Rewriting History
Beverage director Sarah Syman turns to The Official Mixer's Manual for the "Historically Inspired" section of The Dandy Crown menu.
beverage director sarah syman |. Photos; will blunt
Even if you know to look for it, the recipe is easy to miss. Running at seven lines in an old book, The Shanghai cocktail was lost to history for the better part of a century (at least).
But when The Dandy Crown co-owner Julia Shell happened upon The Official Mixer’s Manual by Patrick Gavin Duffy in a vintage store, she had the perfect birthday gift for Beverage Director Sarah Syman. Flipping through it, Syman stumbled upon The Shanghai, a bright, refreshing drink with a funk on the rum and a black licorice backbone. She reinterpreted it for her menu, which is separated into “Historically Inspired” and “Craft.”
“How do you qualify a cocktail as a modern classic?” Syman asks. “How many people have to be conscious of it? This is a historical [cocktail]. It was in this book but never caught on.” She adjusted the quantities, chose Appleton Estate Signature for the Jamaican rum, makes her own grenadine, and used Pernod for the anisette element.
“That book has been a really fun resource because it’s important to understand where our drink-making comes from,” she says. “There’s no way any of us would be able to create these craft cocktails without the basics.”
