Second Honeymoon

There’s a classic cocktail called the Honeymoon Cocktail, a calvados-based number with Bénédictine and Cointreau, sort of like a Sidecar. The recipe below ain’t that one. No, folks—no honeymoon here.

Let’s celebrate with a bottle of bubbly!

Seriously, though, the basic ingredients for the Honeymoon make a dandy royale with the addition of brut sparkling wine. I left out the Cointreau.



Second Honeymoon

• 1 1/2 oz calvados
• 1/2 oz Bénédictine
• 1/2 oz lemon juice
• sparkling wine to fill (about 4 oz)

Shake all except wine with ice and strain into a wine glass. Add sparkling wine, lemon twist.
ROWEN, FOGGED IN LOUNGE

Lately I’ve been on the lookout for cocktails that can pair with food, and wanted a balance of sweet, tart and savory elements without being excessively strong. For the wine, I used L’Hereu by Raventós i Blanc from Spain, a great compliment to salty foods and crisp apples. Not surprisingly, it marries very well (heh—see what I did there?) with the fruit and herbs in the spirits. And if you don’t quite finish the wine when making the cocktails, it’ll be great with cheese at the end of dinner.

Monte Carlo

When I was first getting interested in mixed drinks, I made this for a good-sized cocktail party, cranking it out in batches. Flinty-dry white Bordeaux was also on offer. I don’t remember how I did it that time (especially with a blitz of canapés too), but surely would’ve used Angostura Bitters. Jeff Hollinger and Rob Schwartz suggest Peychaud’s, which seems like a nice touch with the rye. For the proportions, I went with the Robert Hess version this time.



Monte Carlo Cocktail

• 2 oz rye
• 1/2 oz Bénédictine
• 2 dashes Angostura or Peychaud’s Bitters

Stir with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Lemon twist.
SOURCE: COMPOSITE

For the rye, I went with Rittenhouse 100, which did a nice job of drying down the Bénédictine. Some versions mention the lemon twist, others don’t. I like it, particularly with Peychaud’s.

Singapore Sling

Every time time you see an article about the Singapore Sling, they gotta tell you at length how nobody knows what the original recipe was. It could be a scenario out of Somerset Maugham or something. Say there could be a sane, respectable, happy cocktailian traveling from England to Malaysia in search of the true Singapore Sling, who would then become seduced and confused by each succeeding variation of the recipe until he ended in a town on a modest island, haunting a harbor bar in the afternoon, zombie-like, to the puzzlement and sorrow of the locals, and bedeviled at night by a melancholy madness ending in a violent and inexplicable death in tropical-weight trousers.

Luckily, nobody has to go through all that because Beachbum Berry offers this version which he thinks tastes the best. Me too.



Singapore Sling (1950s)

• 1 oz fresh lime juice
• 1 oz Cherry Heering
• 1/2 oz Bénédictine
• 1/2 oz brandy
• 2 oz gin
• 1 1/2 oz club soda (or more to taste)

Shake everything—except soda—with ice cubes. Stir in soda. Strain into a tall glass. Add fresh ice to fill. Garnish with an orange wheel and mint sprig.
SOURCE: JEFF “BEACHBUM” BERRY, BEACHBUM BERRY REMIXED

I add the soda after I strain the drink, and stir it gently. It seems odd to strain something with bubbles.

Singapore Strait Jacket

Dr. Cocktail does it again. In the entry in Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails on the Straits Sling, what might be called an ancestor recipe of the Singapore Sling, he points out that you can leave out the soda water and prepare the Straits as a cocktail. I think I actually prefer it this way.



Singapore Strait Jacket

• 2 oz gin
• 1/2 oz kirschwasser
• 1/2 oz Bénédictine
• juice of half a lemon
• 2 dashes orange bitters
• 2 dashes Angostura bitters

Stir in an iced shaker and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
SOURCE: TED HAIGH, A.K.A. DR. COCKTAIL, VINTAGE SPIRITS AND FORGOTTEN COCKTAILS