Pendennis Club Special

Difford's Guide
Discerning Drinkers (20 ratings)

Serve in a

Coupe glass
Ingredients:
2 shot Hayman's London Dry Gin
1 shot De Kuyper Apricot Brandy liqueur
12 shot Lime juice (freshly squeezed)
2 dash Peychaud's or other Creole-style bitters
2 drop Saline solution 4:1 (20g sea salt to 80g water) (optional)
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Read about cocktail measures and measuring.

How to make:

  1. Select and pre-chill a Coupe glass.
  2. Prepare garnish of skewered Luxardo Maraschino Cherry.
  3. SHAKE all ingredients with ice.
  4. FINE STRAIN into chilled glass.
  5. Garnish with skewered cherry.
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AKA:

Pendennis Club Cocktail

Strength & taste guide:


Review:

Tangy, subtle, sweet, and sour. Depending on your palate and apricot liqueur you may want to add 2.5ml sugar syrup.

History:

Eponymously named after the Pendennis Club in Louisville, Kentucky, the first known reference to this cocktail appears as the Pendennis Club Cocktail in the "Seductive American Cocktails" appendix in William "Cocktail Bill" Boothby's 1908 The World's Drinks and How to Mix Them book with just three ingredients: gin, apricot brandy, and dry vermouth.

By the time it resurfaces in Charles H. Baker Jr.'s 1939 The Gentleman's Companion as "The Pendennis Club's Famous Special" it morphed into a four-ingredient cocktail served over a split fresh kumquat. Modern-day recipes, such as the above, are nearer to Baker's 1939 Pendennis Club Cocktail than Cocktail Bill's 1908 Pendennis Club.

THE PENDENNIS CLUB'S FAMOUS SPECIAL
To 1 jigger of dry gin add ½ jigger of the best dry apricot brandy procurable. Squeeze in the juice of 1 lime or ½ a small lemon, strained of course, and trim with 2 dashes of Peychaud's bitters which has been made for generations in New Orleans. . . . Split a ripe kumquat, now available during the winter in most big grocery or fruit stores; take out the seeds and put the two halves in a Manhattan glass. Stir the drink like a Martini with lots of cracked ice and strain onto the golden fruit.

Charles H. Baker Jr., 1939

Nutrition:

One serving of Pendennis Club Special contains 202 calories.

Alcohol content:

  • 1.7 standard drinks
  • 22.38% alc./vol. (44.76° proof)
  • 23.7 grams of pure alcohol
Difford's Guide remains free-to-use thanks to the support of the brands in green above. Values stated for alcohol and calorie content, and number of drinks an ingredient makes should be considered approximate.

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New Year's Day image

New Year's Day

If Auld Lang Syne left your throat dry? And dancing left your feet sore? And drinking left your head fuzzy? Then resist the temptation to curl up in bed

Hot Toddy Day image

Hot Toddy Day

In the days before ice was easily available - and in most parts of the world, you needed to be pretty much royalty to own an ice house and keep it stocked

The day Prohibition started image

The day Prohibition started

One minute after midnight on this day in 1920, the Volstead Act became law and Prohibition descended on the United States, making it illegal to possess,

Beer Can Appreciation Day image

Beer Can Appreciation Day

Here at Difford's Guide we're huge fans of beer cans – indeed we prefer cans to bottles. So we're happy to support this marketing gimmick of a day from

Burns Night image

Burns Night

The evening of January 25th is when Scots everywhere hold Burns Suppers in honour of the birth of Scotland's favourite poet and son, Robert Burns. Born

Brandy Alexander Day image

Brandy Alexander Day

For no particular reason we know of, today has been declared Brandy Alexander Day. Hoorah!

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