Cosmopolitan 101

The Cosmopolitan stands tall amongst the genre of cocktails that is contemporary classics. A simple enough basic cocktail, it has evolved only slightly from its disputed origins. There are many competing theories as to were the drink first appeared, but we do know that it was in the 70's in the US. It is also probable that at the Rainbow Room in New York, the addition of the now common flaming orange twist garnish did much to set the drink off on the road to style icon status (and obviously Sex and the City did even more to make it a truly global one).

The Cosmo is essentially an exercise in citrus flavours (The combination of lemon vodka, with lime juice, and orange liqueur, and sometimes an orange twist or orange bitter or both). The cranberry juice is there purely for colour, and adding too much is the most common cause of a bad one. For this guide to the cosmo, I would like to go through the ingredients one by one, and say a few words about each.

The choice of lemon vodka is obviously important, but how it is used is equally so. Amongst the various flavoured vodka ranges, there are a lot of dud products, but lemon vodkas seem to have got off rather lightly. Wyborowa and Absolut both have perfectly acceptable lemon vodkas at entry level. Ketel One is better if you fancy spending a little more, but for the best you would need to spend that little bit more, as all the less expensive brands are made by a method called cold compunding, essentially vodka with lemon flavour added to it. The finest lemon vodkas are made in the same way gin is, by adding lemon peel to vodka, leaving it to infuse, and then re-distilling it. This is the case for the Grey Goose and Belvedere Lemon Vodka, and other super-premium new boys such as Hangar One. One common problem however with the more expensive vodkas is that the lemon flavour can be slightly overpowering, but this is easily remedied by using half lemon, half plain vodka. This is especially the case for Belvedere, but the use of half and half produces in my opinion the best cosmo around. With Grey Goose, the orange vodka seems to make a better drink than the lemon, but this drink was renamed the French Cosmo by cocktail purists.

For the lime juice, there is no substitute for freshly squeezed. period. Try and pick limes with a nice shine to them, which are nice and round and fairly hard to squeeze.

The orange liqueur in question should be a triple sec, such as Cointreau, and not a curacao, such as Grand Marnier, as the liqueur should be made with a neutral alcoholic base, and the brandy base of curacaos overpowers the fresh citrus flavours. There are plenty of other acceptable makes of triple sec, but most of these are not readily available even in fairly posh off-licenses. They would be available at specialist off-licenses, such as the famous Gerrys of Old Compton Street in Soho. Briottet, Cartron, and Merlet all offer good triple secs.

A now quite common twist, probably first introduced to save money, but which produces in my opinion a superior drink, is to half the amount of triple sec, and replace it with lime cordial. It gives a lighter, more refreshing final product. Roses Lime cordial is acceptable, but Bottlegreen is superior, if a little more expensive, but still cheap when compared to a triple sec.

As I have said, the cranberry juice is there predominantly for colour and not for flavour. A few years ago, at Milk and Honey in London, the Cosmos were famously made with a single raspberry instead to add the colour, as the bar staff did not want to make any drinks with juice that had not been made on the premises. The resulting drink was delicious, though probably a little too alcoholic for the palettes of most Cosmo drinkers. Well worth a try at home however, especially if it is the first drink of the evening. When using cranberry juice, there are some fresh pressed cranberry juices on the market, but many of them are slightly sweet, and it is important that the cranberry juice used be slightly dry, or it upsets the balance of a drink which should be a little tart. For this reason I would recommend ocean spray.

Orange Bitters is not essential, especially if using an orange twist. I would recommend the use of a twist without bitters, but this is more of a personal choice, and a good option would be to ask the drinker how "orangey" he wants his drink. Asking the drinker how he wants something is always a good way to go. If you want to try a flamed ornage twist, ask a bartender who looks confident at doing them to show you how. This is not hard to do, but where fire is concerned, play it safe.

Proportions are important in the Cosmo. the proportions I would normally recommend are:

40ml Lemon Vodka (or 20ml Lemon 20ml plain for strongly lemon vodkas)
10ml Triple Sec
10ml Lime Cordial
20ml Freshly squeezed lime juice
20ml Cranberry Juice

If using a raspberry instead of cranberry, drop the amounts of sweet and sour ingredients, because other wise the drink will be a little too intense. try 7.5ml triple sec and lime cordial, and 15ml lime juice.

There have been countless variations on the cosmo down the years, many of which didn't really offer anything new, or an improvement on the original. A few of my favourites are:

The Stolipolitan

40ml Stoli Razberi
10ml Triple Sec
10ml Chambord
20ml Lime Juice
20ml Cranberry

This is a much more fruit led concoction, which the citrus playing second fiddle to the berry flavours. It is however very quaffable.

The Passion Fruit Cosmo

40ml 42Below Passionfruit Vodka
10ml Homemade Passionfruit Syrup
10ml Triplesec
20ml Lime Juice
20ml Cranberry Juice
1 dash peach bitters.

This drink is one of my own, and it is made special by the homemade syrup and the addition of peach bitters. for the syrup recipe, check out my previous tweets. the peach bitters is made my la fee, and is available from specialist shops.

The Ginger Cosmopolitan

Probably my favourite twist on the cosmo, it is simply a cosmo with a 1cm cube of fresh ginger crushed at the bottom of the cocktail shaker. Delicious, and an absolutely must try.