Corpse Reviver No. 2

To calm your shaking nerves, and especially if you really are a zombie, I’ll make you the perfect drink.  This potent potion was intended to rejuvenate, reinvigorate and reconstitute the bedraggled bon vivant in Prohibition era London who might have had one too many the evening prior.   Harry Craddock was a cocktail pioneer who left the US and established himself as head bartender at the Savoy Hotel in London during American prohibition.  There he created the “Corpse Reviver No. 2”, which first appeared in print in his famous “Savoy Cocktail Book” published in 1930, and has since been widely felt to be the best of the “reviver” series.  The drink was intended as a “hair of the dog” remedy, and was best imbibed “before 11 am, or whenever steam and energy are needed,” as Craddock explains.   

The Corpse Reviver No. 2 by Harry Craddock

The combination of savory gin, Cointreau for a little sweetness, Lillet for a mild bitterness, lemon juice for its tart smack, and a dash of absinthe to pull it all together, make for a perfect cocktail.  The bitterness of Lillet, an aromatized wine aperitif from France, was originally imparted by quinine from cinchona bark (the flavor in tonic water and protector from malaria), back when it was known as “Kina Lillet”.  The recipe was changed in 1986 to the much milder “Lillet Blanc” available today.  The Italian aperitif Cocchi Americano, with its bolder quinine flavor, is now considered to be the closest modern substitute for the defunct Kina Lillet, and is often substituted to recreate the classics.  The Corpse Reviver #2 is a sophisticated sipper which will put the color back in your cheeks, or reanimate your misguided mad scientist grave digging adventure, Dr. Frankenstein.  Just beware of Harry Craddock’s famous warning: “Four of these taken in swift succession will quickly unrevive the corpse again.”  Happy haunting!

The glass is all full and the box is all empty ... a trick and a treat.  Happy Halloween!

Corpse Reviver No. 2 by Harry Craddock c. 1930

1 oz. gin
1 oz. Cointreau
1 oz. Lillet Blanc
1 oz. fresh lemon juice
1 dash absinthe

Shake ingredients together with ice and strain into a favorite glass.