Blue Blazer

The blue blazer cocktail created by Jerry Thomas, a bartender and author, while he was working at at the El Dorado in San Francisco. As legend has it, President Ulysses S. Grant so impressed by the drink that he gave Thomas a cigar. Thomas would only make the drink if the outside temperature below 50 F or if the person 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 mixing that is unique.

Originally concocted in two silver cups, the whisky and water heated separately and poured into their own cup. The whisky then lit and, while burning, the water and whisky poured back and forth between the cups without extinguishing the fire creating a long blue flame between the two cups.

Recipe

2½ oz rye or bourbon whiskey or Brandy

2½ oz boiling water

1 tsp powdered sugar

Lemon peel