This one is so old it's new.
The Prince of Wales. A cocktail fit for royalty.
What, you say? Rye for royalty? Why that destroys the whole thing! Rye is for democracy, rye is for the people, rye is for patriots. Ethan Allen was no king! George Washington insisted on not being treated as royalty! The "regulators" in western Pennsylvania who protected the flickering light of liberty drank rye everyday in the 1780s and 1790s surely saw royalty of any sort as the enemy!
Well, since the second Gilded Age seems to have come to a screeching halt in the last couple of weeks, it makes sense to send it out with a bang. This drink is from the 1880s--the first Gilded Age. And though it was named for the son of Queen Victoria, one senses that moniker stuck because this drink gilds the lily. A few histories even suggest that the Prince himself came up with the recipe during one of the many weeks he spent in the midst of dissolute debauchery in New York City, watching the impending collapse of the British Empire.
This rye drinker likes that. The power of rye is untold. Is it possible that this rye drink helped bring the British Empire to its knees (both literally and figuratively)?
What you need:
2 oz rye whiskey
a dash of Angostura bitters
a few drops of cherry liqueur (I use Cheery Heering)
1 tsp of sugar
a few drops of water
a chunk of pineapple (fresh or frozen--as long as its thawed--will do)
1.5 oz of champagne
That's right. Champagne.
Here's how you make it:
Drop the sugar in the shaker with a few drops of water. Stir until the sugar is dissolved. Add the cherry liquor, the bitters, and the rye. Drop the pineapple chunk in. Add ice. Shake until cold. Make sure that the pineapple chunk is bruised. Strain into a glass. Add the cold champagne.
Think about it. This drink helped destroy an empire. That's rye for you. Always looking out for the people.
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8 comments:
Another winner. Cheers!
This is a drink I've wanted to make for some time, but the problem is opening a full bottle of champagne or sparkling wine, and then not using it all directly. I do have an effective champagne stopper, but it still holds the bubbly for 24 hours at most (it goes downhill after that). Splits? I suppose, but they're not common here in Zion. I really need to find a night where Kim wants champagne (one of our favorites anytime) and then use part of my share to make one. (Yes, wine shares, sometimes traded, always carefully guarded so the other doesn't take more than her/his fair share--it's a deadly serious game in our household--she cut off my finger one night when I took several big swigs from her glass while she was out of the room).
Maybe this should be our drink for the next presidential debate. I had a couple of Rye and Gingers Tuesday night to get through the last one. Didn't help, but it sure didn't hurt.
You can try to make excuses for this drink, named after nobility, but this dude cannot bring himself to drink anything named after a prince, particularly a British prince. I will await the next one...and until then enjoy my rye on the rocks.
I'm with Debs on this one. What's next a Cosmo that uses rye???
What if it was named after the other Prince (of wails)--the artist formerly known as Prince? The inherent contradictions of rye and champagne and Prince--very ambiguous, very Twin Cities.
I admit to dismissing all sorts of things based on a name or the associations of that name. But drinks....? Manhattan is an environmentally toxic wasteland ruled by wealth and a small privileged elite (at the expense of everyone else living in 400 square feet of space), but it is a damn fine cocktail; and a Slow Soft Comfortable Screw sounds like what we'd all like on a regular basis, but it's truly toxic waste in a glass, making a rye Cosmo sound... reasonable by comparison. Rye Drinker should investigate. Everything is better with rye in his world (not that I'd drink everything in his world, unless I'd been dancing with the Green Fairies for some time, right Swampape?).
Cheers Rye Drinker! and like evdebs says, keep 'em coming!
BTW, want to see how many really crazy cocktails with crazy names (and ingredient mixtures) there are? Just browse this online list of cocktail recipes:
http://www.obh.snafu.de/~solon/lofab/cocktails/
evdebs and swampape, I'm sorry to report that drdaryl is right. It's a damn fine drink. It's democratic merely by virtue of having rye as a main ingredient. It's a damn poor whiskey that can't stand a little champagne and association with royalty.
Trust me, gentlemen. Rye is up to the task.
Yeah, DaRyL is right. And that ethics report completely cleared Palin of any wrongdoing . . .
Rye may be up to the task, but drinking a champagne cocktail named after a prince only reveals you and DaRyL for what you are . . . elitists hiding behind an alcoholic veil of democracy!
You say that like it's a BAD thing. Waauugghhh!
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