Smith & Kearns cocktail

October 12, 2018 by Jennifer

Creamy cocktails are great. While they’re not the drink that I think of first, they do have their place: usually right after dinner. Sure, sometimes I’ll have a White Russian or Coffee with Bailey’s, but that’s all changed thanks to the sweet Smith & Kearns.

This delectable drink is sweet, creamy, bubbly deliciousness that is the perfect after-dinner drink. If you’ve ever had a Kahlua & Cream you’ve almost had a Smith & Kearns. I say almost because there’s only one ingredient missing to change that drink from a Kahlua & Cream to a Smith & Kearns: club soda. It always amazes me how one little ingredients can totally change a cocktail. Repleace the lemon juice in a Gin Fizz for lime, and you get a Gin Rickey. Add gin to a vodka martini and now you have a Vesper. Substitute grapefruit juice for lime and your Margarita becomes a Paloma. I could go on and on, but you get the picture. The point is, the Smith & Kearns could have easily been a Kahlua and Cream, but the club soda changes all that.

Actually, I lied. There are a couple things that change all that. The original recipe didn’t have Kahlua in it at all. The Kahlua came later, sometime in the 60’s when the White Russian was gaining popularity. But the original recipe… the one that started it all, wasn’t made with Kahlua. It was actually made with Creme de Cacao.

While I don’t know why bartender “Shorty” Doebber chose Creme de Cacao to make this cocktail, I can tell you why he named it the Smith & Curran. You read that right. It was originally called the Smith & Curran because those were the names of the two oilmen who often came and drank at Doebber’s Blue Blazer bar in 1952, when the cocktail was created.

But Smith and Curran weren’t the only ones drinking at popular watering hole. The Blue Blazer could get busy and pretty loud. It was on a noisy night when the cocktail received its new name. See, a patron ordered the cocktail but there were so many people and such a din, the bartender heard Kearns istead of Curran and the name stuck.

But whichever name (or liquor) you choose for this drink, it’s definitely worth a sip. The sweet liqueurs combined with the cream and club soda make for a sweet, silky cocktail that tastes just like a milkshake. A milkshake that could easily replace dessert any night of the week.