![]() There are in fact not one but three ways to make this cocktail great-a diffusion less about personal taste than about ingredients, and how much work you’re willing to do on your own behalf. I have, I see now, never been more wrong. I even suspected the Jack Rose might have been incapable of greatness. To be very honest, I had always considered the Jack Rose more important for cocktail books than cocktail bars, and even using bonded apple brandy and fancy grenadine, I, myself, had never had a great one until I started doing research for this article. On the other hand, grenadine, citrus and apple brandy all have tart fruit notes, and if you’re not extremely careful, they’ll pile onto each other, all hitting at the same time and making the tartness of this drink numbingly sharp. On one hand, it’s a simple sour, and balancing sours is easy. The answer is that the Jack Rose is a deceptively hard drink to get right. So where’s the Jack Rose now? Why hasn’t it bounced back like the rest of the crew? Here’s the thing-all of this is familiar, and the idea that the recipe or ingredients were bad and/or lost from the ‘70s through the ‘90s is just as true of the Martini, the Manhattan, the Old Fashioned, the Daiquiri and the Sidecar. Hemingway mentions the Jack Rose twice in The Sun Also Risesin 1922, and still a generation later, David Embury, as quoted above, inducted it into his little hall of fame. There are at least six distinct and competing origin stories and a bunch of slightly different recipes, but as early as 1914 it settled into our current understanding, which is a simple sour made of apple brandy, lemon or lime juice, and pomegranate syrup (aka grenadine). There was a time, in the early 1900s, when the Jack Rose was the hottest thing around, a fantastic use of this weird new sweetener called “grenadine” that had recently hit American bars. But the Jack Rose? We can almost hear you through your screen: “What the hell is a Jack Rose?” Modern sensibilities would probably sub out the Margarita for the Sidecar, but it’s the same drink, just with tequila instead of Cognac. The Martini and Manhattan’s place on that list is indisputable, the Old Fashioned is necessary to the point of obvious, and the Daiquiri, properly made, is life changing. ![]() I expect he had you nodding along until that last one. ![]() How to Make an Adonis, the Low-Alcohol Cocktail That's Complex, Delicate, and Elegant This Underdog Whiskey Just Won Best in Show at the NY Wine and Spirits Competition One of N.Y.C.’s Most Beloved Pizza Joints Has Been Transformed Into a Sushi Counter
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |