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Boulevardier No. 2

Name: Boulevardier No. 2
Total time: 3 min
Cuisine: Cocktail
Ingredients: 30 ml Red quinquina e.g. Dubonnet, Byrrh; 30 ml Robust rouge quinquina; 15 ml Red bitter liqueur; 15 ml Cognac (brandy)

Difford’s Guide

Discerning Drinkers (5)

Measurements in:

Serves:

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Ingredients
1 fl oz	Dubonnet, Byrrh etc. rouge light quinquina (chilled)
1 fl oz	Robust rouge quinquina aromatised wine (chilled)
1/2 fl oz	Italian red bitter liqueur
1/2 fl oz	Cognac (brandy)

How to make

Glassware

Serve in a Coupe glass

Prepare

Select and pre-chill a COUPE GLASS.
Prepare garnish of lemon zest twist.

Method

STIR all ingredients with ice.
STRAIN into chilled glass.

Garnish

EXPRESS lemon zest twist over the cocktail and use as garnish.

Flavour Profile

No alcohol

Medium

Boozy

Sweet

Medium

Dry/sour

Health & Nutrition

Nutrition:

One serving of Boulevardier No. 2 contains 134 calories

Alcohol content:

1.1 standard drinks
17.14% alc./vol. (34.28° proof)
15.5 grams of pure alcohol

History

Not to be confused with the better-known bourbon-based, Negroni-like Boulevardier, which appeared a couple of years earlier, in 1927, and has endured over the years to appear regularly on bar menus to this day.

The recipe for this second and quite different Boulevardier first appeared in the anonymously written 1929 book Cocktails de Paris Présentés Par RIP, where it says it was created by Robert du "Viel" (Robert Carne from Bar Viel in Hotel de Paris), winner of the "Grand Prix at the Bartenders' Championship held in Paris on February 2, 1929."

Anonymous, Cocktails de Paris Présentés Par RIP, 1929

What I call the Boulevardier No. 2 also features in William T. Boothby's 1934 The World's Drinks And How To Mix Them.

BOULEVARDIER
Dubonnet . . . . . . 1/3 jigger
Raphael . . . . . . . . 1/3 jigger
Campari . . . . . . . 1/6 jigger
Cognac . . . . . . . . . 1/6 jigger
Shake well with ice, strain into chilled cocktail glass and serve.
William T. Boothby, The World's Drinks And How To Mix Them, 1934

Many thanks to fellow Discerning Drinker, Tuber Magnatum, for bringing this cocktail to our attention.

Review

Delicately bittersweet, with red-wine notes and herbal complexity. (For the rouge quinquina, I used Raphaël, as per the original recipe.)

Dubonnet Red 750ml - makes 25 cocktails
$15.99 $0.64 per cocktail Dubonnet Red image

Campari Bitter 375ml - makes 25 cocktails
$19.99 $0.80 per cocktail Campari Bitter image

$1.44 per cocktail*

Makes a minimum of 25 cocktails.
Shipping and applicable tax calculated at checkout.

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* May not include all ingredients. Price per cocktail is an estimate based on cost of one cocktail with ingredients shown above and does not include shipping.

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Comments & Discussion

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Werd Bmocsil 51w

Out here in the frontier colonies (New York), quinquina is nearly unknown. Would Violet Freres Byrrh Grand Quinquina be a reasonable substitution?

Simon Difford Verified User Premium Member 51w

I've just made with Byrrh Grand Quinquina and slightly fruitier but very tasty. I'm going to have to order a bunch of rouge quinquina to try all side by side.

Chris Brislawn 51w

Another exercise in substitutions. Substituting Lillet Rouge for Dubonnet was easy enough, but I was initially stumped by the St. Raphael, which I've never seen. Decided to go with Tempus Fugit Kina L'Aero d'Or and therefore replaced the Campari with Tempus Fugit Gran Classico Bitter. A great drink that actually tastes like a Negroni/Boulevardier variation despite having only a red bitter in common. So why isn't it named something more fitting like, say, the "Boulevardier `a Carne"?

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