Well, as you might have gathered from my latest posts, I totally have a crush on rosso vermouth for now. I accidentally obtained at least one and a half literes of antica formula vermouths (Carpano Antica Formula and Cinzano 1757) and also I had to open at least two bottles of reference samples to scrutinize the red vermouth issue completely. So, I must explore them in whatever which possible way because red vermouth doesn’t keep for a long time, while letting those bottles spoil would be completely wrong and embarrassing.

However such maniacal focusing has at least one unwanted side effect – I tend to set aside my dear wife, to be more exact, her cocktail demands [because she as a rule doesn’t like all these herbal things so much]… And this, you know, might be rather wrong – she might decide to set aside my culinary demands ;) So, I always try to please her with something special. And sometimes I manage to do this not only with a Wild-Strawberry Margarita 8)

This curious vintage cocktail was found in The Museum of the American Cocktail Pocket Recipe Guide 2007 edition by Hess, Robert and Miller, Anistatia (2007, USA), that is, actually, one of my favorite cocktail handbooks. Every time I take this book to read I really admire the cocktail taste and erudition of the authors. It is an excellent and way too cute cocktail book.

Robert Hess and Anistatia Miller give rather a detailed story of this cocktail. The Arnaud was created in 1920s for a promo-company of Booth’s Gin, in which an idea of a star’s choice was explored. So, this cocktail was mixed for and devoted to a French-born English star of theater and cinema, a famous singer and a piano-player in those times Germaine Yvonne Arnaud (1890 – 1958). And I must admit it, she had a pretty refined taste :)

Arnaud Cocktail

30 ml gin
30 ml vermouth dry
30 ml creme de cassis
Stir well with a lot of ice than strain into a cocktail glass.

Actually, Arnaud Cocktail is not only my wife choice, it is definitely my choice too. In my opinion, it is an excellent after-dinner or brunch cocktail which has a ton of advantages.

First of all, Arnaud Cocktail is very elegant. It has quite a comfortable strength and a perfect balance (yes, it is very sweet, but not sickly sweet, you know). The taste is so composite, rich, similar to some exquisite desert wine full of berry, herbaceous and fruity notes. That’s absolutely obvious – the ingredients have plenty to enrich each other. Clearly the main peculiarity of the taste is a strong black-currant note adorned with a bunch of botanicals from gin and dry vermouth on a full-bodied sweet palate. Pretty good!

Also the Arnaud Cocktail has completely noble appearance. Using genuine natural well-crafted varieties of Creme de Cassis such as Crème de Cassis de Dijon, Crème de Cassis d’Anjou or even Crème de Cassis de Bourgogne, which, as a matter of fact, are AOC’s, you never can get a pinkish concoction. No way. Black currant is a black currant, and it was named that way definitely not by coincidence 8) So, with a quality liqueur you can obtain [not only a superb taste, but also] a very dark, deep red, almost black or dark-brownish cocktail so similar to rich red wine, probably with dramatic red hue. Gorgeous!

P.S. ‘MWC’ in the header of this post stands as My Wife Choice. It’s a series of posts devoted to my wife’s favorite cocktails. As a rule I also like these cocktail a lot ;) By the way, previous concoction in the series was Royal Hawaiian.