Old Pal
The Old Pal is rye, Campari and dry vermouth in a Boulevardier's shape with the sweet vermouth swapped out. That single change does considerably more than it sounds like it should. Sweet vermouth in a Boulevardier is a cushion: it pads the Campari's bitterness and rounds the whiskey. Take it away and put dry vermouth in its place, and the Campari argues unpadded while the rye's pepper sharpens. The drink runs leaner, drier and more bracing than its amber sibling, and it belongs before dinner where the Boulevardier belongs after, which is a real distinction rather than a stylistic one. Both come out of Harry MacElhone's Paris in the 1920s and both appear in his books. This one is dedicated to William Robertson, a sports journalist on the Paris Herald and the old pal of the title, which is a more affectionate origin than most drinks manage to claim, and a rarer one than it ought to be.
Glassware: Nick & Nora Glass
Garnish: Lemon Twist
Ingredients
45ml
The spine, unpadded by sweetness. Rye's pepper is what the dry frame sharpens, and bourbon here would put back some of the roundness the whole recipe exists to remove.
22.5ml
Arguing without a cushion. In a Boulevardier the sweet vermouth pads it; here it stands exposed, which is why the same measure reads considerably more bitter.
22.5ml
The distinction, and the whole daylight between this and the Boulevardier. Fresh and cold, because there is no sweetness anywhere to hide a tired bottle behind.
Instructions
Add the rye, Campari and dry vermouth to a mixing glass.
Fill with cubed ice and stir for 25 seconds.
Strain into a chilled Nick and Nora glass.
Express a lemon twist over the surface and drop it in.
Expert Tip
Equal thirds is the period pour and the modern trim leans the rye, and both are defensible. Forty-five, twenty-two, twenty-two keeps the whiskey leading; equal parts makes a considerably more bitter drink that some people prefer and nobody should be surprised by. Keep the dry vermouth fresh. It is a third of the glass and there is no sweetness anywhere to cover for an oxidised bottle, so this drink punishes a tired one harder than the Boulevardier does. Make one beside a Boulevardier. Same whiskey, same Campari, one vermouth apart, and it is the most efficient demonstration available of what sweet vermouth is actually doing in a drink.
Flavour Profile
Where It Comes From
Harry MacElhone ran Harry's New York Bar in Paris through the 1920s and 30s, and a remarkable number of drinks come out of that room: the Sidecar's competing claim, the Bloody Mary's, the Monkey Gland, Cameron’s Kick.
The Old Pal and the Boulevardier both appear in his books, and both are American whiskey with Campari and vermouth. That they arrived together from the same bar is what makes them worth understanding as a pair rather than separately.
The Old Pal is dedicated to William Robertson, a sports journalist on the Paris Herald and a regular of MacElhone's, who is the old pal of the title. Drinks named after friends rather than after celebrities or places are rare, and this is a better origin than most.
The One-Bottle Difference
A Boulevardier and an Old Pal are the same three-part structure: whiskey, Campari, vermouth. The vermouth is the only variable and it changes almost everything.
Sweet vermouth is a cushion. It has sugar, weight and a caramel roundness, and against Campari it does two jobs at once: it softens the bitterness and it gives the whiskey somewhere soft to land. The Boulevardier is a comfortable drink because of it.
Dry vermouth does neither. It is herbal, mineral and austere, and it adds nothing to absorb the Campari. What you get is bitterness arriving unpadded, rye pepper sharpened rather than rounded, and a considerably leaner drink.
Neither is better. They are different hours of the evening.
Rye Rather Than Bourbon
The Boulevardier is poured with either and works with both. The Old Pal wants rye specifically.
Bourbon's sweetness is a partial substitute for what the sweet vermouth was doing: it puts a little roundness back into the drink. In a Boulevardier that compounds pleasantly. Here it works directly against the point, softening a recipe whose entire distinction is that it is not soft.
Rye's dry pepper is what the frame is built to sharpen, and it is what makes the comparison with the Boulevardier legible.
The Proportions Question
Equal thirds is the period pour, and it makes a genuinely bitter drink: thirty millilitres of Campari against thirty of rye with no sweetness anywhere is a considerable amount of bitterness.
