What Ever Happened to
the Vodka Stinger?
No,
it’s not living in a large but nondescript house in greater Hollywood with its
long-suffering handicapped sister, the Moscow Mule (“Butcha are, Mule! Ya are in the dustbin of cocktail history!”). It’s just vanished from
the cocktail “in” list the way Fioruccci and Charivari both simply disappeared
one day from the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Cocktails have fashion lives,
just like movie stars and clothing stores. One day it’s Kix then you’re Kix in
trash bins; but the planet spins… Some become superstars, as timeless as John
Wayne or Bette Davis—the Martini, the Manhattan. Some have short, comet-like
lives and burn out in what seems like a matter of moments—Carole Landis, Rory
Calhoun.
The
vodka stinger is in the flaming comet category. At the time Stephen Sondheim wrote
the great, bitter anthem of cosmically empty, wealthy women “The Ladies Who
Lunch,” with which Craig cracks up Ed and Dan with his reference to the song,
which in reality ends with the word “rise,” but which Craig transforms into
“rye,” the vodka stinger was in its zenith. Everybody was ordering them all the
time. (Company opened on Broadway in
1970; I don’t know precisely when Sondheim wrote the song.) (Pedant.)
So
what, you say? Well, it was mostly a travesty in terms of taste. It’s not that
vodka stingers taste bad—they’re a bit overly minty as far as flavor is
concerned—but they’re by no means before-dinner drinks. Why not? Think of it
this way: they kill the palette as fast as a drink made with Scope.
A
decent vodka stinger consists of one part vodka and one part white crème de menthe. As the recipe at the
end of this chapter notes, it is a criminal offense to use green crème de
menthe; you are not celebrating St. Patrick’s day; you are drinking a great
cocktail currently and sadly in reduced circumstances. Think about it. Would
you be so tacky as to pop a few Tic-Tacs in your mouth as you enter that gastronomic
temple, Per Se? Of course not. They would send such blazingly minty signals to
your brain that it wouldn’t recover for the first three courses.
Would
you pop a few Chiclets in your mouth before beginning your $400 per person
sushi extravaganza at Masa? I thought not.
The
why, oh Lord, did drinkers of the 1970s think it oh-so sophisticated to wreck
their ensuing meals by demanding vodka stingers all around as they perused
their sprouts-ridden menus? Believe me, they did. I was but an impressionable
youth at the time, but I was still appalled. I saved my vodka stingers for
later, when I craved sweets after engaging in the other ‘70s post-prandial
pastime, but even then if there were brownies or M&Ms around, I’d go for
those first. Wouldn’t you? Or: Don’t you?
