If you’ve ever woken up horizontal, with the dread and moral certainty that you wish you’d made more sobering choices the night before, then someone, somewhere in history, made a drink for you. Somewhat disturbingly known as the ‘Corpse Reviver’ this Victorian-era medicinal cocktail is designed not so much to cure the hangover as to negotiate a temporary ceasefire with it. Hair of the dog, but make it civilised. Make it French. Make it slightly dangerous.
Of all the historical drinks in the Reviver family, the No. 2 is the one worth knowing. Harry Craddock, the great American barman who fled the Prohibition era in the US and reinvented himself behind London’s infamous Savoy bar, included the recipe in his 1930 Savoy Cocktail Book with a serving note that remains the most descriptive of drinks writing ever committed to paper: “Four of these taken in swift succession will revive the corpse again.” Gin, Cointreau, Lillet Blanc, lemon juice, and a rinse of absinthe. Elegant, citrus-bright, and quietly lethal. Craddock also warned that drinking too many would have the opposite effect.
After fading into obscurity, the Corpse Reviver No. 2 was championed by classic cocktail enthusiasts during the craft cocktail revival of the early 21st century. And since then, modern mixologists have fine-tuned the recipe.
Now New Zealand batch cocktail producers Bariletto have used their expertise, reinterpreting the 1930s formula, by adding a new level of handcrafted refinement, rest it in charred oak barrels. The gin, cointreau, aromatised wine and absinthe linger longer, which results in a sophisticated sublime take on the classic Corpse Reviver No. 2. The result delivers more of an elegant tickle up, than a sucker punch.
Combine it with fresh lemon juice, shaken over ice, strained into a chilled coupe and served with a twist of lemon for a refined, discrete pick-me-up that absolves any lingering indiscretions or guilt of nights past. Consider your soul saved.
