I’ve been raving about aged rum. Well, this weekend I stopped at the Wine Gallery in Brookline and picked up a bottle of Ron Zacapa Centenario 15 year aged rum, a very fine and affordable ($28) Guatemalan spirit, then went to the trusty Hi-Lo market for a dozen limes, so I could give this excellent rum the simplest treatment possible. With a dash of simple syrup to round it out, I had what a friend had told me was the Cuban drink par excellence, the mojaga, which is basically the prototype of the daiquiri.

Mojaga

1 jiggers fine aged rum
1/2 lime, juice of and shell for garnish
1 good dash simple syrup

Pour liquid ingredients into an old fashioned or doubles glass. Stir, then fill with ice, and add spent lime shell

I can’t vouch for the authenticity of the mojaga in Havana new or old, but it’s a great drink, flavorful enough to satisfy those who want more than liquor on the rocks, but basic enough to let the quality of the rum to shine through. Obviously, you can cater to your preferences… more lime and sugar move it toward a daiquiri, less sugar make a minimalist rum and lime combination that many love.

Wine Gallery is located at 375 Boylston (Rt. 9), Brookline, near the Brookline Hills T stop.

This last weekend I headed over to dBar, a newish gay bar in Dorchester. I’d recommend it to those who haven’t gone – it has a nice neighborhood restaurant meets city lounge kind of feel. It’s nice to see owners putting thought into the design of a bar (even if that means leaving the woodwork from the former steakhouse), and hosts actually being friendly.

Drinks are big city prices, a pint five dollars and my not-terribly-high-shelf cocktail nine dollars. I can’t say I’m overly wowed with the bartending. Inexplicably the wheat beer had an orange wheel instead of a lemon wedge in it. And after having a frosty cold martini at DeLux,, my gimlet at dBar seemed downright tepid and uninspiring.

The thing worth noting is that like many these days, they squeezed fresh lime juice into my gimlet. I can’t say this is categorically wrong, but I’m convinced that the people who do it aren’t big gimlet fans. There’s something magical about the mutual bracing qualities of gin and Rose’s lime, and the real lime breaks the spell.

For what it’s worth, here’s one definitive statement, from Terry Malloy in Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye:

“They don’t know how to make them here,” he said. “What they call a gimlet is just some lime or lemon juice and gin with a dash of sugar and bitters. A real gimlet is half gin and half Rose’s Lime Juice and nothing else. It beats martinis hollow.” (19)

I’m not a full traditionalist, and I find that a 4:1 ratio is much more suited to modern tastes than a 1:1 ratio. (You see a similar rebalancing in the stalwart martini.) Here’s how I make them:

Gimlet

2 jiggers dry gin
1/2 jigger Rose’s lime juice

Shake well in a cocktail shaker. If serving straight up, strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with thin sliver of lime floating on to. If serving on the rocks, strain into a rocks glass with ice and garnish with lime wedge on rim.

Like martinis, gimlets really are best very cold. Can they be made with vodka? Sure, but I’m not clear what the point would be.

Derby Day is this Saturday, which means one thing… mint juleps. Unfortunately I’ll be away this weekend, so won’t be able to take advantage of the warm weather and my friend Rebecca’s pewter julep cups to celebrate in style.

Mint Julep

simple sugar syrup
4-5 sprigs mint
bourbon
shaved ice (think Sno-Cone fine)

Pour about 1/4 inch of syrup into bottom of a julep cup or small tumbler. Muddle all but one sprig of mint with muddler or wooden spoon, releasing fragrance of mint into sugar. Add ice, then fill with bourbon. Stir several times until frost forms on side of cup/glass.

For the uninitiated, though, the julep is a tricky and often unpalatable cocktail. Not many people will go for a drink that starts out octane-strong at the start and ends up watery at the finish. Muddling the mint can either release the herb’s fragrance or turn the drink to a grassy swamp. And shaved – or at least highly crushed – ice is necessary to get the proper frostiness on the glass. And you gotta like bourbon, cause that’s most of the drink.

Fortunately, my friend Dave, another ex-Southerner, wrote me with his solution: a hybrid julep-mojito.

I had a julep last year at the Kentucky derby and it made me sleepy and listless. So…I adapted a mojito recipe which I like. Just substituted bourbon. Specifically, bullet bourbon, a “top shelf” bourbon marketed by Jim Beam or somebody. Very smooth, doesn’t feel like acid reflux.

You prepare a mint simple syrup (1 C sugar, 1 C water, sprigs of mint, boiled and cooled). Bruise mint with ice in a glass, mix syrup with club soda with bourbon. Voila/yee-ha, it’s a julep.

Maybe the traditionalists will shudder at the straightforward highball treatment, but for those put off by the complications of a julep or those who are on the edge about bourbon, it seems a reasonable compromise.

I’ve not had Bullet bourbon yet. I can say Maker’s Mark is great in juleps; essentially anything that’s good quality and 80 proof strikes a nice balance. I save the 100 proof stuff for sipping.

