blood_and_sand_cocktail

Blood & Sand

This classic’s name is a tribute to the 1922 silent movie Blood and Sand, which stars Rudolph Valentino as a poor young Spaniard who eventually becomes a great matador. Fruity and only faintly smoky, it’s an approachable drink for people who aren’t sure they like Scotch. Slideshow: Cocktails Recipes for the Coupe

Ingredients

• 1 ounce blended Scotch, such as Compass Box Asyla
• 1 ounce sweet vermouth
• 1 ounce cherry liqueur, preferably Heering
• 1 ounce fresh orange juice
• Ice
• 1 orange wheel, for garnish

How to Make It

In a cocktail shaker, combine the Scotch, vermouth, cherry liqueur and orange juice. Fill the shaker with ice and shake well. Strain into a chilled martini glass and garnish with the orange wheel.

Blood & Sand Cocktail

Scotch, Cherry Heering, vermouth, and orange juice create a smoky-sweet effect, equally good topped with extra juice and served for brunch.

This essential scotch cocktail, created in London in the 1920s, was named for the 1922 film starring Rudolph Valentino. It combines scotch, Cherry Heering, vermouth, and orange juice for a smoky-sweet effect. Pour the cocktail into a highball glass, and top off with more juice if you wish to serve the drink at brunch.

Ingredients

Instructions

Recipes

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Blood and Sand Recipe

Unlike the unwritten rule about wearing white, there's no stipulation that you must pack away your white liquor after Labor Day. But after the unofficial end of summer, it's entirely appropriate to start breaking out the brown spirits of fall and winter.

Scotch whiskey is a notoriously difficult ingredient to mix in a cocktail. Here's a drink that uses it to great effect: the Blood and Sand. The earliest printed recipe I've found for this drink was in the Savoy Cocktail Book, from 1930, and it likely takes its name from the popular 1922 silent film starring Rudolph Valentino as an ill-fated matador. With an unlikely cast of ingredients, the Blood and Sand rises above the chaos and helps set the stage for the approach of more robust-flavored drinks for the cooler months.

About the author: Paul Clarke blogs about cocktails at The Cocktail Chronicles and writes regularly on spirits and cocktails for Imbibe magazine. He lives in Seattle, where he works as a writer and magazine editor.

• Yield: makes 1 cocktail
• Active time: 3 minutes
• Total time: 3 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 ounce blended Scotch (Famous Grouse is a good brand to use)
• 1 ounce fresh-squeezed orange juice
• 3/4 ounce sweet vermouth
• 3/4 ounce Cherry Heering (no, not "herring," and yes, the brand matters)

Directions

Pour all of ingredients in a cocktail shaker. Fill shaker with ice, and shake well for 10 seconds; strain into a chilled cocktail glass, and garnish with a cherry.

Special Equipment

This Recipe Appears In

Paul Clarke blogs about cocktails at The Cocktail Chronicles and writes regularly on spirits and cocktails for Imbibe magazine. He lives in Seattle, where he works as a writer and magazine editor.

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Blood and Sand: One of the Finest Scotch Cocktails You'll Find

• 3 mins
• Prep: 3 mins,
• Cook: 0 mins
• Yield: 1 serving

The Blood and Sand is one of the few Scotch cocktails that should be considered a classic. The complete history is somewhat shaky, but it is accepted that it was inspired by the movie Blood and Sand. The original film was produced in 1922 (starring Rudolph Valentino) and was remade in 1941 (starring Tyrone Powers) and again in 1989 (with Sharon Stone).

The cocktail is a beautiful one with a touch of sweet citrus. Cherry Heering is a great substitution for the brandy because it has a more natural cherry flavor than many of today's cherry brandies. Also, fresh-squeezed orange juice is definitely recommended.

What You'll Need

• 3/4 ounce Scotch whiskey
• 3/4 ounce cherry brandy
• 3/4 ounce sweet vermouth
• 3/4 ounce orange juice
• Orange slice for garnish

How to Make It

1. Pour the ingredients into a cocktail shaker filled with ice.
2. Shake well.
3. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
4. Garnish with an orange slice.

The Blood and Sand No. 2

Great cocktails inspire other great cocktails and the Blood and Sand is no different. A few bartenders have tried to reinvent this cocktail over the years, but few measure up to Edinburgh mixologist Mike Aikman's Blood and Sand No. 2.

This version takes an interesting twist as the cherry brandy is replaced with Cherry Herring and the orange with passion fruit.

The sweet vermouth becomes a very particular call for Lillet Rouge as well. It's very fun and a delight to drink.

