Sacré Bleu

Known for high fashion, perfume, croissants, the riviera, artists, Paris, the Eiffel Tower, fine cuisine, wine, cheese and of course champagne. France is the third largest country in Europe.

It was first settled by Greeks and Celts around 700 BCE and the oldest city of France is Marseille from 600 BCE.

In ancient times France was a part of a Celtic region called Gaul or Gallia (think Asterix) but it was conquered by Julius Caesar in 58-51 BCE and was governed by the Roman Empire until Rome couldn’t hold off the Germanic Franks in the 5th century. The name France is taken from the Latin name for the Franks.

In 987 Hugh Capet became King of West Francia. This kingdom expanded territorially and became closer to the France of today. The death of the last king in the line of succession led to the 100 Year War featuring a young peasant girl called Jeanne d’Arc leading the troops to victory.

France stayed a monarchy until the French Revolution in 1789 when Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette and many others were famously guillotined. The French Revolution was the start of the 1st Republic. Soon after this Napoleon Bonaparte rose to power and proclaimed himself Emperor and tried to take over Europe. After being defeated in Waterloo and sent to prison there was another king taking his place but after being toppled the 2nd Republic started in 1848. Only four years in comes Napoleon III, restoring the monarchy yet again and keeping it until 1871 when the 3rd Republic starts. After WWII but without the resurrection of the monarchy in between the 4th Republic started in 1947 and the final 5th Republic started with Charles de Gaulle in 1959.

Apart from mainland and Corsica, France has six so called overseas departments, for instance Guadeloupe, Martinique and Reunion. It also has smaller colonies called overseas territories like French Polynesia and New Caledonia.

Taking a Voo Car-Ray For a Spin

Just like the Hurricane, the Sazerac and the Grasshopper, the Vieux Carré was created in the Big Easy, New Orleans. The name is French for “old square” or “old quarter” being the original name of the New Orleans’s French Quarter but when ordering one in the city of its creation the pronunciation isn’t remotely French. The Creole way of pronouncing it is “Voo car-ray”.

The cocktail was invented in the mid to late 1930s by Walter Bergeron, head bartender at the Carousel Bar in the Hotel Monteleone. (Mr Bergeron is not related to his namesake Victor Bergeron aka Trader Vic). The Hotel Monteleone opened in 1886 when a Sicilian nobleman, Antonio Monteleone, bought the hotel after having settled down in New Orleans in the early 1880s. After five generations the hotel still remains in the family.

The Carousel Bar as you find it today was installed in 1949 and is decorated with paintings of circus animals and is lit up just like a real carousel. But it wouldn’t be a carousel bar if it didn’t twirl so it is rotating but at the smooth pace of 15 minutes per revolution.

The glass called Ovio was designed by Achille Castiglioni in 1983.

Vieux Carré

1 part Rye Whiskey
1 part Red Vermouth
1 part Cognac
1/2 part Bénédictine
2 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
2 dashes Angustura bitters
1 Maraschino cherry or 1 lemon twist

Stir ingredients with ice. Strain into chilled glass. Garnish with a Maraschino cherry of a lemon twist.

Enjoy the ride!

The Perfect Combination of Maps and Typography

Always having loved maps and travel the combination of the two seems obvious. Using the typeface Coucher Drop Shadow gave the prints a classic travel poster look. Starting with Italy, the name is written in the Italian and the colors are taken from the Italian flag.

The land of history, design, vespas, beautiful cars, great movies, fabulous food and the best dressed people.

Italy as we know it is a fairly modern country. It was conceived when Giuseppe Maria Garibaldi united the smaller kingdoms (many dominated by foreign countries) situated on the Italian peninsula in 1861 and created the Kingdom of Italy with King Vittorio Emanuele II as head of state.

Garibaldi started his attempts to unite Italy in the 1830s, first together with Giuseppe Mazzini who also wanted to create a democratic republican government through his secret society Young Italy. Garibaldi did however change sides and started working with the monarchist Count of Cavour who also wanted to unite Italy although not as a republic but with the king of Piemonte-Sardinia, Vittorio Emanuele II, as head of state.

Taking sides with the monarchists led to Garibaldi being incarcerated and sentenced to death. He managed to escape and flee to South America where he stayed for 14 years before returning to Italy to continue his plans for unification which he was able to complete on March 17, 1861.

