The Chet Baker is an Old Fashioned with a summer vibe.

It’s not the only one – the ‘Ti Punch and the Corn ‘n Oil also spring to mind – but the Chet Baker differs from those in that it doesn’t taste remotely like the beach. The Chet Baker isn’t on the pool menu. He’s not wearing flip-flops. He’s wearing a linen suit and a Panama hat, the kind of drink that makes you feel like you’re listening to your namesake trumpet player under a lazy ceiling fan in a blue-lit room. It’s not that it’s there to cool you down, it’s just cool in and of itself.

Chet Baker is the creation of Sam Ross, then at Milk & Honey in New York City. Milk & Honey, like its successor Attaboy, operated on a verbal menu—you named a liquor you liked and/or a feeling you were looking for, and the bartenders would mix you a drink on the spot. So not only was creativity inherent in the concept, but there was still plenty to explore in the early cocktail renaissance. Ross and the other bartenders who worked at Milk & Honey, under the guidance of the inimitable Sasha Petraske, created an astonishing number of the cocktails we consider the “neoclassics”: Penicillin, Gold Rush, Red Hook, and so on and so forth. The Chet Baker is one of those cocktails, invented by Ross in 2005, presumably to fill the underpopulated “stirred summer drink” category.

Most summer cocktails are tangy and refreshing, with plenty of citrus and a sweetness to match. Whether the cocktail tastes sweet or tart depends on the balance of these two ingredients, not the amount of sugar itself; a properly made daiquiri or mojito will end up with the tart taste of lime, but the 20ml of sugar syrup needed to balance it out will still contain a tablespoon of sugar. Sometimes, though, you don’t want that much juice. Sometimes it’s warm outside, but you still want something drier and more spirituous, and prefer the gentle clink of a large cube to the rattle or hum of a shaker or blender.

That’s the truth at the heart of the Chet Baker – that you don’t need to add coconut or pineapple or anything else to rum to make it summer-ready, because rum is naturally summer-ready. Aged rum, in particular, takes on the sweeter characteristics of the barrel, offering a broad vanilla and cinnamon note that’s just better for hot weather than the grainy oak flavors of bourbon or rye.

The Chet Baker starts with the depth of a few ounces of aged rum, complemented by a touch of honey (see the Airmail cocktail for a more lurid honey-rum love affair). Unexpectedly finished with barely more than a teaspoon of sweet vermouth, it offers just enough lush fruit and herbal notes to keep it complex and interesting while keeping the overall sweetness very low. It has the same amount of rum as, say, a daiquiri, but only about 1/3 the sugar. This allows the rum to play its summer song more vividly, and is a reminder that summer drinks aren’t just about escaping the heat, they’re about finding moments of pure, effortless cool.

Chet Baker

Add all ingredients to a glass with a large piece of ice. Stir for a few seconds, garnish with the oils of an orange peel and enjoy.

NOTES ON INGREDIENTS

Rum: We have to rule out a few rums right away: the bold funk of Jamaican rum and the grassy complexity of Rhum Agricole are both delicious, but they don’t belong in this drink. We want an aged rum that’s simply not too weird.

That said, I found this cocktail tasted best with the booming depth of a “Demerara rum,” like Hamilton’s 86 Demerara or something from the El Dorado range. The most common problem with this cocktail (apart from the rums above that just don’t work) is its shallowness – it needs depth somewhere. Demerara rum rises to that challenge well, and if you’re spoiled for choice, go for that one. You can also go for an older rum, like Ron Zacapa or Appleton Estates 15, which will live up to that reputation well. And if you don’t have any of those, you can still make it, but the advice about sweet vermouth below will then become a little more important.

Sweet Vermouth: Depth can also be achieved with a strong, sweet vermouth, namely Carpano Antica, which was the best in every heat it entered. If you have it, use it here. If not, but you have one of the rums recommended above, I would still make the drink, but you will need at least one or the other.

Honey syrup: Honey is a great cocktail ingredient, but it tends to turn to stone once it hits ice and doesn’t mix with anything. A honey syrup is a good solution to this problem: Mix honey with warm water in a 2:1 (by volume) or 3:1 (by weight) ratio and stir until dissolved. This creates a syrup that’s about as sweet as lemon juice is sour (so you can just combine them in something like a Bee’s Knees for a perfect balance), and completely avoids the problem of not mixing.

Bitter: The classic choice here is Angostura bitters, which are great and you should probably just use them. I’ll just add that this template is unusually forgiving of other bitters, so if you want to experiment with them – orange bitters, chocolate mole bitters, etc. – the results will be interesting to say the least.