Elementary, My Dear

Elementary My Dear by Rob Ficks

All this sleuthing has made me thirsty. It turns out that I recently featured a Sherlock inspired cocktail, the “Conan Doyle”, for a similarly themed adventure box, Sherlock’s Camera, so needed to search, detective-style, for another. The toast to the Sherlockian Box was discovered on the virtual pages of Somerville, Massachusetts bartender and author Fred Yarm’s Cocktail Virgin blog. Fred relates stopping into James Beard award winning restaurant Craigie on Main after dinner one night. There he asked industry veteran bartender Rob Ficks for this drink. Rob, who is now head bartender at the Hawthorne, explained the origin of his cocktail to me. “I was looking to make a crushable sparkling cocktail that would appeal to everyone. [There was a certain] term [for this type of drink that was] was catching on at the time, but was a bit too crass for Craigie’s menu. So, we went with ‘Elementary, My Dear’, a much more elegant way of saying it was a ‘basic’ drink that would appeal to a wide audience.”

it’s elementary

If you are familiar with a French 75 you will have some idea of what this light and lovely cocktail is like. Here there is the addition of Aperol, which adds greater depth and grapefruit notes. The lemon cordial, which is essentially a rich and lemony lemon syrup, also increases the complexity in a good way. Like the French 75, these are dangerously delicious and will surely dampen your deductive reasoning skills, so watch out! Cheers.

I’d consult with this pair

Elementary, My Dear by Rob Ficks

¾ oz gin

¾ oz Aperol

½ oz lemon cordial

½ oz lemon juice

2 oz sparkling wine

Shake initial ingredients with ice and strain into a champagne glass. Top with the sparkling wine. Lemon twist.

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