Urban Bar: Corpse Reviver
In our urban home and, I would wager, along with damn near everyone we know, we were riveted earlier this month by Ken Burns’ outstanding telling of the tale of Prohibition. This was not the first Sunday night John and I have spent in the Fitzgerald era. For as long as I’ve been able to tune a radio, few Sunday nights have passed absent the jazz age company of The Big Broadcast, a weekly show devoted to spinning the music of the 1920s and 1930s. Our film library is heavy on 30s musicals and melodramas, and my collection of Rudolph Valentino films and ephemera is almost as extensive as was the wailing wall that fateful week in August, 1926.
We split our attention between a long-established residence in New York City and the increasing likelihood of either a second residence in or relocation to Los Angeles. If New York was the epicenter of the Prohibition speakeasy then, L.A. is the epicenter of the Prohibition cocktail today. In LA – truly one of the drinkingest towns I’ve ever been to -- cocktailology goes beyond lifestyle and art form to reverence. It is fitting to order your speakeasy cocktail at The Tar Pit, for that room is dedicated to times gone so far by it wasn’t bootleggers who were patrolling the area but dinosaurs. Down the street at Jar, the irony of being served a perfect Manhattan in the heart of Hollywood isn’t lost. Up on Hollywood Boulevard, the martinis at Musso and Frank are rightly reckoned as those by which all others are measured, as applies to whatever they’re pouring at the Frolic Room.
Crazy obscure cocktails from times passed have a special cachet in LA. Perhaps this is because Los Angeles is widely recognized as one of the most haunted locations in the nation. To take a brief tour of haunted Hollywood, click here. Cool bars in LA often have the speakeasy vibe, from the burnished and velvety interiors to the pub menus to the fact that to locate them is often something of a treasure hunt. Not infrequently, entering one is akin to stepping through a portal to the past – a neat twist for a city that turns on the dime of the new, the now and the next.
Specific libations find specific homes either by room, by bartender or both. Downtown, not far from a stretch of stale-smoke tap rooms offering pool tables and dollar drafts, one can, with effort, cause the entrance to the Seven Grand to materialize. In this dark and clubby setting, downtowners in suits from the nearby office towers rub ectoplasm with spectral entities in jazz age finery over libations from a menu tagged by date. As befits the six-feet-underground vibe, the best cocktails are off-menu.
I don’t know what it speaks to about their occult practices if any, but the Seven Grand mixologists have a demonstrated facility with the Corpse Reviver. This concoction literally embodies the idea of times passed, because there’s a cadaver right in the name. Further behind the veil, however, is the history of the drink. Other than in the graveyard, the first confirmed sighting of the Corpse Reviver is in the venerable Savoy Cocktail Book. There it is nestled as creepy and potent as goofer dust between the Coronation and the Cota. As did many of these cocktails, over time the Corpse Reviver sank into the ground. Eventually it crawled back out, taking the form modern zombies recognize. For the corpse of the name isn’t a cadaver, it’s a drunkard. And the reviving of the name isn’t necromancy, it’s medicine.
Only your voodoo priestess knows how, but the Corpse Reviver got lumped into the category of bar preparations – some alcoholic, some not – meant to cure hangover. Unlike the Bloody Mary or the Prairie Oyster, which had a passing and arguable medical rationale as hangover remedies, the Corpse Reviver takes the straightforward approach. No fewer than three shots and one dash of straight alcohol are stirred together with fresh lemon juice in a hair-of-the-dog-that-bit-you approach that we can justifiably call the embalming fluid of the mortician who buried you.
