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*Difficulty Rating is based on the techniques used as well as the number, uniqueness, and the cost of ingredients
The Boulevardier is a warm embrace on a brisk day. Bourbon lays the groundwork and does the heavy lifting in this cocktail, while allowing the floral aspects of campari to be balanced by the robust flavors in a quality sweet vermouth. Botanicals with bitterness, herbaceousness with richness, this potent sipper is made for every season
The Boulevardier is often a gateway drink into a new aspect of the cocktail universe; potable bitters. It is many seasoned drinkers’ first foray into amaro but provides bourbon as a flavor life-raft, a familiar taste one can retreat to when the bitterness of the Campari becomes too much.
Not many people easily embrace the abrupt astringency of amaro immediately. Most palates are trained to enjoy the sweet and fatty aspects of a drink, and so the taste buds revolt at the overt bitterness in this libation. Once a palate has become accustomed to the initial shock, however, a veritable universe of flavors are opened up to explore.
3/4 oz
3/4 oz
1 1/2 oz
Campari
Sweet Vermouth
Bourbon
Loosely translated from French, Boulevardier means a sophisticated, socially active person who frequents fashionable places, or a (wo)man-about-town. The moniker Boulevardier was originally a Paris-centric monthly publication modelled after The New Yorker Magazine. As the etymology implies, the magazine covered very urban topics; fashion, culture, politics, biographic pieces and opinion. The publication Boulevardier lasted a few years without major success, but lives on in cocktail fame thanks to its publisher Erskine Gwynne.
Gwynne was a New York socialite (nephew to railroad tycoon Alfred Vanderbilt) who relocated to Paris in the 1920’s. By all accounts the journal was a direct reflection of Gwynne’s lifestyle; he was a dandy, reveled in elite circles and regularly visited all of the fashionable haunts of mid-20’s Paris. One tavern favored by Gwynne was Harry’s New York Bar, a Parisian watering hole catering to the expats that fled the states during the roaring twenties.
The proprietor, Harry MacElhone, was a career barman who applied cocktail techniques learned in America to European products not available stateside at the time. This hybrid opportunity gave birth to many famous cocktails; the Sidecar, White Lady, Bloody Mary, and French 75 were all born here. Gwynne’s favorite drink was 1 part Campari, 1 part Italian vermouth, and 1 part Bourbon. In honor of the drinks creator and lifestyle, it was given the name Boulevardier.
Although the recipe doesn’t officially appear in MacElhone’s 1927 book “Barflies and Cocktails”, it is listed in a section named “Cocktails around Town”:
“Now is the time for all good Barflies to come to the aid of the party, since Erskinne Gwynne crashed in with his Boulevardier Cocktail; ⅓ Campari, ⅓ Italian vermouth, ⅓ Bourbon whiskey.”
Although the build shares a striking resemblance to a Negroni, there is a rich warmness that bourbon brings to the palette absent in gin that establishes the Boulevardier as a distinct classic cocktail.