A long while back I had two regulars in my bar who enjoyed tasking me with interpreting classic cocktails. One night, these fellows ordered their all-time favorite, the Pendennis Club Cocktail. I blushed over my inability to conjure it: I had heard of it but had never encountered one nor seen a recipe. They walked me through it—gin, apricot brandy, lime juice, and Peychaud’s, the revered, anise-inflected New Orleans bitters. Taking a sip, I experienced one of those zoomfreeze moments. Intriguingly opaque, slightly frothy,and salmon-hued, the Pendennis Club Cocktail has a mesmerizing balance of flavors: sweet, tart, and packed with spice and strength all at the same time. It has remained one of my favorite drinks for some two decades, during which time I have tinkered with its parts and attempted to trace its perplexing history.
The actual Pendennis Club is a dining and social institution in Louisville, Kentucky, some 130 years old and deeply garlanded with its city’s history. It has long billed itself as the birthplace of the old-fashioned, a debate that has raged long and loud but one for which I’d prefer to stay on the sidelines. Instead, what I’ve wanted to know for many years is, who cooked up the actual Pendennis Club Cocktail, and why, in the middle of the bourbon belt, would this namesake house drink be composed with gin?
This story is from the November 2015 edition of Saveur.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the November 2015 edition of Saveur.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Raising a Better Bird
Blue Apron founder Matt Wadiak has moved onto greener pastures, where happy chickens roam free.
One Good Bottle
Tamara Irish is a natural winemaker. Way natural.
My Not-So-Secret Garden
Good (vegetable-laden) fences make good neighbors in one tiny town.
Pralines: How They Cook 'Em in New Orleans
Pralines: How They Cook ’Em in New Orleans
My Father's French Onion Soup
Postwar Paris had a lifelong influence on James Edisto Mitchell—both as an artist and a cook BY Shane Mitchell
Our All-Time Best Recipes
If anyone should know if a recipe’s a keeper, it’s the person tasked with making sense of the original instructions—from the far reaches of Sri Lanka, say, or a famous chef who measures nothing. This might explain why many test kitchen staffers named favorites that their predecessors had tested and recommended. (Though a couple put forth recipes they developed themselves.) And while Saveur never shies away from the oddball authentic ingredient, the fare on the following pages is the stuff we cook at home, over and over again. Consider it global comfort food.
Genever Is the Original Juniper Spirit
Don’t call it a comeback. Or gin
Tree Of Life
Harvesting the resin of the mastic tree has sustained generations on the Greek island of Chios
From Bee To Bottle
On the lush island of Kauai, a local artisan brings mead into modernity
Worth Her Salt
Meet the pioneering female cellar master at one of Spains greatestjamn ibricoproducers
