Bamboo cocktail in a coupe glass, pale amber, garnished with toasted almonds

Bamboo (Savoys 1930 recipe)

Name: Bamboo (Savoys 1930 recipe)
Prep time: 3 min
Total time: 3 min
Yield: 1 serving
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: Fino sherry — 45 ml (1 1/2 oz); Dry vermouth — 25 ml (5/6 oz); Rosso vermouth — 25 ml (5/6 oz)

Stir ∙ 3 min ∙ 12.5% ABV ∙

The Bamboo (Savoys 1930 recipe) is a stirred aperitif of fino sherry with equal parts dry and sweet vermouth, made with no base spirit.

Ingredients

Servings

Garnish

Toasted almonds

Instructions for 1 serving

Pre-chill a glass
Stir all ingredients with ice: Fino sherry 45 mlDry vermouth 25 mlRosso vermouth 25 ml
Fine strain into the chilled glass
Garnish with a toasted almond

Tips

Chill the fino sherry and both vermouths in the fridge beforehand, so a short stir gets the drink cold without watering it down.
Toast the almonds just before serving and set them beside the coupe rather than in it, so they stay crisp.

History

Harry Craddock's 1930 Savoy Cocktail Book records a Bamboo that splits the vermouth between French (dry) and Italian (sweet) styles alongside dry sherry. By the early 1900s Bamboo recipes varied in their sherry-to-vermouth ratio and in whether dry or sweet vermouth, or both, were used; William Boothby's 1908 formula called for dry vermouth alone.

The Bamboo is a sherry-and-vermouth cocktail with no base spirit, generally regarded as a dry-vermouth twist on the earlier Adonis, which used sweet vermouth. Most accounts credit German-born bartender Louis Eppinger at the Grand Hotel in Yokohama, Japan, but an 1886 newspaper reference to the drink in New York predates his time there, so its origin remains uncertain.