Ice Cube Tower and Pineapple Sticks--It Must Be a Charles Baker Drink

Sometimes I wonder how much Charles Baker really knew about cocktails. Sure, he drank big and a lot. But quantity does not magically equate to quality. A lifetime of poor drinking choices does not necessarily point toward someone becoming a sophisticated drinker. In my most romantic moments, I like to imagine Mr. Baker a discerning drinker, a sort of proto cocktail enthusiast, who tried everything in spite of, well, what trying everything entails. Perhaps he even understood that sometimes the value of a cocktail experiment is not always expressed in the final expression of flavors but instead in the eye-opening experience of moving away from what is mainstream or even expected. Sometimes a cocktail is a journey and the destination is just one of the unknowns, like the weather.

Treading in Mr. Baker's footsteps is not without its failures or surprises. This tends to create suspense, or at least hesitation. More often than not a simple glance at the list of ingredients stirs an involuntary shudder. The champagne cocktails have been more of a safe haven, though none of them have been a walk in the park, either. The flavors in this last one are not particularly challenging, but the Champagne Cocktail No. III does not come without obstacles:

"Choose a large tapering champagne glass; inside of this build a tower of 4 ice cubes, crown it with a lump of sugar saturated with 4 dashes of orange bitters. Against the sides of the glass lean 2 sticks of ripe fresh pineapple, encircle the tower with a spiral of green lime peel, and fill with well chilled champagne, medium dry, and not too acid in type. Now as the crowning gesture carefully float on 1 tbsp of cointreau"

Even written on the page, the Jockey Club Cocktail blows right past difficult straight to impossible--at least in terms of my skill set. The idea of making a tower of ice cubes in a glass topped with a bitters-soaked sugar cube seems challenging enough without considering the pineapple spears. Don't even get me started on the lime twist.

The first problem I discovered rather quickly--I do not have tapering champagne glasses, only flutes and coupes. At first, this seemed unimportant--glassware is usually the least painful substitution. However, my decision to proceed instantly proved fatal. While a coupe wouldn't work because of its demure height, a champagne flute is equally flawed because of its narrow opening. While it was technically possible to stack four small ice cubes with the help of a bar spoon, as soon as I inserted one stick of pineapple, the entire structure immediately collapsed. Trying to get the lime twist to wrap around the flimsy "structure" required more patience than I could muster, and perhaps tweezers.

The folly of attempting to balance a slowly disintegrating sugar cube atop my column was instantly clear, so I opted for simple syrup and bitters instead. But as soon as I poured in the syrup, the ice structure collapsed. I understood then that this was inevitable. Ice floats. Only then did  I understand how unimportant that tower really was--the ice was simply a vehicle for creating the pineapple and lime garnish. Though it was a eureka moment, I was less than amused. Had I grasped this fact earlier, I would have spent less time on the ice and more time positioning the lime twist. Alas, with my ice melting, I added the bitters, champagne and float. I only hoped that the flavors would be blind to my poor craftsmanship.

"Jockey Club Champagne Cocktail" (as adapted)

4 small square ice cubes
2 pineapple spears
1 lime twist
1 teaspoon simple syrup
4 dashes orange bitters
6 oz champage (demi-sec)
1/2 oz Cointreau

Build an ice-cube column flanked by pineapple spears.* Curl a long lime twist around the structure.** Add syrup, bitters, and then champagne. Carefully float Cointreau.

Notes on Ingredients:  I used a 1:1 simple syrup, Regan's orange bitters, Graham Beck demi-sec sparkling wine. Also I substituted Clement Creole Shrub for the Cointreau on a lark, thinking the rum base would be a nice addition in the fruity environment.

* Good luck. Just remember that creating the garnish is the point, not where the ice ends up.
**Using a champagne glass with a larger opening will be key here unless you really want to use tweezers. Also, length may come in handy--I would recommend a crusta-style treatment.

Despite the procedural missteps, this champagne cocktail did turn out quite nicely. The demi-sec champagne wasn't as sweet as I'd feared and in general seemed to contribute a pleasant fruitiness. The pineapple's flavor became more significant over time, as expected. I can't help but wonder if substituting pineapple syrup for the sugar cube-pineapple spear business would yield similar results. Perhaps then the pineapple flavor would prove too intense, but boy would it be easier. Well, something to consider for future masochism.

The Joy of a Pineapple: Castle Harbour Special

Whenever I see pineapple, whether it is the actual word in a book or on a menu, or the actual fruit at the grocery store or even perched on the lip of a glass, I can't help but think of summer. And not these paltry Northwest summers, where we long for warm temperatures just as much as a break from the rain. And also not those disgustingly humid summer days of the East Coast, where you are trapped on your couch coated in a thin later of sweat, while the heat drains all of your energy. No, these are not the summer days that I associate with pineapple, or else I would probably never want to look at another one. Pineapple means sunshine, dry heat, and a slight breeze, but just enough to rustle the leaves and flowers and keep the bugs at bay. In short, a totally idealized, absolutely perfect summer day. So yes, pineapple makes me smile and dream of sitting outside in the sun. That is a nice reaction to have while looking at a Charles Baker recipe.

