Two Penicillin Recipes (Classic and Mr. Anthony)

 

The Penicillin Cocktail came about at the height of the single-malt craze in the early aughts. At the time, the Penicillin seemed like something completely new, but in reality it was always with us. It combines a well tested Sour recipe with scotch and honey with ginger liqueur and smokey single malt scotch. It is perfect for pleasing a crowd of scotch fans with a simple recipe, as well as showing off how a well-made cocktail can change the drinking experience into something otherworldly. 

 

For bartenders, though, the cocktail was the easiest way to sell blended scotch at cocktail prices and still make it seem like the whole drink was made from single malt. 

 

My attempt at the traditional Penicillin this go-around is with Teacher's blended scotch and Ardbeg 12. While not the smokiest of scotches, the peat presence will knock you over. You will definitely notice it in the drink. The ginger brandy is my homemade liqueur, but King's Ginger liqueur is recommended and Domaine de Canton is most widely available. 

• 1 1/2 oz. blended scotch (Teacher's used)
• 1/2 oz. ginger liqueur (homemade used)
• 1/3 oz. single male scotch (Ardbeg 12 used)
• 2/3 oz. lemon juice 
• 2/3 oz. honey syrup
• piece of candied ginger

Combine liquid ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a chilled Old Fashioned glass with a large format chunk of ice inside. Use the ginger as garnish.  

Mr. Anthony: 

It's not at all a stretch of the imagination to make a genever (or jenever) Sour, and from there, it's just a short step to the Mr. Anthony, a jenever version of the Penicillin. Jenever is a Dutch gin that is made from malted barley and distilled with botanicals like juniper inside the mash as well as steeped in the spirit itself.

Bols barrel aged genever is so close to malt whiskey with its aging in French oak that it is a natural choice for a Penicillin. This time around, I switched up for a saltier and smokier single malt, McClellands Islay, a no-age-statement bottling (I've heard) from Bowmore. It is definitely different to make the Mr. Anthony after having a blended scotch Penicillin, but I might like it more. There's an herbal quality to it, that juniper or pine scent that is actually a quality of some of my favorite scotches.

• 1 oz. jenever (Bols barrel aged used)
• 1 oz. Islay single malt scotch (McClelland's used)
• 2 bar spoons of honey (1/2 oz. of honey syrup recommended)
• 1/4 oz. ginger liqueur (homemade used)
• 3/4 oz. lemon juice
• piece of candied ginger
  

Combine liquid ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a chilled Old Fashioned glass with a large format chunk of ice inside. Use the ginger as garnish. 

Bristow Penicillin

 

I plan on doing a few variations on the Penicillin, a smokey whiskey cocktail that resembles a ginger and smoke Whiskey Sour. My first of these variations is made with MurLarkey Smokehouse whiskey. The raw spirit of this whiskey is a craft corn and malted barley mash with a lot of intense flavor by itself. It is later aged in oak that has been smoked with bacon! While the result is very far from scotch, Smokehouse is a Virginia whiskey with savory notes that are reminiscent of peat smoke.

The other fun ingredient in this cocktail (besides the unsmoked whiskey base) is my homemade ginger liqueur. This is an aged brandy ginger spirit with brown sugar, closer in flavor to King's Ginger liqueur than Domaine de Canton. This is the spice component that mixes well with the lemon juice and honey in the sour. For the whiskey base, use any American whiskey or bourbon you have on hand so long as it is mellow and won't overpower the cocktail. 

• 1 1/2 oz. bourbon or American whiskey
• 1/2 oz. ginger liqueur (homemade used)
• 1/3 oz. MurLarkey Smokehouse whiskey
• 2/3 oz. lemon juice
• 2/3 oz. honey syrup
• piece of candied ginger

Combine all liquid ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into an Old Fashioned glass with large ice cubes. Spear the piece of ginger and use as garnish.

Winter (Difford's Guide Recipe)

 

Allspice, ginger, rich rum--what else do you need to make a cocktail taste like all the flavors we love in winter? I'm a big fan of this drink, mostly because it is another one of the great cocktails I've found on Difford's guide that combine tiki ingredients and a classic cocktail feel. You get the coup presentation with a simple piece of candied ginger garnish. Then there's the dark, colonial style rum and all the burst of the tropics from allspice dram and Angostura bitters. 

I'm showing off George Bowman's small batch rum in this cocktail. The Bowman distillery in Virginia doesn't make their own rum, but they bottle this blend from the Caribbean. It tastes a lot like Jamaican or Guyana, so very spicy and heavy oak and vanilla notes. It is the kind of thing you expect colonial Americans to pay top dollar for during the rum trade.

