Barfly: Blue Blazer

The Blue Blazer is the Iron Lotus of cocktails. You can make your own wild thistle bitters and grow all manner ofthrowback facial hair, but if you want to join the big leagues you have to master this drink. It’s a deceptively simplecreation by the legendary Professor Jerry Thomas that consists of scotch, water, lemon peel, and sugar. Big deal, you say.Light it on fire and throw the burning mixture back and forth between two tankards, we say. Here’s how (if you dare):pour boiling water into a sturdy-handled mug, quickly followed by the cask-strength whiskey, then ignite it with a longmatch. With the burning tankard in one hand and an identical empty tankard in the other, pour the aflame mixtureback and forth a half-dozen times, then into a mug with sugar and lemon peel, stir, and take a well-deserved bow-you’rein. 

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                             5 oz. cask-strength whiskey
                  (use Laphroaig Cask Strength, as it may be
                               the last drink you ever make)
                                      5 oz. boiling water
                                         4 sugarcubes
                                  4 slices of lemon peel

Watch our Barfly Neal McLennan mix a Blue Blazer