A Modest Proposal Omake: accompanying cocktail recipe
Omake: How to Make a Whisky Sour, by Roy Mustang, aged seventeen (recipe courtesy of Iris Futterman-Mustang)
You will need the following things to make two cocktails
Lots of ice.
Two double measures of whisky (use a decent blended whisky, putting single malt in cocktails is sacrilege)
One lemon.
A tablespoon of sugar syrup.
A cocktail shaker. You should use a trendy silver-plated deco one if you can find one. Iris bought me one for my seventeenth. It is very cool. She claims the silver makes the cocktails taste better, but there's no scientific reason why it should, in fact stainless steel would be better. But looking cool definitely overrides that.
Two martini glasses. To chill or not to chill? If you put them in the icebox, it looks like you were planning a seduction instead of being charming and spontaneous. On the other hand, it will make your cocktails colder. All right, you should chill the martini glasses if it's the second date or later.
Nothing else at all. Some people add egg white or cherries or soda water. They are all wrong. Seriously, my mother once kicked someone out of the bar for asking for egg white in their sour.
Why you should make this cocktail from scratch, instead of just buying sour mix in a bottle
Because it will taste much better, which is good in itself, and will also show your guest that you have excellent taste.
How to make sugar syrup
Take equal parts sugar and water, and boil them in a saucepan until the sugar dissolves and the syrup is clear. Iris puts some lemon peel in the pan too, but this is a top secret Bar Christmas specialty which keeps the punters coming back, so I probably shouldn't have just told you. Oh well.
This only takes a couple of minutes, but you should probably do it in advance so you can spontaneously offer your guest a cocktail instead of fussing about with the stove. Much more suave.
How to make your cocktail
Take your ice chips and stick them in the shaker (remember to have these in advance too, because if you have to chip a bunch off the big block in the ice box with a chisel and hammer, you will probably hammer your thumb and bash your head on the door and then look like an idiot in front of your guest. And you don't want that).
Add all the other ingredients.
Shake. You might think that shaking a cocktail is easy and can be done any old how. Not true!
Forget all those fancy shakes that cocktail waiters do in bars. They will just make you look like you are trying too hard. Your guest will laugh at you. Which you don't want even if she has a nice laugh.
Don't hold the shaker in front of you while you're shaking it or your whole body will shake and your head will nod and you will look like you're having a seizure or dancing very badly.
Instead, you should shake the drink off to one side, with both hands, vigorously. This will show off your arm muscles to your guest and look very manly. Unless you're a girl, in which case it will just make you look bold and full of verve and energy. Either way, it will make you popular.
Make sure you hold on to the top or it might go flying off, and then you will look stupid, and have ice all down your back and no cocktail.
You should shake for exactly ten seconds. Any less and the drink won't be cold enough or have formed a proper solution. Any more and your cocktail will be all watery, and you want it nice and strong. Trust me, I am a scientist and I know these things.
Pop the top off the cocktail shaker and pour into your martini glasses, which you should stick right next to each other so you don't spill any. Your guest may request her sour in a tumbler with fresh ice. This is at your discretion, but I wouldn't, it'll water down the sour. Advise her to drink it quickly instead so that it stays cold!
You can use the same recipe to make a gin, vodka or rum sour. However, I recommend whisky because it is a manly drink, and that offsets the girlyness of it being in a cocktail. Which I think sends the right signals if you are making this to impress someone. You are, right?
Don't thank me now, thank me later.
You will need the following things to make two cocktails
Lots of ice.
Two double measures of whisky (use a decent blended whisky, putting single malt in cocktails is sacrilege)
One lemon.
A tablespoon of sugar syrup.
A cocktail shaker. You should use a trendy silver-plated deco one if you can find one. Iris bought me one for my seventeenth. It is very cool. She claims the silver makes the cocktails taste better, but there's no scientific reason why it should, in fact stainless steel would be better. But looking cool definitely overrides that.
Two martini glasses. To chill or not to chill? If you put them in the icebox, it looks like you were planning a seduction instead of being charming and spontaneous. On the other hand, it will make your cocktails colder. All right, you should chill the martini glasses if it's the second date or later.
Nothing else at all. Some people add egg white or cherries or soda water. They are all wrong. Seriously, my mother once kicked someone out of the bar for asking for egg white in their sour.
Why you should make this cocktail from scratch, instead of just buying sour mix in a bottle
Because it will taste much better, which is good in itself, and will also show your guest that you have excellent taste.
How to make sugar syrup
Take equal parts sugar and water, and boil them in a saucepan until the sugar dissolves and the syrup is clear. Iris puts some lemon peel in the pan too, but this is a top secret Bar Christmas specialty which keeps the punters coming back, so I probably shouldn't have just told you. Oh well.
This only takes a couple of minutes, but you should probably do it in advance so you can spontaneously offer your guest a cocktail instead of fussing about with the stove. Much more suave.
How to make your cocktail
Take your ice chips and stick them in the shaker (remember to have these in advance too, because if you have to chip a bunch off the big block in the ice box with a chisel and hammer, you will probably hammer your thumb and bash your head on the door and then look like an idiot in front of your guest. And you don't want that).
Add all the other ingredients.
Shake. You might think that shaking a cocktail is easy and can be done any old how. Not true!
Forget all those fancy shakes that cocktail waiters do in bars. They will just make you look like you are trying too hard. Your guest will laugh at you. Which you don't want even if she has a nice laugh.
Don't hold the shaker in front of you while you're shaking it or your whole body will shake and your head will nod and you will look like you're having a seizure or dancing very badly.
Instead, you should shake the drink off to one side, with both hands, vigorously. This will show off your arm muscles to your guest and look very manly. Unless you're a girl, in which case it will just make you look bold and full of verve and energy. Either way, it will make you popular.
Make sure you hold on to the top or it might go flying off, and then you will look stupid, and have ice all down your back and no cocktail.
You should shake for exactly ten seconds. Any less and the drink won't be cold enough or have formed a proper solution. Any more and your cocktail will be all watery, and you want it nice and strong. Trust me, I am a scientist and I know these things.
Pop the top off the cocktail shaker and pour into your martini glasses, which you should stick right next to each other so you don't spill any. Your guest may request her sour in a tumbler with fresh ice. This is at your discretion, but I wouldn't, it'll water down the sour. Advise her to drink it quickly instead so that it stays cold!
You can use the same recipe to make a gin, vodka or rum sour. However, I recommend whisky because it is a manly drink, and that offsets the girlyness of it being in a cocktail. Which I think sends the right signals if you are making this to impress someone. You are, right?
Don't thank me now, thank me later.