The Blenheim Cocktail

Last night we had some friends over. In honor of Sir Winston, I decided to make Bleinheim Cocktails, created by Joe Gilmore of the American Bar at the Savoy Hotel in London, in honor of Sir Winston's 90th birthday.

We had over, among others, our bad-ass card-counting memoir-writing friend (Josh Axelrad, Repeat Until Rich, Penguin, 2010), who watched me carefully measure ingredients into the shaker for round two. (Just to review, we're talking brandy, yellow Chartreuse, Lillet Blanc, orange juice and Dubonnet; the recipe is elsewhere on the blog.)

"Wow," he said. "We're really talking a lot of alcohol, aren't we?" he said.

It's true. And it doesn't taste as alcoholic as it sounds — I'd characterize it as a wonderfully aromatic after-dinner cocktail, sweet but still sophisticated, with a lot of herbal overtones. All in all, it's pretty deadly.

The perfect potable for the great man's ninetieth. Cheers!

(The photograph above is of Blenheim Palace, the birthplace of Winston Churchill and his father's, Lord Randolph's, family home.)