Cooking Lesson #93— The Suffering Bastard

"Suffering Bastard" by bevvyco is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

How you doin’? I look forward to this day all week long. I love sharing the stories of why we drink what we do. Now that the election is getting closer, I was doing some research on favorite cocktails favored by different presidents. But since we are the poor bastards that are going to have to live with the consequences—just think about the endless political commercials sandwiched between reruns of Dallas Cowboy’s highlights from 1998 and Law & Order—I decided to offer a cocktail for the likes of us—the poor suffering bastards.

The Suffering Bastard is a cocktail developed by a legendary barkeep Joe Scialom—best known for his time as head bartender at Shepheard's Long Bar in Cairo, Egypt—as a hangover cure for those particularly bad mornings the day after. The drink was made famous by its (potentially apocryphal) role in the Second Battle of El Alamein during World War Two.
 
As the story is told, the morning of the battle, the Hussar soldiers in Cairo were caught off guard by Rommel's forces after a night of particularly heavy drinking. The army sent a cable to Scialom requesting an urgent delivery of several gallons of his famous hangover cure, the Suffering Bastard. He delivered, the soldiers recovered, and the Germans were kept at bay. The Second Battle of El Alamein was a turning point in the North African campaign. It ended the long fight for the Western Desert and was the only great land battle won by the British and Commonwealth forces without direct American participation. Go USA!

Ingredients
1 ounce gin
1 ounce cognac
4 ounce ginger beer, chilled
1/2 ounce Rose's lime juice
2 dashes Angostura bitters
 
Garnish: Orange slice and mint sprig
Old-Fashioned Glass
 
Directions

1. Add the gin, cognac, Rose's lime juice and bitters to a cocktail shaker with ice and shake until well mixed and chilled.
2. Stir the ginger beer into shaker.
3. Pour into a double Old-Fashioned glass—Do not strain.
4. Garnish with an orange slice and sprig of clapped mint.

 
ChefSecret:  Here is a handy Unit Conversions list in case you missed that class in school.
 
1 oz = 30 ml
1 cl = 10 ml = 1/3 oz
1 standard jigger = 1.5 oz = 45 ml
1 barspoon = ~1 teaspoon = ~5 ml
1 tablespoon = 0.5 oz = 15 ml
1 cup = 8 oz
1 liter = ~4.25 cups = ~34 oz
1 gallon = ~3.8 liters = 5 750ml bottles
Juice of one lime = ~1 oz = ~30 ml
Juice of one lemon = ~1.5 oz = ~45 ml
 
Covid-19 Quip of the Day: Prediction: there will be a baby boom in 9 months, and then in 2033, we will see the rise of the Quaranteens.
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#SufferingBastard #Gin #Cognac #AngosturaBitters #Cocktails #SecondBattleofElAlamein #HappyHour #PerspectivesTheConsultingGroup #QuarantineKitchen #Covid19 #FeedingAmerica

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