Boulevardier served up in a chilled cocktail glass with an orange twist

IBA

Boulevardier – IBA

Name: Boulevardier – IBA
Prep time: 3 min
Total time: 3 min
Yield: 1 serving
Cuisine: European
Ingredients: Bourbon — 45 ml (1 1/2 oz); Red bitter (e.g., Campari) — 30 ml (1 oz); Rosso vermouth — 30 ml (1 oz)

Stir ∙ 3 min ∙ 25.1% ABV ∙

The Boulevardier is a stirred bourbon cocktail with a red bitter such as Campari and sweet vermouth — the IBA build, served up in a chilled cocktail glass. Rich and slightly bitter, with bourbon's caramel warmth up front, a bittersweet orange-peel edge in the middle, and a dry, lingering finish suited to a slow evening sip.

Ingredients

Servings

Garnish

Instructions for 1 serving

Pre-chill a glass
Stir all ingredients well with ice: Bourbon 45 mlRed bitter 30 mlRosso vermouth 30 ml
Strain into the chilled cocktail glass
Garnish with an orange twist or a lemon twist (opt.)

Tips

Stir with plenty of large ice cubes for 25-30 seconds until the mixing glass feels frost-cold; underdiluted Boulevardiers taste harsh and boozy since bourbon and Campari are both strong.
Build bourbon, Campari, and rosso vermouth directly over ice in the mixing glass in that order to keep proportions accurate before stirring.
Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and serve it up: this IBA build carries no ice, so the stir has to do all the dilution before it reaches the glass.
Express the orange twist over the drink's surface to release its oils, then run both the orange and lemon twists around the rim before dropping them in.

History

The Boulevardier first appeared in print in the 1927 Paris cocktail book Barflies and Cocktails, where it was credited to Erskine Gwynne, an American-born writer and socialite who had settled in Paris and edited a monthly magazine there called Boulevardier. The book was compiled by Harry McElhone, the Scottish-born proprietor of Harry's New York Bar in Paris, a haunt for expatriate writers and socialites during the 1920s, and it was McElhone who recorded and published Gwynne's drink alongside his own recipes. The original was built as an equal-parts mix of bourbon, Campari, and sweet vermouth, essentially a whiskey-based cousin of the Negroni. This IBA-codified version follows that same equal-parts lineage, standardizing the classic build as the International Bartenders Association's official specification of the drink.