23 May Irish Sherry Cobbler Cocktail Recipe

Irish Sherry Cobbler Cocktail Recipe

Ever since we tasted Service Bar‘s delightfully fancy cobbler at the Glendalough Cocktail Pop Up, cobblers have been on our mind. As we mentioned in previous posts, the cobbler is a very old drink, and to the historical purists not strictly a cocktail; it hit its height of popularity in the mid 19th century, back when the cocktail was a more specific category of drink–and a novel one at that–and hadn’t yet taken over the world and become the umbrella term for all alcoholic mixed drinks. Like many of the oldest drinks, it’s quite simple in its make-up: base liquor, ice, sugar, and a couple of slices of orange. Also, like many of the oldest drinks, to compensate for its basic ingredient list, some attention is paid to presentation; both Harry Craddock and Professor Jerry Thomas himself mention that a key step to making a cobbler is putting in the effort ‘to make it acceptable to the eye, as well as the palate’ (and when I say they both mention this, I mean they both use this exact phrase. It appears Craddock took more than just the recipe from Thomas in this instance).  In any case, it’s right and proper to dress this drink up a little; its taste matches its pretty looks more than its plain recipe.

The earliest cobbler was a sherry cobbler, though it spread in both directions, eventually incorporating most any spirit as well as wine. For today’s cobbler, we remain charmed by Service Bar’s whiskey & sherry blend. Rather than imitating their raspberry lemon syrup, though, we go back to the Jerry Thomas method of a bit of orange. However, we follow the modern innovation in Thomas’ 1887 recipe for the whiskey cobbler by adding maraschino. The two big tricks to this drink were getting the proportion of whiskey to sherry right, and deciding what kind of sherry to use–it’s not specified in either of the Thomas books. After a bit of experimentation on both fronts, we landed here.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 oz Irish whiskey–we used Donegal
• 1 1/2 oz fino sherry
• 1/4 oz maraschino liqueur
• 2 orange slices
• 1 tsp simple syrup
• another orange slice and a small assortment of other fruits, for garnish

Instructions

• Shake the sherry, whiskey, maraschino, simple syrup, and orange slices with ice. It both mixes the drink and muddles the orange.
• Pour, ice and all, into a rocks glass or highball.
• Garnish.
• Serve with a straw.