too soon?

Sam Ross

Mar 7

A toast to the twins is clearly in order. It would certainly have been appropriate to raise two glasses, of course, either with two different cocktails, or identical ones! But one toast for both twins will capture the spirit nicely here and will keep things tidy – twins are a handful enough as it is, there’s no room for overindulging! In my research for an appropriate drink I came across the “Twin Six”, a vintage cocktail found in the pages of Recipes for Mixed Drinks, 1916. The cocktail book, by Hugo Ensslin, holds the claim to fame for being the last major compendium of current cocktails published just before the American Prohibition started. As such, the book and its little known author became quite famous in later decades, for it contains a record of many otherwise lost classics.

The original Twin cocktail, likely named after the Packard Twin Six automobile line of that era, is interesting for using slices of orange which are shaken with the liquid in the tin. I discovered the drink on Boston bartender Fred Yarm’s blog, which then led me to a more modern drink he recommended which also uses the old idea of orange slices. The new drink, by modern legendary bartender Sam Ross, is called “too soon?”, which seemed amusing for this toast, since the Twin being toasted here took twenty years to be produced. Ross combines gin, lemon and sugar like a gin sour, but adds Cynar, a delicious dark amaro form Italy. The orange wedges also add unexpected brightness to this delicious cocktail. Here’s to unexpected surprises, and the dreams they inspire. Cheers!