The Rolling Stones - ‘Exile On Main St.’ + Spitfire
Ingredients: 1 1/2 ounces Merlet Cognac, 1/3 ounce peach liqueur, 3/4 ounce lemon juice, 3/4 ounce egg white, 1/2 ounce gomme syrup, 1/3 ounce white wine.
Mixing Instructions: Combine all ingredients, less white wine, in a cocktail shaker. Dry shake (no ice) for 15 seconds, then add ice and shake. Strain into a chilled coupe glass. Garnish with a white wine float (via Tony Conigliaro at Le Coq)
Notes: Few albums in music history so completely sum up a genre of music as Exile On Main St. did for rock & roll upon its release in 1972. Rebellion, check. On the run from the taxman the band wrote and recorded a large portion of the album in the basement of rented villa in southern France. Drugs, check. Lots of heroine. Love, check. Mick Jagger got married during the making of the album. What makes Exile on Main St so head-shakingly good, however, is its magnetic pull on all the rock & roll influences up to that point in history.
The band originally formed around its affinity for American bluesmen like John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters and early rock & roll pioneers like Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley. Covering many of these artists in the early days, Exile is where you see the band taking what they’ve learned and expertly creating their own variations on the theme. Guitarist, Keith Richards, was in peak form and in his words was using, “…five-string, open tuning to the max.” A double album’s worth of classic, hip-shaking rock, revisit one of the greatest albums ever made and get cheeky with a cocktail well-suited for a Brit working in France.