Bronx Cheer--No Raspberries

Oranges started it all.
In our new quest for health--having given up on wealth entirely and not being sure wise is terribly realistic at this point--we've been buying lots of fruits and vegetables. The veggies don't seem to be a problem; they get eaten or rot so quickly we don't have time to mourn their passing. But fruit, well, fruit takes longer to go so it sits staring at you for days while it shrivels away, especially oranges, which don't so much decay as become dry hulks with wrinkled skin. I can look in the mirror if I want to see that.

My husband's suggestion was to get a juicer. Mine seemed simpler, cheaper and more elegant: make Bronx Cocktails. My first introduction to Bronxes (hmmm, correct plural?) was making them pretty much like a Martini but with a squeeze of orange juice. Better cocktail minds than mine, however, put it closer to a Manhattan with orange juice. Still, as The Naked Chef would say, the drink is "easy peasy."

So before the oranges suffered another day, I had a Bronx. Ted Haigh, in Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails, turns the drink into The Income Tax by adding angostura bitters so if you're feeling particularly dumpish (as in "down in the. . .") because we're near April 15, go for it. I stuck closer to Gary Regan's version in The Joy of Mixology and used orange bitters--Regan's orange bitters, in fact, to give the gentleman his proper due. Thus, on to the recipe:

2 oz. gin (I used Beefeater for this)
1/4 oz. each sweet and dry Vermouth
Juice of 1/4 orange
Couple of dashes of orange bitters

Shake all the above with ice--nice big chunky cubes, so they don't water out too much--strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with an orange twist.

Big important caveat ahead: Use fresh and only fresh orange juice, not reconstituted, bottled or anything which doesn't come with a nubbly peel surrounding it.

There you go, aging oranges rescued; tax time blues abated; and don't you feel healthier already?