At the Feria de Abril in Sevilla, manzanilla flows by the litre into the polka-dotted casetas. Not neat, but stretched with lemon-lime soda in a tall plastic cup. That is the Rebujito, and it is immediate proof that sherry cocktails are not a museum piece. The category runs from that sun-drenched summer drink all the way to the stern, almost whisky-like Bamboo and Adonis from the late nineteenth century.
Sherry is wine, not a spirit. That changes everything about how you treat it in a cocktail. Too much ice dilutes the salinity of a manzanilla within minutes. Too much sugar smothers the notes of an oloroso. The classic recipes have understood that for more than a hundred years.
Sherry in the cocktail: a long tradition
Long before gin and whisky took over cocktail culture, sherry was a fixture behind the bar. In nineteenth-century America the Sherry Cobbler became a national obsession. Charles Dickens described it in 1844 in Martin Chuzzlewit, where the protagonist Martin drinks his first Cobbler through a straw and is left speechless. Jerry Thomas included the recipe in his Bartender’s Guide of 1862, the first serious cocktail book published in the United States.
Towards the end of that century the stirred sherry cocktails arrived. The Bamboo and the Adonis appeared almost simultaneously and shared the same idea: replace the base spirit with a fortified wine and you get a drink with complexity and lower alcohol. A century and a half later that principle is back in full force, driven by bartenders looking for lighter, more food-friendly cocktails.
The Sherry Flip stems from an even older English tradition of flips, with whole egg, sugar and freshly grated nutmeg. That formula goes back to the seventeenth century and still works.
Which sherry style for which cocktail?
The sherry style determines the entire balance of a drink. A few useful rules:
- Manzanilla and fino, dry, pale, briny acidity. Work in long, fresh cocktails with soda, citrus or tonic. Rebujito, Tio Pepe Spritz, Sherry & Tonic.
- Amontillado, dry but evolved, hazelnut and dried fruit. The middle ground that fits almost anywhere. Stirred drinks with bourbon or rye, vermouth replacements.
- Oloroso, dry, walnut, broth-like. Stirred cocktails with brown spirits, or as the base in Adonis-style drinks where volume and mouthfeel matter.
- Cream sherry, sweetened oloroso. Classic Adonis recipes use it where available.
- Pedro Ximénez (PX), deep, syrupy, sweet. Modifier in dessert cocktails or a float over coffee. Rarely the base.
A rule of thumb: the fresher the drink, the drier the sherry. The more it leans after-dinner, the further you can move towards oloroso and PX.
Rebujito: the Andalusian summer drink
The Rebujito is the feria drink. At the Feria de Abril in Sevilla and the Feria del Caballo in Jerez it is ordered by the pitcher and drunk from tall plastic cups. Manzanilla or fino, lengthened with a lemon-lime soda such as 7-Up or Sprite, ice, sometimes a sprig of mint.
The modern popularity dates, according to multiple sources, from the 1980s, but the underlying idea of sherry with lemonade is older. The appeal is practical: it drinks light, stays cold, and lets you dance through an entire afternoon without falling over.
Recipe and variations
Classic Rebujito (1 glass):
- 60 ml manzanilla or fino sherry
- 120 ml 7-Up or Sprite
- Ice cubes
- Sprig of fresh mint
Fill a tall glass with ice. Pour in the sherry. Top with the lemon-lime soda. Stir briefly, clap a mint leaf between your hands and lay it on top.
Variations:
- Use tonic instead of 7-Up for a more bitter profile.
- Pitcher version: 1 bottle of manzanilla (75 cl) to 1.5 litres of soda, plenty of ice and mint.
- Some bars push the ratio to 1:1 for a stronger drink.
Bamboo: the late-nineteenth-century Japanese classic
The Bamboo has been attributed for more than a century to Louis Eppinger, manager of the Grand Hotel in Yokohama in the late 1880s. The drink appeared in American cocktail books at the end of the nineteenth century and went on to become a fixture of the international canon. It sits in The Savoy Cocktail Book (Harry Craddock, 1930) in what is now the standard fifty-fifty version.
The Bamboo is a Dry Martini with the gin swapped for dry sherry. The result is dry, nutty and dangerously drinkable, at a fraction of the alcohol.
Recipe
Bamboo (1 glass):
- 45 ml fino or amontillado sherry
- 45 ml dry vermouth
- 1 dash Angostura bitters
- 1 dash orange bitters
- Garnish: lemon twist or olive
Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass with ice. Stir for about 20 seconds until well chilled. Strain into a chilled coupe or nick-and-nora. Express a lemon twist over the glass and drop it in, or use an olive.
