Cocktail Questions: Port in Cocktails?
It's like vermouth...except not.
In this edition of Cocktail Questions…
A reader question about port wine.
Recipes for three different port wine cocktails, including a newsletter original with Cynar.
Do you have a question about cocktails, bars, booze, home bartending, or something else related to the topics discussed in this newsletter? Send your pithy, clear question to me at cocktailswithsuderman@gmail.com
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My researcher/editor and I both love port wine. How could we incorporate port into a cocktail? I'm assuming it could take the role of a sweetener as a fortified wine, but curious if you know of any that work well.
A port enthusiast! And a fellow newsletter writer. Excellent. (If you want accessible, data-driven analysis of Hollywood trends, especially where the streaming business is concerned, there’s no better source than ESG’s newsletter.)
This is a good question!
You are right to think of vermouth as the best comp for port—specifically, it’s a good swap for sweet vermouth. It’s not quite true that you can use port anywhere you see sweet vermouth, but it’s a useful enough heuristic that it’s often worth trying, although in some cases, you may need to…
adjust the sweetness somewhat by adding a teaspoon of syrup.
and/or add an herbal or spiced element, like aromatic bitters, to give the mix more depth and character.
Both vermouth and port are fortified wines, which means that during the production process they’ve been bolstered with some sort of distilled spirit, such as grape brandy.
Fortification extends the longevity of wine, which was historically important for wines that were shipped long distances. It also increases the proof, which has its own appeal. In the 1700s and 1800s, port was often sipped after dinner by men of the British upper crust, who passed it around after the women retreated to the drawing room. It was prized for its intensity and robust flavor profile, somewhat like whiskey today.
These days, port cocktails are for people who think sherry cocktails are a little too mainstream.
Yes, in the world of contemporary bartending and cocktail craft, port has its admirers and enthusiasts. You can find port cocktails on bar menus and in cocktail books, and there are certainly more in circulation now than there were 30 years ago.
But port cocktails are still relatively obscure, especially compared to cocktails that use other types of fortified wine like sherry or (especially) vermouth. I can’t think of one that is widely known, at least not in the sense that you could assume most competent cocktail bartenders would know the drink you’re talking about. Port is still struggling to find its signature cocktail.
However, there are some notable port cocktails scattered through cocktail history. Fortuitously, the first one that comes to mind fits into the same split-sweetener Manhattan-riff category we’ve been looking at recently.
It’s the Montana, and it comes from David Embury’s Fine Art of Mixing Drinks. Embury devotes a few pages to discussing port wine early in the book. But there aren’t many drink entries that call for its use. Indeed, his only note on the Montana states that it is “an interesting cocktail that is one of the very few in which port wine is used.”
Embury prints the recipe like so:
Montana
1 part dry vermouth
1 part port wine
4 parts Cognac
Regular readers will instantly recognize this as a riff on the Perfect Manhattan. “Perfect” signifies that it takes an ordinary Manhattan and splits the vermouth portion—usually just sweet vermouth—between sweet and dry.
In the Montana, the vermouth portion is split between dry vermouth and port, which plays the role of sweet vermouth. And unlike a Manhattan, it uses Cognac as the base ingredient instead of whiskey.
It’s a good idea for a drink. But, with respect to Embury, the patron saint of this newsletter, it is missing something: bitters.
Bitters round out the drink with earthy spice notes, giving it a more distinctly Manhattan-like balance. It’s a small but significant improvement, and it gives us an updated, contemporary spec that looks like this:
Montana
2 dashes Angostura Aromatic bitters
½ ounce dry vermouth, such as Dolin Dry
½ ounce tawny port, such as Warre Otima 10
2 ounces Cognac, such as Pierre Ferrand 1840
INSTRUCTIONS
Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass.
Add ice, then stir until thoroughly chilled, about 20 seconds.
Strain into a mixing glass.
Garnish with a Luxardo Maraschino cherry.
With the addition of bitters, it’s delicious, and distinctly Manhattan-adjacent. But it doesn’t come across like a copycat. Swapping port for vermouth makes the drink rounder, fruitier, more distinctly grape-y and acidic.
One thing you learn from Embury’s Montana is that port plays exceptionally well with brandy.
Cognac is, of course, a form of brandy. And so is American apple brandy, which longtime readers know I am rather fond of.
So for a more port-forward cocktail, you can make a reverse apple brandy Manhattan, using port instead of vermouth, accented with another one of my favorite cocktail ingredients, Bénédictine, making it a bit like a Vieux Carré. The Bénédictine fills out the spice component, adding complexity to the grape-forward sweetness of aged port. The result is a cocktail that is sweet, spicy, warming, and also lower-proof than a typical Manhattan, thanks to the port wine base.
This one is an original, so it needs a name. Because I love space and puns, we will call it:
Poort Cloud
2 dash Angostura Aromatic bitters
1 teaspoon Bénédictine
1 ounce Laird’s straight apple brandy
2 ounces tawny port, such as Warre Otima 10
INSTRUCTIONS
Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass.
Add ice, then stir until chilled, about 10 seconds (it’s lower proof so you don’t need to stir as long).
Strain into a cocktail glass.
Garnish with an orange peel.
It’s Not Negroni Week Yet. However…
I saved the best drink for last.
It’s a rich, chocolatey, bittersweet, Negroni-esque cocktail that pairs port with rum.
Also Cynar. Seriously…put it in everything! I wasn’t kidding. I never kid about Cynar.