E62 Piccadilly Cocktail

Hello and welcome to Cocktails with a Twist of History, your digital destination for all things cocktails. There were a lot of cocktail books published in the 1930s. Prohibition ends December 5th, 1933 when it was repealed by the 21st amendment. Publishing was going through a nice run and they wanted to publish everything. Not all the books were so amazing, but they show a glimpse into the time period. Let's pause here so you can send a link of this show to someone else so they can also enjoy Cocktails with a Twist of History. There was a book called Fancy Drinks How to Mix Them. It was published in New York in 1935. It doesn't even list the author. In 1935 there were about 20 different cocktail books published and most of them had common cocktails with roughly the same ingredients. It's in the differences that we see the particular bartender shine. Here this bartender talks about a cocktail called the Piccadilly Cocktail. The cocktail appears in the Savoy Cocktail book in 1930. The original one includes gin, dry vermouth, absinthe, and grenadine. This one has Jamaican rum and gin. There aren't many cocktails with rum and gin together. They give a cocktail a tropical and a botanical mix. Okay, this one is said to be a sophisticated dry drink, a fourth martini meant to evoke classic London evening. Okay, I have been talking way too long without a drink in my hand. Let's make a Piccadilly Cocktail. This is going to be interesting. So like we said, you need some dark rum. Here we go. And this is another one of those cocktails that has equal parts of a lot of the different ingredients. So we're going to put in our rum. We're going to put in our gin. Go for some gin. Here we have our gin. Now we're going to need a cherry brandy. Here we're going to use cherry herring. And it says to have a full ounce of this. I'm going to use slightly less. Only because cherry herring is a little bit overpowering. Now we need a half ounce of a French vermouth. French vermouth is the dry vermouth. So here we go. We're going to put in our dry vermouth just a little bit. And it says two dashes of Angostura or old-fashioned or aromatic bitters. It's interesting because at the time I didn't think they would have had a distinguishing difference between them. But okay, but we have our Angostura bitters. And we're going to put our two dashes in there. Now we're going to put in our ice. And we are going to stir. Here we go. Today's I have a little bit different ice. A little smaller cubes, but that's okay. Still putting in a lot of ice. And all of our ice. One more. There we go. And we're going to stir this cocktail. It does not need a lot of stirring. But you can see how dark it is. There we go. Now it doesn't say what type of glass to use it. But we're going to use a martini glass. And also it doesn't say anything about a garnish. But I think they would have used a cherry garnish in a cocktail that they want to make look a little sophisticated. Here we go. This is a Piccadilly cocktail. Let's try. Oh, that is really, really good. There is a lot going on here. You have the rum. You have the cherry. You have the gin. Fascinating cocktail. Wow. Very, very good. They say, like I said, to stir it. But I made a little bit of assumptions over here as to how it should come out. There's another cocktail called the Piccadilly Fizz. But that was a very different cocktail. And it was a different type. Fizz means that it has soda water. And it would not have had the sophistication that they're going for here. Piccadilly in London is a bustling hub known for its nightlife and its historic importance. Piccadilly Circus is a major intersection there in London on the west end. And it was known for its neon signs, fountain and high traffic. It's like Times Square for London. A famous tailor, Robert Baker, built the Piccadilly Hall, named after his Piccadillus, which was a stiff decorative 17th century lace collar. There's also a movie called Piccadilly, which takes place in the seedy London nightclubs. I don't think the cocktail was directly connected, but they both talk about the area and the forbidden atmosphere known for that part of London. Well, as always, if you know more parts of the history, we want to know it. You can put it in the comments, you can send it to us by email, or you can tell it to the bottle. We want to know. Also, please make sure to follow, to like, to subscribe, and to send a link of this show to somebody else so they can enjoy cocktails with a twist of history. Thank you.