One of Napa Valley’s best – and best-known – winemakers carries a most unusual business card:
Carl Doumani, creator of Stags’ Leap Vineyard and the new, architecturally quirky winery Quixote, hands bartenders the card above, which has something other than his address or phone number; it has his favorite recipe for a Rob Roy cocktail.
Quixote winery owner Carl Doumani
“Bars are so noisy nowadays. Bartenders can’t hear your order and even when they do, they tend to mess up the drink. So my ‘business card’ became a necessity,” explains the 74-year-old winegrower/winemaker/wine maven. And, I guess, Rob Roy maven, too.
Here’s a standard Rob Roy recipe:
1-1/2 oz. Scotch
¼ oz. sweet vermouth
Angostura Bitters to taste
Maraschino cherry for garnish
Pour ingredients into a mixing glass or shaker filled with ice. Stir or shake well. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass (like a martini glass). Garnish with a cherry.
Doumani’s recipe, as you’ll see on his card above, is a whole lot more to the point.
Doumani’s recipe on the right, served in a martini glass.
Missing from the business card recipe is any mention of vermouth. Doumani says “it’s understood that you also have to add ¼-oz. each of dry and sweet vermouth. If a bartender doesn’t know that, then he/she shouldn’t be behind the bar!”
What makes Doumani’s version of the classic bar drink different is that he omits the bitters and the cherry, preferring instead a filament of oily lemon skin.
“I can’t stand Angostura bitters, “ says Doumani, who with a peppered goatee resembles Colonel Sanders, the once glorious (now deceased) spokesman for Kentucky Fried Chicken. (If you’re old enough to remember Colonel Saunders, then you don’t have to be carded at the bar at Press – you’re obviously old enough to drink!)
“Hmmmm…. Doumani’s resemblance to Colonel Sanders …
maybe Elvis hasn’t left the building after all…?
The Rob Roy cocktail, named after an 18th century Scottish Robin Hood-like villain named Rob Roy Macgregor, is actually a Manhattan cocktail made with Scotch instead of rye whisky.
Bartenders will tell you there are three versions of the Rob Roy:
+ The Classic Rob Roy: Made with sweet vermouth
+ Dry Rob Roy: Substitute dry vermouth for sweet vermouth and garnish with an olive
+ Perfect Rob Roy: Use a ¼-oz. of each of sweet and dry vermouth, garnish with a lemon twist.
According to legend (and pretty much verified by early newspaper accounts), the Rob Roy was invented at the Waldorf Hotel, near Herald Square, in New York, in 1894. At the time, an opera called Rob Roy (presumably about the Scottish do-gooder thief) was popular and inventive bartenders created the drink to celebrate the theatrical experience.
Always in pursuit of gastro-cultural excellence, I decided to conduct a taste test at one of my favorite Napa Valley bars, to see if there was any merit to Doumani’s demand to eliminate the bitters.
Eileen Regan, bartender at Press, in St. Helena, who makes the best martini in Napa Valley, according to “moi,” also makes the best Rob Roy in the valley, according to Carl Doumani.
So we met at Press, in St. Helena, and asked barkeep Eileen Regan if she would help us conduct a Rob Roy tasting. On hand were Carl Doumani, his former winemaker and good friend, Robert Brittan (I just LOVE this guy’s Cabs and Petit Sirahs…) and my daughter, Jenn White, visiting from San Francisco.
Press’ Rob Roy:
Dewar’s 12-year-old Scotch
Punt E Mes sweet vermouth
Angostura bitters
Brandied cherry
Robert and Jenn both preferred Carl’s version, sans amers, while I found the heavier, more tannic, somewhat more medicinal drink, with bitters, more memorable.
Rob Roys bring friends and family together; Carl Doumani and his long-time friend and winemaker Robert Brittan,
have a laugh over Rob Roys made according to Carl’s exacting formula.
But in the end, no matter which version you make, a Rob Roy just isn’t in the same league as a gin martini, which, when properly made, is a wonder of colorless beauty. Especially the one made at Press. ‘Nuf said.
Yes!!! Press makes a Purrrfect Ginmartinistrightupwithanolive!!! They also make a fantastic Manhattan (also straight up with a cherry)
Posted by: Mary Constant | August 19, 2007 at 08:57 AM