Smash (cocktail)
A smash (from English smash , 'push in, break, smash' ) is a cocktail with fresh herbs and fruits that are crushed. Smashes are a historic drink group. Today numerous variants and preparations are possible.
Originally, in addition to spirits , sugar and ice, only mint was used and crushed in the glass, making the smashes very similar to the Mint Julep in the 19th century . In modern smashes, which have been spreading again since the end of the 20th century, other herbs such as basil , thyme or rosemary are increasingly used as well as citrus pieces with crushed or their juice added, so that modern smashes can also be seen as a sour with aromatic herbs.
history
Smashes became known around the mid-19th century and were particularly popular in the United States . They were also known as smasher or smasher-up and were seen as the smaller or simplified Mint Julep . The drink group was manageable: In Jerry Thomas ' legendary bar book How to Mix Drinks or the Bon-Vivant's Companion , published in 1862, it only appears in three variants: as a brandy smash , gin smash and whiskey smash . They all consisted of the eponymous spirit ( brandy , gin or American whiskey ), some water, sugar and a few sprigs of fresh mint, so they were prepared without fruit and especially without citrus juice. During preparation, the mint was crushed in the glass together with sugar and a little water, the spirit was added, the glass was filled with shaved ice and garnished with sprigs of mint. Not least because of the difficult differentiation from Mint Juleps, smashes were soon forgotten and were not a relevant drink group for a long time.
This changed in the 1990s, when historical recipes from the 19th century were increasingly being mixed again. In the early 21st century, herbs and other ingredients from the kitchen were increasingly used in cocktails and this trend is known as cuisine style . New York bartender Dale DeGroff , in particular, popularized the smash in the early 21st century by adding pieces of lemon and mashing it with the mint. Other bartenders developed smash variants with citrus juices and herbs such as the Raspberry Thyme Smash , a gin smash with raspberries and thyme, and from 2008 the Gin Basil Smash , which was created in Germany, spread worldwide, although the lemon pieces are no longer included as originally The juice that was previously squeezed out is usually used instead.
The modern smashes, which have been created since the end of the 20th century, could also be seen as sour with aromatic herbs, whereby the oils from the crushed lemon peel regularly add to the aroma. Variants with other citrus fruits or additional other fruits such as peaches or nectarines soon followed. Thus, according to modern definition, the fruit has become the characteristic element that distinguishes the smash from the julep.
Known smashes
- Whiskey smash with bourbon whiskey , lemon, sugar and mint
- Torino Smash with red Italian vermouth , lemon, sugar and mint
- Raspberry Thyme Smash with gin, lime juice, raspberries, sugar and thyme
- Bourbon & Peach Smash with Bourbon Whiskey, Lemon, Peach, Sugar, Mint
- Gin Basil Smash with gin , lemon juice, sugar and basil
- Raspberry and basil smash with gin, raspberry brandy, lemon juice, sugar and basil
- Demerrara & Chocolate Smash with Demerara rum , chocolate brandy, lime juice, orange, sugar and mint
literature
- Helmut Adam, Jens Hasenbein, Bastian Heuser: Cocktailian. The bar's manual . Tre Torri, Wiesbaden 2010, ISBN 978-3-941641-41-9 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ David Wondrich: Imbibe! From Absinthe Cocktail to Whiskey Smash. A Salute in Stories and Drinks to "Professor" Jerry Thomas, Pioneer of the American Bar . Perigee (Penguin Group), New York 2007, ISBN 978-0-399-53287-0 , p. 159.
- ↑ Jerry Thomas : How to Mix Drinks or the Bon-Vivant's Companion. Dick & Fitzgerald, New York 1862, p. 46. Full, searchable scan in Google Book Search.
- ^ Cocktailian, p. 516
- ^ Dale DeGroff : The Craft of the Cocktail , Clarkson Potter, New York 2002, ISBN 0-609-60875-4 , p. 198.
- ↑ a b Dr. Bamboo: Raspberry-Thyme Smash-or- The Case of the Curiously Oversized Muddler. In: drbamboo.blogspot.de. July 2, 2008, accessed July 27, 2019 .
- ↑ Jörg Meyer: Gin-Basil Smash - GIN PESTO! In: bitters-blog.blogspot.de. July 10, 2008, accessed July 27, 2019 .
- ↑ Jörg Meyer: The Whiskey Smash - a fantastic drink. In: bitters-blog.blogspot.com. July 11, 2006, accessed July 27, 2019 .
- ↑ Young vegetables. In: sz-magazin.sueddeutsche.de. May 19, 2011, accessed July 26, 2019 .
- ↑ Raspberry Basil Smash. In: borco.com. Accessed July 27, 2019 .
- ^ Cocktailian, p. 395.