Rock and Rye

When I was a kid, my dad carried a product that I knew little or nothing about, except I knew the name, and remembered it because it was so distinctive. It came in a wide mouth bottle that had a rectangular base; think of Ballentine’s Scotch to get the shape of the bottle. The other distinctive thing about this spirit (and it was a whisky based beverage), was that it had some fruit sitting on the bottom. I can’t recall who bottled it, one of the bigger distilleries like Hiram Walker maybe, and it was called “Rock and Rye”. We only stocked a couple bottles, and it seemed that the only customers who ever bought it, and it was far from a big seller, were old guys. Like you had to be on Social Security to buy Rock and Rye.  I never tasted it, and I probably never even thought of it for more than forty years. Until a few weeks ago, when I was reading Imbibe.

Imbibe is the history of the American cocktail; that’s pretty much a redundancy, because one of the things I learned from the book is that the cocktail is largely an American creation.  Imbibe was written by David Wondrich, who tells this history by way of the first published guide to making cocktails, entitled How to Mix Drinks, by Jerry Thomas. This is all news to me, but Thomas was apparently one of the first celebrity bartenders, and he published his guide in 1862. It was a fun read, and a useful reference book, if you want to learn about mixology, techniques, equipment, and all the other details that contribute to mixing good drinks.

Anyway, as I’m reading along, and occasionally trying a recipe for something new (actually old) and different, or a variation on what we already know about, I came across a recipe for Rock and Rye. Five minutes later (it was a Saturday afternoon) I drove over to Monroe Avenue to buy another bottle of Sazerac Rye, and some rock candy. And as soon as I got home, I mixed up my first batch of Rock and Rye. Here’s the recipe, actually taken from some other bartender’s guide, which was published in 1938:

A fifth (750ml.) of Rye whisky.
A shot of Jamaican rum (I used Zacapa, the only dark rum I had around the house)
1/2 cup rock candy
A dozen whole cloves; and one stick of cinnamon.
A small orange, cut in sections, skin on. Same for a lemon. (I used half a navel orange -- all we had)
Put all the ingredients in a jar, pour the whisky & rum over them, and let it stand for 2 weeks. Then strain out the spices, and pour the spirits back onto the citrus.

After I got through straining the spices and string out (the candy pretty much melts), I had to pour the mix back into the jar, because one can’t get the citrus into a normal whisky bottle with a narrow neck. And hence the wide-mouth bottle that I recall from forty years ago.  But meanwhile, I’m very happy to say, the Rock and Rye was just fabulous. It’s a cocktail in a bottle; sort of mulled whisky -- sweet, spiced (the cloves are the most noticeable taste), and citrusy.  It’s sweeter than an old-fashioned, and the spices & citrus give it a taste different from the bitters found in most cocktails. But really very good. Served it on the rocks. It’s probably best in cold weather, but who cares about that? In fact, I think I’ll pour one right now, have a seat out in the yard, and enjoy this sunny spring afternoon. Cheers. Or as we like to say, L’Chaim.