This libation is rimmed with a sense of yearning for the past. Castle Harbor, located on the northeastern edge of Bermuda, is a large natural harbor located between the northeastern edge of Bermuda and St. David's island. In 1928, when Charles Baker spent several weeks there, its isolation and beauty struck him so intensely that the very small description he offers rings with a nostalgia. To look at pictures of Castle Harbor today, with Bermuda's airport perched on one side and its golf course and numerous hotel resorts situated on the other, it's hard to imagine unsettled islands with "white and pink beaches in utter seclusion except . . . the screaming nesting sea birds." I imagine this vision of a vacation paradise untouched by civilization was almost as rare by the time Baker was writing the Gentleman's Companion as it is now. He was lucky to have experienced it, and sometimes you even get the sense that he knew it. But just sometimes.

The drink itself sounded delicious. A mixture of rum, lime juice, syrup and fruit--it could easily be described as a type of rum punch. Though, as with many other Baker drinks, a substantial amount of rum provides the very firm backbone of this drink, the pineapple is definitely the star. As Baker describes the Bermuda-based Gosling Brothers outfitting his little hotel, his Castle Harbor Special most likely revolved around Gosling's Black Seal Rum, the dark black strap rum used most famously in the Dark 'n Stormy.

The drink also calls for sweet pineapple soda fountain syrup. Though the consistency or actual sweetness of this syrup remains a mystery, I would guess it falls somewhere in the region of what Torani might offer. Some bars and bloggers have used pineapple gum syrup as a substitution. On top of the smidgen of pineapple syrup, the recipe also includes a teaspoon of grenadine. When I first read it, I was worried about the sweetness level. Baker must have agreed because just a sentence later he says the drink is perfectly good without the grenadine. Also, he says leaving out the grenadine makes for less competition between delicate flavors. Though I would never describe either pineapple or grenadine as delicate, I followed his suggestion and omitted the grenadine. I'm sure that even in such a small amount, the grenadine was primarily used to ramp up the color and make it look more tropical.

Castle Harbour Special (original)

4 small pieces pineapple
juice of 1/2 lime
1 tsp sweet pineapple soda fountain syrup
1 tsp grenadine
1 1/2 jiggers dark rum (2 1/4 ounces)
1/2 jigger light rum (3/4 ounce)

Stir with a lump of ice and strain into a goblet half-filled with crushed ice.

Soda fountain syrup must have been really sweet. When I made this with my homemade pineapple syrup, I quickly heard Tracy say, "Um, I think this is a bit sour." Now, in general we appreciate tart, refreshing drinks, but this was a bit much. The teaspoon of pineapple syrup couldn't even touch the lime juice. I never taste a Baker drink for balance--the point is to taste it the way he intended, not the way I would fix it. Usually it is a flaw in the design of his recipe, but here it is a flaw in the substitution. So, instead of tossing it, I adjusted the sweet-to-sour ratio, matching the lime juice with pineapple syrup. It was much better.

The drink tasted mostly of lime and rum, but there was a nice pineapple hint to it. Perhaps if I had used pineapple gum, the original proportions would have worked and maybe the pineapple flavors would have been more apparent. I also chose to shake this drink with the semi-candied pineapple chunks that were left over from making the syrup. Perhaps muddling those pieces would have encouraged even more pineapple flavor and also provided more balance to the lime juice. I also decided to stick with the original amount of rum. Three ounces of rum is not so unusual for a tropical drink, and is an amount commonly seen in tiki drink recipes. Given the fact that the drink is served over fresh cracked ice, I figured over time the ice would take care of the proof.

Castle Harbour Special (as adapted)

4 small pieces pineapple
3/4ounce lime juice
3/4 ounce pineapple syrup
2 1/4 ounces dark rum
3/4 ounce light rum

Shake ingredients with cracked ice. Strain into an old-fashioned glass filled with fresh ice. Garnish with pineapple chunks.

Notes on Ingredients: I used Lemonhart 80 Demerara rum, Cruzan light rum, and homemade pineapple syrup (see below).

Pineapple Syrup (as originally published at cocktailchronicles.com)

4 cups sugar
2 cups water
1 small pineapple
smidgen of vodka or other neutral-flavored spirits

Mix the sugar and water until fully dissolved. Add the pineapple (skinned and cubed), and let sit for 24 hours. Remove the pineapple, pressing with a hand juicer to get some juice into the mix. Strain through cheesecloth or a fine strainer, and add the spirits for preservative. Refrigerate.

Truly wonderful summer days are the stuff of legend and yearning, just ask anyone mid-winter.  But the idea of nostalgia can't really contain them, namely, because technically tomorrow could be one of those days (not really). Sure there is a certain pang of longing. But it is not the same as the feelings associated with a place, or time, you can never go back to because it doesn't exist any longer. Even in the 1940s, Charles Baker could not rediscover the joys he found on his first visit to Castle Harbor. And perhaps there really is no way to re-experience even a fictionalized, idealized version of a perfect summer day, if we ever really have truly have. Maybe our memories of what a perfect summer day can be, as exaggerated over time as they are, create the need for feeling like as if something has been lost in time, something that is unreachable in the future. I don't know--it's certainly is complicated. What I do know is that for me pineapple symbolizes blissful days and a certain carefree feeling. This drink took me to a different place, away from the dreary Spring, away from the need for coats and sweaters. It seems that this is an important part of what the Gentleman's Companion has to offer a contemporary audience, a certain measure of escapism--even to an imperfect past.