Mixing the Blood and Sand No. 2 could not be easier. You will simply pour 1 ounce each of Chivas Regal Blended Scotch Whisky, passion fruit puree, Cherry Herring, and Lillet Rouge. Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Which Scotch Should You Choose?

Most whiskey drinkers prefer to mix blended scotches into their cocktails and this is often the best choice. Blended whiskeys tend to be a bit more affordable and the flavor more universal than many of the single malts.

The suggestion of Chivas in the Blood and Sand No. 2 is a fantastic place to begin for a mixable blended scotch. Any of the bottlings from Johnnie Walker would be excellent as well and this brand gives you the option to make the drink as luxurious as you like. When it comes to a truly affordable mixing scotch, you really cannot beat Dewar's White Label.

How Strong are the Blood and Sand Cocktails?

Compared to other 'up' cocktails like the Rob Roy, the Blood and Sand is mild. It has almost half the alcohol and a lot of that is due to the short pour of whiskey and the low- or no-alcohol mixers. No matter which Blood and Sand you choose to mix up, you're looking at a cocktail that's about 16% ABV (32 proof).

Blood and Sand (Classic formula)

• Display recipe in:

How to make:

SHAKE all ingredients with ice and fine strain into chilled glass.

Orange zest twist

One of the best classic Scotch cocktails but a tad on the sweet side. Said by many to be the Scotch-based cocktail that Scotch haters will like.

Buy ingredients

Previous Cocktail

SHAKE all ingredients with ice and strain into ice-filled glass.

Next Cocktail

Blood and Sand (Difford's recipe)

SHAKE all ingredients with ice and fine strain into chilled glass.

Blood and Sand cocktail

Probably the best-known Scotch whisky based cocktail, the Blood & Sand is traditionally made with equal parts blended Scotch whisky, cherry brandy, sweet vermouth and orange juice.

Cocktail shakers & how to shake a cocktail

Shaking not only mixes a drink, it also chills, dilutes and aerates it. Along with stirring shaking is the most common technique employed to mix cocktails.

How to strain a cocktail

When straining a shaken drink, a Hawthorn strainer tends to be used, but when straining a stirred drink it is traditional to use a Julep strainer. Both designs of strainer allow.

Blended Scotch Whisky

Blended Scotch Whisky, or 'Scotch' for short is by far the world's most popular whisky and accounts for well over 85% of all Scottish whisky. Although 'malt whisky' was the.

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Blood and sand cocktail

Blood and Sand

* 3/4 ounce Scotch

* 3/4 ounce Cherry Heering

* 3/4 ounce sweet vermouth

* 3/4 ounce fresh orange juice

* Flamed orange zest for garnish

Combine all the ingredients in an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake until cold and then strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Flame the orange zest over the top of the glass.

Alternately, build the cocktail in an ice-filled collins glass and top with another splash of orange juice before adding the garnish.

This drink is a little sweet, but definitely not too sweet, and a little fruity from the vermouth and orange juice. I mainly tasted the vermouth while Sarai says tastes the Scotch. Be careful with the orange juice, as it’s easy to overpower the rest of your ingredients with it.

The Wall Street Journal as posted an article about this drink and its history, calling it Strange, but Delicious. The cocktail takes its name from the 1922 Rudolph Valentino film of the same name. The article goes on to offer some good suggestions regarding ingredients for people making these at home.

Posted by Kenn in Cocktail Recipes on January 21st, 2008

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Comments 5 Comments So Far

[…] My honey is serious about cocktails. While I love cooking and baking, his interests lie more in the mixological arts. Last night, while I was banging my head against the computer trying to grade a sewing pattern, he brought me a lovely drink. […]

[…] Blood and Stone, pictured above, is the blood and sand’s deeper, darker cousin — a beautiful concoction of Vida reposado tequila, Heering […]

[…] I asked if there was another cocktail that used my new favorite potable. The he told me about a Blood and Sand and made me one with gin. I didn’t find out till later that they traditionally call for […]

[…] on the subject, the Wall Street Journal mentioned the drink in 2008, and the rather splendid Cocktailia blog also mentions it, along the LA Weekly and many others – hardly a unique drink, but one we had […]

Blood and Sand Cocktail

In 1922 Rudolph Valentino starred in the movie “Blood and Sand”, a movie that shortly before his death in 1926 he declared as the part he liked the best. He had just undergone a touchy surgery for appendicitis and gastric ulcers and told the gathering press “The part I like best was my role in ‘Blood and Sand’. If I had died, I would have liked to be remembered as an actor by that role – I think it my greatest.” He died a few days later from peritonitis. It is unknown who actually created the recipe for Blood and Sand, but its first appearance seems to be in “The Savoy Cocktail Book” by Harry Cradock in 1930. There it lists the recipe as equal parts of all three ingredients, but I feel that the recipe works better by boosting the scotch.