The modern trim leans the whiskey, usually to something like forty-five, twenty-two and twenty-two. That keeps the rye leading and makes the drink more approachable without softening its character.
Both are correct and it is worth knowing which you are making. If somebody tells you the Old Pal is punishing, they have probably had it at equal parts.
How to Serve It
Stirred for twenty-five seconds over cubed ice, strained into a chilled Nick and Nora, lemon twist expressed over the surface and dropped in.
Lemon rather than orange. The Campari is already pointing at orange and lemon oil cuts across it, which is what a dry drink wants. Before dinner rather than after.
The Spirit
Whiskey (Rye)The whiskey the American classics were written for. Rye is dry and peppery where bourbon is sweet and broad, and a Manhattan or a Sazerac built on the wrong one is a noticeably different drink rather than a near miss.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an Old Pal?
Rye whiskey, Campari and dry vermouth, stirred and served up. It comes from Harry MacElhone's Paris bar in the 1920s and is dedicated to William Robertson, a sports journalist and regular, who is the old pal of the name.
How does it differ from a Boulevardier?
One bottle. The Boulevardier uses sweet vermouth, which cushions the Campari and rounds the whiskey; the Old Pal uses dry, which does neither. The result is leaner, drier and considerably more bracing, and it belongs at a different hour.
Rye or bourbon?
Rye. Bourbon's sweetness puts back some of the roundness the dry vermouth was removed to eliminate, which works against the whole point. Rye's pepper is what the dry frame is built to sharpen, and the comparison depends on it.
Equal parts or leaned toward the whiskey?
Both are correct. Equal thirds is the period pour and makes a genuinely bitter drink; the modern trim leans the rye and keeps it more approachable. If somebody finds it punishing, they have probably had it at equal parts.
Master the Techniques
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Boulevardier
The Boulevardier was created by Erskine Gwynne, an American expatriate writer in 1920s Paris who published a monthly magazine of the same name for the city’s American community. Harry McElhone documented the drink in his 1927 book Barflies and Cocktails, attributing it to Gwynne. It is a Negroni with bourbon in place of gin, and that single substitution changes the drink more thoroughly than the swap suggests. Where the Negroni is botanical, precise and juniper-forward, the Boulevardier is warmer, rounder and more fruit-driven. Bourbon brings vanilla, caramel and a grain sweetness that gin does not carry, producing a richer balance that sits more naturally after a meal than before one. The ratio here runs slightly bourbon-forward at three to two to two rather than equal parts, because bourbon is heavier and sweeter than gin and equal measures can tip the drink toward cloying against a rich vermouth. It handles equal parts perfectly well too; adjust to the bottles in front of you.
Left Hand
The Left Hand is a Boulevardier with three dashes of chocolate bitters in it, which sounds like a footnote until you taste one. Cacao is dry rather than sweet, and it sits exactly between bourbon's barrel vanilla and Campari's bitter orange, joining two things that in a plain Boulevardier stay politely separate. It is attributed to Sam Ross, working out of Milk & Honey in New York in the late 2000s, and it comes as half of a pair. The Right Hand is the same drink with aged rum in place of the bourbon, built by his colleague Michael McIlroy. Two hands, two base spirits, one idea. The proportions are modern: forty-five, twenty-two, twenty-two rather than the equal measures a Boulevardier often takes. That trim is as much a part of the drink as the bitters are, because it is what keeps the Campari framing the whiskey instead of covering it.
White Negroni
The White Negroni came out of an improvisation. Wayne Collins, a British bartender demonstrating at VinExpo in Bordeaux in 2001, was asked to work with French products and did not have Campari or sweet vermouth to hand. He rebuilt the Negroni from what was available: Suze in place of the Campari, Lillet Blanc in place of the vermouth, gin unchanged. It is a translation rather than a substitution. Suze is bitter from gentian root, which is earthy and vegetal where Campari is bitter orange, and Lillet answers with honeyed citrus and a touch of quinine where sweet vermouth brought weight and spice. The structure survives intact and every flavour in it changes. What you get is paler, drier and stranger than the original, and it has done more than anything else to put Suze on back bars outside France. Plenty of people prefer it to a Negroni. The argument is worth having with one of each in front of you.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits
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