Episode 137: The Rob Roy With Rob Roy’s JoJo Kitchen

Winter’s coming and we’ve got you covered for the season’s cocktails. The Rob Roy is a staple of the season, having long ago crossed over from a simple Manhattan variant into a classic cocktail in its own right. For this episode, we explore the Rob Roy with JoJo Kitchen, bar manager at Rob Roy (@robroyseattle) in Seattle.

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Paul Clarke

Hey everybody, welcome back to Radio Imbibe from Imbibe Magazine. I’m Paul Clarke, Imbibe‘s Editor-in-Chief. 

And there are many recurring conversations that go on in cocktail circles, as we talk about prominent cocktails and map out their descendants in a kind of boozy family tree. The relationships between some well-known cocktails and their kin are typically pretty evident when you look at the recipes. The Last Word, for example, begat the Paper Plane and the Division Bell and the Naked and Famous, and on and on and on through various iterations. 

Sometimes the only thing differentiating a new cocktail from its progenitor is the addition or substitution of a new ingredient. Swap the gin in your Negroni for a pour of bourbon and you’ve got yourself a Boulevardier. 

Sometimes this modification results in a basic riff in which the character still holds true enough that the new cocktail will forever live in the shadow and companionship of the earlier variant. Consider the signature cocktail from Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant in San Francisco, which will always carry the name of its classic inspiration. This is a world where the Margarita and the Tommy’s Margarita will always coexist. 

But at what point does the variation become an offshoot in its own right, ready to create its own family tree of variations and modifications in one riff after another? The Rob Roy clearly is a descendant of the Manhattan. But in the 130-ish years that the Rob Roy has been around, it could be argued that the cocktail has taken on its own identity, and that while yes, the Rob Roy is a Manhattan made with Scotch whiskey, the Rob Roy can be so much more than that, a starting point possibly for delving deeper into Scotch whisky cocktails and a particularly agreeable companion when the nights grow long and dark. 

As we head into the beginning of a long winter ahead, we wanted to explore this character of the Rob Roy a little further in this episode. And we’re doing under the guidance of JoJo Kitchen, the bar manager at Rob Roy in Seattle. 

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Paul Clarke

JoJo, welcome to Radio Imbibe. 

JoJo Kitchen

Hi, Paul. Thanks for having me. 

Paul Clarke

Absolutely. And, you know, thank you for coming on the podcast. You are the bar manager at Rob Roy in Seattle, and I live in Seattle, and it’s always good to have the home team represented. So thanks for coming on. 

JoJo Kitchen

Hell yeah.

Paul Clarke

You know, we’ve had Anu Apte, Rob Roy’s owner, on the podcast previously, and the bar is familiar to much of Imbibe’s audience for many reasons. And I wanted to have you on, because the bar where you work shares its name with a classic cocktail. And I would imagine that being in that kind of situation, even if you’re not really defining yourself as a Scotch whisky bar necessarily, you still need to have some good degree of familiarity with that drink. Would that be fair to say? 

JoJo Kitchen

Yes, definitely. People definitely come in asking for a Rob Roy, since it’s our namesake. 

Paul Clarke

Okay, fantastic. And I’m counting on that, because one of the things we like to do from time to time is to take this kind of deep dive exploration of an individual cocktail, looking at it piece by piece, and then putting it back together again in some kind of ideal way. So given your inadvertent familiarity with the Rob Roy, we’re going to do the Rob Roy. And most people describe the Rob Roy as, oh, it’s just a Manhattan made with Scotch, which is true to some degree. But is it fair to leave it at that? Or is the Rob Roy so much more? Does it have its own kind of identity as well? 

JoJo Kitchen

I think it definitely has its own identity. I think really, because of the versatility of Scotch, you can get such a range of just like flavor profiles, that when you order a Rob Roy, you can choose for it to be smoky and bold, or it could be like, kind of more delicate and be like more fruity and floral even. And that kind of range really makes it its own unique cocktail. 

