Between the Sheets
30 ml Cognac, 30 ml White rum, 20 ml Triple sec, 15 ml Lemon juice, 1 Lemon twist
Horse's Neck
Brandy and ginger ale with a whole spiral of lemon down the glass.
Classic
Easy
4 min
Photo: Horses Neck by Cocktailmarler · CC BY-SA 4.0 · All credits
Ingredients
- 40 ml Jigger One small side (25 ml) of a standard jigger, plus a tablespoon. Cognac - Any good brandy will do this drink very nicely
- 120 ml Measuring jug A measuring jug: pour to the 120 ml line. Ginger ale
- 1 dash Bottle One quick shake of the bottle - each a few drops, about a millilitre. Angostura bitters - Optional, traditional, and very much worth it
- 1 twist Lemon twist - Cut it as long as you can manage - it should spiral down the whole glass
Measured in Millilitres (UK). Sign in to read these in American measures. Print a kitchen card at this size.
What the jigger, the spoons and the jug hold, in millilitres and in fluid ounces, is on the measures reference.
Quick version
- Peel a long strip of lemon into the glass, then brandy, ginger ale and a dash of bitters.
Method
- Pare a long strip of lemon peel in one piece, if you can, and drop it into a highball glass so it coils around the inside.
- Fill the glass with ice, keeping the peel against the glass.
- Pour in the cognac.
- Top with ginger ale and add a dash of bitters on the surface.
- Stir once and serve.
Serve it
Horse's Neck
A century ago this was a non-alcoholic temperance drink - ginger ale with a long twist of lemon peel curling down the glass like a horse's neck - and it was so popular at American bars that people started adding whatever spirit was nearest. Brandy won. The garnish, which looks like a flourish, is really the point: every sip passes over the lemon oil, and the whole drink smells of it.
Getting it right
Take a minute over the peel. A long, unbroken spiral cut with a vegetable peeler, pressed against the inside of the glass before the ice goes in, gives you the smell each time you lift the drink; a stub of peel dropped on top gives you nothing. Ginger ale wants to be a gingery one, and the bitters - a dash, on the surface - is the bartender's trick that makes the whole thing taste more expensive than it was.
Tasting notes
Warm grape brandy, sharp ginger and lemon oil, long and cool and faintly spicy. Gentle, grown-up and absurdly refreshing.
Made with a slug of whisky instead of brandy it is a Mamie Taylor's cousin; made with no spirit at all it is exactly what temperance campaigners were drinking in 1900.
More Cognac cocktails
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50 ml Cognac, 20 ml Triple sec, 20 ml Lemon juice, 5 ml Sugar, 1 Orange twist