As any mad scientist will tell you, to revive the corpse, one’s potion must be exactingly measured. In preparing the Corpse Reviver, there is no latitude for measure. Accordingly, the recipe below measures liquor in ounces rather than our preferred method of shots. Uncommon to magic spells, there is some room for latitude with ingredients. This is because two of the ingredients for the classic Corpse Reviver were unavailable for a long time, and one of them still is. Original recipes for a Corpse Reviver use Kina Lillet, a specialty of the Lillet House that now provides us with Lillets Blanc et Rouge and was a apertif of wine, macerated liqueurs and quinine. Though, as is often true of occult elements, someone inevitably swears they have a source for it, Kina Lillet has been out of production for decades, and Lillet Blanc is the accepted substitute. The other element, Absinthe, was illegal in the United States for decades, but no longer is.
In a correctly rendered Corpse Reviver, each ingredient is distinguishable while balanced against the other flavors. It is tart, sweet, floral and herbal all at once. Decant your Corpse Reviver into a short martini glass to appreciate the suitably ghoulish pale fluid, rendered opaque by the louching of the Absinthe. One taste and you will understand the cult of this exacting and blithe spirit from times gone – perhaps way gone – by, as well as this warning that by tradition seals all mention of this historic libation: “Four of these taken in straight succession will unrevive the corpse again.“
CORPSE REVIVER
This recipe is for a Corpse Reviver 2. The Corpse Reviver 1 – a mix of brandies and sweet vermouth – was so unpopular among the zombies in our Urban Bar that I have not included it here.
3/4 ounce quality gin, such as Plymouth, New Amsterdam or Hendrick’s
3/4 ounce Cointreau
3/4 ounce Lillet Blanc
¼ teaspoon Absinthe, such as La Fee or Lucid
1 lemon, preferably organic
1. Run the lemon under your palm along the bar. Cut the lemon in half and use a lemon press to juice the lemon halves over a glass, working over a sieve to catch any pith or seeds.
2. Ice down a martini glass. For directions, click here.
3. Fill a cocktail shaker reserved for clear alcohol with ice.
4. Add the gin, Cointreau and Lillet Blanc to the cocktail shaker.
5. Measure 3/4 ounce fresh lemon juice into the cocktail shaker.
6. Measure the Absinthe into the cocktail shaker.
7. Place the lid on the shaker and shake vigorously -- up and down, not side to side -- until the top is too cold to touch.
8. Empty the water and ice from the glass.
9. Remove the cap from the shaker. You should have a silken, pale yellowish-white cocktail.
10. Decant the cocktail into the iced glass.
11. Garnish with maraschino cherry.
12. Serve immediately.
We split our attention between a long-established residence in New York City and the increasing likelihood of either a second residence in or relocation to Los Angeles. If New York was the epicenter of the Prohibition speakeasy then, L.A. is the epicenter of the Prohibition cocktail today. In LA – truly one of the drinkingest towns I’ve ever been to -- cocktailology goes beyond lifestyle and art form to reverence. It is fitting to order your speakeasy cocktail at The Tar Pit, for that room is dedicated to times gone so far by it wasn’t bootleggers who were patrolling the area but dinosaurs. Down the street at Jar, the irony of being served a perfect Manhattan in the heart of Hollywood isn’t lost. Up on Hollywood Boulevard, the martinis at Musso and Frank are rightly reckoned as those by which all others are measured, as applies to whatever they’re pouring at the Frolic Room.
Crazy obscure cocktails from times passed have a special cachet in LA. Perhaps this is because Los Angeles is widely recognized as one of the most haunted locations in the nation. To take a brief tour of haunted Hollywood, click here. Cool bars in LA often have the speakeasy vibe, from the burnished and velvety interiors to the pub menus to the fact that to locate them is often something of a treasure hunt. Not infrequently, entering one is akin to stepping through a portal to the past – a neat twist for a city that turns on the dime of the new, the now and the next.
Specific libations find specific homes either by room, by bartender or both. Downtown, not far from a stretch of stale-smoke tap rooms offering pool tables and dollar drafts, one can, with effort, cause the entrance to the Seven Grand to materialize. In this dark and clubby setting, downtowners in suits from the nearby office towers rub ectoplasm with spectral entities in jazz age finery over libations from a menu tagged by date. As befits the six-feet-underground vibe, the best cocktails are off-menu.
