Latest / Into The Barchive / Corpse Revivers: Cocktails Made to Raise the Dead
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- Episode 46 Audio Only: Into the bark hive where the past comes alive Forgotten drinks will revive we thrive Sip the tails, let them drive Welcome to the Bark Hive Hello, Barkabists, and welcome to Into the Barkive, the podcast where we dive deep into the stories, people, and cocktails that shape the way we drink. I'm Tim Wright, mixologist, your above-average curious drinker and your tipsy tour guide through Boo's history. And I'm Dr. Blake Jones, historian, mixologist, and certified specialist of spirits, here to pour out the stories behind what's in your class. And today we are raising the dead. Which seems appropriate because Halloween is just around the corner. Our subject is the Corpse Revivor, a cocktail name that sounds something like you would order from a bartender after spending a previous evening making several regrettable decisions. And historically, that's not terribly far from the truth. Okay, now we're going to get into the corpse revivor as a category of drinks, not just one specific type of cocktail. We're going to make Two of probably the more famous versions of this, which one is going to be the rich cognac-based corpse revivor number one, and a bright, bracing, absent kissed corpse survivor number two. And along the way, we'll talk about why Corpse Revivor was originally a generic term, how Harry Craddock helped turn that generic term into two specific recipes, and why one of these drinks became a modern classic. While the other remains something of a forgotten sibling. And of course we'll encounter a few other drinks that have wandered out of the cocktail crypts over the years. Well, that's one way to put it. So if you've got your shaker, a mixing glass, and perhaps a corpse that needs a little reviving, let's get into the barkive. Our first cocktail is the Corpse Survivor number one. Which is interesting compared to a lot of the other Corpse Survivors. This one's actually stirred. We're gonna start with one and a half ounces of cognac. It's okay to use brandy if you need to, but a nice cognac, B S O P, if not higher, into our stirring glass. Next, Calvados. we've actually got a little apple brandy, if you will. For this one, we're gonna do three quarters of an ounce. Think of Talvados as a cousin, if we're talking family, to what brandy and cognac would be. Next, three quarters of an ounce of a sweet vermouth. In this one, we're using that Cokie Americana, which we have used in several cocktails to date. And lastly, we're gonna add one dash or two of the Japanese dashers of orange bitters. Let's ice down our glass. and give it a stir. And remember we're stirring from 30 to 45 seconds, but if you're a bigger stir and they take less time, basically we're stirring for that dilution and to chill the cocktail. You'll know that you have stirred this bad boy good enough when your finger starts to get cold from the top and your pointer finger, eventually your middle, your ring finger, and then by the time it gets to the base and it gets cold on that pinky, you know that you have stirred this enough and you have the right amount of dilution. Importantly, I'm gonna grab a nice chilled Nicodora from the freezer. Grab yourself a strainer and straighten to the glass. To garnish, we'll do a little bit of a lip orange oil. So you use a swath. Express those oils across the top. And then what I would like to do is just give it a nice little twist. So I can help Gorish. The corpse survivor number one. For our next drink, we're going to make a corpse reviver number two. So this one, unlike the one, is a shaken drink. You start with three quarters of an ounce of a nice London dry gin. So we're using Tanker here. Next, we have our aromatized wine component, a Coke Americano. in the original recipe it would have called for quina lele, but we'll talk about why the change in our longer conversation. So three quarters of an ounce of our Coke Americano. This is an Equal Parks cocktail, so then we're gonna do three-quarters of an ounce of Pointreau or some sort of high-quality triple sec here. And then finally three quarters of an ounce of fresh squeezed lemon juice. Now, some people would do an Absinthe rinse on the glass, but if you've got a good wash line, it's gonna cover it up anyway. So we're adding the Absinthe straight into the shaker. So two dashes of a good quality AbSinthe. And from there, we'll ice up our tin. And then give it a good shake, 10 to 15 seconds. So let's get our CLO shaked. We'll break our seal. And then we're going to grab our strainers. We're gonna double strain this cocktail into a coop. So get a chilled coop out of your freezer. With this being an up cocktail, I want to keep out some of those ice shards. So I'm going for the double strain here. And then to garnish the cocktail, we're gonna take a lemon, we're gonna get a lemon peel off of our lemon here, and then express that oil over the cocktail. Then just get some of that oil around the rim of the glass, give it a nice twist for the garnish, and we've got