I thought about this cocktail all day yesterday. I had a version of it at Thunderbolt when I was over there on the eve of my birthday. It was described then as “Tart Cherry Thunderbolt: Overproof Jamaican & Guyanese Rums, Tart Cherries, Adapted from Charles H. Baker’s Around the World with jigger, Beaker and Flask.” Ok, so I’m not sure why I thought of this just now. I’m pretty desperate for cocktails at the moment. We’re almost through pretty much everything without much on the horizon. Waiting impatiently for guava and inspiration of any sort. Anyway, I tried to make something similar to the drink…I don’t want to talk about it…It was so goddam awful.

At the very beginning of the book there is a picture of a man and a woman touching two mint juleps together with a caption below saying, “The mint julep is one of mankind’s truly civilized inventions.” Just by this, I could tell the book would be cool as hell.

I’ve been thinking, dreaming of pebble ice.

We don’t have a pebble icer at Rustic even though we waste money on plenty of other things. Whatever. It’s pretty easy to make a “rustic” version of pebble ice by crushing in a tin with a muddler. It doesn’t look as nice, but the result is the same.

The original recipe for the Tart Cherry Thunderbolt was called Peach Thunderbolt. It originated in Georgia, and is what the bar of the same name here in L.A. is named after. From the book mentioned previously, it’s a whole peach cut in half, pit discarded, around six ounces of rum, some mint, sugar, and a little lime juice all muddled together. Yeah, yum.

Here’s the original recipe description which sort of makes no sense in the way it’s written but is entertaining nonetheless:

Page 67: PEACH THUNDERBOLT, BEING No. VI, a Long-Hoarded Julep Treasure from Old-Time Georgia

This Thunderbolt business si no quip about the effect, but simply the name of the place just south of Savannah, where we first stumbled onto this nectar of the gods, the eyefilling, milk, pleasant debauch of three senses.

Carta de Oro Bacardi, 3 jiggers–yes, we said 3!

Fresh mint, dozen sprigs

Sun-ripe fresh Georgia peach, 1

Lime, juice, 1/2 large; 1 average

Sugar, 1 tsp

Take a large goblet and pack it half full with finely shaved ice, put in half the sugar, a trifle of water, and six tender mint heads. Muddle gently for a moment, rubbing mint all over interior of goblet. The flavour thus penetrates better. In the center put in a peeled and stoned peach, cut in halves and stood on edges. Mix rum, lime and rest of sugar. Pack glass full and pour in liquids…Garnish well with the remaining mint sprigs, and serve with two short straws so the nose can browse in it…Don’t make the mistake of garnishing with a lot of other fruit or using cherries. It is the ripe peach which is picked up by the rum…We have, however, discovered that a teaspoon or two of good peach brandy floated on before frosting, helps amplify the basic flavor of the unit.

The dude from the current Thunderbolt bar had this on the menu when they first opened and then made the tart cherry version possibly because Baker himself said not to put cherries in the drink.

Yeah, double goddamit…Peach season is very far away. At least until next may…

My version? Uh, well, I’m not telling you what I did…But I’m thinking about it now. Between Baker and the current Thunderbolt there will be an inbetween of some sort for sure. One side is too archaic and the other too technological (hint: they use a centrifuge). Ours will be the Goldilocks version with shitty but still good and functional homemade pebble ice and whatever else we can muster up.