Cocktails: The New Classics

By Frédéric Le Bordays

The celebrated Parisian bartender serves up rediscovered classics, plus historical information and techniques for creating them at home.

With more than sixty recipes that combine tradition and modernity, this book revisits the history of cocktails, from speakeasies to modern lounges, and the famous bartenders behind them. Organized into three sections—shaken cocktails, stirred cocktails, and punches—the recipes include garnish ideas, variations, and colorful notes about each drink’s creation.

Shaken Cocktails Shake these delicious concoctions into a new realm of delicious. Try your hand at worldwide favorites like a Black and Tan, Champs-Élysées Cocktail, Corpse Reviver (No.1 and No.2), Hemingway Special, Espresso Martini, Ramos Gin Fizz or Pisco Sour to name a few.

Stirred Cocktails: From simple to elegant and classic to modern, these cocktails only need a light touch. Enjoy everything from a Dry Martini and a Manhattan, to a Hanky Panky and a Green Point, to a Moscow Mule and an Old-Fashioned.

Punches: Get the most bang for your buck with these flavor-packed punches that are great for sharing. Creative mixtures like a Philadelphia Fish House Punch and The Green Beast to the seasonally themed Russian Spring Punch and Voiron Summer Punch, will have your guests clamoring for another pitcher.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Oct 27, 2015
• ISBN: 9781681880723

Book preview

Frédéric Le Bordays

Photographer : Virginie Garnier

Stylist : Coralie Ferreira

PREFACE

I met Frédéric Le Bordays in Deauville, Lower Normandy. It was January of 2011, during a culinary festival. He proffered his services for cocktails—nonalcoholic ones. He had the look of a Prohibition-era New York bartender: custom-made shirt, retro black vest, old-school cap, and at least three days’ beard. At the time, I was arranging a photography show about the Parisian cocktail scene, and I was looking for new rising stars. I’d heard about him: a very promising barman, at the very moment when a new era of French mixology was dawning in Paris.

A few months later, I found him again in order to take his portrait for a magazine. The article highlighted several tidbits from his recipe notebook and his passion for the world of vintage cocktails. I was still a booze neophyte, and that day, Frédéric became my mentor. He was steeped in the history of the golden age of cocktails and in the stories of the greatest barmen, from Jerry Thomas to Harry Craddock. An artist of the cocktail shaker and the bar spoon, he displayed a special ability and finesse in sharing his keen appreciation for old-fashioned digestifs and the elixirs dreamt up in the most prestigious American bars of the nineteenth century. From the Moscow mule to the Manhattan, from the most divinely sweet to the bone-driest dry, I tell you this: Frédéric had a true gift for electrifying the taste buds.

After exercising his talent in different Parisian hot spots, Frédéric continued on his own path, guided by his passion, putting together Mixed Drinks, a pop-up event that specialized in revisiting mythic cocktails. Drinks of the highest order, with service to match, attentive to the tiniest detail. Frédéric was one of the first French barmen to have the audacity and the foresight to bring vintage spirits and the great American tradition of classic cocktails back into style—an ambitious and daring gamble, faced as he was with a French audience that is more drawn to wine than to spirits.

This volume is the perfect reflection of Frédéric’s expertise in cocktail lore, ranging from before Prohibition to our times, and of the richness of his experiments in mixology. I invite you to experience this book like a journey in time, and, of course, do not hesitate to test all of his recipes. Trust me: you are in good hands.

Laurence Marot

Mixology Journalist

CONTENTS

Introduction

History

EQUIPMENT, TECHNIQUES & INGREDIENTS

SHAKEN COCKTAILS

AVIATION COCKTAIL

BLACK & TAN

BLOOD & SAND

BRANDY CRUSTA

CHAMPS-ÉLYSÉES COCKTAIL

CLOVER CLUB

CORPSE REVIVER N°2

CORPSE REVIVER N°1 Variation on Corpse Reviver No. 2 (stirred cocktail)

DAIQUIRI

HEMINGWAY SPECIAL Variation on Daiquiri

NUCLEAR DAIQUIRI Variation on Daiquiri

ESPRESSO MARTINI

JALISCO ESPRESSO MARTINI Variation on Espresso Martini (stirred cocktail)

IMPROVED RUM DAISY

MAI TAI

MOLE MEXICANO

PENICILLIN

RAMOS GIN FIZZ

WHISKEY SMASH

SHISO GIN SMASH Variation on Whiskey Smash

THE BRAMBLE

THE LAST WORD

THE LAPHROAIG PROJECT Variation on The Last Word

TOMMY’S MARGARITA

TWENTIETH CENTURY COCKTAIL

WHISKEY SOUR

WHITE LADY Variation on Whiskey Sour

PISCO SOUR Variation on Whiskey Sour

SAVOY TANGO SOUR Variation on Whiskey Sour

WINTER SHERRY FLIP

STIRRED COCKTAILS

BIJOU COCKTAIL

DRY MARTINI

VESPER Variation on Dry Martini (shaken cocktail)

SHERRY COBBLER

FANCY CHAMPAGNE COBBLER Variation on Sherry Cobbler

HANKY PANKY

JAPANESE COCKTAIL

MANHATTAN COCKTAIL

REMEMBER THE MAINE Variation on Manhattan Cocktail

GREEN POINT Variation on Manhattan Cocktail

LOUISIANA COCKTAIL Variation on Manhattan Cocktail

VIEUX CARRÉ Variation on Manhattan Cocktail

MARTINEZ COCKTAIL, 1862

MARTINEZ COCKTAIL, MODERN RECIPE Variation on Martinez Cocktail, 1862

MINT JULEP

CHAMPAGNE JULEP Variation on Mint Julep

THE REAL GEORGIA MINT JULEP Variation on Mint Julep

MOSCOW MULE

ELDERFLOWER GIN MULE Variation on Moscow