your corpse reviver number two. Cheers. Now that we've built the cocktails, let's build the context. Blake, let's start with the obvious question here. What exactly is a corpse revivor? Well, the slightly unsatisfying answer is it depends. You've told me many times, of course it does. Well, the phrase corpse revivor wasn't originally the name of one standardized cocktail, it became a generic term for a morning drink. Essentially a hangover remedy. Think of it as a synonym for what we might call a hair of the dog. Okay, so before we start talking about ghosting ghouls, then we're really talking about something much more mundane than a drink intended to bring a person back from the dead of a night of long drinking. Exactly. Okay. Which admittedly is still pretty Halloween appropriate. Very much so. And that idea predates our modern cocktail recipes quite a bit though. Absolutely. The Oxford Companion of Spirits and Cocktails traces an actual drink called the Corpse Revivor to an American or American style bar in Piccadilly, London in the late 1850s. Interestingly enough, the drink itself seems to have disappeared fairly quickly, but the name stuck around. So the first Corpse Revivor has basically become a ghost in itself. You might say that. A cocktail ghost. Well, and the phrase Corpse Revivor continued to circulate. British journalists even treated Corpse Revivor as one of those stereotypical American drinks. But when British visitors later tried ordering a Corpse Revivor in America, American bartenders sometimes had no idea what they were talking about. There's even an 1895 account of a bartender at New York's Hoffman house responding to an order for a corpse reviver with essentially, what's that? Which is a wonderful reminder that cocktail terminology has always been a little slippery. Very much so. Eventually, the phrase corpse revivor became a generic term on both sides of the Atlantic for a morning restorative. Much like the older term antiphogmatic. Anti antiphogmatic. That I don't think I've heard that term before the term before. It sounds something like a 19th century apothecary, maybe? Like, step right up, step right up, come and get your antiphogmatics. We you got your smell smelling socks, we got something to dispel those evil spirits. Yeah, right? What in the world? So This anti-phogmatic thing ties into Harry Craddock and the Savoy, though. It's there's just the book, and it seems to have given this Corpse Revivor the family designation. And it actually predates its permanent address in cocktail history. The Savoy and the cocktail book itself gave us the history of the Corpse Survivor. Well, and this is like the First documentation of a recipe for a corpse revivor. So the Savoy cocktail book, which was published in 1930 and compiled by Harry Craddock, who was the head bartender at the Savoy Hotel's American bar in London, it contained hundreds of recipes, but the two corpse revivors in particular became enduring classics. And these are the two that we made, the number one and number two. Exactly. Okay. And these two are almost comically different in their styles. Yeah, which I think is one of the great things about them. The number one is a essentially a rich brandy-based cocktail related to the Manhattan family. And the number two is a bright shaken gin sour with orange liqueur, aromatized wine, lemon juice, and absinthe. And as we talked about this before, they're Basically just siblings in name only. Yeah, more or less. Okay. So let's start with the elder sibling, the number one, Culpture Driver number one. So Cradit's recipe calls for two parts brandy, one part apple brandy or calvados, and one part Italian vermouth. And his instructions are famously succinct. Yeah, they are. The note he has on them is even better. He writes, quote, To be taken before 11 a.m. or whenever steam and energy are needed. Which is perhaps the least responsible cocktail recommendation we've encountered so far. And we've done this podcast for 46 episodes. So that's saying something. But still does it explain the connection between the name Corpse Revivor and what you're actually going to drink. Right. The number one is rich, dark, fruity, aromatic. that calvados brings the apple and orchard fruit, the cognac gives us weight and that dried fruit character, and the vermouth help ties it all together. And you mentioned this before. It's much closer, I would say, systematically to a or even stylistically to this Manhattan right that we would have than well, I would consider what you did with the number two. Yeah, and that's a very useful way to think about it. And this is One of those drinks where the vermouth selection really does matter. And we've talked about vermouth quite a bit, especially in our Negroni episodes, because you've got no citrus, you've got no sugar syrups, you've got no bitter other than the little bit of dash, and then nothing to disgu this to disguise that vermouth. Like nothing at all. Yeah, you're tasting these ingredients very directly. And when you look at it, the finished result doesn't exactly look corpse-like. No. it looks more like the corpse had