Drink of the Week: The Blinker (Duffy’s Version)

the Blinker.The Blinker was one of the many moribund beverages revived by Ted Haigh in his epochal 2009 book, Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails. Haigh, in turn, found the drink in a 1934 tome by a Patrick Gavin Duffy but found it “unremarkable” and he therefore messed with it. We’ll try Haigh’s messed with version later, but we start with the unvarnished original.

The Duffy Blinker might not have knocked my socks clean off, but it really is a very nice drink enlivened by a generous portion of fresh grapefruit juice. I have to admit that the fact that I still had some extra-large citrus around after last week’s drink was my primary motivator for choosing the Blinker. I never used to like anything grapefruit but, by god, the bittersweet fruit is really growing on me. It’s certainly tasty enough in this beverage.

The Blinker (Duffy’s Version)

2 ounces bourbon
1 ounce grapefruit juice (preferably fresh)
1 teaspoon grenadine
1 lemon twist (desirable garnish)

No surprises here. You guys probably have this drill memorized by now, but here it is again…

Combine your liquids in a cocktail shaker with an excess of ice. Shake most vigorously, and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Add your lemon twist if you’ve got one handy. As for the toast, let’s mix things up and salute, heck, Ethel Barrymore. I just saw her for the first time in 1948’s “Portrait of Jennie” (ask your neighborhood movie geek/film buff, or your great-grandmother) and she was extremely good in it. As a Barrymore, I’d like to think she might have tried a Blinker.

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This drink worked very nicely with the two different bourbons I had time to try before I was briefly sidelined by a small cold. (As I write this, I’ve been dry for a shocking four days!) Wathen’s Kentucky Bourbon made a fine, sweet base spirit, but there was more 100 proof, bottled in bond, punch when I killed my bottle of good ol’ Old Fitzgerald’s (my favorite bourbon bargain up to now).

I will also add that I suspect it’s probably very important to use a decent grenadine in the Blinker. Ted Haigh, you see, felt the need to make a substitution for this ingredient. He might have been partly moved by the fact that so many commercially available grenadines are hard to distinguish from any other high fructose corn syrup based concoctions.

At the same time, while it’s great to spend extra dough and go gourmet, or go crazy and make your own grenadine, as some bloggers insist, there is another option. Take a little time and find a reasonably priced product that includes a little real juice, pomegranate most importantly. Master of Mixes grenadine includes pomegranite and cherry juice; it has served me well for some time and it only costs a few bucks…and, no, they haven’t been sending me free bottles in the mail. Not yet, anyway.

  

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Drink of the Week: The Meyer 100 Proof Bourbon Semi-Sour

Image ALT text goes here.Corrections and retractions time. Though I totally stand behind my creation last year of the Meyer Canadian Semi-Sour, I was perhaps wrong when I described the wondrous Meyer lemon as “partly an orange.” Turns out,  it might actually be partly a Mandarin orange. That would make sense since la wiki tells us that it was once actually a primarily a houseplant in China. The humble plant’s destiny was forever changed, however, after being discovered sometime around the turn of the 20th century by a U.S. Department of Agriculture employee named Frank Nicholas Meyer.

Anyhow, with the return of the Meyer lemon to stores in my vicinity and with my recently rekindled interest in the eggier side of the sour family of cocktails, I decided to see if the juice of the more edible lemon worked as well with 100 proof bourbon as it did with the ever-so gentle, and merely 80 proof, Canadian Club I used last year. I’m happy to say that, if anything, it’s even better — as long as you like your cocktails boozy and sweet as heck.

The Meyer 100 Proof Bourbon Semi-Sour

2 ounces 100 proof (more or less) bourbon
3/4 ounce freshly squeezed Meyer lemon juice
1/2 large egg white
2 teaspoons superfine sugar
1 dash orange bitters (very optional)
1 maraschino/cocktail cherry (optional garnish)

If you’ve read my other recent sour recipes, you can probably guess what the drill will be. Combine the bourbon, juice, sugar and (if you’re using them) bitters in a cocktail shaker without ice. Shake the contents to emulsify the egg white. Then, add ice, shake a bunch more, and strain into a well chilled rocks glass. Garnish with cherry and salute the late citrus pioneer, Mr. Meyer, and mourn his untimely and mysterious passing in 1918.

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I used my personal default bourbon, the highly underrated, little known, and very reasonably priced Old Fitzergald’s Bonded in Bond 100 proof (aka “Old Fitzgerald Green Label”). I can’t be sure, but I suspect this recipe would also work with very high proof bourbons or something even as meek as Maker’s Mark, which I guess is going to remain 90 proof indefinitely after that brouhaha last week. (All I can say, is where were you people when Canadian Club and countless other brands went from 86 to 80 proof sometime in the 1980s or 1990s?)

Re: bitters. I originally tried using Angostura in this, but found it an unwelcome distraction. Then I tried it without bitters at all, and found the drink absolutely wonderful. Then, I tried it again with Regan’s Orange Bitters and found the drink tasted tangier and even sweeter and not quite as much to my personal liking. However, one of my test subjects here at DOTW Manor was very pleased with this version, so I’m leaving you the option of throwing the orange bitters in. Try it both ways, I say.

Finally, there is the question of how you determine that you’re using half an egg white. I’m sure there’s a way to do that with measurements — though measuring egg whites can be a hassle, or you can do like I’d probably do and just sort of eyeball it. This time, I took the easiest and least wasteful way out and just doubled up and made two Meyer 100 Proof Bourbon Semi-Sours at the same time. This is a drink worth sharing.