These cocktails are anti-fascist
Three mixed drinks for raising a toast to the death and defeat of Nazis
I must confess I’m reeling a little, watching the rise of white nationalism in our time, especially since the recent events in Charlottesville. It’s all quite depressing, and as a journalist I’m still trying to think of ways I could possibly make a difference in all this mess. Stay tuned.
In the meantime I realized that given my background in drinks writing there is one minuscule thing I can do.
I’m here to suggest a trio of beverages that are suitable to toasting the defeat and death of Nazis.
Is this a frivolous gesture? Yes, admittedly. Will it help in some concrete way? Probably not. But who knows? During the dark years that lie ahead, maybe one of these cocktails will someday give someone braver than I just that little extra bit of Dutch courage at the right moment to help them do something extraordinary.
Or damn it all, maybe some of us simply require a drink and a minute to relax. So however it may be of use to you, here’s your primer on a few drinks that fuelled some fascist-fighters of the past. Cheers to freedom, justice, humanity, and everything else worth punching a fascist over.
Félix Kir: the kir and kir royale
A kir may not sound too much like a badass drink, being an easy two-step aperitif concocted from cassis (blackcurrant liqueur) and dry Burgundy white wine. But it was tough enough for Canon Félix Kir, a priest who played cat-and-mouse against the Nazis as a member of the French Resistance.
And he was tougher than you.
Kir was lucky to evade execution: Captured by the Germans twice, he twice escaped. He may only have avoided summary execution because he was a priest. Kir survived the Second World War to become mayor of Dijon, the principal city in Burgundy, France.
How did Kir get a drink named after him? The story goes that it had long been a practice among the people of Burgundy to mix dry white wine — the local chardonnay or, better yet, aligoté — with cassis to produce a “blanc-cassis” as a sweetish pre-dinner drink.
After the war, when Kir went into politics, he made a habit of pressing the local concoction into the hands of visiting dignitaries to promote local products. Et voilà, it became known as a kir. A kir royale, meanwhile, is the same thing but with sparkling wine (ideally champagne) instead of still wine.
Et voilà, your pre-dinner means of escape:
Kir
Into a wine glass, pour 1 part cassis to 4 parts dry white wine. Stir, but not too much.
Kir royale
Add 1 part cassis to 6 parts dry sparkling wine. Stir gently.
Frank Meier: the golden clipper
The Germans steamrollered into France in 1941, and senior Luftwaffe officers and Hitler lieutenant Hermann Göring set up their headquarters in the Ritz Hotel — where a man named Frank Meier managed the bar.
As has recently been revealed, Meier used his place to aid the Resistance.
In her 2014 book The Hotel on Place Vendome: Life, Death, and Betrayal at the Hotel Ritz in Paris, Tilar J. Mazzeo revealed that Meier had not only passed information to the French and British intelligence about what the Nazi commanders were up to, he also assisted a plot against Hitler among German commanders. Being part Jewish, Meier must have known what would have happened to him had he been caught.
Possibly figuring that if he was going to take such risks there may as well be an upside, Meier is also thought to have embezzled from the Ritz.
Meanwhile Crooked Frank managed to invent many cocktails, and bartenders still find inspiration in his 1936 book The Artistry of Mixing Drinks (it’s certainly one of my favourite cocktail books).
Especially appropriate, given the rumoured predilections of the would-be tyrant in the White House, is the “golden clipper”; it’s a yellowish trickle of white rum, gin, orange juice and apricot liqueur. It’s very classy, believe me.
Here’s my adaptation of Meier’s recipe (the original called for peach brandy, but that’s effectively extinct as a product category, so we have apricot brandy instead).
Golden clipper (NOT shower!)
3/4 oz. gin
3/4 oz. white rum
3/4 oz. freshly squeezed orange juice
3/4 oz. apricot brandy
Method: Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake well and strain into a chilled coupe/cocktail glass. Serve.
Ernest Hemingway: death in the afternoon
Finally, since we’re talking about drinking and fighting fascism and more drinking, I can’t avoid mentioning Ernest Hemingway, who travelled to Spain during its civil war to report on the conflict while embedded with the anti-fascists, with whom he deeply sympathized.
If you’re up for a number that hits you like a mortar burst, Hemingway’s signature combination of absinthe and champagne tolls for thee. Called the “death in the afternoon,” this weapons-grade cocktail is especially appropriate for our purposes, as afternoon is the ideal time to watch injured fascists draw their last, gasping breath.
Just kidding. They can die whenever. Why be picky?
Death in the afternoon
This drink is said to have been born of dire necessity, when Hemingway and some buddies were forced to lay up ashore in the Dry Tortugas (near Key West) for a few days while a storm passed by. They were rescued by the British cruiser the HMS Danae, whose officers came up with the drink while dragging Hemingway’s pal’s fishing boat back into the water. (The Danae would later be part of the D-Day invasion of Normandy, incidentally — the mother of all antifascist actions).
You can read the whole yarn in the wonderful book To Have and Have Another: A Hemingway Cocktail Companion by Philip Greene.
Finally, the drink: A death in the afternoon is a simple combination of absinthe (say, 1 1/2 ounces) and champagne (four ounces) . You will become comfortable eyeballing the proportions if you make a few of them.
Now, who says champagne and socialism don’t go together?
