Melba Cocktail

Serve in a

Photographed in a

Garnish:

Float mint leaf or peg to rim

How to make:

SHAKE all ingredients with ice and fine strain into chilled glass.

Review:

This would be better named, "Melba Daiquiri", as it is a Swedish punsch, absinthe, and grenadine influenced Daiquiri. I've dramatically changed the equal parts rum and Swedish punsch specified in The Savoy Cocktail Book original, and upped the grenadine, but hopefully for the better.

Variant:

Peack Melba Cocktail

History:

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

MELBA COCKTAIL.
2 Dashes Grenadine.
2 Dashes Absinthe.
The juice of ¼ lemon or ½ lime.
½ Glass Bacardi Rum.
½ Glass Swedish Punch.
Shake well and strain into cocktail glass.

Harry Craddock, 1930

Created in honour of Dame Nellie Melba, the stage name of famous Australian operatic soprano, Helen Porter Mitchell (1861–1931). Her adopted name Melba is short for the city where she first performed aged just six at a concert in the Melbourne Town Hall. Her first professional performance, aged 23, was at a benefit concert also in Melbourne. She performed regularly at London's Covent Garden, a short walk from The Savoy.

In 1918, she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire and such was Dame Melba's popularity that, as well as to this cocktail, her name was attached to the Peach Melba dessert and Melba toast, patented in 1929 by Bert Weil.

Nutrition:

One serving of Melba Cocktail contains 184 calories.

Alcohol content:

• 1.6 standard drinks
• 21.16% alc./vol. (42.32° proof)
• 22.2 grams of pure alcohol