Episode 070

French 75 Recipe

To make a French 75 cocktail, you’ll need:

• 1 oz Gin
• 1 oz Simple Syrup
• 3/4 oz Lemon Juice
• 3 oz Champagne
• Lemon Twist

Stir up the Gin, simple syrup, and lemon juice over ice, strain into a Champagne flute, then top up with Champagne and enjoy.

The Big Lebowski

The Big Lebowski (1998) is an iconic stoner flick starring Jeff Bridges as “The Dude,” alongside his friends Walter (John Goodman) and Donnie (Steve Buschemi), portrays a farcical attempt to resolve a bizarre and violent mistaken identity crisis. Bridges’ chararcter shares a name with a LA millionaire who is involved in some questionable exploits, and he is unwillingly swept up in a plot that involves, inappropriate urination, kidnapping, East German thugs, and a whole lot of recreational drug usage.
The cocktail that steals the show in this film is the White Russian. “The Dude” is constantly pouring them for himself (sloppily, without measuring) throughout the movie, and as a result it becomes a master signifier for the whole movie, alongside The Dude’s urine-soaked Persian rug.

The Singapore Sling

To make a Singapore Sling, you’ll need:

• 1 oz. London dry gin
• 1 oz. Bols Cherry brandy or Cherry Heering
• 1 oz. Bénédictine
• 1 oz. fresh lime juice
• 2 oz. soda water
• 1 dash Angostura bitters

Combine all ingredients in a shaker with ice, shake well, pour the drink (with ice) into a highball glass, and garnish with fruit and/or mint.

This is a complex cocktail, and there is almost no agreement on its proper formulation. In this way, it presages certain iconic tiki drinks (like the Mai Tai). It was invented at the Raffle’s Hotel in Singapre in the early 20th century. Other common ingredients in different formulations of the Singapore Sling often include Pineapple juice, curacao, and grenadine.