Paul Clarke 

Okay. And actually, let’s get started in that, by breaking it down piece by piece. And let’s start with the Scotch whisky, based on exactly what you just said. One of the things here I think that’s interesting is, you know, if we’re talking about the standard Manhattan, going back to that example, then, you know, your conversation has that rye versus bourbon, and then those kind of subtle differences between individual brands. With Scotch whisky, the differences are much, much bigger.

You know, once you’re, if you look at the entire world of single malts and blended Scotch and vatted malts, you have so many different kinds of options and so many opportunities that you can follow as you get into this. So where do you even get started? If somebody just wants a Rob Roy and doesn’t call the whiskey or anything, where is your starting point for that? 

JoJo Kitchen

Well, at Rob Roy, our house scotch is going to be Johnnie Walker Black. And that’s a blended scotch. You have a little bit of each really region of scotch in that to begin with. So you kind of get like all the varieties in one. So you get a little like light smokiness, you get toffee, you get dried fruit. And it’s our house whisky. So it’s what we make all kind of whisky cocktails with. 

Paul Clarke 

And I mean, you know, for most cocktail applications, that kind of, you know, using a blended scotch like that is, is ideal because like you said, it’s going to have a little bit of everything and it has, you know, with the grain whiskey in that blended scotch, it’s going to give it a little bit more drinkability kind of. 

JoJo Kitchen

Oh, totally. 

Paul Clarke

If somebody wants to start expanding their options a little bit, like, you know, I’ve had that. That’s great. I would like to, you know, see some of the diversity. Where do you like to take them on that trip? 

JoJo Kitchen

Yeah, definitely. I really love, like, Speyside and actually Islay, and I think those are kind of both on each side of that range of scotch. Really, like, if they want to do something just, like, to kick it up a notch, I would, like, suggest Port Charlotte’s Ten Year, really to give it, like, that robust smokiness, which is, like, my favorite to put in a Rob Roy. And then Speyside, you kind of get all that, like, fruity apple pear profile to it, so I think that’s a great way if you’re not into the smoke or the peatiness of the scotch. 

Paul Clarke

And I think, you know, those are the two good directions to point out, because you could, you know, you could be willing to explore this a little bit, but the idea of smoky scotch may not appeal to you at all, in which case going with a Speyside or going something, you know, one of those kind of more honeyed, fruity scotches, something like Glenmorangie, or Glenfiddich, or something along those lines, that have that kind of lighter, brighter, gentle kind of aspect to it. But then, you do have that aspect. Like you said, you like to go to Islay sometimes. And if you’re saying to yourself, I do want to bring some smoke to this equation, what kinds of options do you have, and what does that mean for the overall cocktail when you incorporate, you know, a more peated malt into it? 

JoJo Kitchen

Yeah, definitely. I mean, there’s so many amazing Islay options. I mean, you have Ardbeg, Lagavulin, and all of the Bruichladdich options. That really what it brings to it is the complexity and robustness and really getting that, like, almost, like, bay flavor, like smoked oysters, like, really getting, like, something that’s going to be more intense of an experience. 

Paul Clarke

And then, of course, you know, we shouldn’t overlook, it is possible to split the difference while still going to the single malt and have something like Highland Park. It is going to have some smoke to it.

JoJo Kitchen

Oh, yeah. 

Paul Clarke

Not a lot, not a ton. It’s not going to, you know, just kind of assault you with smoke like some of the big peaty Islay malts will, but it’s still going to have some of that presence in there and give you that kind of single malt experience. 

JoJo Kitchen

Oh, yeah, totally. 

Paul Clarke

And then, so, before we get into the other components, can we just talk about the proof of the whisky just briefly? How much does this factor into your rationale? If you’re looking at working with a single, especially with a single malt, where does the proof factor into your reasoning? 

JoJo Kitchen

I mean, that proof is going to make it more of an intense cocktail. And I feel like we’re in, like, more of a, the drinking culture has changed. And so, people, I feel like, don’t always want, like, an intense, boozy cocktail. I think people who are coming to drink Rob Roys are in that group of people who do and want something spirit forward and want something stirred and served up.