Because of their work to unite Italy most towns and cities has a Corso Garibaldi, a Piazza Cavour or a Galleria Mazzini.

Something Cool From Jamaica

If winter doesn’t cool you down, try this fantastic libitation from Jamaica, I bet Ian Fleming did when writing his spy novels.

One recipe for a Planter’s Punch never seems to be the same as another. It can be anything from a simple (probably the closest you’ll get to the original) Jamaican rum, lime juice, sugar syrup and water to a fruit punch with added orange juice, pineapple juice, grenadine, bitters and Falernum.

The origin, as with most old cocktails, is uncertain but it seems likely that the Planter’s Punch originated in Jamaica in the late 18th-century as a way to stay cool while working under the Caribbean sun.

The drink first appeared in print in 1878 in a London magazine called Fun. This recipe was more of a verse than a modern day recipe and called for one part lemon juice, two parts sugar, three parts rum and four parts water. You will often hear that the Planter’s Punch was created by Myers’s Rum company in Jamaica but if the recipe really was published in 1878 that would have been difficult since Myers didn’t start their operations until 1879.

The Planter’s Punch was incredibly popular until Prohibition when it fell out of fashion. It did however come back in a big way after WWII when Donn the Beachcomber and Trader Vic both put it on their menus, adding som ingredients and turning it into a Tiki drink.

The glass was designed by Patricia Urquiola in 2016 and is called Trama.

Planter’s Punch

3 parts Jamaican Dark Rum

2 parts sugar syrup

1 part lime juice

2 parts club soda.

Shake all ingredients except club soda with ice. Strain into ice filled glass and garnish with a mint sprig.

Happy Valentine's Day

Time to celebrate your loved ones whoever they may be. Friends, family, pets, corner shop employee, pizza delivery person, coffee shop barista, dog walker or stranger. Just spread some beautiful love and enjoy the design of the Verner Panton Heart Cone Chair from 1958.

Time To Go Yachting

The Unique Circle Yacht is a yacht concept designed by Zaha Hadid Architects in 2013 for the Hamburg based shipbuilders Blohm+Voss. The design is informed by “fluid dynamics and underwater ecosystems, with hydrodynamic research shaping the design of the hull”.

The exoskeleton-like exterior is very much in line with the architecture of Hadid and resembles natural underwater structures.

Zaha Hadid (or Dame Zaha Hadid after she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2012) was an Iraqi-British architect and designer born in Baghdad in 1950. After studying at the American University in Beirut, Lebanon she went to London to study architecture. In London she met architects Elia Zenghelis and Rem Koolhaas with whom she collaborated before starting her own company Zaha Hadid Architects in 1979.

Her first major built project was the Vitra Fire Station constructed in 1989–93 in Weil am Rhein, Germany. Built project because most of her work in the 1980s were thought to be too radical to be built and Hadid started being known as a paper architect. After the work for Vitra that soon changed and Hadid was finally the sought after architect she deserved to be.

Zaha Hadid was an incredibly decorated architect. She was awarded the Pritzker Prize in 2004 as the first woman, in 2010 and 2011 she was awarded the Stirling Prize for excellence in architecture. In 2014 she won the Design Museum Design of the Year Award and in 2016 she became the first woman to receive the RIBA Gold Medal.

Dame Zaha Hadid unexpectedly passed away in a Miami hospital in 2016 at the age of 65.

Mint Green

The color often referred to as mint green doesn’t really have anything to do with the color of a mint leaf. It is however the color you get when shaking up a Grasshopper cocktail. Made with equal parts green Crème de menthe, white Crème de cacao and cream it is perfect as an after dinner cocktail and can easily double as a liquid dessert.

The Grasshopper is yet another cocktail from New Orleans, created at the city’s second oldest restaurant Tujague’s, opened in 1856. The Grasshopper was invented by Philibert Guichet Jr. in 1919 for a cocktail competition in New York where it won second prize. Unfortunately it took until the 1950s for the cocktail to become well known and it had its peak during the disco craze of the 1970s and the pastel age of the 1980s.

The glass called Ollo was designed by Alessandro Mendini in 1986 for Studio Alchimia, a precursor to the Memphis Group.

