Yet another 'desert island' variation: 5 cocktails?

In yet another maddening but almost irresistible game of desert island rationing, over on FB, Angus Winchester refers to an article on being forced to limit oneself to 5 cocktails only.

So let's play (although I imagine there'll be fewer respondents than the 12 bottle spirits or 3 cheeses question).

If you were limited, somehow, and it doesn't even have to be on a desert island; let's say it's a remote and all-inclusive luxurious resort where all your booze is free---but quelle horreur or whatever the French would say---the idiot who ordered the beverages didn't do a very good job and they are restricted to offering only 5 cocktails for the duration of your stay.

Which 5 cocktails would you most devoutly wish to be on your menu? (For the sake of argument, let's have that include cocktails and mixed drinks; technically, they are different but that's a meaningless distinction in this instance.)

How specific are you getting here, Sir Hoke? Do you want us to list ingredients and ratios?

1. Manhattan (can we assume as in the 12 bottle experiment that endless variations of bitters are available for changing things up?)
2. Martini - gin, of course, stirred, twist
3. Mai Tai - it is a desert island.
4. Sazerac
5. Oaxacan Old Fashioned - have to get mezcal in this list somehow

How specific are you getting here, Sir Hoke? Do you want us to list ingredients and ratios?

1. Manhattan (can we assume as in the 12 bottle experiment that endless variations of bitters are available for changing things up?)
2. Martini - gin, of course, stirred, twist
3. Mai Tai - it is a desert island.
4. Sazerac
5. Oaxacan Old Fashioned - have to get mezcal in this list somehow

Don't worry about specifics. You can go festooned in hundreds of little bottles comprising the entire AZBL lineup. So just the cocktails that you would wish to have on a 5 item list. And yeah, let's say vermouths are a given.

So you have whiskey, gin, rum, again whiskey unless you want to make your's an Original Sazerac and then you'd have to have Cognac, and Mezcal. You would also be able to put together an Americano, although not a Negroni.

Negroni was at #6. It pains me to leave it off the list.

[David M. Bueker]

Old Fashioned (in all its variations)
Manhattan
Negroni
Sazerac
Mai Tai

You know, as good as the Mai Tai is---and it is---I might have to go heretical and pick my one rum cocktail as.....Three Dots and a Dash.

[David M. Bueker]

I can sneak in extra rum by making a Rum Old Fashioned.

White rum Bloody Mary x5.

Negroni
Manhattan
Daiquiri or Sidecar
Sazerac
Ramos Fizz

[Robin Garr]

A lot of consistency here. I'll add to it with Manhattan, Negroni and Sazerac, although in the real world I usually enjoy letting the bartender/mixologist show off their creativity in an original cocktail.

(Last night's effort, at Decca, was a spectacular fail: The Chupacabra, a blend of mezcal, ginger, lime, fresno chili and cilantro, didn't taste like any of those. It tasted like a chipotle marinated in Everclear. I'll give up some cred for the moniker, though.)

Damn...Daiquiri at #7 but could move up with more pondering here.

Whisky sour
Mai Tai
Manhattan
Old Fashioned
Daiquiri

If it is really warm, I might substitute a Gin or Vodka Collins or Hendrick's Gin with muddled cucumbers for one of the above. I like Sazerac but not in my top five.

Hoke, please explain the Three Dots and a Dash.

JC:

Here's the basics of the drink and the backstory from PUNCH.

http://punchdrink.com/recipes/three-dots-and-a-dash/

To which I would add

1. Where it says 'dry curacao"----they mean Pierre Ferrand Original Dry Curacao---accept no substitutes for this, because none of the other triple secs or curacaos are even close. Use only the PF Dry Curacao.

2. St. Elizabeth's Allspice Dram---in the Caribbean, especially Jamaica, allspice dram, also called 'pimento dram' is a standard liqueur, essentially allspice cloves macerated in rum or neutral spirits St. Elizabeth's is the most well known here in the US. Use sparingly, cause it is way spicy and a little goes a long way. But once you taste the stuff, you'll want to keep it around for a lot of things.

3. There's a drinking spot in Chicago that likes this drink so much they named the place after it. And they make a great version, of course!

Most tiki bars feature this drink. It's a classic. Many rum and tiki aficionados think the 3DotsDash is, even more than the Mai Tai, the quintessential tiki cocktail.

A lot of consistency here. I'll add to it with Manhattan, Negroni and Sazerac, although in the real world I usually enjoy letting the bartender/mixologist show off their creativity in an original cocktail.

(Last night's effort, at Decca, was a spectacular fail: The Chupacabra, a blend of mezcal, ginger, lime, fresno chili and cilantro, didn't taste like any of those. It tasted like a chipotle marinated in Everclear. I'll give up some cred for the moniker, though.)

Apropos of this and what you wrote in your article, Robin, not all drinks succeed. I constantly irritate my bartender friends by harping on the fumbling use of two ingredients that are difficult to deal with correctly and in balance: pepper heat and smoke.

It's an irresistible challenge, it seems, to create craft cocktails without playing around with either pepper heat or smoke, or both. Trouble is, those are a bitch to deal with, even for the finest of creative cocktail makers, because achieving the right balance is damned near impossible. Both tend to dominate and skew a drink into weird directions.

One of the best bartenders I know---a real world class guy---once entered a competition with a gin drink that had minced jalapeno in it and was topped with a spoonful of Ardbeg Islay scotch. Trouble is, all you could taste was the smoke and pepper---and the two did not go well together.

Any drink nowadays with mezcal can be tricky, because a lot of them are with agave smoked over an open wood firepit, and therefore smoky.

Moral of the story? Be careful and use restraint when dealing with smoke and/or pepper heat as cocktail components. They fail more often than they succeed.

Thanks, Hoke, for the answer on Three Dots and a Dash. Ironically, yesterday I found a recipe for it while perusing an issue of
"Wine Spectator" from last summer.