Join thousands of like-minded professionals and cocktail enthusiasts, receive our weekly newsletters and see pages produced by our community for fellow Discerning Drinkers.
Classically made with 2 parts whiskey, 1 part dry vermouth, and 1 part pineapple juice, this vintage cocktail is opened and improved by splitting the vermouth...
I have given this a fair try now and just can't love this cocktail. A decent diversion I suppose when Manhattans get boring. I'll probably try again but not soon. Diffords recipe is an improvement over the classic, in my opinion.
i have just had this for the first time and following your instructions all the ingredients were shaken. My sort of drink! Next time I will stir and see what the result is. I enjoy your site because you give the history of the drink and show the origin.
I went with vigorously shaken served on the rocks (well one giant ice ball). It is delightful in the proportions given (1 1/2 oz rye to 3/4 oz vermouth and juice, yes, oz because I'm American). The only thing I would try out is to treat it like a sour with some aquafaba (or egg white for those prefer old school) to change the mouth feel and up the foam level to 11.
An understated flavor profile, but tasty. I added just the tiniest bit of St. Germain (5 mL or less) to enhance the pineapple just a bit and upped the rye by 15 mL - it seemed to round it out nicely.
Interesting. At first the faint taste of pineapple seem to standout. This is a drink which could use a long shake/stir and definitely needs a little time to relax and breathe.
An unexpected delight! I would never have guessed this combination of ingredients could taste so good. We used Dolin Blanc as our vermouth and I think that really helped. I can't imagine this with regular dry vermouth. This will be a must anytime we have fresh pineapple in the house.
I've attempted the Algonquin many times over a 12-yr period... and I never "got" it. Now that the vermouth game is finally afoot here in the States, preparing this cocktail with Blanc/Bianco makes SO MUCH SENSE!
Spot on. Tried it both ways - the Bianco version is a major step forward from the 'classic' recipe.
It's definitely with trying, and probably coming back to, but personally I am not sure any Rye + pineapple juice is the base for a 5* cocktail so far as my palate is a judge. But I wouldn't back my palate against yours, so you have try it, otherwise you will end up just concentrating on Negroni or Manhattan and their derivatives, which is not the worst default position!