July Drink of the Month - The Mary Pickford

Mary Pickford and
Douglas Fairbanks 

After experimenting with a classic, prohibition era cocktail last month with the Aviation, I decided to keep up the Prohibition-era flavor this month with The Mary Pickford. Mary Pickford was one of the first true movie stars, and created one of the first Hollywood power couples when she married famous swashbuckler Douglas Fairbanks (incidentally, Fairbanks had a cocktail named after him as well - see below for one variation on Doug's drink as well).

The Mary Pickford cocktail, much like the venerable Shirley Temple, features grenadine as one of its central ingredients. The gold standard for grenadine on your local grocer's shelf is Rose's Grenadine Syrup, a bright red concoction made primarily from high fructose corn syrup, citric acid water. My little sister, the resident Shirley Temple fan in the family, would be perfectly happy to drink a whole bottle of the stuff (as well as the left-over syrup found in commercial Maraschino cherries), but in the interest of building a better life through "from scratch" bar tending, I would recommend making your own Grenadine Syrup. Grenadine takes its name from the French word for "pomegranate," and so true Grenadine syrup owes its flavor to that odd, seed-filled fruit, not cherries as people often suspect. There are several recipes online for making your own grenadine. Perhaps the easiest comes from the Cocktail Chronicles, which simply recommends boiling two cups of POM pomegranate juice until it is reduced by half and then stirring in one cup on sugar into the hot but not boiling juice reduction. There are other, more complicated recipes involving such interesting ingredients as "orange flower water" to be found (click here for that one), but simple is usually better. I intend to try a few different recipes over the weekend, and I will report back with results soon!

Once you have mastered making your own Grenadine, the rest of the Mary Pickford is simple, yet elegant. To make an elegant, classy Mary Pickford, simply combine:

1.5 oz white rum
1.5 oz pineapple juice
0.5 oz grenadine
1 dash maraschino liqueur

*A quick note on grenadine portions: some recipes call for as much as 1.5 oz grenadine, some for as little as .25 oz. Less is more here, especially if you are using commercial grenadine, such as Rose's. If you are using the homemade stuff, you can add a little more, as the flavor is more subtle.

As you can see, maraschino has made a comeback from last month! The resulting cocktail should be a pretty rose color. Shake the ingredients over cracked ice and serve in a martini glass. If you want to go the extra mile and garnish your drink (always a big winner if you want to class up your parties), a maraschino cherry would be perfectly appropriate. A cocktail skewer with strawberry and pineapple chucks balanced on the rim or halved on the lip of the glass would be even better!

As promised above, a bonus drink for the month in honor of Mary Pickford: The Douglas Fairbanks! Doug's drink combines gin, apricot brandy, lime juice and egg white (yes, egg white is a common bar ingredient - hope this doesn't scare you off!). The resulting drink is a little frothy (mostly because of the egg), but the lime and apricot flavors combine very well. Here is the recipe:

2 oz gin (Plymouth is the preferred brand for the Doug)
1 oz Apricot brandy (usually found in the schnapps section of your liquor store)
0.75 oz lime juice
0.5 oz egg white (one egg - what you do with the yolk is up to you!)

Dry shake the ingredients for 10 seconds to allow the egg white to emulsify. Add ice and shake the ingredients for an additional 10 seconds, then strain into a martini glass and you will have yourself a Douglas Fairbanks. If you want to go all out, may I suggest hosting a his/hers party with Mary Pickfords for the ladies and Douglas Fairbanks for the gentlemen? I think that is a way better idea than Tennis Pros and Golf Hoes, but what do I know?

Enjoy your Mary Pickford!