Grasshopper

1 part White Crème de menthe
1 part Green Crème de cacao
1 part cream
Freshly grated nutmeg och chocolate shavings

Shake all ingredients with ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass.

Enjoy!

Island Happy Hour

Time for a new exhibition at the fantastic Sempre espresso-bar in the center of Stockholm. This time mobilità will show a combination of two great things, islands and cocktails, each cocktail with an island connected to it (in more or less obvious ways). Singapore Sling, created at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore with the island of Singapore. Sgroppino, made with vodka and lemon sorbet with Capri, the island famous for its lemon groves. Mai Tai, actually created by Trader Vic in California but with its Tahitian name meaning “Out of this world” it fits perfectly with the Tahitian island of Bora Bora. Dark and Stormy, that was invented by Gosling Rum (and has to be made with Gosling Rum) with Gosling’s home island of Bermuda. And finally Champagne Cocktail that ought to be the drink of choice whenever you visit the luxurious island of Saint Barthélemy.

If you’d like to continue drinking cocktails with an island theme you can always have a Piña Colada from Puerto Rico, a Mojito a Daiquiri and more from Cuba, a Pimm’s Cup and Black Velvet from the UK and, of course the classic Manhattan.

Enjoy the Island Happy Hour at Sempre on Jakobsbergsgatan 5, Stockholm, Sweden.

Jaguar E-Type

The story of the Jaguar E-Type starts in 1957 when Malcolm Sayer made a prototype called E1A.

Malcolm Sayer was an aircraft engineer turned automotive aerodynamist. Mr Sayer spent twenty years working at Jaguar Cars and developed not only the E1A and the E-Type, he also made the early style guidelines for the Jaguar X-JS. Thanks to his career as an aircraft engineer he was one of the first apply streamlined aircraft aerodynamics to cars.

The E1A was slightly smaller than the E-Type with a 2.4-liter engine compared to the final 3.8-liter. The E1A was designed with an independent rear suspension, a feature so great Jaguar used it in its models for 4 decades.

Before the launch in 1961 the car had been refined and made larger due to the importance of the American market.

When the Jaguar E-Type was launched at the Geneva Auto Salon in 1961 it completely stole the show. Even Enzo Ferrari called it the most beautiful car in the world. It wasn’t only the design that made the car so popular, it retailed for a mere £2097 for the Roadster and £2196 for the Coupe, half price compared to its competitors. So the fact that the promised top speed of 150 mph for the standard production cars was a bit of a stretch didn’t seem to bother the customers.

The Jaguar E-Type was continually developed and updated and stayed in production until 1975 when it was replaced by the XJ-S.

Roteron Helicopter

Alvin Lustig was a legendary graphic designer, industrial designer, interior designer and architect. Personally Mr Lustig disliked being labeled, something he thought being limiting, and he simply called himself a designer. But the fact remains that he was a multi diciplinary super designer that didn’t fear any projects and produced amazing end results.

Lustig was born in Denver in 1915 and brought up in Los Angeles where his father worked in the film industry. As a teenager Lustig showed a talent for making puppets and staged shows as a magician. He soon spent more time making posters for his shows than focusing on the show itself and left his career in magic for one in graphic design.

He studied graphic design for a year in Los Angeles before studying for Frank Lloyd Wright at his Talesin Estate in Wisconsin. After a mere 3 months however Lustig had enough of sitting by the master’s feet and he returned to LA. Without the education he was looking for he struck up a friendship with architect Richard Neutra who gave Lustig access to his private library of modern architecture and design.

From the late 1930s to the early 1950s Lustig designed chairs, cabinets, tables, lamps textiles and interiors. His own design studios rendered him many feature articles in architectural magazines, a great feat considering he was essentially self-taught.

In 1937 Lustig opened his first studio in Los Angeles and it didn’t take long until he was known for his book-design. This led to a commission to make book jackets for New Direction, where he created his most well known work.

Through a close friend from college, the engineer William H. Thomas, Lustig who now had made a name for himself as an industrial designer, was commissioned to design a mini helicopter for the Roteron Company. The idea was to make a small, one-seater, affordable helicopter selling for only $2,800. To save on both cost and space it was decided to put the engine between two coaxial rotors.