I don’t know what it speaks to about their occult practices if any, but the Seven Grand mixologists have a demonstrated facility with the Corpse Reviver. This concoction literally embodies the idea of times passed, because there’s a cadaver right in the name. Further behind the veil, however, is the history of the drink. Other than in the graveyard, the first confirmed sighting of the Corpse Reviver is in the venerable Savoy Cocktail Book. There it is nestled as creepy and potent as goofer dust between the Coronation and the Cota. As did many of these cocktails, over time the Corpse Reviver sank into the ground. Eventually it crawled back out, taking the form modern zombies recognize. For the corpse of the name isn’t a cadaver, it’s a drunkard. And the reviving of the name isn’t necromancy, it’s medicine.
Only your voodoo priestess knows how, but the Corpse Reviver got lumped into the category of bar preparations – some alcoholic, some not – meant to cure hangover. Unlike the Bloody Mary or the Prairie Oyster, which had a passing and arguable medical rationale as hangover remedies, the Corpse Reviver takes the straightforward approach. No fewer than three shots and one dash of straight alcohol are stirred together with fresh lemon juice in a hair-of-the-dog-that-bit-you approach that we can justifiably call the embalming fluid of the mortician who buried you.
As any mad scientist will tell you, to revive the corpse, one’s potion must be exactingly measured. In preparing the Corpse Reviver, there is no latitude for measure. Accordingly, the recipe below measures liquor in ounces rather than our preferred method of shots. Uncommon to magic spells, there is some room for latitude with ingredients. This is because two of the ingredients for the classic Corpse Reviver were unavailable for a long time, and one of them still is. Original recipes for a Corpse Reviver use Kina Lillet, a specialty of the Lillet House that now provides us with Lillets Blanc et Rouge and was a apertif of wine, macerated liqueurs and quinine. Though, as is often true of occult elements, someone inevitably swears they have a source for it, Kina Lillet has been out of production for decades, and Lillet Blanc is the accepted substitute. The other element, Absinthe, was illegal in the United States for decades, but no longer is.
In a correctly rendered Corpse Reviver, each ingredient is distinguishable while balanced against the other flavors. It is tart, sweet, floral and herbal all at once. Decant your Corpse Reviver into a short martini glass to appreciate the suitably ghoulish pale fluid, rendered opaque by the louching of the Absinthe. One taste and you will understand the cult of this exacting and blithe spirit from times gone – perhaps way gone – by, as well as this warning that by tradition seals all mention of this historic libation: “Four of these taken in straight succession will unrevive the corpse again.“
CORPSE REVIVER
This recipe is for a Corpse Reviver 2. The Corpse Reviver 1 – a mix of brandies and sweet vermouth – was so unpopular among the zombies in our Urban Bar that I have not included it here.
3/4 ounce quality gin, such as Plymouth, New Amsterdam or Hendrick’s
3/4 ounce Cointreau
3/4 ounce Lillet Blanc
¼ teaspoon Absinthe, such as La Fee or Lucid
1 lemon, preferably organic
1. Run the lemon under your palm along the bar. Cut the lemon in half and use a lemon press to juice the lemon halves over a glass, working over a sieve to catch any pith or seeds.
2. Ice down a martini glass. For directions, click here.
3. Fill a cocktail shaker reserved for clear alcohol with ice.
4. Add the gin, Cointreau and Lillet Blanc to the cocktail shaker.
5. Measure 3/4 ounce fresh lemon juice into the cocktail shaker.
6. Measure the Absinthe into the cocktail shaker.
7. Place the lid on the shaker and shake vigorously -- up and down, not side to side -- until the top is too cold to touch.
8. Empty the water and ice from the glass.
9. Remove the cap from the shaker. You should have a silken, pale yellowish-white cocktail.
10. Decant the cocktail into the iced glass.
11. Garnish with maraschino cherry.
12. Serve immediately.
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