For those watching the Stakes this afternoon, or those who want to be there in spirit, here’s another now-forgotten recipe from Trader Vic’s…

The Preakness Cocktail

1/2 jigger Italian vermouth
1 jigger Bourbon, rye or blended whiskey
1 dash bitters
1/2 t. Benedictine

Stir with ice, and strain into chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with lemon twist.

I’ve never been a huge fan of milk or cream-based drinks. A brandy alexander or a White Russian can be fine as an occasional dessert, but the idea one after the other when going out is never appealing.

But after seeing that this Mixology Monday - hosted by The Art of Drink - has the theme of coffee liqueur, the creamy dessert cocktail seemed an obvious route. I imagined something like a brandy alexander, only with the coffee liqueur added. Or, since I’ve been intrigued with the use of raw egg as an ingredient since trying the Pink Lady, I pictured an egg yolk emulsifying it.

Turns out Trader Vic’s guide lists just such a recipe, called the Carioca. I know nothing about the history, or how widely this was ever served. From what I’ve seen Carioca is a rum brand, so I’m not sure how it lent its name to this drink.

I’ve adjusted the proportions slightly

The Carioca

1 jigger brandy
1/2 jigger Kalhúa
1/2 jigger cream
1 egg yolk
dust with grated nutmeg, if desired

A lot of people will be put off the raw egg. Indeed, consumption does carry risk of illness. But I’m amazed at the numbers who will freak out at a true Caeser salad or homemade mayonnaise but eat raw cookie dough by the tubful. For the soundest mind, use the freshest eggs you can get, organic if you can.

Anyway, the egg provides a nice silky texture to the liquid ingredients – and with the cream adds a layer of richness. I ended up liking this better than the regular alexander, and it’s equally fine with aged rum instead of the brandy. Why try to force a martini to take on the taste of tiramisu when you can get back to the basics of rum, coffee, egg, and dairy instead?

If you’re in Massachusetts, tomorrow is Tax Day, which means it’s time to whip up those Income Tax Cocktails. As Rick pointed out in the comments to my post on the Bronx Cocktail, the Income Tax Cocktail is a Bronx with bitters added. Actually, I sometimes prefer a drier Bronx (i.e. more gin) but always enjoy the vermouth-heavy Income Tax Cocktail as traditionally made. I first saw it in the Savoy Cocktail Book (above). Here’s Ted Haigh’s transcription:

Income Tax Cocktail

1 jigger dry gin
1/2 jigger dry vermouth
1/2 jigger sweet vermouth
juice of 1/4 orange, squeezed directly into shaker
2 dashes Angostura bitters

Shake in iced cocktail shaker and strain into chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with orange wheel.

As my friends know, I like to have a drink of the season. Something that captures my mood and complements the climate. Maybe even that uses seasonal ingredients. A drink for which I can have the ingredients on hand for company or for myself.

Well, after my trip to B Side, the drink of spring for me is the Last Word. Its fruity-dry balance, its pale green color, its perfect alchemy that needs no garnish: I can’t think of a better spring cocktail. It was popular among my friends too, who couldn’t remember the cocktail name so kept calling it the L Word.

It’s not in most guidebooks, even the encyclopedic Trader Vic’s. Thankfully, Paul at Cocktail Chronicles comes to the rescue. I urge you to go read his post for the history of this long-forgotten Prohibition-era drink (that’s half the fun), but for convenience I’ll reproduce the recipe:

The Last Word

1/2 jigger dry gin
1/2 jigger maraschino liqueur
1/2 jigger green Chartreuse
1/2 jigger fresh lime juice

Put ingredients with ice in a shaker and shake well. Strain into chilled cocktail glass. No garnish.

I only see a couple of drawbacks. First, some people don’t like Chartreuse. I love the stuff myself and have a hard time keeping a bottle around, I like it on the rocks so much. But to some, the herbal flavors will remind them of a Ricola cough drop. To them, I’ll just say that in the Last Word, the interplay holds everything in balance; like a Long Island Ice Tea, you don’t so much taste the individual liquors, as the sum is greater than the parts.

Then there’s the ingredients: maraschino liqueur isn’t too cheap and can be a pain to find; and Chartreuse is expensive, often topping forty dollars a bottle, though Martignetti’s currently stocks it for 34 bucks. If you’re unsure about committing to the liquor, or are leery of odd-tasting liqueurs, go try a Last Word at B-Side for a test run. I predict that many of you, even the gin-haters, will fall in love with this one.

Charles Swift at the City Record and Boston News-Letter gives us the history of the Ward Eight political machine in Boston. And, just as importantly for our purposes, he revives a vintage cocktail recipe for the Ward Eight, which reputedly was invented at Locke-Ober at turn-of-the-century. The drink’s a variation on a whiskey sour, with a bit of grenadine and orange added in. Using Woodford Reserve bourbon, which I normally find too smoky-tasting for my manhattans, I gave the Ward Eight a try, and it’s excellent. It’s balanced enough to appeal to drinkers who aren’t huge bourbon fans.

Charles gives the recipe, but I’ll repeat it here.

Ward Eight
1 1/2 jiggers rye or bourbon
juice of half a lemon
splash of orange juice
dash of grenadine
scant teaspoon sugar

Shake with ice and pour into a cocktail glass.