Commodore No. 1

Name: Commodore No. 1
Prep time: 5 min
Total time: 5 min
Yield: 1 serving
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: White rum — 45 ml (1 1/2 oz); Light gold rum — 15 ml (1/2 oz); Lemon juice (freshly squeezed) — 25 ml (5/6 oz); Sugar syrup (2:1) — 5 ml (1/6 oz); Raspberry syrup — 5 ml (1/6 oz); Grenadine syrup — 5 ml (1/6 oz); Egg white (pasteurized) — 15 ml (1/2 oz)

Dry shake ∙ 5 min ∙ 14.7% ABV ∙

The Commodore No. 1 is a rum sour of white and light gold rum, lemon juice and egg white, sweetened with sugar, raspberry and grenadine syrups.

Ingredients

Servings

Garnish

Maraschino cherry

Instructions for 1 serving

Pre-chill a glass
Dry shake (without ice) all ingredients: White rum 45 mlLight gold rum 15 mlLemon juice 25 mlSugar syrup 5 mlRaspberry syrup 5 mlGrenadine syrup 5 mlEgg white 15 ml
Shake again with ice
Fine strain into the chilled glass
Garnish with a maraschino cherry

Tips

Shake everything without ice for about 15 seconds before the ice goes in; skip that and the foam stays thin.
The sugar, raspberry and grenadine syrups are only 5 ml each; let any one run over and it swamps the tartness of the 25 ml of lemon.

History

The Commodore is an American cocktail first documented in the early 20th century. It appears as a whiskey-based sour in Harry MacElhone's 1922 Harry's ABC of Mixing Cocktails and Harry Craddock's 1930 Savoy Cocktail Book. A rum-based form appears in Albert S. Crockett's 1931 Old Waldorf Bar Days, drawn from the pre-Prohibition record of New York's original Waldorf-Astoria bar. That book lists two distinct Commodore recipes side by side, one built on whiskey and one on rum. Writer David Embury, comparing a rum Commodore with a whiskey version, later remarked that the two seemed to command different fleets entirely.

The name is said to honor a yacht-club commodore, an officer of either the New York Yacht Club or the Larchmont Yacht Club, according to Crockett's book. Commodore No. 1 is the rum-based recipe from Crockett's pairing, distinguished from its whiskey-based sibling, Commodore No. 2, by its use of rum in place of whiskey and by the addition of egg white and raspberry syrup alongside the grenadine.