Sharkbait’s Cocktail of the Week: In The Navy

Happy long (if you reside below the Canadian border anyway) weekend everyone! I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before around these parts, but I am a huge history nerd. When I came across a tweet mentioning a cocktail that Admiral Chester Nimitz created when he was Commander In Chief, Pacific Fleet (CINPAC), I immediately knew I had to give it a shot. Look at this insanity:

Chester Nimitz was WILD. pic.twitter.com/W5RcQPF2yp

— Pete Kouretsos (@PKouretsos) August 28, 2022

What is even more insane is that the recipe above from the book “Nimitz at War: Command Leadership From Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay” by Craig Symonds; is a scaled down version of the recipe Nimitz usually made:

That’s right. When Nimitz wasn’t busy with trivial items such as breaking the Japanese codes, setting ambushes at Midway, planning island hopping campaigns, and making sure MacArthur didn’t go off the deep end, he was mixing gallons of this stuff. For those who have a hard time reading the recipe:

Admiral Nimitz recipe for the Old Fashioned Mix which he calls “CINCPAC SPECIAL”

• 1 clean one gallon jug
• 3 quarts Bourbon
• 1/4 of a fifth of gold label rum
• Add sugar cautiously until you can just detect the presence of sugar.
• Fill remainder of jug with tap water.
• Desirable, but not necessary: drop two whole vanilla beans into the jug to stay for many refills of the jug. They last for years.
• Pour generous portions over ice and serve it forth:

This recipe was developed by Admiral Nimitz when he was Commander in Chief of the Pacific at a time when liquor was rationed, a bottle a week to a man and frequently rum was the only kind available.

Now, as much as I would love to mix up a literal gallon of old fashioned, I don’t have the means to accomplish that at this moment in time. Though, I am very tempted to give that a go later on. So for now, I think I’ll stick with the scaled down version from the book:

1 Sugar cube

1 Drop Angostura bitters

Hot water to melt the sugar

2 oz. Bourbon

1 oz. Rum

Add the sugar cube to a rocks glass. Add the bitters on the cube, then pour just enough hot water to melt the cube. Add cracked ice, bourbon and rum and stir. No garnish.

The nose you’ll all be surprised to read, is all whiskey. Though the rum does a, pardon the pun, an admirable job cutting through and I can get some of the scents the blend brings to the table. Speaking of the rum, Nimitz didn’t specify the type of rum, but I would assume it was a spiced or darker rum. Since my choices for rum currently are overproof white, or the collective blend, and I chose the latter.

As to the taste, holy damn this thing is potent. As well it should be, since it’s all booze. Save for the miniscule amount of water used to dissolve the bitters soaked sugar cube. The whiskey is the real star of the show here. It really carries the flavor. The finish is where the rum really shines. Through the bourbon, I can pick up the subtle sweeter flavors of the rum blends, and it adds a really nice and different finish to this.

As mentioned, the rum is a nice touch, but this is less of a cocktail, and more of a souped up whiskey pour. I don’t hate this. In fact I very much like it. But whereas an Old Fashioned has a particular blend of flavors, this spin on it leaves me wanting some more. I think the vanilla bean addition might be needed here.

Now drink up. That’s an order.