Ephemeral

Do 1/2 of the Elderflower

I agree with other comments in that it isn't quite there. Good but not great.

The John Gertsen riff, the Means of Preservation, at Drink in Boston is a bit better:

https://kindredcocktails.com/cocktail/means-preservation

Odd that Ransom's is listed here, and the recipe is off as well. I don't have the PDT Cocktail book (2011) but the 2009 links to this drink both use Hayman's Old Tom. These gins are very different in flavor. I tried this cocktail tonight based on http://www.cocktailchronicles.com/2009/05/04/3030-18-the-ephemeral-than… and http://looka.gumbopages.com//archive/2009-05.html#1. Both used Hayman's Old Tom (1.5), Dolin Blanc (1), 2 tsp St. Germain (1/3 oz), and 3 dashes of Celery Bitters.

Hayman's Old Tom hit our market in 2008 and Ransom's OTG was a few years later around 2011. So historically, it makes sense why the earliest ones would have Hayman's (also, the distillery already had their vintage recipe for OTG ready to go and didn't need to develop one so when Eric Seed of Haus Alpenz approached them, they got right on it).

The Ephemeral was originally made with the Ransom. Back in 2009, both Ransom and Hayman's Old Tom gins were available in Oregon, but I don't know how far Ransom had got with their non-local distribution. Shenaut's blog is still up, if you want to see his publishing of this recipe.

http://rousingthespirit.blogspot.com/2009/08/ephemeral.html

Thank you for providing the original inception/recipe. Ransom it was, I'll have to give it a spin. Interesting how the volumes have gone up over the past decade in so many recipes, from ~2.5 to 3+, or here from 2.4+ to nearly 3.2. oz. (I suppose this is as much for fill level in glassware as anything else.) This can get tricky when trying to keep the ratios of the smaller components the same.

It is fortunate that the celery bitters are listed in drops in the original, much more useful than dashes. Dashes can be anywhere from 6 to 10 drops depending on who is defining it. (And with Fee Brothers, trying to get anything out of the bottle with a simple dash can be problematic, which is why I only use dropper for their bitters.) I was using 8 drops/dash for years, but the measurements I have made suggest 10 makes more sense. Increasing drink volume by 1/3 (as per the current recipe) puts the drink closer to what some would call 2 dashes. The elderflower liqueur becomes a "generous barspoon."