Screwdriver (Difford's recipe)

Serve in

Garnish:

Orange slice

How to make:

STIR (preferably with a screwdriver) all ingredients with ice and strain into ice-filled glass.

Review:

The temperature at which this drink is served and the freshness of the orange juice are crucial to its success, but it's perhaps better made into a Harvey Wallbanger.

My own preference is to make my Screwdrivers with a whopping 75ml of vodka, 90ml orange juice, 7.5ml rich sugar syrup, and 3 dashes orange bitters. I like the grainy bite the generous measure of vodka adds but it's a punchy drink, so I have cut the vodka back to 60ml and cut back the sugar to 5ml to maintain balance. The only downside to this revised recipe is that the washline may sit a little low in the glass.

Variant:

Harvey Wallbanger

History:

Legend has it that this cocktail first appeared in the late 1940s in Iran where parched American oil engineers working in the desert supposedly added orange juice to their vodka and stirred it with the nearest thing to hand, usually a screwdriver which was attached to their work clothes.

This is partly supported by the following reference to the drink in the 24th October 1949 issue of Time Magazine, "In the dimly lighted bar of the sleek Park Hotel, Turkish intelligence agents mingle with American engineers and Balkan refugees, drinking the latest Yankee concoction of vodka and orange juice, called a 'screwdriver'."

Nutrition:

192 calories

Alcohol content:

• 1.4 standard drinks
• 12.25% alc./vol. (24.5° proof)
• 19.1 grams of pure alcohol