The author who sets the bar high for drink makers

Published 12:36 pm Friday, July 10, 2015

When David Wondrich’s “Imbibe!” was first published, in 2007, it hit a market that was craving cocktail knowledge. The book, a meticulously researched paean to 19th-century bartender Jerry Thomas, won a James Beard award and became a widely read origin story for the bartending world: a true tale of a man pursuing the making of drinks as a serious career and apparently having a hell of a time doing it.

But Wondrich also had to tally the losses, acknowledging the difficulty of building drinks when some tools no longer existed: spirits that had been snuffed out or driven underground during Prohibition or that simply were no longer imported to the United States, the victims of changing tastes and two world wars.

The best absinthes were made abroad and very expensive; other spirits, such as peach brandy, survived only in poor, flavored imitations. Old Tom gin was unavailable, and the maltier Dutch gin that Thomas would have used would be hard for readers to get, and “the only substitute I know — and it’s not a particularly adequate one — is to mix 8 ounces of John Power &Son or Jameson Irish whiskey with 10 ounces of Plymouth gin and tip in 1/2-ounce of simple syrup,” Wondrich wrote.

Scarcity, in other words, would have to mother invention.

In the years since the book’s original publication, the cocktail world kept exploding. You know those scary movies where lab-coated scientists stare into the microscope at a mutant virus replicating so fast they can see the petri dish darken before their eyes? Imagine that virus tattooed and armed with artisanal bitters.

“When ‘Imbibe!’ came out, I suppose there were maybe two dozen bars in America making up-to-date cocktails, and now there are 2,000 bars in Des Moines making them,” Wondrich jokes in a phone interview.

In April, he released a new edition of “Imbibe!,” extensively revised with new recipes and expanded histories of particular cocktails (including the mint julep, the pisco sour and the El Presidente, a drink that can now be made with the intended ingredients). There’s also more detail about Thomas’ life, including a bar he ran in New York that Wondrich says had every amusement a drunk could want. “Everything was in there: shooting gallery, pool tables,” he says dryly. “I mean, like .22 rifles, which I think should probably always be combined with alcohol.”

The original book fed a trend that was already on the upswing; you’d be hard-pressed to find a cocktail devotee who doesn’t know it or its follow-up, “Punch.” Less well known is that when Wondrich isn’t researching and writing articles and books to guide bartenders in their work, he’s often helping ensure that they have better tools for the job.

One of the biggest changes since the book’s initial release has been in the availability of ingredients. Check a good liquor store these days, and you’ll find absinthe at reasonable prices, plenty of rye whiskey and Bols Genever (the much-missed Holland gin). And — in a development that Wondrich says makes him “happier than anything” — a few distilleries are now making real peach brandy.

Surveying the field now, Wondrich sounds like a satisfied man. He loves the increased availability of rye, the reappearance of old liqueurs, the fact of the microdistilling movement. As to what else we still need: “Nothing major. Most of what I’m interested in is available.”

Then he hesitates and admits: There is something. “I’d love to see a true Eastern rye, made with the old traction three-chamber stills … aged in heated warehouses … made in these old-fashioned stills that nobody uses any more and that are kind of lost technology.”

What the next few years will bring is anyone’s guess. Hopefully, late 2016 will see the publication of the “Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails,” a monster project Wondrich is editing.

The Original El Presidente

11/2ounces white rum, such as Banks 5 Island

11/2ounces Dolin Blanc vermouth (see note below)

1teaspoon dry curacao, such as Pierre Ferrand

1/2teaspoon grenadine

1dash Angostura bitters

Twist of orange peel, for garnish

Maraschino cherry, for garnish (optional)

David Wondrich writes about this lovely, blushing rum drink — the “Cubanized answer to the Manhattan” — in the 2015 edition of his classic “Imbibe!” The original version, which Wondrich credits to Havana bartender Constantino Ribalaigua, uses blanc vermouth (not the dry variety, which is pale in color), which plays nicely with the rum.

Use 3-year-old Havana Club if you can get it; otherwise, any flavorful, funky white rum will suit. Gran Marnier will do for the curaçao, in a pinch.

Fill a mixing glass with ice.

Add the rum, vermouth, curacao, grenadine and bitters; stir, then strain into a cocktail (martini) glass.

Twist the orange peel over the surface of the drink, expressing the oils, then drop the peel into the drink if you like. Add a cherry, if desired.

Makes 1 serving.

Nutrition 5/8 Per serving: 160 calories, 0g protein, 4g carbohydrates, 0g fat, 0g saturated fat, 0mg cholesterol, 200mg sodium, 0g dietary fiber, 3g sugar