Rattlesnake
The Rattlesnake arrives with the best joke in the Savoy Cocktail Book attached to it. Harry Craddock printed the spec in 1930 with a note that it is “so called because it will either cure Rattlesnake bite, or prevent Rattlesnake bite, or make you see Rattlesnakes”, and the line has travelled with the drink ever since. Underneath the joke is a whiskey sour with the Sazerac’s trick played on it. Rye, lemon and sugar in standard proportions, an egg white for the crown, and three dashes of absinthe that are not rinsed around the glass, as a Sazerac would have it, but shaken through with everything else. That single decision is what makes the drink. A rinse puts the anise on the nose, met once and then gone. Shaken into the foam it diffuses through the texture instead, so every sip carries the same herbal shadow underneath the lemon. It is the sour for people who order Sazeracs, and it is far better than a novelty name deserves.
Glassware: Coupe Glass
Garnish: None: the foam and the warning suffice
Ingredients
60ml
Constitutional rather than preferred. Rye’s pepper is what the anise has to argue with, and bourbon’s sweetness leaves the absinthe unopposed and the drink flatter for it.
22.5ml
Squeezed to order, at standard sour weight. It is the discipline underneath the theatre, and it is what stops the egg white reading as merely soft.
20ml
Equal parts sugar and water, at ordinary sour proportions. Enough to balance the lemon and no more, because the absinthe brings its own sweetness with it.
1
One white, dry shaken with everything else rather than alone. It builds the crown that carries the anise, which is the whole reason this is not simply a Sazerac.
3 dashes
Three dashes, counted. Shaken through rather than rinsed around the glass, so the anise sits inside the texture and arrives on every sip at the same strength.
Instructions
Dry shake the rye, lemon juice, simple syrup, egg white and absinthe without ice for 10 seconds.
Add ice and shake hard for a further 12 seconds.
Double strain into a chilled coupe.
Let the crown settle for half a minute before serving. No garnish.
Expert Tip
Three dashes, counted rather than poured. Absinthe at 60-something per cent will take over a sour built on 60ml of rye if it is given the chance, and the distance between a shadow and a liquorice sweet is about two dashes. Dry shake first without ice for ten seconds to set the foam, then add ice and shake hard for another twelve. Double strain, and give the crown half a minute in the glass before it goes out; poured too fast, the foam and the liquid have not yet settled into the two clean layers that make the drink look like what it is. Rye, not bourbon: the pepper is what the anise has to argue with.
Behind the Rattlesnake
Flavour Profile
The Origin
Harry Craddock printed the Rattlesnake in the Savoy Cocktail Book in 1930, working the American Bar at the Savoy in London, where a decade of Prohibition had deposited a generation of American bartenders and their recipes.
The book is a survey of that displacement: several hundred drinks collected with very little comment, which is exactly what makes the handful of entries carrying a note stand out. This one carries the best of them. Nothing is known about who first made the drink or where. Craddock recorded it rather than invented it, and the trail stops with him. It came back with the classic revival, spec and joke intact.
The Warning
Craddock’s note reads: “so called because it will either cure Rattlesnake bite, or prevent Rattlesnake bite, or make you see Rattlesnakes.” It is the most quoted line in the book and it is worth serving verbatim.
The joke works because it hedges three ways and commits to none, which is more or less how a bartender in 1930 would have described absinthe: a spirit still banned in the United States when the book went to press, sold for decades as medicine, and blamed for hallucinations it does not cause. The warning is a period document as much as a gag.
Shaken, Not Rinsed
A Sazerac rinses absinthe around the glass and discards the excess, which puts the anise on the nose. You meet it as the drink arrives, and then it recedes.
The Rattlesnake shakes its three dashes in with everything else, and absinthe inside an egg foam behaves differently: it diffuses through the texture rather than sitting above it, so the anise arrives on every sip at the same strength instead of fading after the first. Three dashes is the calibration. Absinthe is strong enough to swallow a sour whole, and the distance between a shadow and a liquorice sweet is roughly two dashes either way.
The Sour Underneath
Take the absinthe out and what remains is a correct Boston-style sour at standard proportions: sixty millilitres of whiskey, twenty-two of lemon, twenty of sugar, one egg white.
That is the family tree in a line, and it is also why the dashes have to be measured rather than poured. They are an accent on a drink that is already balanced, not a fourth ingredient competing with the other three. Rye is the constitutional choice: its pepper gives the anise something to push against, where bourbon’s sweetness leaves the absinthe unopposed and the whole thing noticeably softer.
How to Serve It
Up, in a chilled coupe, double strained so no shard of ice breaks the crown. Let it stand half a minute before it goes out: the foam and the liquid need a moment to settle into two clean layers, and served too fast it looks like a shaken drink rather than a finished one.
No garnish. It is a late drink and a persuasive one for anyone who already orders Sazeracs, and Craddock’s warning belongs with it, delivered straight-faced and word for word.
Make it at home
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.
Master the Techniques
More to explore
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Rattlesnake?
Why shake the absinthe rather than rinse it?
What is the Savoy warning?
Can I make it with bourbon?
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Whiskey Sour
The Whiskey Sour is one of the oldest documented cocktails in the American canon, printed in Jerry Thomas’s 1862 bar guide, and its structure of whiskey, fresh lemon and sugar is the template every other whiskey sour derives from. The Honey Sour changes the sweetener. The Penicillin changes the sweetener and the technique. The Amaretto Sour changes the base spirit. Understand this drink and the whole family becomes readable. The egg white question matters more here than in most sours, because both versions are widely ordered and both are correct. With it, the drink is a Boston Sour: silky, with the foam carrying the bourbon’s vanilla to the nose before the lemon reaches the palate. Without it, sharper and more direct. Pre-made sour mix has shown a generation this drink at its worst. Built with lemon squeezed to order, a decent bourbon and a properly proportioned syrup, it surprises almost everyone whose expectations were formed by the imitation.
Sazerac
The Sazerac is one of the oldest documented cocktails in American history, originating in New Orleans in the mid-nineteenth century and taking its name from the Sazerac de Forge et Fils cognac that formed its original base. The switch from cognac to rye came gradually, accelerated by the phylloxera epidemic that devastated French vineyards in the 1870s and made cognac scarce across the American market. By the time cognac returned, rye had become the standard and has remained so ever since. It is a three-ingredient drink dressed with an absinthe rinse and a lemon peel expressed and discarded. The absinthe coats the glass, the lemon oils land on the surface, and neither remains in the drink in any measurable volume, yet both are present in every sip in a way that adding them directly cannot replicate. That indirection is the technique. New Orleans has argued about the correct build for as long as the drink has existed. The version here uses rye, Peychaud's with a single dash of Angostura, and a sugar cube.
Improved Whiskey Cocktail
This drink is why the Old Fashioned is called the Old Fashioned. The original cocktail of the early 1800s was spirit, sugar, water and bitters and nothing else. As the century went on, bartenders started improving it with the imported luxuries arriving on the back bar: a little maraschino, a dash of absinthe, a better grade of sugar, a lemon twist. Jerry Thomas codified the result in his 1876 edition and called it Improved. Not everyone wanted it. Drinkers who preferred the plain version began asking for their whiskey cocktail made the old-fashioned way, and by the 1880s that counter-order had hardened into a name on menus. The Old Fashioned is the only classic cocktail named by a complaint, and every one poured since is technically a vote against this drink. Taste them side by side and the argument replays. The maraschino adds a dry cherry and almond glow, the absinthe threads a herbal shadow through the rye, and what you end up with sits somewhere between an Old Fashioned and a Sazerac. Improvement was a fair description.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits