The Bronx is somewhat of an odd drink: It falls into the same category of vermouth-orange juice drinks like the Blood and Sand that always take some tinkering to make them work. It is also special in that the standard recipe explicitly calls for two kinds of vermouth; a trait of drinks that usually bear the moniker of perfect (like the Perfect Manhattan).
This notion came in handy when I read the call for submissions of Drinks Open 2020: Create the Perfect Drink. You don’t need to study tea for 5 years to know that the perfect recipe doesn’t exist.
The perfect drink is the drink that fits the unique moment, never to be recreated precisely as it was.
But the Bronx is a perfect drink in the sense that it uses two kinds of vermouth, and I dare suggest that it is exactly this idea of crafting a drink ad hoc tuned precisely to the moment and recipient that lead for the word perfect to come to be used in this sense of splitting the vermouth part.
So let’s take this idea further: I’m splitting all the ingredients in two ingredients, achieving thus greater balance and, if you so will, perfection:
- 45 ml Old Tom
- 15 ml Western-style, citrus focused gin
- 15 ml mandarin juice
- 15 ml blood orange juice
- 10 ml White, off-dry white vermouth like Quintinye or Dolin Blanc, infused with carrot seed
- 5 ml heavy, bitter red vermouth like Punt e Mes
The mandarin juice adds sharpness needed to make these orange-vermouth drinks work, Old Tom adds honeyed notes that tie the orange to the vermouth. Garnish with a white flower, and serve on a blue coaster and you got yourself the colours of the Bronx flag, too.
