For this drink from the Death & Company bars, I used one of my absolute favorite rums, St. Lucia’s Chairman’s Reserve Forgotten Casks aged rum. It’s a great sipper and mixer.
Growing up in historic Savannah, Georgia, our house served double duty as the home to my mom’s rare book and print business. Called The Printed Page, all those books instilled a love of books of all sorts. Getting into mixology during quarantine, I picked up several cocktail histories – I recommend anything written by David Wondrich – and spent a fair amount of time hunting down historic recipes online. This is one of those recipes from a 1934 booklet by Lairds Distillery of New Jersey, the oldest in America and the recipient of Distillery License No. 1 from the U.S. Treasury in 1780. This drink is named after a defunct New York City restaurant and its namesake cocktail. I’d still love to find some vintage cocktail books…they have to be out there somewhere!
Drinking a cocktail out of a clay planter? Well, yes, I’d love to! I first enjoyed a Cantorito at the now- defunct El Mexicano, an authentic Mexican joint in our neighborhood. And yes, it was served in a shallow clay pot with multiple straws. Basically, it’s a Mexican- inspired Scorpion Bowl In the end, the Cantarito is a dressed-up margarita, using various fruit juices and sweetened by soda. You can use the less- sugary Squirt or even use Topo Chico grapefruit flavor, although you might need to slip a 1/4 oz. of simple syrup into the drink if you do.
