Tropical

Suffering Bastard

A cocktail from Egypt

Ingredients

30mlGin
30mlBourbonit's common to sub this out for a Cognac too
7.5mlRich Demerara Syrup
15mlLime Juicefreshly squeezed
2 dashesOld Fashioned Bitters
120mlGinger Beer

Make it well

Shake

Directions

1. Add all your ingredients, minus the ginger beer, into your shaking tin and add crushed ice 2. Shake it up for 10 seconds and pour everything into a fun glass or mug 3. Top up with the Ginger beer and more crushed ice if needed 4. Garnish with fun things such as, mint, orchids, pineapple fronds and a straw

Taste

It's SO good, much like a mule drink - you get a lot of ginger up front. The bourbon and gin are pretty mellow in this. So easy to drink, the woody and barrel notes come through the more we drink. Further down the gin comes into play. Just a delight.

Origin

This cocktail has its origins in Cairo in 1942, deep into the North Africa campaign of the Second World War. Joe Scialom, bartender at Shepheard's Hotel, mixed it for officers who had been drinking all night and needed to be upright and useful by morning. That's the actual brief here: it's a hangover cure first and a cocktail second, which is what the ginger beer and the bitters are doing in the glass. It worked, and word got round. The story goes that troops began ordering the stuff sent up to the front lines by the jug. Those poor suffering bastards.

Keep pouring