Cooking Lesson #945: Twelve Mile Limit Cocktail

…from the Perspectives’ Happy Hour Bar

credit: thecocktailexperiment.com

How you doin’? Rum, rye, and brandy are a triple threat in this boozy but well-balanced cocktail. This is yet another Prohibition-era drink. And here you thought you knew all the Prohibition drinks!
 
The Twelve Mile Limit was one of a group of cocktails with names that poked fun at the Eighteenth Amendment, the Volstead Act and the cluster of ancillary legislation that arose around them. Other cocktails in this series include the Scofflaw and the Three Mile Limit.
 
The Twelve Mile Limit grew out of two laws that were passed during Prohibition. You see, booze wasn't illegal only on American turf; it was prohibited at sea, as well, within a certain distance from the coast. At first, that distance was three miles. That is, if you were, say, transporting a shipment of rum from Cuba up north to Canada, you could do so legally as long as you were at least three miles from the shoreline.
 
So, what's a sensible person to do? Take a boat out three miles and throw a party. The Three Mile Limit cocktail was born, a mix of rum, cognac, grenadine, and lemon juice. (The name was later shortened to the Three-Miler, and then tweaked somehow, to become the Three Miller.)
 
But it was too easy for bootleggers to row a boat out three miles to a waiting ship, offload illegal hooch into the rowboat, and return to shore under the cover of darkness. So, the legal offshore distance became twelve miles, and a new cocktail was born.
 
The major difference between the Three and the Twelve? The Twelve adds rye whiskey to the mix. With rum, rye, and brandy, this cocktail is boozy as all get-out. Take too many of 'em, and you'll think you were floating twelve miles offshore the whole time.
 
Prep time:  5 minutes
Yield:  1 cocktail
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Ingredients 
1 ounce white rum
1/2 ounce rye whiskey
1/2 ounce brandy
1/2 ounce grenadine
1/2 ounce freshly squeezed lemon juice, from 1 lemon
lemon twist (garnish)
 
Directions

1. Add the rum, rye, brandy, grenadine, and lemon juice to a cocktail shaker filled with ice.
2. Shake until well chilled.
3. Strain into a cocktail glass.
4. Garnish with a lemon twist and serve.

ChefSecret—Well, not such a secret after all:  The Prohibition era was the period from 1920 to 1933 when the United States prohibited the production, importation, transportation in and sale of alcoholic beverages. The alcohol industry was curtailed by a succession of state legislatures and Prohibition was formally introduced nationwide under the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified on January 16, 1919. Prohibition ended with the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment on December 5, 1933.

Quip of the Day:  Q. Where did mice go to drink in the prohibition era?  A. To the squeak-easy.
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