a successful afternoon like at a fritchateau. And and despite its morning original original morning prescription, I think this in many ways is a much more convincing evening drink than it is a morning pick-me-up. I would say, especially on Halloween. Absolutely. But of course, as long as your costume doesn't require you to operate heavy machinery. That's a very specific safety warning. Do not operate around heavy machinery. Now let's get into the drink though. Most people, when they say the corpse see the corpse Rara number two today, what does that mean? Yeah, this when especially when you compare them, it's very interesting. Because they're so dramatically different. Yeah, you've gone from specific specs of one and a half to three quarters, three quarters, which then yours is all three quarters, equal parts all the way through of gin, cointreau, lime juice, and the kin it was supposed to be the quina lay, but we'll get into that conversation, plus that dash of absence. Yeah, and I mean part this equal parts formula is part of the charm of the drink. I mean, most cocktails that have that equal parts, I mean, there's that charm to it. for those equal parts. I think this is why we're calling your convenient corpse reviver, right? Yes. assuming the corpse can still measure, of course. So our modern version, we're using three-quarters of an ounce of each London dry, the cointreau, the fresh lime, the Americana, plus the absinthe. There is one important historical wrinkle here though, and that's the quina lele. Yeah. So Craddock's original recipe called for. Quina Lalay, which is no longer produced. Okay. Lele changed its formula in 1986, replacing Quina Lele with Lele Blanc, which is less bitter and more sweet. And so that's why contemporary bartenders use Coke Americano or a combination of Coke Americano and Lilay Blanc when they want something closer to the character of the original Quina Lalay. Okay, so if you've had a corpse revivor number two made with a lay blanc and thought, man, this needs a little bit of extra bitter in it, that makes sense now for this historical explanation. Exactly. Okay. And then there's the absent that you added to it. Yeah, and that's crucial. Again, as I mentioned in the demonstration, instead of rinsing the glass, we're putting dashes into the cocktail itself. Since for the most part, that wash line is covering up all but The very top of the glass anyway. And this is one of those cocktails that you can understand exactly why it immediately survived. Yeah, it's balanced, refreshing, aromatic, and really complex for such a simple formula. And it does have a little bit of a bartender folklore behind it, too, that helps. Yeah. In the Savoy cocktail book, Craddock warned for the number two, quote. Four of these taken in quick succession will unrevive the corpse again. Which is an excellent cocktail book, a way a way of saying maybe don't do that. And that's really just a joke that centers on the entire corpse revivor family. You're drinking something supposedly designed to cure the consequences of the night before. And it may entice you to actually drink more. Yeah, but sure. course is medically dubious at the best. So much as we love cocktail history, we're gonna leave the actual hangover treatment to water, food, and most importantly, time. A surprisingly effective trio, much less spooky, but consider considerably more useful. Now the question is why did the Corpse Survivor number two survive? why is it so I would say more famous than the number one? Yeah, so first thing is the number two is a terrific cocktail. It also benefited from timing. The modern cocktail renaissance brought renewed interest in historic recipes and ingredients. And the corpse revivor number two had several things going for it: a memorable name, a recipe preserved in the famous Savoy cocktail book, readily recognizable ingredients, and eventually the return of absent. To the American market. Okay. That is very key to this story. And there's something particular about appropriate about discovering absinthe or in cocktails, especially around Halloween time. Absolutely. So historically speaking, absinthe doesn't actually have much to do with ghost madness or demonic possessions. But Those are largely myths and cultural associations that grew up around the spirit. But if you're looking for something spooky looking, and gr like this spooky ingredient, you would say it's it has an interesting history. It certainly fits the build. I'll give you that. So absent was legalized back in the US in 2007. Easy for me to remember. Yes. Yep. And the revival of the corpse reviver number two coincided With both this broader cocktail renaissance as well as the re-legalization of Absinthe in the United States. It became this big bang again for cocktail bar like bartenders because they were able to start using this ingredient that was forbidden. so they got to re energize some of the cocktails that they were going to make or pull out things from a deck that they didn't have access to or they were making random substitutions before. Yeah. And the cocktail world is becoming increasingly