The Rob Roy-which takes its name from Rob Roy, a popular operetta of 1894 about the Scottish folk hero of that name-has enjoyed nearly a century and a quarter of name-brand recognition. “I think it’s a more balanced, lighter cocktail now,” he said. While all agreed that the drink still retained a distinctly Don Draper aura-1950s tailoring, hotel-bar ordering-McGee thought the cocktail revival of the past 15 years had ushered in an era of greater subtlety, one that would favor a more delicate expression of the drink. “Is this drink going to be a lighter Scotch Manhattan or more of a vehicle for Scotch ?” Macy thought the latter route was preferable. But Tom Macy, the co-owner of Clover Club, who prepared the competing cocktails that day, offered what he thought was the central question where modern Rob Roys are concerned. Given the above, one had to wonder what the panel was left to discuss, and what, exactly, they were looking for in a Rob Roy. And Joaquín Simó, of Pouring Ribbons in Manhattan, thought a perfect Rob Roy (with the vermouth portion split between sweet and dry) a better expression of the drink. PUNCH senior editor Chloe Frechette found the Manhattan more “crave-able.” Paul McGee, co-owner of Lost Lake in Chicago, preferred a Bobby Burns. Even the judging panel recently assembled by PUNCH to sample through a blind tasting of 10 Rob Roys, drawn from bartenders around the United States, admitted that they preferred other similar drinks to the cocktail in question. It will always be a “Manhattan with Scotch,” a perennial runner-up in the mixed-drink pecking order. The Rob Roy’s peaceful existence may, instead, owe to its general failure to ascend to the top tier of classics.
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