Alaska (Straub's 1914 recipe)

Serve in a

Photographed in an

Garnish:

Orange zest twist

How to make:

STIR all the ingredients with ice and strain into chilled glass.

AKA:

Oriental

Review:

Made with an Old Tom gin with amplified botanicals and minimal sugar (some are way too sweet) this is a spiritous and, if you hit the right dilution, tasty and complex cocktail.

Variant:

Alaska (Savoy's 1930 recipe); Nome

History:

Adapted from a recipe in Jacques Straub's 1914 book Drinks. The proportions are exactly as per his recipe but Straub calls for his Alaska to be shaken rather than stirred.

Alaska Cocktail.
1 dash orange bitters.
1/3 jigger yellow chartreuse.
2/3 jigger Tom gin. Shake.

Jacques Straub, 1914

Conjecture suggests this cocktail is so named due to its golden colour referencing the Alaska Gold Rush which was big news around the time of its creation. This gold rush, in the Klondike region of the Yukon in Canada, started in 1896.

By the summer of 1899 many of the prospectors left the Klondike for an area around Nome in west Alaska following the discovery of gold there. Interestingly, the Nome Cocktail is a variation on the Alaska and is mentioned in the Alaska Cocktail entry in David Embury's 1948 The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks.

ALASKA
1 part Yellow Chartreuse
5 to 7 parts Gin
Stir. A twist of lemon over each drink. Note that this is merely a Dry Martini with Chartreuse in place of vermouth. Because of the sweetness of the Chartreuse, a larger proportion of gin may be used than with the Dry Martini.
This is also sometimes called the Oriental. It can be greatly improved by using less Chartreuse and adding 1 to 2 parts dry sherry. This is the Nome.

David Embury, 1948

More cocktails by Jacques Straub

Alcohol content:

• 1.7 standard drinks
• 30.19% alc./vol. (60.38° proof)
• 23.5 grams of pure alcohol