Paul Clarke

Yeah, I think, you know, if you’re at the point where you’re ordering a Rob Roy, and especially if you’re looking, if you’re one of those people who’s looking for smoke in there, then there’s really not a time for half measures, you know, you can, you can step it up in terms of, you know, the pronounced flavor. Let’s, let’s flip into the vermouth really quickly, though, because, I mean, that’s, this is an essential part of the Rob Roy. Do you think more or less in, in the kind of standard formulation as if you’re doing a Manhattan, just kind of keep using the same vermouth di Torino that you might ordinarily? Or do you have to think a little bit differently when thinking about a Rob Roy? 

JoJo Kitchen 

I really love to stick with, like, the classic spec. So the two to one, 2 ounces of scotch, 1 ounce vermouth, and then 4 dashes of Angostura bitters. Those specs are there for a reason. And so they exist because they’ve always been balanced. And, you know, from there, you can always riff a little bit. if you want to, like, adjust, like, the vermouth in general, if you wanted to just, if you wanted to do, like, a perfect Rob Roy with, like, dry and sweet vermouth. Or if you did want to do a lower ABV cocktail, you could do, like, more of a Martinez spec or, like, a one-to-one. But I love a classic two-to-one Rob Roy spec. 

Paul Clarke 

I, you know, sometimes, you know, going back to our proof question just briefly, sometimes I like to do kind of, like, the reverse approach to a Rob Roy, where you’ll do two parts of the vermouth and then one part of the whiskey. But that’s where, like, if you have a cask-strength scotch that’s really tasty but would just blow the cocktail out of the water if you did the typical two-to-one approach. This way you can still have that kind of, you know, monster scotch in there while softening it to blow and helping it all kind of balance out.

If you’re looking at something like working with a more full-flavored single malt, I’ve thought about, you know, using a different vermouth in that place just to kind of, like, step it up a little bit. Whether it’s, you know, something kind of more vanilla like a Carpano Antica or something like Punt e Mes, where it’s going to, you know, if you have Ardbeg in the glass, then Punt e Mes is one of the few things that can actually go toe-to-toe with it.

JoJo Kitchen 

Definitely. We use Punt e Mes, actually, in our Rob Roy, at Rob Roy. And we actually did a blind tasting where we sat down with every sweet vermouth we had in-house and tried it out to see what would be, like, the perfect vermouth to use. We voted for Punt e Mes, actually, which is my favorite as well. 

Paul Clarke

Okay, fantastic, yeah. So it does kind of make a lot of sense. Once you start working with Scotch whisky, the Punt e Mes kind of steps up flavor-wise. 

JoJo Kitchen

Totally. It has just, like, a richer body to it. There’s some bitterness to it, and I feel like it drinks almost more like an amaro sometimes. And I’m definitely a fan of, like, Black Manhattans, and I love amaro in general. But I really also love, like, that, like, deep cherry, like, stone fruit notes that you can get from it. And it does stand up to the richness of the scotch. 

Paul Clarke

And then pivoting into that, you said for your standard specs, you like to use 4 dashes of Angostura bitters. Why that much? And why the aromatic bitters approach? I mean, is this, sometimes with the Rob Roy, right, I think, you know, it’s a time to kind of visit, you know, how does something like Peychaud’s work in this combination? But why do you go with that approach, and what other kinds of options do you have? 

JoJo Kitchen

I think it’s really just the way I was taught. And so I’ve just always done it that way. And I love, like, the, like, baking spice you get from the Angostura bitters, and it’s definitely my go-to house bitters. Peychaud’s is awesome, and I know, like, people definitely can choose that with scotch. Orange bitters are always fun. I feel like those are always, like, a secret ingredient, especially when, like, using Punt e Mes, maybe, which is more like amaro. You could throw in, like, two dashes of orange with the Ango to, like, just give it a bright taste to it. 

