Happy Hour — the Blood and Sand

Strain your orange juice through a coffee filter!

In a recent newsletter on fresh juice, I mentioned that orange juice was a somewhat ornery ingredient: It’s difficult to incorporate into cocktails, and some bars try to minimize its use. 

This week’s happy hour drink demonstrates some of the difficulties with using orange juice as well as a way it can be tamed. 

It’s called the Blood and Sand. Like so many drinks this newsletter has covered, it dates back to 1930, when it appeared in The Savoy Cocktail Book. And like The Last Word and the Corpse Reviver No. 2, it’s a shaken drink composed of four equal parts. But it’s not a bright-and-funky gin sour. Instead, it’s a scotch-and-OJ cocktail with a couple of sweet modifiers — sweet vermouth and Cherry Heering, a thick and syrupy cherry flavored liqueur.

As you might imagine, that combo makes for a quite sweet, quite rich, quite heavy cocktail. Consequently, this drink has a bit of a reputation as an ugly duckling; some people just don’t like it. I think it has a certain grumpy charm, but I’ll admit I don’t make this drink very often. I recognize it may not be for everyone. 

In any case, there are a couple of tricks you can use to improve the drink, and your odds of enjoying it. 

First, use a mild blended scotch, like Monkey Shoulder or even Famous Grouse, both of which are fairly inexpensive. I like peaty, smoky, bold scotches for sipping, but in this case you want something low key and affable.

Second, use good vermouth. For this drink, I quite like Cocchi di Torino, which brings a berry-forward roundedness to the drink that helps offset the syrupyness you get from the combination of vermouth and Cherry Heering. Carpano Antica is way too heavy, and Dolin Rouge doesn’t have quite enough character. 

Finally, tweak your orange juice a little bit. You know how I said it was important to strain your juice before mixing? In this case, I want you to strain it even more by running it through a coffee filter. 

This is an easy and relatively quick method of making clarified juice. Unlike some of the more intense clarification methods, it doesn’t produce a perfectly clear liquid. But running orange juice through a coffee filter removes even more of the fruit solids than just running it through a fine mesh strainer. The filtering process makes for a lighter, brighter juice, which helps lift and balance a thick, heavy drink like this. 

The downside is that this process take a few minutes, so you have to plan ahead. The upside is that it makes for a subtly but distinctly improved cocktail. If you want delicious, you have to work for it.

Blood and Sand

• ¾ ounce fresh orange juice, strained through a coffee filter

• ¾ ounce Cherry Heering

• ¾ ounce Cocchi di Torino 

• ¾ ounce blended scotch 

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Combine all ingredients in a shaking tin.

2. Add ice, then shake until thoroughly chilled. 

3. Strain into a coupe or Nick & Nora glass.

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