Midday cocktails at a private ice rink at the Palace Hotel, St. Moritz, 1947. Photo: Alfred Eisenstaedt.
In honour of the season and the late Shane McGowan, let’s make a Fairytale of New York cocktail named after the classic Pogues song. A seasonal take on an Old Fashioned, made festive with a spiced simple syrup, it’s from the long since closed Harbord Room in Toronto, and it needs to become a part of your annual repertoire.
The syrup comes together quickly and if you sample it straight you can really taste the pear. Pear, get it? Like a partridge in a pear tree? I don’t think pears get nearly enough representation at Christmas, so this drink rights that terrible wrong.
Fairytale of New York Cocktail
1 piece of orange peel (about 1 by 2 inches)
3/4 oz. Winter Warmth Syrup
2 dashes of Fee Brothers black walnut bitters
2 oz. Canadian whisky
Place the orange peel in a mixing glass, pour in the syrup and bitters, and muddle. Pour in the whisky, add ice, and stir until chilled. Strain over 1 large ice cube in an Old Fashioned glass.
Winter Warmth Syrup
1 1/2 cups water
1 cup Demerara sugar *
1/2 apple, peeled, cored, and diced
1/2 pear, peeled, cored, and diced
12 walnut halves
3 cinnamon sticks, broken up
6 whole cloves
1 whole nutmeg*
Combine all ingredients in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a simmer, stirring until the sugar dissolves, and simmer for 10 to 20 minutes. Remove from the heat and cool. Strain into a clean glass bottle, cover and refrigerate for up to 2 weeks. Makes about 2 cups. And definitely eat the walnuts as they are now plump and candied and perfect.
* I would really rather not use one whole nutmeg just to make this syrup. That seems extravagant, so I just added 1/8th of a teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg and it was fine. #weusewhatwehave
Same with the Demerara sugar. I can’t in good conscience tell you to buy a whole bag of it when you can just use white sugar with a dash of molasses. Or you could just purchase one lone cup of Demerara sugar at Bulk Barn, which is a very Canadian thing to do.