Ingredients

1 1/2 oz blended scotch whisky

3/4 oz sweet vermouth

3/4 oz Cherry Heering

3/4 oz fresh orange juice

Instructions

Strain into a cocktail glass.

Garnish with an orange twist.

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I’ll have to try it this way.

The best version I’ve ever made with all four equal parts uses fresh blood orange juice (in season) and Aberlour 12.

Great video! I definitely like the 2:1:1:1 ratio. Also, for those who like the peaty stuff, a dash of Ardbeg or Laphroaig (just a dash!) gives this drink a delicate smokiness (I usually use Monkey Shoulder as the base). Cheers!

Nice video. This is one of the classics that I haven’t tried yet, as I never seem to have scotch on hand. I’ll have to get a bottle and try both the 1:1:1:1 and the 2:1:1:1 ratios to compare.

Just wanted to add, your hair/beard style changes are becoming almost as entertaining as the cocktails themselves!

Perhaps there should be a Tales of the Cocktail seminar entitled: “The Evolution of Robert Hess”. :)

Trevor… after having virtually the same “look” for… oh, 30 years or so, a change can be rather refreshing… but it took a good, no… great, woman to help me see that.

Not sure if it is because I used a peat mossy scotch, but the equal parts recipe worked much better for my taste. I’ll have to try with a blended or, in general, a less smokey scotch.

I’ve never tried a B&S with a single malt, much less one of the peatier ones, but I can see where it would greatly change the profile of the drink. In the days when the B&S was being made, single malt scotches were not very popular, so just from a “historical” perspective, a blended scotch is what this drink calls for.

Has been my favourite cocktail since I first had on in Employees Only in NYC, the bartender said that it also went really well with mescal which I’ve tried and its also amazing. My only contribution to this cocktail is that the vermouth choice is in my opinion more important than the scotch itself. Antica Formula or Coochi Vermouth de Turino are both fantastic but Antica Formula is my favourite since it add a really herby bitterness which is completely missed if you use martini.

I’d also like to thank you because it was watching your videos back when I was 17 that actually made me want to become a bartender in the first place.

Having one this week as the last of the Small Screen Network 2012 Repeal Week rebroadcasts.

It truly is a remarkable drink, and one that sounds horrid on paper. However, the one thing I’ve got to say is there is no substitute for Cherry Heering. I’ve tried a number of other cherry liqueurs and schnapps, etc… and nothing comes close.

I tended bar at a large wedding reception this past summer, and the Blood & Sand was the hit of the party. I must have made over 50 of them that night.

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WTF Is Wrong with the Blood and Sand Cocktail?

A time-honored Scotch-based classic, the Blood and Sand has been around since the 1920s. But by modern standards, it's a mess. Kara Newman on how today's bartenders are finding ways to fix it.

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Theoretically the Blood and Sand cocktail is a time-honored classic. In actuality, it’s a murky mess that’s one of the canon’s more infamous scourges.

Silver and Sand

Ichor and Glass

Blood and Sanguinello

“I honestly do not understand why the Blood and Sand is part of the modern-day cocktail lexicon,” says Ryan Casey, bar manager of The Living Room, a newly-opened bar within the Dewberry Charleston hotel in Charleston, South Carolina. “I’ve never put it on the menu. I’ve never ordered it on purpose.”

Originally created in London to commemorate a 1922 bullfighter movie of the same name, the formula for the original Blood and Sand— equal parts Scotch, Cherry Heering liqueur, orange juice and sweet vermouth, which first appeared Harry Craddock’s 1930 The Savoy Cocktail Book — has its roots in metaphor; the red Cherry Heering is said to represent the “blood” and orange juice, the “sand.”

The problem, however, is how easily it can fall out of balance. “It ends up tasting like an orange juice with alcohol in it, kind of like a Screwdriver,” explains Casey. So while, miraculously, it’s managed to stand the test of time, the question now is how to fix it.

Some say the problem is the proportions—that the Scotch and sweet vermouth should outweigh the other two components, creating a slightly sweeter Rob Roy-style variation. Others complain it’s the orange juice that’s problematic: it’s too acidic, the texture is too thick, the bright hue turns muddy when mixed and so on. (This, interesting enough, is one of the gripes launched at the Ward Eight, another notoriously troubled classic cocktail that has itself recently undergone a makeover in its hometown.)