There's still a few months of winter left, so be sure to make this cocktail and enjoy it. Of course you could do it in the summer, but I'd rather make it a Swizzle with the same ingredients. That would absolutely work. 

• 2 oz. dark Jamaican rum (Bowman's used)
• 3/4 oz. lime juice
• 1/2 oz. sugar syrup
• 1/6 oz. (2 tsp.) ginger brandy (homemade used)
• 1/6 oz. (2 tsp.) pimento dram/ allspice dram (homemade used)
• dash Angostura bitters
• piece of candied ginger

Combine liquid ingreients in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with piece of ginger.

Apple Buck

 

Another Buck cocktail that eschews the use of lime juice for lemon. At least the ginger ale is still present as well as the addition of something very special: ginger brandy.

When I taste this cocktail, I can see why these variations were made to the usual Buck recipe of spirit, lime juice and ginger ale. For one thing, applejack isn't a clear spirit like light rum, gin or vodka--the main spirits used in a Buck. Applejack tastes better with lemon than lime--or at least the acidity of lemon juice does not detract from the aged fruit spirit taste in the way that lime juice does. 

Then, since we need to sweeten the drink a little, here comes ginger brandy, which tastes great with applejack as well. Top with ginger ale and you have a spiced apple fizzy drink that started as a Buck and is now something entirely different and perhaps better. 

• 1 1/2 oz. apple brandy or calvados (Laird's Applejack 86 used)
• 1/2 oz. lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp. ginger brandy
• ginger ale (Teddy's used)
• candied ginger piece

Build drink in a Collins glass with juice and spirits. Add ice and top with ginger ale and stir gently. Garnish with the piece of ginger.

Ginger Jolt

 

I thought that a drink with "Jolt" in the name would involve cola or coffee--something with caffeine. Well this easy sipper has soda, and as such is good any time of the year. It is light in body and sweetness, but there's a rich ginger and vanilla flavor that you can't beat on a gloomy winter's day. 

It seems like you can get ginger wine now, at specialty stores like Total Wine, but I can't think it is readily available. The other option is to make it yourself, a sort of brewed sugar beverage flavored with ginger. I still don't trust myself, and as with my recipe for the Gingersnap, I decided to use my homemade ginger brandy instead. This brandy is so heavily spiced and sweetened, it is almost as if it is a proofed up, flat  ginger beer. The result is more than acceptable, and if you purchase Domaine de Canton, you can do this as easily as I have.

• 1 1/2 oz. blended whiskey (bourbon used)
• 3/4 oz. ginger wine (homemade ginger brandy used)
• slice of ginger root
• club soda

Build cocktail in a Collins glass with spirits and cracked ice. Top with club soda and stir. Garnish with the ginger root. 

Ginger Jones

 

This is a fun cocktail for winter sipping. I especially like how ginger and orange juice play off of each other to create a warming sensation in a cold drink, especially when served in an Old Fashioned glass where there is more spirit-to-juice ratio.

This is the first use of my ginger brandy made from Korbel and a combination of fresh and dry ginger. To make it, I soaked a quarter cup of candied ginger and a tsp. of fresh chopped ginger in a jar with about six ounces of brandy. After a week, I strained out the solids and folded an ounce of simple syrup into the liquor. 

I'm especially proud that I found an old defunct label from Paramount Distillers in Cleveland. In the prohibition era, they used to label their ginger brandy as medicinal for stomach aches. Feel free to take this cocktail for medicinal pourposes.

• 1 1/2 oz. brandy (Korbel used)
• 1/2 oz. ginger brandy (homemade used)
• 1 oz. orange juice
• 1/2 oz. lime juice
• 1/2 oz. simple syrup or to taste
• candied ginger garnish

Combine all liquid ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake and pour into a chilled Old Fashioned glass. Garnish with the ginger piece.

Jamaica Mule

This is a deadly strong rum version of the Moscow Mule. The classic vodka version of the drink is downright mild by comparison. Rum: 151, dark, light and falernum make up 70 percent of the liquid in the glass. That's fine since ginger beer is pretty flavorful and rounds things out. But think of this cocktail as a Zombie version of the Moscow Mule.

I love that candied ginger is a recommended garnish. A pineapple spear is also suggested, but there's no pineapple in the drink and this is a Jamica Mule not a Hawaiian one.

• 2 oz. light rum
• 1 oz. dark rum
• 1 oz. 151-proof rum
• 1 oz. falernum (Velvet Falernum used)
• 1 oz. lime juice
• ginger beer
• candied ginger
• pineapple spear

Combine rums, juice and falernum in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a highball glass full of fresh ice. Top with ginger beer and garnish with candied ginger and pineapple spear.