12 Cocktails Good and True

2. AVIATION. The story of the Aviation is one of auspicious beginnings, calamitous misfortune, virtual extinction, serendipitous resurection and ultimate triumph. That is quite a lot for a cocktail. In 1903, the Wright brothers initiated powered flight, and within a few years the brave new world of aviation was well underway. In honor of this new and exciting field, Hugo Ensslin, the head bartender at the Hotel Wallick in New York, created the Aviation cocktail. It features gin, maraschino liqueur, lemon juice and Crème de Violette, the last ingredient giving the cocktail its bluish-purple color and floral flavor. The exact date of the Aviation’s creation, however, is uncertain. We know it existed by 1916, since the recipe appeared in Ensslin’s Recipes for Mixed Drinks published in that year. Some say, it has been around at least since 1911 but with no convincing evidence. Whatever the date, it could not have been created much earlier than 1911, since I doubt the term “aviation” even existed very long before then. So, we’ll leave it at sometime between 1911 and 1916. Though a revered classic and perhaps my personal favorite, it is not a drink for everyone. The floral hints of the Crème de Violette are, to be charitable, difficult for some to appreciate. Thus, even in its prime, it was popular though not hugely so. For a number of years after its creation, the Aviation enjoyed a modest success. But then it fell out of favor as a result of a typo. In 1930, the widely read Savoy Cocktail Book inadvertently omitted the Crème de Violette from the recipe. Without the unique flavoring and blueish hue imparted by the Violette, it became sour, insipid and uninspiring. It soon lapsed into obscurity. To make matters worse, Crème de Violette disappeared from the United States in the early 1960s. With its essential ingredient absent from its most widely known recipe and unavailable anyway, the Aviation took a nose dive and appeared to have crashed and burned. Then, in 2007, Crème de Violette suddenly reappeared in the US market. At about the same time, Ensslin’s original recipe was rediscovered. The Aviation quickly became a hit again and is now more popular than ever before. All’s well that ends well. Incredibly, though, there are still some who stick with the long standard Violette-free version appearing in the Savoy Cocktail Book. Like the Russian Orthodox “Old Believers”, who continued to adhere to their version of the sacred texts in the face of indisputable evidence of their mistranslation, they reject both the truth and a superior product. I admire their reverence for custom, but, like many things, tradition is good except when it is not. So, if you don’t like the Violette, please just drink something else. There is one other pitfall to avoid. During the absence of Crème de Violette in the United States, many recipes began calling for Crème Yvette to replicate the violet color in the drink. Yvette, however, is a different thing all together and should be avoided. Recipe: 1 ½ oz. gin ½ oz. fresh squeezed lemon juice 1 ½ teaspoons maraschino liqueur (Luxardo) 1 ½ teaspoon Crème de Violette (Rothman & Winter) Combine the ingredients with ice in a shaker. Shake vigorously for 30 seconds and strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with brandied cherry. Ingredient Note: Rothman & Winter Crème de Violette, a product of Austria and now widely available in the United States, is produced from macerated Queen Charlotte and March violets in Weinbrand (German for brandy) distilled from grapes and cane sugar for sweetness. Maraschino (pronounced marr-eh-SKEE-noh) liqueur is a clear, relatively dry liqueur made from the distillation of sour Marasca cherries that grow wild and almost exclusively on the Dalmatian coast of Croatia. The sour fruit and crushed pits give it a subtle bitter almond flavor. The cherries are processed like brandy then combined with cane syrup before being aged and filtered. A widely distributed brand is made by the Italian company, Luxardo. The cherries from which the liqueur is made should not be confused with the bright red cherries served on children’s ice cream Sundays and in cocktails at substandard bars.