“Not particularly good but not too bad.” That was David Embury’s commentary on the Blinker in The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks, published in 1948. The original recipe, which first appeared in Patrick Gavin Duffy’s 1934 book The Official Mixer’s Manual, calls for three parts grapefruit juice to two parts rye to one part grenadine, served in a footed highball glass. It’s certainly an oddball—and it’s never really gotten off the ground. But Death & Co. Los Angeles’ bar manager, Matthew Belanger, is trying to change that.
Because of its structure, the Blinker’s closest relatives are drinks like the Greyhound, Harvey Wallbanger and Swampwater, where substantial measures of fruit juice (grapefruit, orange, or pineapple, respectively) act as the lengthener in a highball format. It’s this unusual blueprint, and the drink’s three-ingredient simplicity, that originally caught Belanger’s eye about a dozen years ago.
When Belanger was working at the original Brooklyn location of Donna, he recalls encountering the Blinker on a spec sheet. The recipe didn’t look much like the one printed in Duffy’s bar manual—it had been filtered through Ted Haigh, reinterpreted in his Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails, a highly influential cocktail-renaissance classic that was first published in 2004.
Haigh’s suggested spec turns the drink from a juicy highball into a not-so-sour sour made with two parts rye to one part grapefruit juice, flavored with a teaspoon of raspberry syrup. Haigh’s reasoning for the substitution was that grenadine and raspberry syrup were used interchangeably in many old drinks and that, here, raspberry syrup just tasted better. This approach to the Blinker was further codified in The PDT Cocktail Book (2011), which retains Haigh’s ratio, but uses a mix of simple syrup and raspberry preserves as the sweetener.
Belanger has tried for years to figure out a spec for the Blinker that honors the core flavors of the original while also modernizing the drink for today’s palate. “You’ve gotta figure out how to bridge the gap between the historical context, what the reference material tells you about this drink, how it was served,” he says, “and what people want today.” His approach was to emphasize the things he most loved about the 1930s version—well, the Haigh-ified one made with raspberry syrup—namely, the grapefruit’s bitterness and the fragrant, fruity raspberry flavor. The resulting recipe combines rye with grapefruit juice, raspberry eau de vie and raspberry syrup, plus aperitivo liqueur and additional acids.
First, Belanger had to choose the appropriate rye whiskey. He says that this drink needs structure and that a bonded rye lends a “grippiness” that can’t be found in lower-proof expressions. His preference is Wild Turkey 101, which he feels is on “the lighter, more floral end of the spectrum” despite its ABV.
Next up was the one-time star of the Blinker show—grapefruit. Inspired by Garret Richard’s acid-adjusting techniques in Tropical Standard (2023), particularly his Western Sour (bourbon, acid-adjusted grapefruit, falernum, cane syrup), Belanger uses both citric and malic acid solutions to boost the drink’s acidity.
As an added support to the grapefruit, Belanger’s spec calls for a quarter-ounce of Cappelletti, a wine-based aperitivo liqueur. “It’s in there to give it some more body, give it some bitterness of the sort that people tend to associate with the grapefruit,” he says, “and it pairs well with raspberry, too.”
The one-two punch of raspberry in this drink comes from a housemade syrup that’s adjusted with citric acid and fragrant raspberry eau de vie. The syrup at Death & Co. is made using a sous-vide method, but it can be made on the stovetop, too; raspberries are broken down in hot water then strained through a chinois, sweetened, and adjusted with citric acid. The eau de vie is used sparingly, just a quarter-ounce, and Belanger looks for high-quality brands like St. George Spirits, Clear Creek or Massenez, which deliver the “floral, perfumy quality” that he’s looking for.
Belanger added the Blinker to the menu at Death & Co. Los Angeles about six months ago. His hope was that guests calling for Whiskey Sours would see this recipe and be moved to try something new, particularly if it was served in a familiar format—in a rocks glass over ice. But that’s not really how Whiskey Sour drinkers operate, and he says the Blinker has been well-received but hasn’t totally replaced those more traditional sour orders.
Even if the Blinker seems destined to remain a little-known cocktail, Belanger is happy about the recipe he’s finally arrived at after years of trying—and it’s a prime example of Death & Co.’s current aesthetic. “We’re using our approach to layering flavor and our technical application of science nonsense,” he says, “to strengthen the very classic flavor combination of the original Blinker.”
