The Blood & Sand is the sort of cocktail that you look at on paper and question why someone would put those particular ingredients together. The start seems fine, scotch and sweet vermouth puts us well on the way to a Rob Roy. A bit of cherry liqueur, a little unusual, but it seems reasonable. But orange juice?! Orange juice already make very few appearances in classic cocktails, and even less with scotch, so does it work?
Blood & Sand
The Blood & Sand is a complicated drink. It spans a spectrum of flavors ranging from spiced to smokey to fruity to sweet, and bouncing between them as it feels is appropriate. The scotch here is going to be a key player adding notes ranging from grain to smoke depending on your selection. The complexity of the vermouth pinballs off the scotch and pulls in a variety of fruity notes from both the cherry liqueur and the orange. The finish is drier than you might expect for a drink this sweet, but still quite interesting.
Drink Notes & Recommendations
The Blood & Sand is a member of the equal parts club in it’s original orientation. This is probably the most debated structure for this classic, but where you should start from as a template. The most common adjustments are to accentuate the scotch and give the orange juice more of a chance to show its merits. In this case, we recommend adjusting both ingredients up by a 1/4 oz.
The level of smoke should also be an are you consider for adjustment. Although it doesn’t necessarily call for smoke, the addition of peated whiskey (either by splitting up the base) or by switching completely to a peated scotch can really give a brilliant scotch forward kick to this classic.
- Scotch – We recommend you start with some rich, round, and lower on the peat side of the spectrum. Both Glenlivet 12 and Great King Street Artist’s Blend work well here. A little bit of smoke from the addition of Ardbeg or Johnnie Walker Black can add another dimension.
- Sweet Vermouth – Carpano Antica adds a lot of punch to this drink to help round things out. More floral scotches could also work well with a lighter vermouth such as Dolin.
- Cherry Heering – Heering is a branded liqueur, but the point is that it’s cherry based. There are other cherry based liqueurs on the market (we used one from Luxardo’s Cherry Liqueur here), but you could also use cherry schnapps or maraschiano liqueur if you can’t access a cherry liqueur. This will alter the flavor considerably.
- Orange Juice – Use fresh squeezed to avoid tinny flavors and to best compliment the scotch and cherry flavors.