G.P. 3 Kingsley Amis’ Ten General Principles
G.P. 3: Cold trumps concentrated
Welcome back to the next iteration of my focus on the general principles Kingsley Amis lists in his excellent book, Everyday Drinking: The Distilled Kingsley Amis.
The book lists ten general principles, which can be summarized:
For drinks accompanied by fruit or vegetables, try adding juice
Cold trumps concentrated
Cheap alcohol for mixing with juices
Bubbly drinks act faster
Soak fruit in liquor before adding to a drink
Commercial mixes are okay
Wine preparation is important, but price is more so
He who believes he has a hangover does not
Eating fattens you
To refresh yourself on past principles, feel free to follow the links above to previous entries.
Let's hit the trail!
G.P. 3:
It is more important that a cold drink should be as cold as possible than that it should be as concentrated as possible.
More than any other, this principle might be the most important out of the set, especially if you are a Martini drinker like me.
Kingsley introduces G.P. 3 while explaining how he likes to stir his Martini and the funny thing is it isn't all that much. He recommends a vigorous stir for a minute or so and then to let the mixture sit on ice for another two or three. He believes this makes the drink colder but more diluted—we know you can't have one without the other. You can, however, have different levels of chilling a diluting within a cocktail. His Manhattan, for example, says nothing about letting the drink sit on ice. If anything, he barely mentions ice or chilling at all, just that it should be thoroughly mixed together in a glass before ice and fruit are added.
Let's quickly examine the Martini and Manhattan, the King and Queen of cocktails, respectively. At their simplest, they could almost be the same cocktail. Spirit, vermouth, bitters, stirred. If you ordered a Whiskey Martini or a Gin Manhattan, any bartender would know what you meant, but odds are they would come with the opposite vermouth you wanted, but by definition still correct. These drinks can be made with sweet or dry vermouth and still claim their title. That is why the Martini is sometimes referred to as a "Dry Martini" to differentiate it from a "Sweet Martini," which is the same thing as a Gin & It. It has nothing to do with the amount of vermouth, but everything to do with the type. The Manhattan (leaving out the other boroughs and their variations) is only referred to as Dry, Sweet, or Perfect. The Martini can also be ordered like the Manhattan but wears many masks and has gone plenty of other names over the years like The Fancy Gin Cocktail, The Bradford, Marguerite, Martine, The Gibson, and I'll tack the precursor Martinez right here on end, but that is for a different post another day.
I am trying to get across that the two drinks at their most basic are incredibly similar except for one glaring difference, a Martini should be much colder than a Manhattan. I'll take a Manhattan poured over ice and served right away in a rocks glass like Kingsley any day, but when it is stirred and served up, I want it to be adequately mixed but not so frigid that the whiskey loses flavor. I like my Old Fashioned served room temp over ice and allowed to come up to drinking temperature while sitting in front of me in pursuance of the Old Fashioned Bell Curve. Negroni—same way. So are these considered "cold" drinks, or are they somewhere in between? Cool drinks, perhaps?
For me, the take away from this G.P. is figuring out which drinks are "cold" drinks and which are not. This is a personal decision and one that may come as a shock. Differentiating between cool and cold may seem like nitpicking, but I think it makes plenty of sense depending on the drink. Sipping on a neat pour of something is usually had with a few drops of water, if not straight out of the bottle (or barrel), and at room temperature so that one can take in all the flavor. That is the point of drinking something that way. Paying attention to temperature and dilution in cocktails with lots of flavors to impart leads me to serve them cool but not cold. In doing so, they are prepared with less water. You see the same care taken temperature-wise with still white wines as opposed to the sparkling variety, which should be enjoyed ice cold rather than fridge temp or slightly warmer.
The Manhattan, Old Fashioned, and Negroni prepared by spoon are not what I would consider "cold" drinks in the way that a Martini must be cold—teeth hurting cold. You can drink all three of those other drinks at room temperature, and they would be nearly pleasant while the Martini would be undrinkable. Temperature is more or less one of the ingredients that make the Martini what it is, while perceived strength and flavor make the other drinks what they are. When I drink a Manhattan, Old Fashioned, or Negroni, I know it! You taste it right away with their brazen flavors coming through with intensity. Allowing these bold flavors to come through is a product of less stirring with ice, leading to a more concentrated cocktail. A Martini served properly doesn't make its power known until you are halfway through the second one. As a friend once told me, a Martini should taste like, "biting into a cloud."
Other cocktails rely on temperature rather than strength, like the Gimlet and Daiquiri. I would also venture to say that anything served over crushed ice like a Julep, Mojito, Crusta, or Cobbler needs the extra surface area of the crushed ice to chill, often freezing the glasses they are in and diluting the drinks sufficiently. The highball and gin and tonic should both be frigidly cold (I leave spirits bottles in the freezer for these drinks) and then cut with your mixer of choice. The reasoning here is that these drinks taste better cold and that CO2 from the soda or tonic holds far better in cold environments, but again a different post for another day.
The freezer brings up an interesting point, though, and that is, what about the Duke's Martini and others of similar style? It is delicious, beautiful, and most certainly dangerous as it slinks out of its frozen prison and into an icy cocktail glass, and it may be a loophole to Kingsley's principle. Yet, is it?
To me, the drink loses something by dropping the temperature below what any amount of stirring can do. I don't know what it is, but after drinking Duke's Martinis for a stretch, I became disenchanted—something was missing. The act of mixing a cocktail, combining the ice with the spirit, brings instantaneous magic that cannot be simulated in the freezer. My experience with these frozen style cocktails at home is lackluster, but while in a fancy hotel served by a man in a white jacket with a side of olives, I don't seem to have any complaints. Regardless, this style is all the rage. I prefer to move a little slower, and if a Martini is the drink of the night, I will pull out a glass and mix it myself like I would any other drink. I just may let the Martini sit a little longer on ice than I would allow a Manhattan.
Next week we move to:
G.P. 4:
For any liquor that is going to be mixed with fruit juices, vegetable juices, etc., sweetening, strongly flavoured cordials and the like, go for the cheapest reliable article. Do not waste your Russian or Polish vodka, etc.
Thanks for reading!
Tomorrow on The Nightcap Show, my guest is Giancarlo Aversa (@giancarloaversa), the principal bartender at The Last Word. GC and I will be chatting about keeping a cocktail bar afloat when you can’t have guests inside and how their business has pivoted from bar service to takeout. It will also be great catching up with, I’m sure, a good story or two, seeing as we used to stand behind the same bar! We get started tomorrow night live on Instagram at 9 pm ET.