East India No.1

Difford's Guide
Discerning Drinkers (17 ratings)

Serve in a

Coupe glass
Ingredients:
2 fl oz Rémy Martin V.S.O.P. cognac
1/6 fl oz Red curaçao liqueur
1/6 fl oz Raspberry (framboise) sugar syrup
1/12 fl oz Luxardo Maraschino liqueur
2 dash Angostura Aromatic Bitters
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Read about cocktail measures and measuring.

How to make:

  1. Select and pre-chill a Coupe glass.
  2. Prepare garnish of orange (or lemon) zest twist.
  3. STIR all ingredients with ice.
  4. FINE STRAIN into chilled glass.
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Strength & taste guide:


Review:

A splash of floral red curaçao, raspberry syrup and the merest touch of maraschino delicately flavour and slightly sweeten this spirit-forward, brandy-based cocktail.

Beware making this cocktail with more widely available orange curaçao rather than red curaçao as this produces a very different tasting and looking cocktail.

History:

Named after the East India Company, this recipe is adapted from the earliest known reference to an East India cocktail in Harry Johnson's 1882 Bartender's Manual which stipulates the use of red curaçao rather than the now more commonplace clear or blue curaçao.

This recipe, including the use of red curaçao, is repeated in O.H. Byron's 1884 The Modern Bartender's Guide, and in the 1900 updated edition Johnson's Bartender's Manual, where he specifies "putting in a cherry or medium-sized olive" in addition to the lemon zest twist. Tellingly, he also adds, "This drink is a great favourite with the English living in the different parts of East India."

The East India doesn't appear in any notable cocktail books published after 1900 until Johnson's 1882 recipe appears almost verbatim in Thomas Stuart's 1904 Stuart's Fancy Drinks and How to Mix Them and then again in Tom Bullock's 1917 The Ideal Bartender.

The East India survives pretty much unchanged from Harry Johnson's 1882 recipe until the 1920s when the East India No.2 emerges.

EAST INDIA COCKTAIL
(Use a large bar glass.)
Fill the glass with shaved ice;
1 tea-spoon of raspberry syrup;
1 tea-spoon of Curacao (red);
2 of 3 dashes of bitters (Angostura);
2 dashes of Maraschino;
1 wine glass of brandy;
Stir up with a spoon, strain into a cocktail glass, and twist a piece of lemon peel on top, and serve.

Harry Johnson, New and Improved Bartenders' Manual, 1882

Nutrition:

One serving of East India No.1 contains 173 calories.

Alcohol content:

  • 1.5 standard drinks
  • 28.67% alc./vol. (57.34° proof)
  • 21 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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Bacardi's birthday image

Bacardi's birthday

The founder of Bacardi was a Catalan wine merchant called Facundo Bacardi Massó, who left Spain for Cuba in 1830.

Valentine's Day image

Valentine's Day

You can't have failed to notice that 14 February is St. Valentine's Day, a time of year when a sum equivalent to the GDP of a small country is spent on

Fernand Petiot's birthday image

Fernand Petiot's birthday

On this day in 1900, Fernand Pete Petiot was born in Paris, to parents who owned a guesthouse - he would come to fame, correctly or otherwise, as the inventor

Margarita Day image

Margarita Day

There are days for most things in the US, but Margarita Day is a subject very close to our hearts. Because, no matter who invented this classic cocktail,

World Bartender Day image

World Bartender Day

We're celebrating what the Oxford English dictionary defines as a person serving drinks at a bar, but we know as creative, hard-working folk who satisfy

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