The Tipsy Banker

WELCOME TO TIPSY BANKER. In place of forgotten classic cocktails. We will take you back in time with these cocktails and remind you of famous celebrities from our history. You will learn how to prepare forgotten classics as a professional bartender. Today we have chosen for you: BLACKTHORN - FORGOTTEN CLASSIC COCKTAIL

It also happens that under the same name, different drinks circulate in the bar world. For example, such a Blackthorn can be as much a combination of gin, vermouth and bitters as an Irish whiskey-based drink. And this is the variant of Tipsy Banker Martina Jacošová.

 Blackthorn is an English term for a deciduous shrub with the Latin name Prunus spinosa, ie blackthorn. It therefore seems logical that the base of the cocktail of the same name should be sloe gin. Nevertheless, a drink based on Irish whiskey also appears in the cocktail books for about as long as the sloe variant under the name Blackthorn. It is already included in Bart Johnson's Harry Johnson Manual from 1900. Under the two-word Black Thorn, readers will find a combination of the same amount of Irish whiskey and dry vermouth along with a few splashes of bitters and absinthe. Robert Vermeire, in his book Cocktails: How to Mix Them, published in 1922, closed the gap between words and described Blackthorn as a very old cocktail, which he attributed to Johnson and named New Orleans as the place of origin. However, the cocktail does not seem to be so closely tied to the port of Louisiana, as it is missing from the 1938 book Famous New Orleans Drinks and How to Mix '. As for the date of origin, as the recipe for Blackthorn is missing in Johnson's earlier books, the origin of the drink is most often a plus until about 1890. And what does the blackthorn bush have in common with Ireland? There is also an explanation for this: a traditional Irish shillelagh walking stick is made of sloe wood. Although Harry Craddock found Whiskey-based Blackthorn interesting enough to include him in The Savoy Cocktail Book (1930), he rarely appears in cocktail books published in the second half of the last century. It was only rediscovered for the bar world by Gary Regan, who published a slightly modified recipe in The Joy of Mixology in 2003. In his presentation, two parts of whiskey are part of vermouth, so sweet. Tipsy Banker Martina Jacošová perceives it similarly. "In the original Blackthorn recipe, I'd take some vermouth to accentuate the taste of Irish whiskey, and I'd fine-tune the sweetness by adding sherry," said her tip.