Fino gives a saltier, lighter drink. Amontillado makes it rounder and nuttier. Both are correct.
Adonis: sweet vermouth meets sherry
The Adonis appeared in 1880s New York and was named after the Broadway musical of the same name, which premiered in 1884 and ran for more than five hundred performances. A commercial name, then, comparable to how later cocktails were named after films and stars.
Structurally the Adonis is the sweet counterpart to the Bamboo. Sherry plus sweet vermouth instead of dry, with orange bitters as the bridge. The profile sits closer to a Manhattan without the whisky.
Recipe
Adonis (1 glass):
- 45 ml oloroso or cream sherry
- 45 ml sweet (red) vermouth
- 2 dashes orange bitters
- Garnish: orange twist
Stir in a mixing glass with ice until cold, about 20 seconds. Strain into a chilled coupe. Express an orange twist over the surface and drop it in.
The choice between oloroso and cream sherry shifts the tone. Oloroso keeps it dry and walnut-like. Cream sherry pushes the drink towards a rounder, dessert-leaning profile. For a first encounter, oloroso is usually the more interesting side.
Sherry Cobbler: the nineteenth-century American hit
The Sherry Cobbler may well be the single most important cocktail in the history of the drinking straw. In the 1830s and 1840s it became so popular in America that it is credited with the mass breakthrough of both straws and ice cubes in the bar. Dickens described it in 1844, and in 1862 it appeared in the first edition of Jerry Thomas’ Bartender’s Guide.
The drink is deceptively simple: sherry, sugar, orange, crushed ice. The success lies in the technique of shaking with ice and fruit, and serving with a straw through the mound of crushed ice.
Recipe
Sherry Cobbler (1 glass):
- 90 ml amontillado or oloroso sherry
- 1 teaspoon sugar (or 10 ml simple syrup)
- 2 orange slices
- Crushed ice
- Garnish: extra orange slice, seasonal berries, mint
Place the orange slices and sugar in a shaker and muddle briefly. Add the sherry and a few ice cubes. Shake firmly. Strain into a glass filled with crushed ice. Garnish with a slice of orange, seasonal fruit and mint. Drink with a straw.
Amontillado works well in the shaker thanks to its nutty side. Oloroso gives a fuller, rounder version. Fino works too, but loses more of its character under the ice and sugar.
Sherry Flip and modern variations
The Flip is one of the oldest cocktail categories. Whole egg, sugar and sherry, shaken until creamy and finished with freshly grated nutmeg. An after-dinner drink in the most literal sense: almost a liquid dessert.
Sherry Flip (1 glass):
- 60 ml oloroso or cream sherry
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1 whole egg
- Freshly grated nutmeg
Shake all ingredients without ice (dry shake) until the egg is well emulsified, about 20 seconds. Add ice and shake for another 15 seconds until well chilled. Strain into a small coupe or port glass. Grate nutmeg over the top.
Tio Pepe Spritz: in the past decade several sherry houses have pushed a spritz version with fino, tonic and an orange twist. The ratio sits around 1 part fino to 2 parts tonic, with plenty of ice. It is a logical extension of the Rebujito idea for anyone who wants something less sweet.
PX as modifier: many contemporary bartenders use half a teaspoon of Pedro Ximénez as a sweetener in stirred drinks, in place of simple syrup. In an Old Fashioned with bourbon, a barspoon of PX replaces the sugar and adds raisin, fig and coffee notes. That is a contemporary technique, not a classic recipe, but it illustrates how broadly sherry can be used.
The thread running through every sherry cocktail: respect for the wine. The more you understand why a fino tastes briny and an oloroso walnutty, the better you can pick which recipe will work. Start with the Rebujito on a warm evening, move on to the Bamboo as an aperitif, and save the Flip for after dinner.
Sources
- Difford, S. Difford’s Guide to Cocktails. Recipe pages and historical notes for Bamboo, Adonis, Sherry Cobbler and Sherry Flip.
- Wondrich, D. Imbibe! From Absinthe Cocktail to Whiskey Smash. Perigee, 2007 (revised edition 2015). Chapters on Jerry Thomas and the Sherry Cobbler.
- Thomas, J. How to Mix Drinks, or The Bon-Vivant’s Companion. New York, 1862. First published Sherry Cobbler recipe.
- Craddock, H. The Savoy Cocktail Book. Constable & Co, London, 1930. Bamboo and Adonis in the standard ratios.
- Dickens, C. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Chapman & Hall, 1844. Early literary mention of the Sherry Cobbler.
- Consejo Regulador del Vino y Brandy de Jerez, sherry.wine. Style descriptions of fino, manzanilla, amontillado, oloroso, cream and Pedro Ximénez.