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Friday Cocktail Hour: The Derby

Published: Oct 2, 2020 · Modified: Jan 12, 2021 by Michael Ruhlman · 8 Comments

Yes, it's that time again—another eventful week has passed, and boy do we need a cocktail! Herewith, The Derby, a complex bourbon-lime sour, balanced with sweet vermouth and orange liqueur.

I've played with proportions here, adding a little more vermouth and orange to the bourbon. A half ounce of each is typically called for but having made this cocktail using those proportions, I find it too sour, in the same way I often find a side car and an aviation too sour. So, the fix was easy. Double the sweet components! The result is a much more pleasing, drinkable cocktail.

Video by Katherine Guanche

It's so complex, in fact, that you'd be hard pressed to name the ingredients beyond the whiskey, so seamlessly do they blend.

It's a bracing, complex cocktail, for bracing complex times: #Breonna #RBG. The "debate." The President who flouted masks tests positive. Can we expect more? Brace yourselves!

My wife Ann appeared mid-morning to say she was frustrated that the novel she's midway through lacks urgency, and really who cares? This is a critical question for any fiction writer, and the one asked during my first writing class by our professor, Reynolds Price. Of course, your mom is going to be interested in your story, he said, your friends, but what person who doesn't know me will be interested? Why should a stranger care about this story?

Seasoned novelist though she is (her first appeared in 1988), I sympathized. The events of today, in the Year That Won't Stop, how can any work of the imagination compete with the bizarre nature of what is looking more and more like America's Armageddon. Sixty years ago, Philip Roth described the impossibility of fiction competing with fact. It's hard to imagine any story competing with last seven months in America.

Yesterday, on a lovely fall afternoon on a Massachusetts beach, I finished Michael Cunningham's The Hours (the 1998 novel which won the Pulitzer the following year and which I found on a shelf and had always wanted to read). In his acknowledgements, he thanks a book store in Manhattan's West Village, where much of the novel takes placde. "Three Lives and Company," he writes, "a bookstore owned and operated by Jill Dunbar and Jenny Feder, is a sanctuary and, to me, the center of the civilized universe. It has for some time been the most reliable place to go when I need to remember why novels are still worth the trouble they take to write."

Or poetry for that matter—today's is "Break" by Dorianne Laux.

Indeed, we will return to a civilized place one day, and may that wonderful bookstore, now owned by Toby Cox, be alive and well when the pandemic has passed. Until then, we do have cocktails.

Happy Friday all!

The Derby

A bourbon cocktail, adapted by Ruhlman
5 from 4 votes
Print Recipe
Prep Time 3 minutes mins
Course Cocktail
Cuisine American
Servings 1

Ingredients
  

  • 2 ounces bourbon
  • 1 ounce sweet vermouth
  • 1 ounce Curacao (or other orange liqueur)
  • ¾ ounce lime juice
  • 1 mint sprig
  • 1 lime wedge or wheel

Instructions
 

  • Combine thee liquids in a glass. Add ice and stir. Strain into a chilled coupe or into a rocks glass fill with ice.
  • Garnish with lime and mint. Pray for our country.
Keyword bourbon cocktails, curacao, lime juice, sweet vermouth
« Friday Cocktail Hour: The Palmetto
Friday Cocktail Hour: The Hot Toddy »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Allen

    October 03, 2020 at 5:50 am

    Very nice! My mom is keeping busy doing puzzles, she is very adventurous and is having to stay indoors, she enjoys the puzzles.

    I see a Manhattan hiding in this weeks cocktail. I’m sure my wife would love it.
    She loves a Manhattan and any margarita I find to tart, she finds it just right, so I’m sure she’d love this.

    If you need some cheering up, watch The Long Way Around with Ewan MaGregor. I found it on Apple TV. Thought of you when his daughter paints his toenails blue before he travels.

    Cheers & good health comrades!

    Reply
    • Michael Ruhlman

      October 03, 2020 at 3:52 pm

      Thanks for the movie tip! how about that. and yes, the drink is a margarita manhattan hybrid.

      Reply
  2. JRCX

    October 03, 2020 at 2:23 pm

    5 stars
    Love this! Getting a lot of mileage out of that Dry Curaçao! I have to experiment with it more, much prefer that over the Cointreau.

    Reply
    • Michael Ruhlman

      October 03, 2020 at 3:53 pm

      i really love that particular brand of curacao

      Reply
  3. Pianos

    November 07, 2020 at 8:31 pm

    5 stars
    That is perfect

    Reply
  4. Dave M

    August 07, 2022 at 1:00 am

    5 stars
    Michael, this is a new favorite of mine! I love bourbon and lean to the Perfect Manhattan with a cherry and some clementine/tangerine peel (orange is too bland) - that's more on the "tweed jacket" side for bourbon cocktails. The Derby is very drinkable and refreshing, like a sunny summer day. I can make a delicious Derby with Old Grand-Dad Bonded 100 proof, Martini & Rossi sweet vermouth, triple sec and a generous splash of lime juice.

    Reply
    • Michael Ruhlman

      August 27, 2022 at 3:50 pm

      nice.

      Reply
  5. Steve

    May 15, 2024 at 6:37 am

    5 stars
    This is a rye-to-bourbon swap on the also outstanding Oriental published in Harry Craddock’s 1930 Savoy Cocktail Book, p116:

    https://euvs-vintage-cocktail-books.cld.bz/1930-The-Savoy-Cocktail-Book/116/

    Reply

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Hi, I'm Michael Ruhlman, an award-winning author and cook who writes about chefs, food and cooking, among other things.

More about me →

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram

See my books!

Ratio App for iPhone

After I wrote my book Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking, a colleague and I built a ratio calculator for iPhones that allows you to cook without recipes. For doughs, batters, custards, sauces, stocks and more, simply plug in the amount of one ingredient and the amounts of the other ingredients are instantly calculated. It's also a handy reference for dozens of our most common preparations. ($4.99 in the app store.)

Collaborate

I’ve collaborated on a dozen books, including cookbooks and a memoir. If you'd like to collaborate on a project, please contact my agent, Gail Hochman, [email protected], at Brandt & Hochman Literary Agents, Inc.

For speaking engagements contact, Kip Ludwig, [email protected].

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