The Boston Red Sox just returned to Fenway Park for the 2016 season with concession stands awash in expensive beer. It’s easier, though certainly less rowdy, to watch a game from the living room couch nursing a Cooperstown Cocktail. I discovered this mint-accented combination of vodka and vermouth in a German-language cocktail book that my son brought me from Germany. Published in 1977, Die Grosse Welt Der Getränke (The Big World of Drinks) is a guide with a global enough reach to pull in Cooperstown, New York, home of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
I found the Cooperstown Cocktail in a chapter with a title that translates “Refined Compositions Made of Alcohol and Fantasy.” Maybe that explains the Cocktail Adonis and the Moonlight, also in this chapter! Apparently, the Cooperstown Cocktail began in the early 20th century, when the Waldorf-Astoria Bar in New York City named a cocktail after the town where many sporting young men lived.
Somehow, the legend (and the recipe) made it to Germany and back again. Since I didn’t understand the word “strain” when I made the recipe, I put the ice cubes in the drink instead of straining them out. No matter. Play ball and prost!
Cooperstown Cocktail
Serves 1
2-3 ice cubes
1/2 ounce dry gin
1/3 ounce dry vermouth
1/3 ounce white vermouth
1 sprig mint
Put the ice cubes, gin and vermouth in a shaker and mix well. Strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with mint.
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