May Drink of the Month - Blood and Sand

A great article from the Wall Street Journal relays an old joke that was popular in the 30's and 40's: a young screenwriter in Hollywood gets hooked on cocktails and begs a bartender to give him his recipes, offering him $100 for the information. The bartender responds, asking the screenwriter, "Wanna know what's in a Blood and Sand, Mac?" He then accepts the cash and calmly replies, "Blood and sand." ...I guess you had to be there, right?

As it turns out, there is not any blood or sand in the Blood and Sand cocktail. It does, however, feature Cheery Heering, which is what led me to the Blood and Sand this month. I found a bottle of this Danish liqueur in the Mall of America during a recent trip to Minneapolis. I've been on the lookout for this ruby beverage for some time - my favorite local liquor spot sadly does not have it in stock. Named after Peter Heering, and tracing its origin back to 1818, this cherry liqueur is not overly sweet as many cherry brandies tend to be, nor is it as bitter as Kirschwasser (which is made using sour cherries with the pits still included). It is complex enough to drink on its own, with lovely black cherry flavor, but it also mixes well in a number of cocktails.

The Blood and Sand is one such cocktail that manages to pair Cherry Heering with seemingly disparate flavors in order to create a wonderful finished product. Named after a Rudolph Valentino silent film (about a matador) from 1922, the cocktail combines Cherry Heering, orange juice, scotch and sweet vermouth. Sweet and smoky with a hint of citrus tang, this cocktail should not taste good, but it does! However, it is very easy to overwhelm any one of these flavors, so please mix carefully. Too much sweet vermouth and the drink becomes cloyingly sweet. Too much orange juice and you can't taste anything else. As always, careful measurement of ingredients is essential.

Here is the recipe for the Blood and Sand:

In a cocktail shaker, combine:

1 ounce blended scotch (I've seen Famous Grouse recommended)
1 ounce fresh squeezed orange juice*
3/4 ounce Cherry Heering
3/4 ounce sweet vermouth

Shake over ice, strain into lowball glass or coupe.

*Orange juice, more than any other fruit juice, has an extremely short shelf life. Fresh lemon and lime juice can remain viable for use in cocktails for up to two days without any significant change in flavor profile. However, orange juice contains two substances (LARL and NARL) which are converted into bitter limonin after squeezing. Store bought orange juice uses a chemical process and flavor additives to prevent this process, but fresh squeezed OJ goes bad quickly. However, this cocktail is greatly improved by using real orange juice instead of juice from the carton. Just be sure not to squeeze your orange juice too far in advance.

I've seen a few variations for this cocktail suggested online. One replaces orange juice with blood orange juice. The sweet but bitter blood orange adds a little actual "blood" to the cocktail, gives it a wonderful color, and works well with the Cherry Heering. Definitely try this when blood oranges are in season (December to March for the popular Moro varietal, but you can still find fresh Tarocco "half blood" oranges as late as May). Another recipe omits the sweet vermouth entirely - this was how I first tried the Blood and Sand. I can't say that I miss the vermouth - the sweet botanicals in vermouth can overwhelm the scotch, so if you try the original recipe and find it wanting for peat-y goodness, skip the vermouth altogether.

Enjoy your Blood and Sand!