Get the cocktails right this Paddy’s Day
Three of the world’s top cocktail virtuosos have released the definitive guide to Irish mixology just in time for the St Patrick’s Day festivities.
Paddy Drinks: The World of Modern Irish Whiskey Cocktails, published by HarperCollins, features a comprehensive list of 90 recipes, although we don’t recommend you try them all tomorrow.
It’s written by Sean Muldoon and Jack McGarry from Belfast, and American Jillian Vose, the founders and beverage director, respectively, of the famous Dead Rabbit Irish pub in Lower Manhattan. Now they are sharing the secrets to some of their classic cocktails, including their famous Tipperary and the Baker’s Punch.
With an emphasis on “historically-based beverages”, the cocktail guide functions not only as a lesson in how to mix but also a social history of Irish, Anglo-Hibernian and Irish-American drinking habits.
Muldoon and McGarry opened the Dead Rabbit in 2012, naming it after a New York street gang that protected Irish immigrants against the Bowery Boys, as immortalised in the film Gangs of New York. Muldoon says the pub is the expression of his lifelong dream to combine sophisticated cocktail service with the rich tradition of the Irish pub.
In 2015, Dead Rabbit won the title of World’s Best Cocktail Bar and World’s Best Cocktail Menu, building a worldwide reputation as a magnet for fine booze lovers. The bar was influenced by Salvatore Calabrese’s Library Bar at the Lanesborough in London and Milk & Honey.
Among its extensive Irish whiskey offerings are Egan’s Fortitude, Knappogue Castle, Clonakilty, Tyrconnell, The Busker, Dublin Liberties Oak Devil, Power Three Swallow and West Cork Glengarriff. The Dead Rabbit is hoping to open two new bars this year, one in New Orleans.
As well as the new mixology manual, the trio are also selling a $100 Irish Coffee kit.
Muldoon and McGarry met at Belfast’s five-star palace to gastronomy The Merchant Hotel. Having worked for Botanic Inns and under Canadian Morgan Watson at The Fly, Ardoyneborn Muldoon founded his own drinks consultancy before working at London’s Shochu Lounge At Roka.
Vose grew up in Cape Cod, Massachusetts before working behind the Jade Bar at Elements at the Sanctuary Resort in Paradise Valley, Arizona, and the Four Peaks Brewing Co in Tempe. Vose grew in Cape Cod, Massachusetts before working behind the Elements & Jade Bar at the Sanctuary Resort in Paradise Valley, Arizona, and the Four Peaks Brewing Co in Tempe.
If that’s whetted your appetite for an Irish cocktail, here’s a recipe to transport you to the streets of Dublin.
HOW TO MIX: WATCH TOWER, BY JILLIAN VOSE
INGREDIENTS:
• 1 barspoon Greek yoghurt
• 2 dashes turmeric citrus
• ¾ ounce fresh lemon juice
• ½ ounce pineapple juice
• ¾ ounce cinnamon bark syrup
• ¼ ounce Pierre Ferrand Pineau des Charentes
• ¼ ounce Giffard white crème de cacao
• ¼ ounce Merlet crème de pêche
• 1 ounce Bertoux apple brandy
• 1 ounce Tyrconnell 10 Madeira cask Irish whiskey
METHOD: Add the ingredients to a shaker tin in the order indicated and shake with ice. Double strain using both the fine and Hawthorne strainers into a punch glass without ice. Garnish with a light dusting of freshly grated nutmeg.
GARNISH: Nutmeg for grating
TOOLS: Jiggers, barspoon, shaker tins, fine strainer, Hawthorne strainer, nutmeg grater
GLASSWARE: Punch glass