Dempsey

Serve in a

Garnish:

Luxardo Maraschino cherry

How to make:

STIR all ingredients with ice and strain into chilled glass.

Review:

Depending on your grenadine, this cocktail ranges from blush pink to scarlet red and the flavour profile can vary as much. The colour is immaterial but nail the balance, with absinthe tamed but assertive, and you've a great spirituous aperitif or after-dinner digestif.

History:

Adapted from a recipe in Robert Vermeire's 1922 Cocktails How to Mix Them:
"Dempsey Cocktail
Fill the shaker half full of broken ice and add:
2 dashes of Absinthe
1 teaspoon of Grenadine
1/6 gill of Gin
2/6 gill of Calvados
Shake well and strain into cocktail-glass. This drink was introduced at Deauville, 1921, after Dempsey's victory over Carpenter."

Vermeire, and indeed the drink's name, reference a boxing match dubbed the "Fight of the Century" which saw Jack Dempsey (world heavyweight champion) knockout Georges Carpentier (world light-heavyweight champion) in the fourth round. The bout took place on 2nd July 1921 at Boyle's Thirty Acres in Jersey City, USA, and was the first boxing fight to produce $1,000,000 dollars in revenue.

Nutrition:

One serving of Dempsey contains 191 calories.

Alcohol content:

• 1.7 standard drinks
• 27.92% alc./vol. (55.84° proof)
• 23.7 grams of pure alcohol