The Tasty Cocktail Family That Dates Back To The 1800s
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Dating back to at least the mid-19th century, a "daisy" is a class of drinks closely related to a "sour," a popular concoction consisting of a spirit, citrus, and sugar. The whiskey sour, made of whiskey, lemon juice, and simple syrup, is a well-known cocktail in this category. There are two definitions today that make a daisy different from a sour.
One camp says that to make a daisy, you combine a liqueur (a sweetened, flavored liquor) to the three base ingredients in a sour. According to The Educated Barfly on YouTube, a traditional daisy contained either just a liqueur as the sweetener or liqueur and simple syrup for a more balanced flavor. By this definition, several classic must-know cocktails belong to the daisy family, among them the classic mai tai, cosmopolitan, sidecar, and margarita, the Spanish word for "daisy." Others argue that a drink also needs a splash of sparkling water to be a daisy, as defined in "The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails." Jerry Thomas, long considered the "father of American mixology", added a half ounce of club soda to his 1876 gin daisy.
What are some classic daisy recipes?
The 1887 edition of "Jerry Thomas' Bar-tenders Guide" included recipes for a few different daisies worthy of trying today. Thomas' gin daisy called for three or four dashes of orgeat or gum syrup, three dashes of maraschino, the juice of half of a small lemon, and one wine glass of Holland gin mixed in a cocktail shaker, then strained into a glass filled one-third of the way with shaved ice. Top it off with seltzer or sparkling mineral water.
Thomas' whiskey daisy is similarly constructed. Mix three dashes of gum syrup, two dashes of orgeat, the juice of half a small lemon, and one wine glass of bourbon or rye whiskey in a cocktail shaker. Strain and top off just as you did the gin daisy. A Santa Cruz daisy substitutes the orgeat in the whiskey daisy with maraschino or curaçao and the whiskey with Santa Cruz rum; the rest is the same. The brandy daisy substitutes the orgeat with curaçao, the whiskey with brandy, plus adds two dashes of Jamaica rum.