As a result, many dial down the orange juice or drop it altogether. Sometimes, the effort to remove the OJ results in odd contortions—swapping in everything from alternative citrus (blood orange, lemon or grapefruit juices) to red wine or even pureed beets to varying degrees of success. One of the more successful OJ solutions, dubbed the Blood & Sanguinello, came by way of William & Grant brand ambassador Charlotte Voisey, who swapped in Solerno orange liqueur, plus grapefruit and lemon juices, pleasantly balancing the tart and sweet elements of the drink.

“If you’re not sweating, you’re not doing it right.”

Casey’s solution, however, might be the most elegant: He uses no juice at all. Instead, in his Ichor and Glass he calls on a blend of two orange liqueurs (including Compass Box’s Orangerie, which has a Scotch whisky base), for a stirred, complex, spirit-forward version of the classic, which leans more toward the aforementioned Rob Roy.

“The challenge was figuring out a way to remove the silly ingredient that doesn’t make sense to me—the orange juice—and [replace it with] things that do make sense,” he explains.

Yet, while many bartenders are hustling to build a better Blood and Sand, some say it’s not the recipe that’s the problem; it’s bartending technique that needs to be improved to make the drink work. “If the Scotch isn’t too smoky and the orange juice is fresh squeezed, it’s great,” says T.J. Vytlacil, founder and advisory board member of private cocktail club Blood & Sand in St. Louis.

Vytlacil remains a staunch defender of the Blood and Sand; the equal parts classic is the number-one seller at the eponymous bar, where it’s made with Lismor Scotch—a gentle, un-smoky Speyside single malt—Dolin sweet vermouth, fresh orange juice and Cherry Heering. But he also offers 10 variations on the menu, including the luscious Silver and Sand, made with egg white and ginger- and lemon-infused Dewar’s.

A final tip from Vytlacil: If your Blood and Sand is lackluster, it might be because you’re not shaking it vigorously enough. “Shake the crap out of it so you get a good froth on it,” he insists. It shouldn’t require as much effort as shaking a Ramos Gin Fizz , but you’ll have to put some muscle into it. “You should definitely break a sweat making a Blood and Sand. If you’re not sweating, you’re not doing it right.”

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Kara Newman

Kara Newman reviews spirits for Wine Enthusiast magazine and is the author of Shake.Stir.Sip. (Chronicle Books) and the forthcoming Road Soda (Dovetail Press).

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Much, much love for the Blood and Sand. I use Aberlour 12 Year for low smoke, keep the OJ in check at just a smidge under 25%, and shake it all to heck for maximum ice crystallage. Muah! Perfection.

As a person who usually doesn’t like OJ in drinks, I have to admit that I have no problem with the Blood and Sand. Fresh OJ and a low smoke scotch are the key. It may be a bit on the sweet side, but I really don’t mind them.

I have to agree. If you change out entire ingredient and proportions, you are making a new drink – not ‘fixing’ the original. We make this at home, and fresh OJ is key, and I don’t know why a murky appearance are problematic… who cares if you can see through your drink? It’s a nice change of pace when you want something more mellow.

I adore a Blood and Sand and I ask for it when I know a bar has decent mixing scotch and Cherry Heering. But the orange juice must be fresh and good or you have a sugar problem and I think that’s where people get in trouble. I LIKE the dark, murky color of a B&S. I also agree that the answer it to shake the living s. out of it and get a bit of foam. Frankly, I feel a bad Blood & Sand comes down to bad ingredients, and THAT’S ON YOU if it sucks. Don’t cut corners.

Blood and Sand Cocktail

Ingredients (5)

• 3/4 ounce good-quality blended Scotch whisky
• 3/4 ounce sweet vermouth
• 3/4 ounce freshly squeezed orange juice
• 1 teaspoon Heering Cherry Liqueur
• Orange twist, for garnish

• Calories 94
• Fat 0.06g
• Saturated fat 0.01g
• Trans fat
• Carbs 4.68g
• Fiber 0.04g
• Sugar 3.85g
• Protein 0.17g
• Cholesterol
• Sodium 1.96mg
• Nutritional Analysis per serving (1 servings)Powered by

The Blood and Sand first appeared in Harry Craddock’s classic The Savoy Cocktail Book of 1930.

What to buy: Heering Cherry Liqueur was created by Peter Heering in Denmark in the early 1800s. It is viscous and sweet with an intense dark-cherry flavor.

Blood & Sand Cocktail

3⁄4 oz The Glenrothes Select Reserve Single Malt Scotch Whisky

3⁄4 oz Sweet vermouth

3⁄4 oz Cherry Heering

3⁄4 oz Orange juice

1 Orange peel, Garnish

Add all the ingredients to a shaker and fill with ice.

Shake, and strain into a chilled coupe or cocktail glass.

Garnish with an orange peel.

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