Name: Empire Cocktail
Total time: 2 min
Cuisine: Cocktail
Ingredients: 45 ml Gin; 22.5 ml Calvados apple brandy; 22.5 ml Apricot liqueur; 10 ml Chilled water

Empire Cocktail
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Serve in a Coupe glass

Ingredients:
1 ¹⁄₂ oz	Hayman's London Dry Gin
³⁄₄ oz	Calvados / apple brandy / straight applejack
³⁄₄ oz	Luxardo Apricot Albicocca Liqueur
¹⁄₃ oz	Chilled water

Read about cocktail measures and measuring

How to make:

Select and pre-chill a Coupe glass.
Prepare garnish of apricot slice on rim or orange zest twist.
STIR all ingredients with ice.
FINE STRAIN into chilled glass.

Strength & taste guide:

No alcohol

Medium

Boozy

Sweet

Medium

Dry/sour

More cocktails with similar strength and taste profile

Review:

Apricot fortified by gin and apple brandy. Craddock's 1930 recipe calls for this cocktail to be shaken rather than stirred, indeed it's a cocktail that benefits from a little dilution, hence the addition of water.

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History:

Adapted from a recipe in Harry Craddock's 1930 The Savoy Cocktail Book.

EMPIRE COCKTAIL.
¼ Apricot Brandy.
¼ Calvados.
½ Gin.
Shake well and strain into chilled glass.
Harry Craddock, 1930

More cocktails by Harry Craddock

Nutrition:

One serving of Empire Cocktail contains 204 calories

Alcohol content:

1.9 standard drinks
27% alc./vol. (27° proof)
27 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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Jeremy Harrold

7th November 2021 at 05:53

Very nice. A perfect marriage of Apricot and Apple. Though it calls out to be a stirred cocktail I think shaking it with dry ice works a treat. Harry got it right!

Two Hands, One Drink

5th September 2021 at 18:04

Lovely flavors and perfectly balanced. Amazing how a recipe that is the same as it was almost 100 years ago still comes out so perfectly suited to modern palates. I think an orange twist is a nice garnish, and rather than add water (need to fix that typo in the recipe), I simply give it a little extra stirring time, which works just fine.