Saturday, January 13, 2018

i.b.f. pick-me-up

1 glass Brandy (1 1/2 oz Copper & King Blue Sky Mining)
3 dash Fernet Branca (1/4 oz)
3 dash Curaçao (1/4 oz Copper & King Distillare Orange)

Shake with ice, strain into a medium wine glass, and fill with Champagne (2 oz 90+ Cellars Prosecco); I added a lemon twist.

After my bar shift two Saturdays ago, I returned home after midnight so it was technically New Year's Eve. My mind turned to Champagne cocktails and I went with one from Harry McElhone's 1927 Barflies & Cocktails that I was reminded of when looking in Greg Boehm's book two nights before. That recipe was the I.B.F. Pick-Me-Up crafted by Bob Card that varied from the book's other Pick-Me-Up, namely Harry's. The I.B.F. part stands for the International Barflies group founded in 1924 by O.O. McIntyre at Harry's New York Bar in Paris that Ted Haigh described in a Modern Drunkard article as a group that "really got a lot of these cocktail hankerers together in a real way. It's part bartending union, part cheering section, and part bartender." With brandy, Fernet, and orange liqueur, the combination seemed familiar but I could find no evidence that I had tried this drink under that name and I tried to convince myself that it was perhaps a blurful residual of Don't Give Up the Ship; however, I later found that I had tried it years ago from the 1940 The How and When as the Imperial Delight Cocktail.
In the glass, the I.B.F. Pick-Me-Up began with an lemon and orange aroma that later displayed Fernet's herbal notes to the nose. Next, a crisp carbonated wine with a hint of orange on the sip gave way to brandy, orange, and menthol flavors on the swallow.

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