interested in those sorts of things. There's also something about the structure of your cocktail. We talked about the equal parts making it very memorable. It's easy. And and this drink is flexible enough to survive changes in ingredient availability. Even though those changes aren't necessarily invisible or necessarily invisible. Yeah, and and that's the switch from quinoa lilaine to Lilae Blanc. It changed the drink. Hence why modern bartenders look for these Kinquina style aperitifs like Coquie Americano that restore some of the bitterness from the original Kina Lalay. But the basic identity still stays remarkably intact, though. Yeah, and almost a century later, that's pretty impressive. There comes a point where the Corpse Survivor family gets bigger, though. Now, one thing I love about the cocktail families that we've talked about many a times is. Once you start looking, you realize there's more members than what you've expected in that cocktail family. And the Corpse Revivor family is a perfect example of this. Because number one and number two aren't the beginning at the end of this story, right? Yeah, not even close. So in it was you're gonna have to correct me on the year 1937-ish. Okay. You gotta because you've talked about the Cafe Royal cocktail book before. it contains three different drinks accorp under the corpse survivor's name. And they're remarkably different drinks. one of them resembles more of a a a a brandy spike mimosa than it does anything else. Yeah and another one in the Cafe Royal cocktail book is a rather aggressive combination of vodka, gin, grenadine, and bitters. And then there's the the third one, it's called the the new Corpse Rivor, which is A strange name within itself, but essentially it's another version of the drink that we recognize as the the number one. And that tells us something important. The numbers weren't necessarily part of some carefully controlled system. No, it wasn't a corpse revivor committee, like going, This is your number, this designation. But that committee, I know, could have been fun. Don't with your one tier. We could have used one, okay? We could have used one. And and the Corpse Revivor family continued to evolve. Patrick Gavin Duffy's officials mixers manual from 1956 includes the number one and number two, but in his, his number two substitutes Swedish punch for the Lilae. He also includes a Corpse Reviver number three. Well, then you get to later drinks, sometimes called number three and number four, that include versions associated with the Savoy, and they use Fresnette Bronca. Yeah, and unlike the first two, the number three, the number four, like those are definitely not standardized. So when you encounter especially number three, I would say, course revivor number three, you actually have to ask somebody which one. Precisely which is a good real general rule of thumb for any cocktail from cocktail history is knowing specifically which one. Yeah, and if someone tells you that there is Th or this is the definitive historical recipe? Check the footnotes. Very much so. So this brings us to the conclusion of our our little resurrection ritual of our corpse revivors today. Yeah, we'd gone from nineteenth century corpse revivors and mourning restoratives to Harry Craddock, the Savoy. And two very different cocktails that just happen to share the same name. And we've also learned that sometimes the best Halloween cocktails isn't the ones with plastic eyeballs floating in it. Yeah, instead, it's the one with a hundred years of history behind it. And if there's one lesson here, it's that cocktail names don't always describe a single recipe. Sometimes they're windows into a much larger drinking tradition. And sometimes they come with a warning about drinking four. In rapid succession. Which we highly recommend that you ignore. Wait. What? What do you mean? We're not actually telling you to drink that many. Okay, good. Okay. I'm just saying use caution. Quidado. Quidado. But until then, let us know if you've tried a corpse survivor. And if so, which one? Next time we're going to discover another forgotten cocktail that deserves to be brought back from the dead. Okay. And don't forget, I want some people to subscribe, like, if you're on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, you got us there. And then for audio for our podcasts, Spotify and Apple. And next time into the bark hive, we're leaving the graveyard behind and heading into the 1970s. For one of the great unlikely modern classics, the Harvey Wallbanger. And since our next episode arrives in honor of National Harvey Wallbanger Day, we're going to dig into the strange story of the drink, the mysterious figure of Harvey, and the Galeano fueled marketing that helped. Turn a simple vodka and orange combination into one of America's most recognizable cocktails. So put away those tombstones, hang up those skeletons, and grab yourself some vodka, orange juice, and a bottle of that long galleano. Because next time we're trading the dead for Harvey. Until next time, keep exploring the past, one drink at a time, as we dive deeper into the Barkive.