Kangaroo | Cocktail Party

Kangaroo

Since the very beginning of Cocktail Party, we’ve had the Martini listed with vodka as an optional replacement for the traditional gin – despite the fact that we’d always look down our smug noses at anyone who would dare to place such a plebian order.

It wasn’t until one of our users (thanks, JB!) wrote in to tell us about the Kangaroo that we learned that the humble “vodka martini” has a genuine pedigree of its own, appearing at least as far back as the late 40s in reprinted editions of David A. Embury’s The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks. More lately, it shows up with this perfected ratio in Robert Simonson’s 3-Ingredient Cocktails.

Since vodka is nearly flavorless, the focus of the Kangaroo is on the bitters, the oils from the lemon twist, and most importantly, the vermouth. Many new drinkers, exposed only to the oxidized, dusty bottles of low-grade vermouth, think that they hate the stuff. The Kangaroo presents the perfect opportunity to change those opinions, and the new wave of creative, high-quality vermouths (like those made by Lo-Fi, Uncouth Vermouth, Imbue and other small-batch producers) can introduce a whole new character that Embury could only have dreamed of.

While the Kangaroo is listed by Simonson as a three-ingredient cocktail, we’d argue that it’s actually four. The lemon twist is an essential ingredient – but you could also mix things up by using an orange twist, and swapping orange bitters for lemon bitters.

Ingredients

Instructions

Add all ingredients (except the lemon or orange peel) to a mixing glass with ice, and stir until well-chilled. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Twist the citrus peel over the drink to release its oils, and drop in as a garnish.

Cocktail Party app on tablets and phones

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An awesome cocktail app with curated recipes

I'm shocked that there are no reviews listed for this app. I found it on reddit's cocktails forum. The drink list in this app is much shorter than in many of the other apps I've seen, but the quality and reliability of the recipes is much much higher. These are more like the drinks you would get at a good mixology bar instead of the drink equivalent of your aunt's jello fruit mold that people just "love." I much prefer a list of cocktails that are reliable, good and repeatable than a huge pile of garbage recipes. This app is great and delivers great, reliable cocktails.
US TroupCounty, iTunes App Store