A three-hour (booze) tour
The line of six "Gilligan's Island" themed cocktails at Custom House Tavern. Find out how Custom House's bartender makes each of the "Gilligan's Island" cocktails. (Tribune photo by Brian Cassella) |
Classic TV sitcom 'Gilligan's Island' inspires a raft of cocktails
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The iconic TV show "Gilligan's Island" has provoked a remarkable amount of goofy analysis — type "Gilligan's Island Nietzsche" into a search engine if you don't believe me — but now the lounge at Custom House Tavern, a spiffy restaurant in Printer's Row, has come up with some scholarship I can get behind.
Gilligan's Island cocktails.
Custom House, which revamps its cocktail menu every month or so, is currently pouring a half-dozen drinks inspired by the show's characters. There's one for Ginger, one for the Professor, one for each Howell, one for the Skipper and, of course, one for Gilligan himself.
There's no Mary Ann cocktail. I'll get to that.
The drinks are a mere $5 from 5 to 10 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays, so if you want to sit right back and enjoy a three-hour tour (more like a three-hour booze cruise), you won't need Thurston Howell III's checkbook to do so.
The list was compiled by Custom House's bartender Brady (he goes by a single name, like " Cher" or "Torquemada"). Brady is way too young to have watched the show when it aired in prime time for three seasons in the mid-'60s (if you're not familiar with "Gilligan's Island," it's sort of a commedia dell'arte version of "Lost"), but says he saw a great many episodes in syndication.
It started, Brady says, when an associate was experimenting with muddled ginger and tequila, along with sweet syrup and lemon.
"It had a nice refreshing quality," Brady recalls. "She sipped it and said, 'That's Ginger — not Mary Ann,' And the wheels started turning."
Matching characters to cocktails was often easy, Brady says. Mr. Howell, for instance, regularly sipped martinis on the show; Brady merely upgraded Howell's drink of choice by employing Ransom Old Tom, a small-batch gin that's especially aromatic, along with light vermouth and bitters. It's complex enough for the Professor, actually, but exclusive enough for a millionaire.
For Mrs. Howell, Brady devised a champagne cocktail with grapefruit and St. Germain (elderflower liqueur). Tart, sweet and bubbly, this drink would brighten any Sunday brunch.
(The Howells were always my least-favorite characters, but their cocktails are the ones I enjoyed most. Go figure.)
The Skipper? A rum-based drink with blood-orange juice, lime and orange liqueur, a perfect tropical sipper for a former Navy man who owns his own boat (currently in need of repairs). And there's a surprise kick from a secret ingredient. "The merest drop of Tabasco," says Brady, "embodying the underlying wrath that surfaces whenever Gilligan mucks up."
Gilligan, Brady says, embodies laziness, so he gets the least-ambitious drink — rum, coconut milk, lime syrup and creme de cocoa — and the easiest drink on the list to skip.
"The Professor was the hardest," Brady says. "I wanted to do something with whiskey, and to make it somewhat ingenious, because the Professor built everything on the island. Which is why we use our house-made vermouth. I added house-made vanilla syrup for something tropical, some Sandeman cream sherry for a highbrow edge, and Whipper Snapper whiskey."
And why no Mary Ann? "You know the theory that the seven castaways represent the Seven Deadly Sins?" Brady asked. (Don't roll your eyes; search "gilligan deadly sins.") "Gilligan is sloth, the Professor is pride, Ginger is lust? Well, Mary Ann is envy, because she's jealous of Ginger."
So you illustrate that by giving Ginger a cocktail, but not Mary Ann?
"Exactly."
The Gilligan cocktails will be on the menu through Aug. 31. Brady hasn't committed to September's theme, though he knows what he'll do after that.
"In October," he says, "we'll be doing the Addams Family."
I'm sure the drinks will be neat, sweet and hopefully not too petite.
Find out how Brady makes each of the "Gilligan's Island" cocktails HERE.
pvettel@tribune.com
Gilligan's Island cocktails.
Custom House, which revamps its cocktail menu every month or so, is currently pouring a half-dozen drinks inspired by the show's characters. There's one for Ginger, one for the Professor, one for each Howell, one for the Skipper and, of course, one for Gilligan himself.
There's no Mary Ann cocktail. I'll get to that.
The drinks are a mere $5 from 5 to 10 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays, so if you want to sit right back and enjoy a three-hour tour (more like a three-hour booze cruise), you won't need Thurston Howell III's checkbook to do so.
The list was compiled by Custom House's bartender Brady (he goes by a single name, like " Cher" or "Torquemada"). Brady is way too young to have watched the show when it aired in prime time for three seasons in the mid-'60s (if you're not familiar with "Gilligan's Island," it's sort of a commedia dell'arte version of "Lost"), but says he saw a great many episodes in syndication.
It started, Brady says, when an associate was experimenting with muddled ginger and tequila, along with sweet syrup and lemon.
"It had a nice refreshing quality," Brady recalls. "She sipped it and said, 'That's Ginger — not Mary Ann,' And the wheels started turning."
Matching characters to cocktails was often easy, Brady says. Mr. Howell, for instance, regularly sipped martinis on the show; Brady merely upgraded Howell's drink of choice by employing Ransom Old Tom, a small-batch gin that's especially aromatic, along with light vermouth and bitters. It's complex enough for the Professor, actually, but exclusive enough for a millionaire.
For Mrs. Howell, Brady devised a champagne cocktail with grapefruit and St. Germain (elderflower liqueur). Tart, sweet and bubbly, this drink would brighten any Sunday brunch.
(The Howells were always my least-favorite characters, but their cocktails are the ones I enjoyed most. Go figure.)
The Skipper? A rum-based drink with blood-orange juice, lime and orange liqueur, a perfect tropical sipper for a former Navy man who owns his own boat (currently in need of repairs). And there's a surprise kick from a secret ingredient. "The merest drop of Tabasco," says Brady, "embodying the underlying wrath that surfaces whenever Gilligan mucks up."
Gilligan, Brady says, embodies laziness, so he gets the least-ambitious drink — rum, coconut milk, lime syrup and creme de cocoa — and the easiest drink on the list to skip.
"The Professor was the hardest," Brady says. "I wanted to do something with whiskey, and to make it somewhat ingenious, because the Professor built everything on the island. Which is why we use our house-made vermouth. I added house-made vanilla syrup for something tropical, some Sandeman cream sherry for a highbrow edge, and Whipper Snapper whiskey."
And why no Mary Ann? "You know the theory that the seven castaways represent the Seven Deadly Sins?" Brady asked. (Don't roll your eyes; search "gilligan deadly sins.") "Gilligan is sloth, the Professor is pride, Ginger is lust? Well, Mary Ann is envy, because she's jealous of Ginger."
So you illustrate that by giving Ginger a cocktail, but not Mary Ann?
"Exactly."
The Gilligan cocktails will be on the menu through Aug. 31. Brady hasn't committed to September's theme, though he knows what he'll do after that.
"In October," he says, "we'll be doing the Addams Family."
I'm sure the drinks will be neat, sweet and hopefully not too petite.
Find out how Brady makes each of the "Gilligan's Island" cocktails HERE.
pvettel@tribune.com
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