Blue blazer

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Jerry Thomas preparing the Blue Blazer cocktail

For the professional wrestler known as The Blue Blazer, see Owen Hart.

A blue blazer is a type of cocktail created by Jerry Thomas, a bartender and author, while he was working at the El Dorado in San Francisco. Reportedly while Thomas was making the drink, President Ulysses S. Grant was so impressed that he gave Thomas a cigar. Thomas would only make the drink if the outside temperature was 50° F or below or if the person ordering the drink had a cold or the flu, whose symptoms the drink was to alleviate.

It is not so much the drink (which is just a simple whisky punch) but the actual mixing that is unique. Originally mixed in two silver cups, the whisky and water were heated up separately and poured into their own cups. The whisky was then lit on fire, and while it was burning, the water and whisky were poured back and forth between the cups without extinguishing the fire. Jerry Thomas held the cups at a meter's distance from each other while mixing, creating a long blue flame between the two cups.

The Recipe

2 1/2 oz rye or bourbon whiskey or Brandy
2 1/2 oz boiling water
1 tsp powdered sugar
lemon peel

Use two large silver-plated mugs, with handles. Put the whiskey in one mug, and the boiling water into the other, ignite the whiskey and, while blazing, mix both ingredients by pouring them from one mug to the other. If well done, this will have the appearance of a continued stream of liquid fire. Sweeten with sugar and serve with a piece of lemon peel. Serve in a four-ounce stemmed mug.