How to Archer (9 page)

A (second) final note about cocktails: If at all possible, avoid mixing your own. It sends the wrong message. Because there’s usually somebody standing there who should be doing it for you: bartender, valet, midlevel diplomat, a woman, etc.

I refuse to include a recipe for the Bellini. If you want a Bellini, go to Harry’s Bar in Venice and order a Bellini. Because that’s the only place on earth you should ever drink one.

A fitting way to start the cocktail section in earnest, as this is generally the way I start my day: in earnest. Packed with the vitamins and minerals I need to make it through a strenuous day of secret agenting, plus plenty of vodka (which I just want), the Bloody is the cornerstone upon which Woodhouse builds my sumptuous breakfasts. Variations abound, but this is my favorite:

3 ounces vodka

6 ounces freshly squeezed tomato juice

1 ounce freshly squeezed key lime juice

½ teaspoon freshly grated horseradish

Dash of Worcestershire sauce

Dash of hot sauce

Dash of salt and pepper

Shake ingredients, over ice, in a cocktail mixer. Pour mixture and ice into an imperial pint glass and garnish, using one of those cool little plastic swords they have, with:

Note: For a Bloody Caesar, simply replace the tomato juice with 6 ounces of Clamato. You will not be sorry.)

Invented in 334 BC by the imperial mixologist to Alexander the Great, to celebrate his (Alexander’s) victory over the Persians. Who I think are now the Iranians. But also, who cares?

2 ounces cognac

2 ounces crème de cacao

2 ounces half-and-half (or heavy cream, if you’re Pam)

Pinch of nutmeg

Shake ingredients, over ice, in a cocktail mixer. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with nutmeg.
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I love everything about Brazil. Like, I don’t mean to sound unpatriotic, but I really wish the Brazilians would get their shit together and conquer the entire world. Enslave me, already.

½ lime, cut into wedges

2 teaspoons crystal sugar

2 ounces cachaça

With a wooden muddler (which please tell me you have), muddle lime and sugar in an old-fashioned glass. Fill glass with crushed ice and add cachaça. Some bartenders will insist on garnishing your caipirinha with a piece of sugar cane, but to me that’s just empty calories.

A Cuba Libre is just a rum and cola with a lime. I never order this from a male bartender, because if I ask for a Cuba Libre, they give me a shitty look. But if I ask for a rum and cola with a lime, they always snark back with “You mean a Cuba Libre?” To which I reply “No, I mean, what’s it like working for the minimum server wage, which is actually far lower than the regular minimum wage? I mean I know you get tips, but still… I’d eat a shotgun.”

2 ounces dark rum

4 ounces cola

1 lime wedge, as garnish

Pour the rum and cola over ice. Garnish with the lime wedge.
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Invented in Havana’s El Floridita bar and made famous by Ernest Hemingway, winner of both the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction and the Nobel Prize for Literature.
⁶⁷
Hey, Papa: now we’ve both written a book.

4 ounces white rum

2 ounces freshly squeezed key lime juice

½ ounce gomme syrup
⁶⁸

Shake ingredients, over ice, in a cocktail mixer. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Invented in 1915 at Harry’s New York Bar. Which turns out is actually in Paris (France).

2 ounces gin

1 ounce gomme syrup
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1 ounce freshly squeezed lemon juice

Brut champagne (for which cava or prosecco may be freely substituted), to top up

1 lemon twist, as garnish

Shake first three ingredients, over ice, in a cocktail mixer. Strain into an ice-filled Collins glass and top up with champagne (or dry sparkling wine of your choosing; it’s your house). Garnish with twist.

A joyless drink for dour, low-level, consular functionaries, the Gibson is simply a martini (see page 81) in which a pearl onion shamelessly attempts to replace the olive. As if it ever could.

The original gin and juice. Invented by pirates in the eleventh century to prevent scurvy and, presumably, to help mentally prepare them for all the raping they were going to be doing later. Originally served neat (because pirates didn’t have ice, duh) it can also be served on the rocks.

4 ounces gin
⁷⁰

½ ounce freshly squeezed lime juice

½ ounce Rose’s lime juice

1 lime wedge, as garnish

Shake liquid ingredients, over ice, in a cocktail mixer. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass or, if you are not a pirate, over ice in an old-fashioned glass. Garnish with the lime wedge.

This is the only time in this entire cocktail section that I’ll say this: be careful with these.

2 ounces absinthe

2 ounces vodka

1 ounce crème de menthe

2 ounces milk (Pam, being a lost cause, uses heavy cream)

Shake ingredients, over ice, in a cocktail mixer. Strain into an ice-filled collins glass, Drink, while thinking about the decisions that have brought you to this very spot, at this very moment.

A Rob Roy is basically a Manhattan in which the whiskey is replaced with scotch. A Gummi Roy is basically a Rob Roy in which the sweet vermouth is replaced with gummi bears.

5 gummi bears

2 ounces scotch

Place gummi bears in a rocks glass, Add scotch. A child could do it. In fact, the brightly-colored, kid-friendly gummi bears make this an excellent drink to teach children about cocktails.

There are very, very few good things that have come from Long Island. Yeah, no, I can’t actually think of a single other thing besides this cocktail. An excellent drink to serve a female companion, although prudence dictates you know her body weight within a margin of error of three pounds. Actually, prudence dictates you know this no matter what you’re serving her.

1 ounce vodka

1 ounce gin

1 ounce white rum

1 ounce triple sec

1 ounce tequila (seriously, this drink doesn’t fuck around)

2 ounces freshly squeezed lemon juice

2 ounces gomme syrup
⁷¹

Splash of cola

1 lemon slice, as garnish

Shake ingredients, over ice, in a cocktail mixer. Strain into pint glass filled with ice, garnish with the lemon slice. Hand someone your keys. House keys, too: you can just smash in a window.

Tropical and delicious but, like the Bellini, unless you’re drinking it at the source (the original Don the Beachcomber’s in Los Angeles, now closed), there’s really no point in trying.

One of several delicious cocktails named after a place. Also, the cherry makes it a nice late-morning transitional cocktail, to help ease you into whatever you’ll be drinking at lunch.

2½ ounces rye or Canadian whiskey

1 ounce sweet red vermouth

1 dash angostura bitters

(although Peychaud’s is entirely acceptable)

1 maraschino
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cherry, as garnish

Shake ingredients, over ice, in a cocktail mixer. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with the maraschino cherry. Sip, while thinking about how cool you are. Yeah, you’re doing okay.

I think I’ve made my stance on acceptable martini ingredients pretty clear. Although, in a certain other (lame British) secret agent’s defense, I do have to admit that the earliest version of his so-called “martini” was actually fairly non-vaginal, as it contained both gin
and
vodka
and
a great big shot of Lillet Blonde. And also a slice of lemon peel, which, whatever, but two or three of those bastards, and your liver will definitely know that you’re expecting great things from it.