Sharkbait’s Cocktail of the Week: Journalistic Integrity

Hello and happy Friday once again. I’ve been keeping a running list of drinks recipes I come across places online, as supplements to my cocktail books and when I’m having a hard time coming up with something original to experiment with. This week was definitely one of those weeks. I went back to the stash of recipes and had three plausible candidates to choose from this week. I ended up going with Jim Meehan’s Journalist. The other two I’ll keep on standby for now.

I chose the Journalist because pretty much everything Meehan touches is fantastic. I have two of his cocktail books (the Please Don’t Tell Cocktail Book and The Bartender’s Manual) and I’ve been to his namesake bar Please Don’t Tell in New York and it was fantastic. Also, this was the recipe that required the least amount of substitutions. I genuinely try to make these as close as I can, but sometimes I need to make subs, and in this case, subbing one orange liqueur for another seemed like it would cause the least amount of issues. Rest assured, the other two will be making appearances soon enough. Regardless, on to the Journalist!

.75 oz. gin
.25 oz. dry vermouth
.25 oz. sweet vermouth
.25 oz. orange Curaçao
.25 oz.  lemon juice
Dash of Angostura bitters

Shake all ingredients with ice. Strain into a chilled coupe glass

There is more of a nose here than I expected. It has subtle hints of angostura up front, but that smell is mellowed with the Cointreau, which I can detect a little bit of as well. Surprisingly don’t get a whole lot of lemon here, since that usually makes itself known up front.

The sip is well balanced. The lemon is the most distinctive flavor I can initially pick up. Despite the proportion of gin to the lemon juice. The juniper and other herbs of the gin are muted a lot in this application. Initially, I can’t really detect the gin at all here. However after a few sips I start to recognize where it comes in. That is about midway through, but it does not over power at all. Instead it hangs out underneath the lemon and the vermouths. It carries itself that way throughout the rest of the sip.

The twin vermouths do a superb job to really maintain the flavor of this drink. The sweet cancels out the lemon, and and the dry does wonders on the usually strong gin favors. The curacao, or Cointreau in my case adds a really nice depth that I can really pick up after a few more sips. It really helps smooth out the sip, and the hint of orange lasts all the way from beginning to end, and even leaves a subtle aftertaste on my palate when I am finished.

If (when) you do make this, increase the measurements. The two comments on this from the New York Times both mentioned adding more, and on a first pass, I found out that even pouring into a coupe, there is still a lot of headroom. So I doubled the ingredients and that got a better pour. Hence the photograph above.

This is a very refreshing drink. It’s a terrific cooler for a warm summer evening, and takes very minimal effort. I’m interested in trying this with curacao, but swapping one orange liqueur for another does not seem to have caused any ill effects to the flavor.

(Banner image found here)