Being able to pull this off, taking on a design task that was totally alien to him, is, if anything, a testament to Mr Lustig’s talent and genius.

Alvin Lustig sadly suffered from diabetes making him blind at the age of 39 and tragically led to his death at the age of 40.

December 25 – Fine Art Extravaganza

The last day of the X-mas Countdown is the best day. All the prints are 20% off, not only the cocktails, islands and fabulous architecture featured these last 24 days but also all other prints featured at mobilita.se/shop.

Please let me know what cocktails, long drinks, fizzes, cups, rickeys or other drinks I should make next or if you have any favorite glasses I have overlooked thus far.

Have an Absolutely Fabulous and Happy Holiday!

December 24 – Brandy Alexander

The first Alexander was made with gin, not brandy and is said to have been created by Troy Alexander while working as a bartender at famed New York City restaurant Rector’s operating from 1899 to 1919. It was made celebrating the fictional character Pheobe Snow, a beautiful woman all dressed in white promoting the use of clean-burning coal on the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad. Mr Alexander wanted to make a white cocktail to fit the character. Interestingly one of the ads featuring Phoebe Snow promoted that the railway line could take you to Scranton, Joe Biden’s home town.

The recipe was first printed in “Recipes for Mixed Drinks” by Hugo Ensslin in 1915.
When Henry George Charles Lascelles, 6th Earl of Harewood, and Princess Victoria Alexandra Alice Mary, daughter of King George V and Queen Mary got married in London in 1922 the gin in the Alexander was replaced with brandy in honor of the event.

The glass, Theme Formal, was designed in 1965 by Russel Wright.

December 23 – 1111 Lincoln Road

1111 Lincoln Road is an office, retail space, residential building and a parking garage all under one roof. The building is situated at the corner of Lincoln Road and Alton Road in the South Beach section of Miami Beach, Florida. It is a perfect location with Lincoln Road being one of the busiest shopping destinations in Miami Beach. 1111 Lincoln Road was designed by Herzog & de Meuron and Jacques Herzog has described the building as a reinterpretation of the essence of Tropical Modernism. The building was completed in 2010.

December 22 – Bronx

The cocktail isn’t actually named after the borough itself but rather after the Zoological Park. The Bronx Zoo opened in 1899 and the story goes that either John “Curly” O’Connor, head barman at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria or Johnny Solon from the same bar, created the Bronx cocktail inspired by the novel zoo in 1899 or 1900. That said, many other bartenders have also taken credit for the cocktail.

The first time the Bronx cocktail was mentioned in print was in The Virginia Enterprise in February of 1901 where credit for the invention was given to John “Curly” O’Connor. Johnny Solon on the other hand claimed the cocktail as his own in the book The Old Waldorf-Astoria from 1935.

The cocktail glass is one in a series of glasses called Calci Milanesi, inspired by Milanese architecture, and was designed by Agustina Bottoni in 2018.

December 21 – Paloma

More popular in Mexico than the Margarita the Paloma, meaning dove in Spanish, might have gotten its name from a popular Mexican folk song from the 1860’s even though it was created almost 100 years after the song.

Squirt, the first grapefruit soda and commonly used in Palomas, was created in Phoenix, Arizona in 1938. It was advertised as a great mixer with tequila in 1950 but wasn’t actually exported to Mexico until 1955 so the cocktail probably saw the light of day sometime in the 1950s. It might have been the creation of Don Javier Delgado Corona the then owner and bartender at La Capilla in Tequila, Mexico.

The Stacking Glass was designed in 1951 by the Finnish designer Saara Hopea.

December 20 – Blue Hawaii

In 1957 a representative of the Bols distillery walked into the bar at the Kaiser Hawaiian Village (now the Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Resort) in Honolulu. Aiming to boost his sales he asked the bartender Harry K. Yee to create a cocktail featuring Bols Blue Curaçao. Mr Yee tried several variations before settling on vodka, rum, blue curaçao, pineapple juice and sweet-and-sour mix.

Mr Yee named the drink after the classic Bing Crosby song Blue Hawaii from his 1937 film Waikiki Wedding, putting Hawaii on the cocktail map two years before gaining statehood.

