East India No.1
4.2 23 ratings
Ingredients
How to make
Serve in a coupe glass
Prepare
- 1 Select and pre-chill a COUPE GLASS.
- 2 Prepare garnish of orange (or lemon) zest twist.
Method
- 3 STIR all ingredients with ice.
- 4 FINE STRAIN into chilled glass.
Garnish
- 5 EXPRESS orange (or lemon) zest twist over the cocktail and use as garnish.
Flavour profile
28.7% alc./vol. · 1.5 standard drinks · 172 calories
History
A splash of floral red curaçao, raspberry syrup, and a hint of maraschino delicately flavour and subtly sweeten this spirit-forward, brandy-based cocktail. Use red curaçao, not orange curaçao, for the intended flavour and appearance, as orange curaçao yields a very different drink.
The East India Company lends its name to this cocktail, adapted from the earliest known reference in Harry Johnson's 1882 Bartender's Manual. That original recipe specifies red curaçao, a departure from the more common orange or blue varieties. This version, complete with red curaçao, is also found in O.H. Byron's 1884 The Modern Bartender's Guide. By the 1900 updated edition of Johnson's Bartender's Manual, he adds instructions for "putting in a cherry or medium-sized olive" alongside the lemon zest twist. He noted, "This drink is a great favourite with the English living in the different parts of East India." No other prominent cocktail books feature the East India until Johnson's 1882 recipe reappears nearly identically in Thomas Stuart's 1904 Stuart's Fancy Drinks and How to Mix Them. It is later included in Tom Bullock's 1917 The Ideal Bartender. EAST INDIA COCKTAIL (Use a large bar glass.) Fill the glass with shaved ice; 1 tea-spoon of raspberry syrup; 1 tea-spoon of Curacao (red); 2 of 3 dashes of bitters (Angostura); 2 dashes of Maraschino; 1 wine glass of brandy; Stir up with a spoon, strain into a cocktail glass, and twist a piece of lemon peel on top, and serve.
Created by Harry Johnson