The Holborn Drinks 11/1/13

So this week on The Holborn Drinks we bring you a bit of poetry with your cocktail. We present a cocktail from the place where cocktails were made popular on these shores; The Savoy Hotel. From the pages of the Savoy Cocktail Book, complied by legendary bartender Harry Craddock, we pull the Jabberwock cocktail. Inspired by Lewis Carroll’s poem we suggest you mix yourself one of these and sit back a revisit the immortal words of Mr.Carroll.

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

‘Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!’

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought —
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood a while in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One two! One two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

‘And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!’
He chortled in his joy.

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Now for the cocktail that The Savoy Cocktail book says ‘This will made you gyre and gimble in the wabe until brillig all right, all right’.

Ingredients 

-1/3 Dry Gin (Berry Bros No.3 is a good, balanced base for cocktails)

-1/3 Dry Sherry

-1/3 Caperitif (1 tsp Amaro Montenegro, 28ml of  Dolin Blanc, or if you are short on time simply use Lillet Blanc)

-2 Dashes of Orange Bitters

Method

Stir all ingredients well with ice in a cocktail mixer, strain into a cocktail glass. Squeeze a lemon peel on top.