Cocktail of the Week – The Monkey Gland

By RC Dean

This week – the Monkey Gland.  The key to this one is getting just the right amount of licorice flavor from the Pernod.  Yes, yet another liqueur you probably don’t have in your liquor cabinet.  Oh, yeah, you’ll need Grenadine, too.  I didn’t have either when this recipe first showed up.  If you’re serious about cocktailing, though, you are going to acquire a collection of liqueurs and mixers.  As I peruse the rotation at the Casa Dean, though, I note that most of the rest of the regulars don’t really call for exotic ingredients (although I will have an article on bitters, related mixers, and tools one of these weeks).

The Monkey Gland

The Monkey Gland:

 

3 oz. gin (I like The Botanist)

2 oz. orange juice

1 tsp.  Grenadine

2 ml Pernod (yup, those are milliliters – I use an eyedropper with an ml index on it)

 

Add the Pernod to an empty cocktail shaker, and “rinse” (coat the sides of) the shaker with it.  Rinsing the shaker adds more of a licorice nose to the drink, but isn’t completely necessary.  Note: do not pour out the “excess” Pernod after you have prepped the shaker.  I tinkered with this recipe before I landed on 2 ml as being the right dose for me.  Pernod (originally, a faux absinthe after the real deal was banned) is powerfully licorice flavored – too much is way too much, but too little just takes away the character of a Monkey Gland.  I went to the eyedropper because it was the only way to be consistent, and you want to hit the sweet spot for the Pernod.

 

Add ice, gin, orange juice, and grenadine to the shaker.  Shake (a proper shake is 10 – 15 seconds, in case you were wondering).   I pour mine over ice; I think the classic serving is straight up in a martini glass.  I like my drinks to stay cold – we’ve recently gone to the 1½ inch ice spheres (one per glass) to keep things cold without diluting too much.  Personally, I think a Monkey Gland with a big ball floating in it is the optimal presentation, anyway.

 

This is an old cocktail recipe dating back to the 1920s or so.  It was inspired by a Dr. Serge Voronoff, who made a pile of money implanting slices of freshly-harvested monkey testicles into the scrota of old, rich, and stupid Europeans, for exactly the reason you think.  One can only imagine the complications and outcomes, but at least it inspired an excellent drink.

 

Derpetologist’s Spot the Not: Pat Buchanan

Pat Buchanan

1. Parents have a right to insist that godless evolution not be taught to their children.

2. Bill Clinton’s foreign policy experience stems mainly from having breakfast at the International House of Pancakes.

3. No one has deputized America to play Wyatt Earp to the world.

4. Terrorism is the price of empire. If we do not wish to pay it, we must give up the empire.

5. The ultimate goal of the anti-religious elites is to transform America into a completely secular nation, a nation that is legally and culturally biased against Christianity.

6. The War Between the States was about independence, about self-determination, about the right of a people to break free of a government to which they could no longer give allegiance.