East India No. 2
The East India No. 2 is fino sherry and dry vermouth in equal measure, bridged by orange bitters with a single dash of Angostura underneath. There is no spirit in it, which puts it at roughly a third of a Martini's strength and makes it a drink you can have more than one of. It is the second of two drinks under the East India name in the Savoy Cocktail Book. The first is a brandy drink built on curaçao and pineapple, a relic of the trade the name refers to. The No.2 shares nothing with it but the flag: it is a fortified-wine aperitif and belongs to a completely different tradition. What it does is strip the Coronation No. 1 back. Take the maraschino out of that drink and this is what remains: two pale wines and two kinds of bitters, with nothing sweet to soften the join. Whether that is an improvement depends entirely on how dry you like things.
Glassware: Nick & Nora Glass
Garnish: Lemon Twist
Ingredients
45ml
Bone dry, pale and slightly saline, and only worth drinking cold and recently opened. It supplies the mineral spine that the vermouth's herbs answer.
45ml
An equal partner rather than a modifier, so a tired bottle ruins half the drink rather than a corner of it. Fridge, small bottle, and use it up.
2 dashes
The bridge. Orange peel is the one flavour that reads clearly against both a saline wine and a herbal one, which is why it takes two dashes and the Angostura takes one.
1 dash
A single dash for weight. Any more and the clove and cinnamon sit on top of two wines that have no body to carry them.
Instructions
Add the fino, dry vermouth and both bitters to a mixing glass.
Fill with cubed ice and stir for 20 seconds: wine chills faster than spirit.
Strain into a chilled Nick and Nora glass.
Express a lemon twist over the surface and drop it in.
Expert Tip
Freshness is the whole recipe. Two open bottles of wine and nothing else: no spirit to mask them, no citrus to brighten them, no sugar to round them off. A vermouth that has been standing at room temperature for a month will taste stale in the glass, and so will a fino that was opened last week. Both go in the fridge, and both want buying in the smallest bottle you can find. Fino in particular is a white wine that happens to be fortified, and it goes off at about the same rate as one. Stir for twenty seconds, not longer. There is no high-proof spirit here needing dilution, and an over-stirred version of this drink is watery before you have picked it up.
Flavour Profile
Where It Comes From
The East India name attached itself to more than one drink. The original is a brandy cocktail with curaçao, pineapple syrup and bitters, printed through the late nineteenth century and named for the trading company whose glamour sold a great many things it had nothing to do with.
The No.2 is a different animal entirely and reached print in Harry Craddock's Savoy Cocktail Book in 1930. Why a sherry-and-vermouth aperitif inherited the name is not recorded. The most likely answer is the least romantic one: it was the second recipe filed under an existing heading, and the number stuck.
Two Wines, Two Bitters
Fino and dry vermouth are both dry and both wine, which sounds monotonous and is not, because they are dry in different directions. Fino gets its character from flor, the yeast layer it ages under, and tastes saline, almondy and mineral. Vermouth gets its character from botanicals steeped in a base wine and tastes herbal and faintly bitter.
At equal measure neither can overrun the other, and the drink sits in the gap between them. That gap is where the bitters go. Two dashes of orange bridge the two flavours because citrus peel reads clearly against both; one dash of Angostura sits underneath and gives a very light drink something to stand on.
Against the Coronation No. 1
The two recipes are one ingredient apart. The Coronation No. 1 adds five millilitres of maraschino to the same pair of wines; the East India No. 2 uses two bitters instead and adds nothing sweet at all.
The difference in the glass is bigger than the difference on paper. Maraschino gives the Coronation a cherry-and-almond lift and a suggestion of occasion. Without it, this is austere: bone dry, savoury, and closer to a glass of very good sherry than to a cocktail. Make both in an evening and the comparison teaches more than either does alone.
Why the Low Proof Was Deliberate
Nothing about the strength here is an accident or a compromise. The London bars of the period poured fortified wine by the glass all afternoon, and a drink built entirely from it was a normal thing to want rather than a concession to anyone's health.
The modern low-alcohol list rediscovered this territory about a decade ago and largely reinvented recipes that already existed. The bar books of the 1920s and 30s are full of them.
How to Serve It
Stirred short, strained into a chilled Nick and Nora, lemon twist expressed over the surface. The twist is not optional: at this strength the aromatics do most of the work and lemon oil is the brightest thing in reach.
It is an aperitif in the literal sense. Pour it before food, cold, and expect to pour a second.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an East India No. 2?
Equal measures of fino sherry and dry vermouth with two dashes of orange bitters and one of Angostura, stirred and served up. It contains no spirit, which puts it at roughly a third the strength of a Martini.
What was the East India No.1?
A brandy drink, and completely unrelated in style: cognac with curaçao, pineapple syrup and bitters. The two share a name because they were filed under the same heading, not because they have anything in common in the glass.
How does it differ from a Coronation No. 1?
One ingredient. The Coronation adds a barspoon of maraschino to the same two wines; this one adds two kinds of bitters and nothing sweet. The result is drier, more savoury and considerably more austere, which some people much prefer.
Which sherry should I use?
Fino, cold and recently opened. Manzanilla works and runs slightly saltier. Amontillado makes a heavier, nuttier drink that loses the pale austerity the recipe is built on, so treat that as a variation rather than a substitution.
Master the Techniques
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Coronation No. 1
The Coronation No. 1 is two fortified wines in equal measure, seasoned with a barspoon of maraschino and a couple of dashes of orange bitters. There is no spirit in it at all, which makes it about a third the strength of a Martini and a great deal more useful across a long evening. The name belongs to a family of drinks written for royal occasions, and this one is usually placed at Edward VII's coronation in 1902. The date is traditional rather than documented, but the manners fit: it is restrained, dry and built for repetition rather than effect. The structure is the same one the Bamboo and the Adonis use, aromatised wine talking to fortified wine, with the maraschino as the difference. A very small amount of cherry funk lifts two austere wines into something that reads as an occasion. That is the whole trick, and it is worth a barspoon of anyone's time.
Bamboo
The Bamboo was created by Louis Eppinger at the Grand Hotel in Yokohama around 1890, making it one of the earliest documented low-ABV cocktails and one of the first drinks of note created outside Europe or North America. Eppinger was a German-born bartender who ran the Grand Hotel bar for decades, and the travellers who passed through carried his drinks back with them. The Bamboo was the most enduring of them. Equal parts dry sherry and dry vermouth with orange bitters, stirred and served cold. The format sits in the Martini family, spirit-forward and stirred, but the absence of a distilled base produces something considerably lighter and more delicate than anything built on gin or whiskey. It asks for attention rather than demanding it. Fino or manzanilla performs best: dry, saline and nutty in a way that gives the drink genuine complexity at a fraction of the alcohol. The sherry choice changes the Bamboo more than any other variable in the build.
Adonis
The Adonis was created at the Hoffman House bar in New York in 1884 to celebrate the extraordinary run of the Broadway musical of the same name, which became one of the longest-running shows of the nineteenth century. It is a two-spirit build of dry sherry and sweet vermouth with orange bitters, stirred and served cold, and one of the earliest documented low-ABV cocktails in the American canon. Where its close relative the Bamboo is dry, saline and mineral, the Adonis is softer, rounder and more fruit-forward. The sweet vermouth introduces a warmth and body that dry vermouth does not, and the result sits more comfortably after a meal than before one. The choice between the two is largely a question of when they are being drunk. Fino or manzanilla sherry is the correct call. Its dry, saline character is the counterweight the vermouth's sweetness needs, and an amontillado pushes the drink toward richness at the cost of the delicacy that makes it interesting.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits
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