Suffering Bastard cocktail: the original recipe by Joe Scialom to kill the hangover

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Joe Scialom is the inventor of the legendary Suffering Bastard cocktail, a bomb of alcohol and flavors, but lovers of old-fashioned drinks will appreciate it.

The cocktail is very simple and even the ingredients of the Suffering Bastard are easy to recover: brandy or Bourbon, gin, lime juice, angostura and ginger ale. Shake in the shaker, then pour into a full glass of ice and add the ginger ale. That’s all.

What is really interesting is the story of the Suffering Bastard cocktail or rather the story of its inventor, an Egyptian-Jew who after studying chemistry, discovered how exciting it was to be a bartender and thus became the barman head of the Cairo’s Shepheard’s Hotel.

We are talking about the years before the Second World War. In practice, this nice gentleman one day was listening to some British soldiers who complained about yet another hangover, when the idea of creating a cocktail to cure drunkenness hit him like a ton of bricks. And his reasoning was not a wrinkle: if you want to get past the hangover, get drunk again. And thus one of the first remedies for nefarious hangovers was born. Pure genius. Since the cocktail was very successful in the United States, over time it became common to mix Bourbon whiskey instead of Brandy.

Ingredients and doses for making the Suffering Bastard cocktail by Joe Scialom

• 3 cl of brandy or Bourbon
• 3 cl of gin
• 1.5 cl of lemon or lime juice
• 2 drops of angostura
• ginger ale

How to make the Suffering Bastard cocktail

Put the gin, brandy, angostura and lime juice in the shaker with ice and shake quickly. Pour into a full glass of ice and add ginger ale. The cocktail is usually decorated with a sprig of mint, but you can also lay a slice of dried orange on top. If you want to serve a more elegant and aromatic cocktail, squeeze an orange peel over the cocktail.

Suggested food pairings

Grilled cheese sandwich; parmigiana ravioli, spaghetti with clams, chicken tikka masala, Chicken Cacciatore, Vitello Tonnato, truffle risotto, pasta alla carbonara, paella mixta.

Gin cocktail you should try

Gin and Tonic, Bramble, Ramos Gin Fizz, Singapore Sling, Negroni, Tuxedo, Bronx, Gin Fizz, Dry Martini, Tom Collins, French 75.