Maharaja’s Burra Peg

Maharaja’s Burra Peg

Anyone who has ever been within a few miles of Savannah knows that this town is famous for its love of things old-fashioned and alcoholic. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that one of our most enduringly popular party potables is both: the champagne cocktail.
 Whispering of 1940s and 50s elegance, these cocktails may seem a bit old-fashioned to the rest of America, but they’ve never gone out of fashion here.
 Actually, their roots in Savannah go back to the late eighteenth century, when champagne punches were popularized by the likes of England’s Prince Regent, George IV. Savannah soon had its own variation on it—our infamous Chatham Artillery Punch, and a simpler version that graced many a ball supper and wedding reception consisted of champagne, lemon juice, sugar, and brandy, which, you may have noticed, is for all intents and purposes a champagne cocktail in bulk.
 As cocktail parties became fashionable, by mid-twentieth century, Savannah was enjoying an individual cocktail version of its favorite punch that went by the English moniker “King’s Peg” (“peg,” being an old English word for a “jigger”). But there was more to come.
 In his book American Cooking: Southern-Style, from the Time-Life series Foods of the World, Eugene Walter linked Savannah to a variation on that cocktail called a Maharaja’s Burra Peg. He’d been introduced to it by Mrs. Henrietta Waring, who believed it to have been her father’s invention. What Mrs. Waring didn’t know was that her father probably owned a copy of Charles Baker’s The Gentleman’s Companion, published in 1937, where the Maharaja’s Burra Peg debuted for Western imbibers.
 Describing this drink as being to “the ordinary champagne cocktail what Helen of Troy was to a local shepherd’s maiden,” Baker outlined a recipe that involved the largest goblet that could be had and two full jiggers of whiskey. “Burra,” you see, is Hindustani for “big.”
 Never mind the size: the thing that really sets this cocktail apart from the others is the bitters-soaked sugar cube. For my Savannah Cookbook, I pared it down to fit into a standard champagne flute. If you think you can handle the original, well, by all means, have at it.
 Serves 4
1 lime
4 sugar cubes
Angostura bitters [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angostura_bitters]
4 jiggers of cognac or single-barrel bourbon, chilled
Ice-cold medium dry champagne
 1. Peel 4 long, thin curls of zest from the lime with the large channel blade on the side of a bar zester. Put the sugar cubes on a saucer and sprinkle them with droplets of bitters until they are saturated but not falling apart. Put one in each of 4 champagne flutes.
 2. Add a jigger of cognac to each and fill it with champagne. Garnish with lime zest, either hanging on the rim or floating in the cocktail, and serve at once.