It’s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes month over at Dinner and a Movie! Join us if you fancy watching the film sometime in June and then sharing your thoughts on it. There are a few recipes from the Kitchen of Jane Russell for you to rustle up in this post, and here are a couple of cocktail ideas too.
It was a very pleasurable experience discovering that there is a cocktail named after Jane Russell.
It’s a super tasty beverage for a cocktail hour, but it features booze that isn’t readily available here in the UK, so I modified it slightly by just using one type of bourbon. I did manage to score the chocolate bitters in my local off licence, which was surprising. Who knew there were so many flavours of bitters out there?
Here’s the original recipe – invented by New York bartender Brian Miller and featured on Liquor.com
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 ounces Russell’s Reserve rye
- 1/2 ounce Rittenhouse rye
- 1/4 ounce Benedictine
- 1/4 ounce Carpano Antica Formula vermouth
- 1/4 ounce Grand Marnier
- 1 dash Bittermens xocolatl mole bitters
- Garnish: orange twist
Steps
-
Add the Russell’s Reserve rye, Rittenhouse rye, Benedictine, Carpano Antica Formula vermouth, Grand Marnier and mole bitters to a mixing glass with ice and stir until well-chilled.
-
Strain into a coupe or cocktail glass.
-
Garnish with an orange peel.
I wanted to feature a Jane Russell cocktail for Dinner and a Movie but didn’t want folks to have to go out and buy lots of different bottles that they might not otherwise use up. My cocktail cabinet is bursting at the seams with weird and wonderful things with only tiny bits used, I don’t know about yours… HENCE, I came up with a modified version of the Jane Russell, which I have named the Dorothy Shaw Cocktail after her character in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
Dorothy Shaw Cocktail
2 ounces bourbon
1/4 ounce Benedictine
1/4 ounce Grand Marnier
1/4 ounce sweet vermouth
Dashes of xocalati mole bitters to taste (you can use Angostura instead)
Shake everything over ice and garnish with an orange twist.
We tried one version with the chocolate bitters and one with Angostura and felt either of these would be a VERY nice start to a Friday evening. We’ll definitely be having these again. I loved the one with chocolate bitters and pronounced it to be “Very Terry’s Chocolate Orange-y.”
Cheers everyone! Happy weekend. Don’t get stuck in a porthole!
Those are some cocktails ! Right up with there Mary Astors painkiller ! Would that my cocktail bar was half as well stocked as yours ! And when ever I see Carles Coburn I think of Martinis as there a long running joke with them and him in ‘Sabrina’ .
Oooh, I have never seen Sabrina! I shall rectify that immediately. Keep your eyes peeled for a Charles Coburn cocktail coming soon – it’s a humdinger!