Making Classic Cocktails at Home #24: Rob Roy

The twenty-fourth entry in the series where my wife Sabrina and I journey through the wide wonderful world of classic cocktails by crafting and drinking recipes together at our home bar. Today let’s visit the venerable Scottish variation of the Manhattan, the Rob Roy.

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Recipe:

• 2 oz Johnny Walker Black Label Blended Scotch Whisky
• 3/4 oz Dolin Rouge vermouth
• 2 dashes Angostura bitters
• Garnish: Cherry, orange twist (optional)

Add the Scotch, vermouth, and bitters to a mixing glass full of ice and stir until cold (approx. 25 – 30 seconds). Strain into a chilled coupe or Nick & Nora glass. Garnish with a cherry or two. Optionally, express an orange twist and drop it in.

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Intro:

For some reason, at some point in my youth I apparently formed a mental pattern that associates all the human-named cocktails (Rob Roy, Tom Collins, Harvey Wallbanger, etc) with “old people.” Of course, I’m 50 years old myself, so that young version of me in the past would certainly file the current version of me in that category as well. But nonetheless, even today, when I hear the name Rob Roy, I get a mental freeze frame of an elderly fella in pleated slacks, a pin-striped short sleeve button-up, big glasses and a few strands of remaining hair combed back on his head, who’s holding a cocktail while standing in a 70s style lamp-lit family room with busy wallpaper and a patterned uncomfortable looking couch. 

I’m pretty sure, as I type it out, that this mental image is nothing more than a melange of my multiple toddler memories of my grandpa mashed into a singular snapshot, for efficiency, presumably. 

Back in the early 80s my parents would roadtrip the family out to Michigan to visit the grandparents, and they would likely spend the evenings in some loose version of the living room that I’ve recreated in my mind while my feral brothers and I broke stuff outside, and they would likely all get pretty loosey goosey with the cocktails, and that’s likely where my mental connection of cocktails to old people who resemble my grandpa originates.  

But still, I don’t know why the connection only includes the human-named cocktails… 

Hmm… Or maybe I do. Perhaps it’s because, on those particular Michigan visits, I was allowed to indulge in the classic kid’s cocktail, the Shirley Temple (ginger ale and grenadine), while they drank their adult ones, and thus my kid brain interpreted that all cocktails, like my fancy Shirley Temple, have human names. 

Eureka, I think I just cracked that code!  

Anyway, none of that matters. Nor does it really have anything to do with a Rob Roy.

But thanks for riding along though that brain dump. I do this kind of long-winded self-referential rabbit hole’ing to my wife all the time, which must be tiresome and annoying. And I should probably be a responsible writer and delete all the bloviated blabber that I just wrote above, because it is excessive and self-indulgent and grossly unnecessary for a post about a Rob Roy cocktail. But I won’t. 

All that being said, a Rob Roy is a Manhattan with Scotch and with a human name. 

Booze Basics:

Let’s do an overly simplified cocktail exercise:  

As you know, the Old Fashioned’s standard recipe is simply bourbon/rye, sugar, and Angostura bitters.  

Swap out the sugar for sweet vermouth, and you’ve got a Manhattan.

Then swap out the whiskey from the Manhattan with Scotch whisky, and now you’re drinking a Rob Roy. 

Or, displayed another way: 

	Spirit	Sweetener / Modifier	Bitters
Old Fashioned	Bourbon / rye	Sugar or Simple syrup	Angostura
Manhattan	Bourbon / rye (typically rye)	Sweet vermouth	Angostura
Rob Roy	Scotch	Sweet vermouth	Angostura

Probably worth noting that I’m only talking about the base ingredients, and not the garnish or the type of glass that you put it in. 

That was fun, but let’s drop the Old Fashioned and just focus on the Manhattan and Rob Roy.

Structurally they differ just in the type of whisky that you use, but flavor-wise that’s a big ole’ difference. With a rye Manhattan, you’re going to get spiciness, sharpness, pepper, clove. Swap that rye with Scotch and you’ll get malt, smoke, dried fruit, and often an understated earthiness and leatherness. The Scotch will make for a softer and more delicate drink. 

These changes in flavor are important to keep in mind with how you decide to ratio the whisky to sweet vermouth. In this Rob Roy recipe, I went with a 2 to 3/4 ratio, whereas my recipe for a Manhattan is 2 to 1. I dialed down the sweet vermouth in my Rob Roy to spotlight the Scotch and so that the herbal sweet vermouth didn’t battle too hard with the smokiness of the Scotch. 

I saw that many modern recipes go with a 2:1 ratio, and the traditional recipes were a whopping 1:1, but I personally tend to drink on the dry side. 

Ultimately, of course, it comes down to the particular flavor characteristics of the Scotch and sweet vermouth that you use, and of course, how they appeal to your individual tastes.  

While we’re talking about individual tastes, you can also try one of the different Rob Roy variations:  

• Sweet Rob Roy (the default one): Sweet vermouth
• Dry Rob Roy: Dry vermouth
• Perfect Rob Rob: Sweet and dry vermouth

“Perfect”, by the way, is general cocktail speak for a drink with equal parts dry and sweet vermouth. Perfect Martini, Perfect Manhattan, etc.  “Perfect,” meaning “balanced,” in this case. Not a testament to the bartender’s mixing talent or final product or teeth.

Origin Story:

The origin of the Rob Roy is fairly straightforward and not as murky as so many of the other classic cocktails. As liquor.com notes, it’s believed that the Rob Roy first appeared in the Waldorf Astoria New York in Manhattan in 1894. It was created for the premiere of Rob Roy, a stage play about Robert Roy MacGregor (1671-1734) who became a Scottish folk hero for defying government agencies, leading rebellions, and basically sticking it to the Man. A Scottish Robin Hood, if you will.

Diffords Guide acknowledges that the contents of a Rob Roy were surely mixed into drinks prior to its Waldorf Astoria introduction, but likely would have been identified as just a Manhattan that uses Scotch as the whisky of choice.  

Recipe Rationale:

Johnnie Walker Black Label Blended Scotch Whisky: I already had a bottle of Black Label in my liquor cabinet. It’s a nice easy middle of the road Scotch with light smoke and light vanilla/oak, which worked well with the subtleness of the Dolin sweet vermouth. Your preferred Scotch should work fine, but you don’t want something too biting or smokey that will overpower or clash with the vermouth, and a blended is probably your best bet. 

Dolin Rouge Vermouth: I’m still using Dolin anytime a recipe requires vermouth since I haven’t started branching out into other vermouths like I’ve said I would.  This one worked nicely, though. It paired well with the Black Label, with neither stepping on top of the other.  

Friendly reminder that vermouth starts to oxidize once opened, so be sure to refrigerate your bottle and try to use it up within a month or so. 

Angostura bitters: These little bottles from Trinidad with the ill-fitting paper label are ubiquitous, and if you make cocktails at home, you probably already have some.

Garnish: Similar to the Manhattan, most of the recipes online call for one or two maraschino cherries as the garnish. A couple others suggested adding an optional lemon or orange twist. For my recipe, I went with an orange twist to brighten up the Scotch just a touch and to go along with its dried fruit notes.  Plus, orange twists became popular in the late 1800s/early 1900s hotel bar culture, which is where the drink originated. So, whether or not that orange twist is technically accurate for the drink, it does arguably have some historical relevance.

Verdict:

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