“Lovely day for a Guinness,” reads the old Guinness ads with a toucan balancing an iconic glass of the stuff on his beak.
That ad applies to most days but for extra so for Saint Patrick’s Day. Proper drinking on the March holiday is about as easy as cracking a Guinness and taking the time to savor the rich flavor and enjoy the rattle of the widget inside the can as the beer drains.
Guinness is a dignified drink and contains a multitude of mysteries. The dark and thick impenetrable black color is actually dark ruby red and the widget rattling inside the can, I am told, facilitates the nitro infusion process which gives the beer its silky smooth texture and facilitates the creamy head of foam.
It is an almost perfect drink and hard to argue with but you are not here for a beer recommendation.
Guinness can be mixed into a variety of cocktails, many of which are two ingredients. A little Guinness and champagne is known as a Black Velvet but for March we recommend that Snakebite.
The Snakebite is a beer cocktail popular in England. They make it with hard apple cider, lager and a light pour of black currant cordial that sinks into the concoction like snake venom but in America, we make ours with the cider and healthy pour of Irish dry stout over the top.
There seems to exist a cultural taboo around mixing beer and, well, beer, and it is not without precedent. The legality of Snakebite itself in England has a muddy history, something about mixing drinks poured from separate taps. Former President Bill Clinton was reportedly refused the drink under such auspices.
A story published in the Harrogate Advertiser has Clinton visiting Harrogate, a spa town in Yorkshire, England, in June of 2001, just months after leaving the White House. Clinton and his entourage reportedly stopped for lunch at the Old Bell Tavern.
After Secret Service searched the place, Clinton reportedly bellied up to the bar. Manager Jamie Allen said that he let Clinton and his crew sample some of the ales they had on tap before settling on a Diet Coke.
“He did ask for a snakebite after one of his security men did, but we kindly refused him. It’s illegal to serve it here in the UK you see,” Allen said.
They reportedly enjoyed a lunch of steak and ale pie before visiting some of the town’s antique shops.
Further research suggests that no law prohibited the mixing of such a drink but the story was printed in black and white.
St. Patrick’s Day is a “lovely day for a Guinness” and a Snakebite is a good way to mix it up. Below we have included the version of the cocktail more widely known in the United States though if you happen to have some black currant cordial we have never been one to discourage a little experimentation in the home bar. Don’t worry, it is perfectly legal.
Ingredients:
Directions:
Fill a pint glass halfway with the apple cider and then carefully pour the stout into the glass over the back of a bar spoon so that there is a layering effect. Enjoy.
