In my experience, most bartenders aren’t really big on offering up suggestions that go beyond the best known drinks. That leaves it up to more adventurous imbibers to suggest something a bit different. The only problem is that it’s kind of hard to remember the ingredients and exact proportions of most great cocktails. Not so with today’s slightly unusual but also highly symmetrical dual-spirit concoction. If you can remember “equal parts brandy, rye, and sweet vermouth and bitters” you’ve got this drink mostly down.

My Good Friday 2012 drink is also about as classic as they come. It dates back to 1887 and the second of Jerry Thomas’s seminal 19th century cocktail guides. The name, I gather, comes from Saratoga Springs in Upstate New York. Once upon a time, the town combined spa-like resorts, natural beauty, and also a healthy business in gambling, and not only at the famed race track. In any case, the drink is an outstanding variation on the Manhattan and so simple even the most distracted and busy bartender should be able to manage it — well, assuming the bar even stocks rye.

The Saratoga

1 ounce rye whiskey
1 ounce brandy or cognac
1 ounce sweet vermouth
2 dashes aromatic bitters
1 thinly sliced lemon wheel (borderline essential garnish)

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Combine the rye, brandy, vermouth and a dash of two of bitters in a cocktail shaker with lots of ice. Stir or shake it vigorously, and strain the results into a chilled cocktail glass, preferably with the lemon wheel already sitting it in it — not perched on the side of the glass. Sip and contemplate how much harder it must have been to get a hold of the large quantities of ice necessary for good cocktails in 1887.

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I used Rittenhouse Rye which, being 100 proof, stands up really well to the combined sweetness of my beloved Noilly Pratt red vermouth and the wonderfully value priced Reynal brandy. I found the lemon slice to be an essential component. It’s one garnish that really does kind of make the drink, for me anyway. You might also want to give lemon peel/zest a try.

I did do a little experimenting. At the suggestion of a 2009 post on the Alcademics blog, I tried it with some Scotch (the Glenrothes). It was nice, but not quite as nice as with rye. I also tried it with some very good bourbon (Buffalo Trace) which was, however, a bust as bourbon is probably about as sweet as brandy.

In a way it’s fitting because the brand that’s promoting the Scotchsicle, the Glenrothes, is not only blessed by a marketing department ingenious enough to send me a bottle, but a kinder, gentler, sweeter sort of brew than most other Scotches of my acquaintance. The smooth, critically acclaimed liquor is actually more to my own slightly sweet-leaning personal taste than most Scotches when served on the rocks or with a bit of water or soda.

For those who like their sweetness on steroids, however, the Glenrothes have provided us with another way to go. I doubt Sean Connery, Groundskeeper Willie and some cocktail fanatics I can think of would approve, but those with big, big sweet tooth’s just might. It’s definitely a drink you have for dessert.

The Scotchsicle

2 ounces Scotch whisky (preferably the Glenrothes, naturally)
1 ounce triple sec
3/4 of an ounce fresh squeezed orange juice
3/4 of an ounce vanilla syrup
Cinnamon powder (garnish, very highly recommended)

Combine Scotch, triple sec, orange juice and vanilla syrup in a shaker with plentiful ice. Shake vigorously and strain into chilled martini glass. Top with a fairly generous sprinkling of cinnamon powder and prepare for the boozy sugar rush.

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A few words about ingredients. I used inexpensive Bols triple sec for my Scotchsicle, but feel free to experiment with a more high end product like Combier, suggested in the Glenrothes’ original recipe, or perhaps Cointreau. I suspect it’ll be an improvement. As for the vanilla syrup, you can use the Torani or Monin vanilla syrups that are standard in coffee houses as well as some bars. However, if you want to save a few bucks, you can simply combine 1/2 cup of water, 1/2 cup of superfine sugar and 1/2 a teaspoon of vanilla extract — or, if you really want to get fancy I understand half of an actual ground vanilla bean will work — to make roughly a cup of syrup, which you can refrigerate and use at will. (Whatever you don’t use, you can then combine with soda water to make your own home-made cream soda.)

Finally, don’t forget the cinnamon sprinkling. As if I haven’t emphasized this enough, this is a very sweet drink and a healthy sprinkling of cinnamon is essential to take the edge off. If you want to take the edge off a bit further, you can do what I tried and add 1-3 dashes of some orange bitters.