1939 The Gentleman's Companion volume II Beeing an Exotic Drinking Book

THE GENTLEMAN'S COMPANION

bars. It has a very potent juniper taste, aids digestion, promotes appetite, and is needed in several important cocktails like Death in the Gulf Stream.

OLD TOM GIN ... Old Tom has an oilier texture and a slight orange taste. Indispensable.

SLOE GIN . . . Totally unlike other gins, being flavoured with the astringent blackthorn fruit, or sloe berry. It is ruby red, sweetish, and makes delightful and mild fizzes, rickeys, and so on.... Should be on hand in all well-appointed bars of average type and above. GRAND MARNIER . . . A delicious French liqueur and useful as a pousse cafe, but never specified for cocktails. Tastes faintly like a com– bination of curacrao, cordial medoc and Benedictine-with orange basis predctminant. GRENADINE ... This, as the name indicates, is a syrup flavoured with the juice of pomegranates. No bar, regardless of its modesty can ,. be without this need. . . . Don't be deceived by inferior American imitations of the real thing. Be sure and get the imported. HONEY ... This man-stolen product of bee's industry is, in its strained state, useful now and then in special cocktails. A small, cup-size, covered porcelain or china container should be on every thoroughgoing bar. KIRSCHWASSER, or KIRSCH . . . This odd liqueur is made prin– cipally in the Black Forest sector of Germany, in France and Switzer– land from small black wild cherries. These are fermented in wooden containers, stirred at intervals, and probably a few of the cherry pits are crushed with the cherries-which imparts the faint hint of bitter al– ~onds .... Taken as a liqueur it is somewhat of an acquired taste, but m_punc?es or in cocktails the flavour intrigues everyone who tries them. Kirsch is, of course, the same as Kirschwasser. No bar can be without a bottle. KOMME~ · · . A white, pungent liqueur made from cumin and caraway s~eds, with the latter taste dominant. A great favourite with the Rus– sians of royal days as most of it was made in Riga, pre-Soviet. Now

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