When Chef Sin was in college in Indiana, her drink of choice was a classic gateway cocktail, a sweet-tart concoction, perfect for youngish palates, that could best be described as fizzy, boozy Kool-Aid: the Sloe Gin Fizz.
It’s actually a great drink, and it has been making a comeback with the rediscovery of sloe gin, a liqueur made from gin and sloe berries, a relative of the plum. During the 18th century in England, the quality of most gins was so poor that strong flavorings like sloe berries had to be added to make the drink palatable.
Today top-shelf gin brands such as Sipsmith and Plymouth produce outstanding sloe gins, and mixologists are discovering new ways to use the sour liqueur that go far beyond the Fizz: the Blackthorn, the Hedgerow Royale, even the Mulled Sloe Gin.
For this week’s Sunday Special, though, we decided to go back instead of forward, to an in-between time when sloe gin had shed its bathtub turpentine reputation but hadn’t yet become a sorority-house staple: the Roaring 1920s, and a cocktail called the Charlie Chaplin.
Its first appearance in print came in the 1931 edition of Old Waldorf Bar Days by Albert Stevens Crockett, but it’s said to have been invented more than a decade earlier, before Prohibition, when the cocktail was first served at the famed New York City hotel. Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be even a slightly interesting story behind the creation of the drink; the silent-film star was at the height of his fame at the time, and it was common then (as now) for bartenders to invent drinks mainly to name them after celebrities. (See, for example, the cocktail named for Chaplin’s contemporary and colleague Mary Pickford.)
The formula for the Charlie Chaplain Cocktail couldn’t be simpler: sole gin, apricot brandy, and lime juice, 1-to-1-to-1. Beware, however: This is a sweet drink. If you find it too cloying and would like to tone down a little, the James Beard Foundation suggests the addition of a bit of champagne, a creation it calls The Tramp.
Of course, at that point you might just as well have a Fizz.
Charlie Chaplain Cocktail
From Dale DeGroff, The Craft of the Cocktail
1 ounce sloe gin (we prefer Plymouth)
1 ounce apricot brandy or liqueur (we prefer Bitter Truth)
1 ounce lime juice (we prefer the kind that comes from limes)
Lime peel for garnish (ditto)
Shake all ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with lime peel.