MixMarch #29: The Flying Dutchman

Updating the Classics is a tricky business. You are taking a recipe that is loved by people around the world. It’s a fucking hard thing to do with any level of success. Imagine my surprise then, when American Bartender of the Year, Jim Meehan, stepped up to update both a classic and one of my favourite drinks, the Aviation Cocktail.

I’ve tried a few updates on the Aviation, and most end up like the Cherry Aviation at Pocket Bar in Burton St, too sweet, too different, just not really at all like the Cocktail they’re supposed to be channeling.

This is so very different to that scenario.

Jim’s drink amplifys everything I love about the Aviation, Strong, Sour and fruity floral. Sitting at home back in Sydney, I’m ready to book a ticket, pack my bags and fly half way around the world just so he can make me another one.

The Flying Dutchman

.75 oz. (22.5mls) Clear Creek Plum Brandy, .75 oz. (22.5mls) Bols Genever, .5 oz. (15mls) Creme Yvette .5 oz. (15mls)Lemon Juice, .5 oz. (15mls) Pineapple Juice, 1 Barspoon (5mls) of Luxardo Maraschino

Shake with ice and fine strain into a chilled coupe

Garnish with one brandied cherry

(Jim Meehan, Winter 2010)

An ancestor of the Aviation Cocktail, first published in Hugo Ensslin’s Recipes for Mixed Drinks in 1916, this blue plum, pineapple, cherry and violet accented sour references Dutch genever, not the cursed ship forever lost at sea.

MixMarch #27: The Tao of Pu

Jim Meehan, owner of PDT in New York, doesn’t like vodka. That makes him at the very least a very strange choice for a judge at a vodka contest.

Or, at least, he didn’t. Jim, recently named American Bartender of the Year, has just put a Carlson vodka Old Fashioned on the list at PDT (recently named Bar of the Year, as well)

Making cocktails in front of a tired but extremely interested crowd of the best young talent from behind bars around the world, Jim said the hatred that bartenders had for vodka as an agent of erosion of the skills, craft and taste of cocktails is quickly becoming a thing of the past. People like having great drinks, they’ll drink Gin, Tequila, Genever and not blindly ask for a replacement with the neutral spirits.

This drink was introduced as the one that had to be made to get Jim down to NZ, but for a Honeylover, it’s something quite special.

The Tao of Pu

30mls Coconut water, 15mls 42Below Manuka Honey vodka, 15mls Galliano Liqueur, 3 dashes Fee Brothers Lemon Bitters.

Shake, strain and serve up.