I’d always wanted to try Carpano’s Punt è Mes because of its label design alone, but somehow had never gotten around to it. Maybe I was unenthused when I discovered it was vermouth; after all, I had a perfectly full bottle of Martini & Rossi red on the shelf, why shell out money for more?

I’m glad I did. What a revelation. I never knew I liked Italian vermouth before. I’d see vintage cocktail recipes calling for it, lots of them, and wonder how people back in the day were so fond of the stuff. But with quality vermouth you can see it. It’s not to everyone’s taste, to be sure. If you don’t like herbal or bitter overtones, you probably won’t like it - but you’ll probably like it better than cheap vermouth.

I started with a mini-taste test, comparing the Carpano with the Martini & Rossi. Even by sight, you can tell the former (on the right) has more body than the latter (on the left). The amounts I poured are the same:

Whereas the cheaper vermouth was thin, tart and winey, like a cross between a so-so sherry and a cheap wine, Punt è mes had a full-bodied, well-rounded palate, herbal and just as much bitter as sweet. It reminded me of Italian bitters (amaro), and I guess it actually is in the same category, being a fortified wine with herbal infusion. Even more than amaro, it tastes great on ice, with a squeeze of lemon if you like (not necessary though). A great apéritif.

Next, I tested Manhattans, one made with Martini & Rossi and one made with Punt è Mes, using three parts bourbon to one part vermouth. The first tasted thin and unbalanced, though it was hard to pin down what was lacking. Meanwhile, good vermouth really excels here, standing up to the full body and complexity of the bourbon and bringing out the spicy Angostura bitters in harmony. If you’re into Manhattans, I highly recommend getting Punt è Mes for a noticeable difference.

Finally, I wanted to try a cocktail that would foreground the vermouth. The similarity to amaro made me think of the Negroni, which is equal parts Campari, gin and Italian vermouth. While I like Campari and occasionally will order a Negroni, it’s catch-in-the-back-of-your-throat bitter and not a smooth, pleasant drink. So I whipped up a revised Negroni with milder amaro instead of the Campari. (Ramazzoti’s my favorite.) I used Plymouth for its smoothness (i.e. restrained juniper), but any gin should do. An orange slice/wheel is traditional, but I like the extra touch of squeezing the peel’s oil into the drink. Everything else, especially the equal proportions remains the same, and the interplay is perfect.

The Negroni works better as a smallish cocktail. Save the oversized martini glasses for another occasion.

Revisionist Negroni
1 medium-small cocktail

1/2 jigger Plymouth gin
1/2 jigger Punt è Mes
1/2 jigger amaro of choice

Shake with ice, then strain into a small cocktail glass. Take an orange twist and squeeze over drink to release oils; drop in.

You’ll notice that I will often use “sweet” and “fruity” as disparaging terms. It’s not that any cocktail made with fruit or with a sweet side is bad. It’s just that current trends have put such an emphasis on neutral spirits and candy-like ingredients that any quality of the cocktail gets lost.

Nowhere does the current vogue for sweetness need to be more resisted than with the martini. I think T-Rage gets its right when he says,

The martini is another rare, perfect thing (”the only American invention as perfect as a sonnet,” as H.L. Mencken had it). It has a history. It should be hallowed. There are only a few variations on the theme that should be allowed, like dry or very dry. This vulgar proliferation of so-called martinis—these froo-froo concoctions that are only martinis, in a perverse reversal of Mencken’s diktat, because they’re in a martini glass–has gone way too far. The classic martini is that rare gender-neutral cocktail—something both men and women can drink, looking elegant but not effeminate drinking it. It is the ne plus ultra of urbanity, more cosmopolitan than a cosmopolitan. These fruity-tooty drinky-winkies that they’re pawning off as martinis are heresy, pure and simple.

So, too, do I second Fareed Zakaria in his call for vermouth.

The idea of making a martini with no vermouth in it is absurd. It is, to put it theologically, contra naturum. The martini is a mixed drink. A goodly portion of vermouth rests in its very essence.

For me, martinis are gin with a noticeable quantity of vermouth. I’m not sure I’d consider vodka martinis heresy, but I don’t see the point of them. It’s the balance of the harsh-herbal gin and the winey vermouth that, beyond the V-shaped glass, gives the martini its reason for existence. Vodka doesn’t have the flavor to stand up to vermouth; you’d be better off doing like the Eastern Europeans and serving small Ittala glasses of the spirit, chilled and neat.

So I stick with a good dry gin though I don’t need anything too expensive. What follows is my favorite recipe for a martini. A 4:1 gin-to-vermouth ratio seems right to me for modern palates: enough vermouth to reintroduce balance where ultra-dry fashion has left only booze, but not so much as to make the drink seem like cheap white wine. Whatever the proportions, be sure to chill the glass well and to properly chill ingredients, whether shaken or stirred. The difference between cold gin and warm is immense.

Classic Martini
Makes 1 cocktail

2 jiggers dry gin
1/2 jigger dry vermouth
olive

Put ingredients over ice in cocktail shake. Shake vigorously and pour into a well chilled cocktail glass.