So, its February, and some of you will be thinking about what to mark the end of a dry Jan with. I had a look for drinks to give a kick of life and saw one that would certainly kickstart anyone. It is the Pick-Me-Up and consist of the lethal combination of equal parts, Cognac, Dry Vermouth, and Absinthe. Whilst sounding rather tasty, it is perhaps a tad strong and also does not really fit the mood, especially as Absinthe isn’t something lots of people have to hand.
Then I thought, why not ignore the instinct to just combat the puritan nature of January, and instead focus on February. As these newsletters do have a hint of Classics as well as just drinks, I thought about the Roman history of the month, and the origin of its name.
(Feel free to skip the next sections and get straight into the drinks.)
I rather like that Mensis Februarius was not just a dull month in winter, but was the end month of the year, and so its purification makes sense as a way to end the year, rather than to end our manufactured dry January. It also was a rather odd month as originally the Roman calendar only had ten months, and so was far too short so over time it would get out of synch with the seasons, so non-calendar days were added until things felt normal again.
The semi-legendary Roman king Numa was said to have fixed this by adding the months January and February at the end of the year. This did not fully solve the issue so a mini-month(ish) thing was added every 2 few years to correct things, but was often added whenever it suited the priests/politicians making the decision as certain political actions were dependant on how the dates fell.
February gets its name from the roman festival Februra, which was an alternative name for Lupercalia. It is unclear exactly where the name comes from, with Ovid trying to link it to a word for purification in what he calls the “old tongue” and presumably means Etruscan (Fasti, 2.19-34). What is clearer is that it had associations with purification, and did most likely originate in an Etruscan ritual, like so much of early Roman religious practices. You may be wondering how a festival could be very old and yet be in a newly created month, but the festivals were originally tied more to the seasons than the actual date, and anyway were often altered (and perhaps straight up invented) to suit political needs.
The festival involved lots of young (rich) men running around naked whipping people with strips of animal skin, which lead to just as much choas and the odd political scandals as you might expect. It also sounds a tad chilly and so I will instead think about how to get a similar sense of purification from a drink, and not have to brave the February air. (I would suggest that a few stiff drinks would liberate you from such worries but I could not possibly suggest that such a serious festival harking back to the rural simplicity of nakedness, sacred to Faunus, was funny and debauchded with a hint of Bacchus. But then again, Ovid does far more than just suggest.)
As the only drinks—and I am having to stretch the idea of what drink are—involved were blood and milk, I won’t be using that as inspiration. If any of you can think of a drink that combines something similar to milk and blood please do let me know. I did have a think about being a bit more symbolic and as the festival had close links to a fig tree, I thought about using something fig like instead of the milk, which might have originally had links to the milky sap of figs. Yet I still had the issue that I cannot think of any drink made from blood and don’t fancy experimenting with dried blood etc.
(Plus, Lupercalia actually happened around the 15th of the month so, I do not feel too beholden to it for this week’s drinks.)
There is something cleansing and almost medicinal about the taste of gin. It has the baptismal clarity of vodka, combined with the herbaceous vivacity of its botanicals. So, my February drinks just have to include (and really focus on) gin, for its purifying nature.
An honourable mention must go to the Martini, but as I have mentioned it before I will not rehash that, and anyway, it is too celebratory for the moment. The first day of February is a day to be cleansed of the depravations of January, and to be reinvigorated, not to be taken in and corrupted by the suavity of vermouth.
The Gimlet:
Equal quantities Dry Gin and Lime Cordial (ideally Roses), shaken with plenty of ice, and fine strained into an ungarnished small stemmed glass.
An alternative version of the drink can be made by stirring the gin and cordial in a larger glass with ice and adding soda water to taste. But if you want alcoholic cordial, vodka in Ribena works better with less effort.
If you do not have any lime cordial, lime juice and sugar can work, but at that point it is really just a Gin Daiquiri.
It is traditionally named after the tool of the same name (use for boring small holes in wood) and its piercing effect on the drinking.
Gin Blind:
50ml Dry Gin
25ml Cointreau
15ml Brandy
5ml Lemon Juice
1 Dash Orange bitters 5ml
Mix all with ice, and strain into a coupe glass. If a garnish is desired an orange twist works well.
This is not exactly the recipe I found in most books or online, but then they do vary and so I have followed suit and tweaked the recipe to my tastes.
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