Cocktail of the Week – Princeton

We’ve reached the start of October and, despite a few days last week hinting at an Indian Summer, autumn has arrived here in the North of Scotland. People have started to once again proclaim that the nights are drawing in – something that can be quite marked when you live as far north as Juneau, Alaska.

As such, fresh and breezy cocktails don’t seem to be appropriate – you want something that’s warming and has a bit of body.

And in my case, it’s good if it also contains port, as we’ve got three bottles left over from last Christmas…

A scan through my cocktail manuals led me to the Princeton, which by happy coincidence, also needs Old Tom gin, one of my favourite cocktail ingredients, and something I had readily to hand.

The Princeton was invented at the end of the nineteenth century in New York as one of a series of cocktails named after Ivy League universities. (I’ve also found recipes for the Harvard and Yale…)

Since I made my Princeton, I’ve found recipes on the internet that make the cocktail with a layered effect. (There’s one here.) My recipe didn’t mention this, and I don’t think it suffers for it.

Princeton

3 msr Old Tom gin

1 1/2 msr port (preferably ruby, but I didn’t have any)

2 tsp orange bitters

Stir ingredients together with lots of ice and strain into a short glass. Squeeze a lemon rind over the glass and drop it in.

This is quite a complex drink – the citrus hits your taste buds first and is followed by  the heavy warmth of the port and the slight sweetness of the port and the gin. It’s really quite pleasant.