Even though Mr Yee’s recipe calls for sweet-and-sour mix the drink is vastly improved by making your own by mixing equal parts lime juice, lemon juice and sugar syrup.

The glass called Billie was designed by the Belgian fashion designer Ann Demeulemeester in 2019. Ann Demeulemeester is one of the famous Antwerp Six in the fashion industry.

December 19 – Singapore Sling

The Singapore Sling, by many regarded as the national drink of Singapore, was created at the Long Bar at Raffles Hotel by the bartender Mr Ngiam Tong Boon. It was first made sometime between 1899 when Mr Boon started working at the hotel and 1915 when he died traveling back to his native China. At the time etiquette stated that ladies should not consume alcohol in a public setting and instead had to make do with fruit juices. This gave Mr Boon the idea to create a drink that looked like juice but was infused with gin and spirits, finally making it possible for women to have a cocktail at Raffles.

The landmark Raffles Hotel was built in 1886 and was soon to become a favorite hangout for Singapore’s upper-class as well as famous travelers such as Rudyard Kipling, W. Somerset Maugham, Charlie Chaplin and also Her Majesty Queen Elisabeth II.

The original recipe was lost in 1930 but when the drink was published in the Savoy Cocktail Book the same year there are two different recipes for Slings from Singapore. One regular Singapore Sling and one called Straights Sling (after the British colony Straights Settlements). As it happens, the most commonly used recipe today is closer to the Straights version.

The glass was designed by Makoto Komatsu in 1980 and is called Crumple.

December 18 – Whiskey Sour

This is an old one. It was first published in The Bartender’s Guide by Jerry Thomas in 1862 but the concept of the sour was known and loved for over a century prior to that. During the 18th Century sea travel, especially from Europe to America, was an ordeal with malnutrition and scurvy taking its toll on the sailors. Thanks to Vice-Admiral Edward Vernon, The British Royal Navy started to mix lemon or lime with rum and water to stave off scurvy and so the sour was born, one of the oldest types of cocktails. From there it was only a matter of time before someone started to make a sour with American whiskey and made it what it is today.

The Whiskey Sour is traditionally made with whiskey, lemon juice, sugar and egg white, an ingredient that will smooth out the tartness of the lemon juice. Today the egg white is optional and you often find bars serving the Whiskey Sour without it.

On a side note, calling a spirit diluted with water a grog is also because of Vice-Admiral Vernon. He was known for wearing grogram coats giving him the nickname ”Old Grog”.

The glass called Dondolino was designed by Setsu & Shinobu Ito in 2016 and is painted using a technique with Japanese lacquer called Urushi, generally applied on wood.

December 17 – Saketini

The origins of the Saketini cocktail are not clear. It is said to have been invented by Matsuda San, a chef from Queens who introduced the drink at the New York World’s Fair in 1964.

After the World’s Fair the recipe for the Saketini was lost and the cocktail led an all but forgotten life until the -tini craze in the 1990s. Even though the Saketini was invented long before this the cocktail historian David Wondrich still puts the Saketini (maybe a but unfairly) in ”that sickly and dismal tribe” of chocolate martinis, mango martinis, and appletinis.

Another possible origin story is that the Saketini was invented at the first Benihana restaurant on West 56th Street in New York City. Benihana was founded by 25-year old Hiroaki Aoki the same year as the World’s Fair, 1964, and the cocktail is said to first having been made that same year.

The sake cup was designed in 1958 by Japanese glassware designer Masakichi Awashima.

December 16 – Sydney Opera House

In 1956 an international design competition was held for the Sydney Opera House. From the 233 submitted entries, representing architects from 32 countries, the Danish architect Jørn Utzon was announced the winner receiving 5,000 Australian pounds for his design. Legend has it that Utzon’s design was rescued by Finnish-American architect and designer Eero Saarinen from a pile of rejected entries.

The construction was expected to take four years and cost $7 million. Instead it took 14 years, involving 10,000 construction workers and ended up costing a then whopping $102 million. It finally opened it’s doors to the public on 20 October 1973.

The building comprises multiple performance venues, which together host well over 1,500 performances annually (on a regular year) and is visited by more than 1.2 million people. As one of the most popular visitor attractions in Australia, the site is visited by more than 10.9 million people annually.