Quick Sip: A Madeira Inversion
An Appropriate Cocktail for Presidents Day Celebrations
Madeira was essentially the national drink of the USA for the first ~century of our existence, so it feels right to use it for cocktails on Presidents Day. It’s what George would have wanted.
Swaps are Boring
Yes, you can essentially replace sweet vermouth with Madeira in any recipe and have an interesting twist on the base drink. And it will probably be good! But ingredient swaps are boring, and they don’t tend to show off the ingredient you’ve swapped in. There are, of course, exceptions to the rule. But, if the goal is to highlight Madeira in a drink, I recommend an inversion.
What’s an Inversion?
Most cocktails are built around a base spirit and a series of “mixers.” Many of those mixers, especially the ones I tend to focus on here in Mixing Ingredients, are lower-proof alcohols. These tend to be added to cocktails somewhere between half and a quarter of the volume of the base spirit. An inversion just flips that; you add 2-4 times more of the lower-proof ingredient as you do the base spirit but keep the serving size the same.
Consider a Martini with 2 ounces of dry vermouth and only a half ounce of gin. Or a Manhattan with 2 ounces of sweet vermouth and only a half ounce of rye. Those are inverted cocktails, and Madeira makes for a great base in an inversion.
An Imperfect Madeira Manhattan
Traditionally, a “perfect” Manhattan is one that splits the vermouth addition in half between sweet and dry. I tend to prefer Manhattans with only sweet vermouth, but the “perfect” ratio can be a fun twist. For this inversion, the idea is that you’ve swapped Madeira in for sweet vermouth already, and then you invert it like so:
2 oz Madeira
0.5 oz Dry Vermouth
0.5 oz Rye
2 dash Orange Bitters
Stir it up and strain it into a glass with a big clear ice cube and you have a great looking, great tasting, low-proof cocktail. I won’t do the true math, but the resulting cocktail here is probably close to a glass of wine (~15%) whereas a true Manhattan is probably close to 30% booze.
It’s a very deep, dry drink that doesn’t taste light in any way. It’s distinct from, but obviously related to, the traditional drink. If you’re looking for something to drink at golden hour on this holiday, I highly recommend this be that drink.