Special Saturday Cocktail, on the occasion of Casita's Final Day: The joshjoshjoshjones, from Oskar at Found, for Josh Jones.

Steven Rhea at Sauvage, Brooklyn

Here's how it went.

At 10:35 London time on June 6th, Josh Jones, a writer/editor I'd met during what would turn out to be my last visit to Casita in Shoreditch, Facebook Messaged me the following:

Oskar just made a drink called the joshjoshjones

If you ask for it at any American bar (or any bar that isn't his) it is

25ml lemon juice


30ml sugar


15ml fernet branca


35ml vodka 
1 egg white

Topped off hundreds and thousands x

 

I did a little sleuthing and deduced that he was at Found, which is basically upstairs from the future former Casita. Josh had done an interview with this Oskar character here. I was on my way to meet pal Nic Richards of Robert at Sauvage to check it out and to say hullo to barman Steven Rhea, who I knew from M. Wells and who had turned out to be a neighbor of mine in Long Island City/Astoria. When we showed up at Sauvage it was a lovely summer evening and the doors were thrown open to let the breeze from McCarren Park blow in. 

I showed Steven the recipe from Josh, and with a little help from Nic, who'd bartended at Hotel Grand Pigalle in Paris and had gotten quite proficient at converting oz to ml and  vice versa, Steven assembled the following version of the drink.

I was working with ounces, so my measurements were a little different-S.R.:

 

joshjoshjones US Version

.5oz Fernet Vittone
.5oz lemon juice
1oz lemon cordial
1oz vodka
Egg White

Our cordial is just comprised of skins rested in sugar to extract oil, and then juice added. We fortify with a little vodka for preservation.

 

Steven rightly commented on the decided low-proofiness of the drink and when I brought it up with Josh the next morning he replied:

 

JJ: I'd spent 5 hours in Casita beforehand and needed something that wasn't too serious...
JR: 5 hours at Casita=danger
JJ: Very much so
Just dropped by to say hello at 5pm
JR: I knew it! It's a good slowdown drink. And that protein really is key.
JJ: Cutting down on carbs? Have a joshjoshjones

 

So this version of the drink really came about because of Casita, the bar in London where I'd met so many cool people over the last decade. It was the kind of spot where you'd talk to strangers and find out you were in fact already connected through several different people. And the cast of characters who came into play here in New York to make this drink was just part of the kind of extended network of people that bar helped foster. More on Casita later.