A blue blazer is a type of cocktail created by Jerry Thomas, a bartender and author, while he was working at the El Dorado in San Francisco. Reportedly while Thomas was making the drink, President Ulysses S. Grant was so impressed that he gave Thomas a cigar. Thomas would only make the drink if the outside temperature was 50 °F (10 °C) or below or if the person ordering the drink had a cold or the flu, whose symptoms the drink was to alleviate.
It is not so much the drink (which is just a simple whisky punch) but the actual mixing that is unique. Originally mixed in two silver cups, the whisky and water were heated up separately and poured into their own cups. The whisky was then lit on fire, and while it was burning, the water and whisky were poured back and forth between the cups without extinguishing the fire. Jerry Thomas held the cups at a meter's distance from each other while mixing, creating a long blue flame between the two cups.
The Recipe
- 2½ oz rye or bourbon whiskey or Brandy
- 2½ oz boiling water
- 1 tsp powdered sugar
- Lemon peel
Famous quotes containing the word blue:
“Mozart has the classic purity of light and the blue ocean; Beethoven the romantic grandeur which belongs to the storms of air and sea, and while the soul of Mozart seems to dwell on the ethereal peaks of Olympus, that of Beethoven climbs shuddering the storm-beaten sides of a Sinai. Blessed be they both! Each represents a moment of the ideal life, each does us good. Our love is due to both.”
—Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821–1881)