Mixology Mondays: Leap Year

Welcome to 2012! If you weren't aware, this is a Leap Year! Today's BottleBlog features the classic cocktail of the same name.

When Prohibition went into effect in 1920, barman Harry Craddock crossed the Atlantic and found work at London's Savoy Hotel. Five years later, he was head barman at the hotel's American Bar, where he remained in charge for the next fourteen years. He was one of history's great mixologists, precise and inventive, and the creator of dozens of drinks. This one was whipped up for February 29th, 1928 - leap year day. According to the Savory Cocktail Book, it "was responsible for more proposals than any other cocktail that has ever been mixed."

-2 oz. gin
-1 tablespoon dry vermouth
-1 tablespoon orange liqueur
-Dash of fresh lemon juice
-Dash of grenadine

Pour ingredients over ice in a cocktail shaker. Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Squeeze a piece of lemon peel over the top.

Similar to the Leap Year is another 1920s-era cocktail called the Maiden's Blush, which contains the same ingredients in the same proportions but eliminates the vermouth. Also similar is a somewhat older British cocktail called the Webster. It uses the same amounts of gin and vermouth, but adds apricot brandy instead of orange liqueur, and a single dash of lime juice in place of the lemon and grenadine. This cocktail was extremely popular at the bar of the Cunard luxury liner Mauretania, and definitely the thing to have as one sped across the Atlantic in style.