macs at work and we get discounts so hell yeah.
-I drive a taurus
-Never wear sweaters
One score, I do have a tattoo, two in fact, getting a third come December. But no Chinese characters for me. All of them are literary, personal and weird.
I spent a good chunk of college drinking at a VFW post in the burbs because of my friend. Most bars in the city are just too loud, too clogged with people and too expensive. I like a place you can play pool, have a drink and just shoot the shit. And patios are for yuppies and landowners. :)
Which just goes to show the uselessness of assessing a personality based on surface impressions. And even with you describing yourself, I still maintain the same mental image.
Another example ... I think there's a 75 percent chance Spook is an old white guy living in Brookfield.