Paul Clarke

Right, right, exactly. I think, you know, once you, you know, if you still kind of have, like, the Manhattan mentality and looking at the Rob Roy, once you swap in the scotch, it does kind of open the doors on everything else to just kind of, like, maybe take a sidestep and use orange bitters in addition to the Ango or Peychaud’s, if that’s what floats your boat. I know that, you know, for me, Peychaud’s, in addition to, especially a single malt in a Rob Roy, for whatever reason, I just, I think of that kind of, like, that little kind of licorice or anise note that’s in the Peychaud’s just works with smoke. But that’s, that’s me. I like that. 

JoJo Kitchen

You know, the heart wants what the heart wants. So I’m, that’s what I tell people when they sit at the bar and I’m like, whatever, however it is you want this cocktail, like, I’m definitely happy to make it that way for you. 

Paul Clarke

Okay, great. So, going back, and now we’re composing everything together. You’ve mentioned, you know, your preferred approach is two to one, two parts Scotch whisky, whichever one you call for, one part vermouth, your four dashes of bitters, or some kind of manipulation, like we just said. Where do you go from there? Just walk us through to the finished cocktail. 

JoJo Kitchen

Yeah, definitely. I’ll get my coupe out. I usually serve it in a coupe, and it’s going to be a chilled coupe, so. And then we’re going to put everything into the mixing glass, and then really stir it till it’s properly diluted, which could be, like, 20, 20 rotations. It’s, sometimes it’s feel. I feel like I’ve been bartending so long that I just know when it’s ready. And then I’m going to pour that into my chilled coupe and top it with a cherry. 

Paul Clarke 

Right. Okay. And in terms of, you know, we’ve talked about some of the options you have available, and we’re talking about the according to Hoyle Rob Roy. But before you put the ice in, before you start stirring it, are you occasionally tempted to put something else in the ice? A little Averna, a little Ramazzotti? Are there tweaks that you like to put in there? 

JoJo Kitchen

Oh, totally. Really, with, like, Punt e Mes, I love, like, maybe a little bit of Cynar or Braulio. I know that’s going, like, I know that’s going, like, really intense. That’s really just diving into, like, bold flavors. But I feel like…

Paul Clarke 

If you’ve got Ardbeg and Punt e Mes, then sure, throw some of that in there. 

JoJo Kitchen 

Throw some more in there.

Paul Clarke

I mean, it’s just, it’s just big is big. Yeah. 

JoJo Kitchen

Although, you know, if it was just for me and I was at home, I would definitely maybe put, like, a spoonful of sherry in there. I love, like, adding, like, a touch of dryness or really nuttiness, maybe Amontillado sherry. 

Paul Clarke 

And then, so, any final bits of wisdom or best practices when it comes to the Rob Roy? Any closing thoughts on this cocktail? 

JoJo Kitchen

I think it should be served right away. It should not sit. 

Paul Clarke

A warm Rob Roy is not your friend. 

JoJo Kitchen

No, never, never. And hopefully you have a friend, some good company with you to enjoy it with. 

Paul Clarke

Right, fantastic. JoJo, thanks so much for coming on the podcast and breaking down the Rob Roy for us. 

JoJo Kitchen

Oh, you’re so welcome. Thank you, Paul. 

[music]

Paul Clarke 

Head online to RobRoySeattle.com to learn more about Rob Roy. And you can also find the bar on Instagram @RobRoySeattle. We’ve got those links for you in this episode’s notes. 

And that’s it for this episode. Subscribe to Radio Imbibe on your favorite podcast app to keep up with all our future episodes. We’ve got tons of recipes and articles for you online on our website, imbibemagazine.com. Keep up with us day-to-day on Instagram, Pinterest, Threads, and Facebook. And if you’re not already a subscriber to the print and or digital issues of Imbibe, then here’s the perfect opportunity to change that. Just follow the link in this episode’s notes, and we’ll be happy to help you out. 

I’m Paul Clarke. This is Radio Imbibe. Catch you next time.