Port and Cocktails: A Love Affair
By Chilled Magazine
Historically, port was a key ingredient in many classic cocktails.
It’s slightly to intensely sweet profile, depending on the style, makes it an ideal secondary ingredient. Its fruitiness, courtesy of the grapes from which it is sourced, is balanced by the use of distilled grape spirit, which leads to its classification as fortified wine. Flavors can vary from nuts and chocolate to cinnamon and berries, allowing it to marry with any spirit and make a distinctive stamp on a cocktail.
All the recipes below use Sandeman Porto Founder’s Reserve, which is selected from the best juice of each vintage, combined, then aged five years. Unlike specific styles like ruby or tawny, the Founder’s combines the gentle fruitiness of youth with the depth of an aged port.
Sandeman on the Rocks
Ingredients:
- 2 oz. Sandeman Porto Founders Reserve
Preparation: Pour 2 oz. port over ice. Garnish with a twist.
Ciderhouse Punch
Created by Jonathan Pogash, The Cocktail Guru
This is a punch variation on a cocktail and it serves approximately 20.
Ingredients:
- 1 bottle Sandeman Porto Founders Reserve
- 20 oz. Apple Cider
- 10 oz. Fresh Lemon Juice
- 10 oz. Ginger Syrup
Preparation: Combine ingredients into a punch bowl with ice and stir well. Serve with sliced apples and lemons inside the bowl.
Elks Fizz
Provided by David Wondrich, Esquire
Originally created by Peter Sindar, who worked at Miller’s Saloon in St Paul, Minnesota. In 1901, he won the annual Plice Gazett Bartender’s Medal with it.
Ingredients:
- 3/4 oz. Sandeman Porto Founders Reserve
- 1 1/2 oz. Straight Rye Whiskey
- 1/2 oz. Lemon Juice
- 1/2 tsp. Superfine Sugar
- 1/2 oz. Fresh Egg White
- 1 oz. Chilled Sparkling Water
- 1 segment Fresh Pineapple
Preparation: In a mixing glass, stir sugar and lemon juice together. Add whiskey, port, lemon juice and egg white. Shake extra hard with ice and strain into a chilled small highball glass containing the sparkling water. Garnish with pineapple—perch it on the rim of the glass.
Suburban
Provided by Ray Isle, Senior Wine Editor at Food & Wine Magazine
(From Dave Wondrich’s take on Esquire.com)
Ingredients:
- 1/2 oz. Sandeman Porto Founders Reserve
- 1 1/2 oz. Rye Whiskey
- 1/2 oz. Dark Rum
- dash Angostura Bitters
- dash Orange Bitters
Preparation: Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with an orange twist.