How I got to know the Remember the Maine cocktail
The delicious Remember the Maine cocktail – a bourbon Manhattan – I have found in the Bartenderens Håndbog by Mathin Lundgren. You can find many interesting new mixes as well as classics in this book. If you are curious on more detailed background of the cocktail, please see the historical background further down.
Here the recipe
50 ml Bourbon – I use Knob Creek Kentucky Straight Bourbon
25 ml sweet vermouth – I use Vya Sweet
15 ml Cherry Heering /2 teaspoons
5 ml Absinthe – I use Herbasaint
Peel of lemon
Stir with ice and strain into a rocks glass – i prefer a small rocks glass to keep the cocktail cold with one big ice cube.
Garnish with a lemon peel and squeeze the lemon peel oil on the cocktail. Try a few drops of lemon in the cocktail as well to balance the sweetness of the Cherry Heering. Do not overdo the Heering as the cocktail may be too sweet.
Historical background:
One of the most distinguished and engaging writers in all of liquordom was Charles H. Baker. Baker is best known as the author of The Gentleman’s Companion and The South American Gentleman’s Companion, both two-volume works published in the 1930s that explored Baker’s culinary and libational adventures around the world.It included his frequently delicious (and sometimes downright weird) recipes for food and drink.
Remember the Maine is one of the better cocktails to come from Baker’s books.
As Baker wrote in 1939,
REMEMBER the MAINE, a Hazy Memory of a Night in Havana during the Unpleasantnesses of 1933, when Each Swallow Was Punctuated with Bombs Going off on the Prado, or the Sound of 3″ Shells Being Fired at the Hotel NACIONAL, then Haven for Certain Anti-Revolutionary Officers.
Not only does it come with a good backstory, the Remember the Maine drink is absolutely wonderful. A rye Manhattan given a subtle sweetness with cherry liqueur and a hint of savagery from good absinthe, the drink has the flavor of another time. Drink one when you feel like tasting history.